Notes from a Fragmented Daughter by Elena Tajima Creef | CommonLit

by Elena Tajima Creef 1990

We've identified these texts as great options for text pairings based on similar themes, literary devices, topic, or writing style. Supplement your lesson with one or more of these options and challenge students to compare and contrast the texts. To assign a paired text, click on the text to go to its page and click the "Assign Text" button there.

The Danger of a Single Story

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

In "The Danger of a Single Story," Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie discusses the importance of not allowing one story to construct your understanding of the world.

Pair “The Danger of a Single Story” with “Notes from a Fragmented Daughter” and ask students to apply Adichie’s arguments about “the single story” to Creef’s memoir. According to “The Danger of a Single Story,” what is the impact of “showing a people as one thing, and only one thing, over and over again” (Paragraph 25)? According to Adichie, what is the main problem with stereotypes? What is the most significant consequence of the single story? In “Notes from a Fragmented Daughter,” what are some of the ways in which the people around Elena fail to recognize her humanity as equal to their own? How do these experiences make Elena feel? In what ways does Elena fall victim to the single story, herself? How do her feelings about and perceptions of her mother affect the way that Elena feels about herself? How does Elena go about creating “a balance of stories” in her life, as described in paragraph 40 of “The Danger of a Single Story”?

11th Grade Speech 1090L

What Your Most Vivid Memories Say About You

Susan Krauss Whitbourne, Ph.D.

What makes up a person's identity? Some scientists would say it's a person's genes — the traits that are passed down by a person's mother and father. Other people might say it's a person's reputation. In "What Your Most Vivid Memories Say About You," Susan Krauss Whitbourne, Ph.D., has a different take on what makes a person who they are.

Pair “What Your Most Vivid Memories Say About You” with “Notes from a Fragmented Daughter” and ask students to discuss the role that memory plays in identity formation and self-perception. According to “What Your Most Vivid Memories Say About You,” what are self-defining memories? Which of Elena’s memories described in “Notes from a Fragmented Daughter” are likely self-defining memories, and how do you know? How might self-defining memories change over the course of one’s life? How can a person grow as a result of negative self-defining memories? How have Elena’s self-defining memories and her self-perception changed by the end of the text? Provide one example from the text that demonstrates this change.

11th Grade Informational Text 1310L

Japanese Relocation During World War II

National Archives

The informational text, "Japanese Relocation during World War II," discusses the relocation and internment of Japanese Americans during WWII.

Pair “Japanese Relocation During World War II” with “Notes from a Fragmented Daughter” and ask students to consider the cultural climate that Elena’s mother likely entered when she immigrated to the United States. According to “Japanese Relocation During World War II,” what was Executive Order 9066, and how did it affect people of Japanese descent in the United States, regardless of where they were born? What was the outcome of the 1944 ExParte Mitsuye Endo case? How might the context provided in “Japanese Relocation During World War II” have affected Elena’s mother when she arrived in the United States in 1949? What connections can be drawn between this context and the section “Deconstructing My Mother as the Other”? How might both the context and her own research about her mother have shifted Elena’s feelings about both her mother and their shared cultural heritage?

10th Grade Informational Text 1220L

Ghareeb

Fatimah Asghar

In "Ghareeb," a speaker visits their family home and struggles with feeling disconnected from their heritage. Pair “Ghareeb” with “Notes from a Fragmented Daughter” and ask students to compare themes of cultural disconnection and alienation, and how the authors build those themes in both texts. In “Ghareeb,” how does the speaker feel about her extended family and ancestral homeland? How does the author communicate those feelings to the reader? How does the repetition of the word “stranger” throughout the poem both illustrate the theme and define the mood? In “Notes from a Fragmented Daughter,” how does Elena feel about her mother and her Japanese heritage? How does she illustrate these feelings in the memoir? How do both Elena and the speaker in “Ghareeb” use study and writing to cope with their feelings of cultural disconnection? Though there are similarities in tone at the beginning of each text, how do the tones differ by the end?

11th Grade Poem

The Struggle of Deciding Between Being Bengali or American

Momotaz Rahman

In "The Struggle of Deciding Between Being Bengali or American," Momotaz Rahman reflects on her Bengali-American identity. How does the quote from Jhumpa Lahiri in the first paragraph of “The Struggle of Deciding Between Being Bengali or American” reflect Elena’s feelings in the first part of “Notes from a Fragmented Daughter”? Compare paragraph three of “The Struggle of Deciding Between Being Bengali or American” to Elena’s feelings about her identity at the end of “Notes from a Fragmented Daughter”? How did both authors experience the connection between their parents and school in similar ways? What was the cause of friction in both cases? Explain Momotaz Rahman’s argument for embracing both parts of her heritage by choosing for herself the elements to adopt from both. Compare and contrast Rahman’s evolving relationship with her cultural identity with that of Elena’s. In each case, what helps them to develop a more positive and secure relationship with their identities over time?

10th Grade Essay 980L

Paired Texts > Notes from a Fragmented Daughter