Everything Sad Is Untrue

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

ACTIVITY 1: “Tell Me a Story”

In this activity, students will think about the genre conventions of a frame narrative and think about stories as interconnected, taking turns telling stories that overlap and interact with one another.

The goal of this activity is to keep telling each other stories, just like Daniel does in the novel. We want them to overlap and interact with one another, and unlike Daniel, we’ll take turns telling these stories in groups of three. One person will start telling a story, and after that person tells their story, another person can jump in. There has to be at least one similarity between the last story and the next one. The goal is to keep sharing stories for as long as the time allotted by your teacher.

Part A

Break into groups of three. One person should volunteer to go first. You should sit in a circle with your group members, and the storyteller should hold the index card supplied by the teacher indicating that they are the storyteller for now. Then, when the next person is ready to tap in, the storyteller should pass the index card to them. Keep passing the card around as you tell more and more stories to one another. They could be memories or legends that you’ve heard.

Part B

After the amount of time allotted by your teacher has passed, think about the experience of sharing stories together. To help prompt discussion, use the following questions as guides:

• What types of stories did you tell one another?
• What do you think you learned about your classmates?
• Was it hard to keep telling stories?
• How was this storytelling experience different because you had to keep talking to one another?

Come back together as a class to share your thoughts together about the activity.

Teaching Suggestion: This activity is meant to help students understand that storytelling can bring us closer to one another. By telling stories in the fashion of Scheherazade, they can both feel the pressure of having to keep going and also self-select the types of stories that they are telling.

Differentiation Suggestion: To help students who might struggle with spontaneously telling stories, have everyone make a list of stories and/or memories that they might like to share in a small group. Encourage them to use this as a list of options when they’re storytelling with their group members.

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the bulleted outlines below. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. Daniel mentions the video game series Final Fantasy throughout the novel.

• What function does Final Fantasy serve in the novel? (topic sentence)
• Detail three places in the book where Final Fantasy is mentioned and why it is mentioned in each of these places. Be sure to think about how its use compares to the myths and legends Daniel tells.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, explain what Final Fantasy symbolizes for Daniel or how it helps him to understand the world.

2. Conflicts in faith ultimately force Daniel and his family to seek asylum in the United States.

• How has religion impacted Daniel’s life and how does it continue to do so? (topic sentence)
• Find three instances in which religion directly impacted Daniel’s life. Consider finding one from before, during, and after he and his family leave Iran.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, argue whether you agree with Massoud that “it was religion that ruined everything.” (200)

3. Daniel frequently references One Thousand and One Nights.

• How do Daniel’s references to One Thousand and One Nights support the theme of Storytelling as a Way of Remembering and Surviving? (topic sentence)
• Find instances in which Daniel references One Thousand and One Nights to help readers connect to his past, present, and future.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, explain how Daniel himself is like Scheherazade of One Thousand and One Nights.

Full Essay Assignments

Student Prompt: Write a structured and well-developed essay. Include a thesis statement, at least three main points supported by text details, and a conclusion.

1. Daniel’s affection for storytelling reveals the way in which he feels that he is still trying to be accepted by his classmates in the United States. Write an essay in which you trace the theme of Storytelling as a Way of Remembering and Surviving in the novel. What does Daniel learn about himself and his family from the stories they tell? Use at least three examples from the text to support your argument.

2. Consider Daniel’s relationship with his family throughout this novel. We only see what he tells us about them, but it’s clear that they each do things that impact his understanding of family and one’s heritage. Write an essay in which you analyze Daniel’s relationships, making an argument about how he ultimately comes to view family. In your conclusion, connect your thesis back to the theme of The Experience of Immigrant Children and Attempts to Connect.

3. Even though the novel ends with Daniel and his family at a motel, how is this story a hopeful one? What is Daniel trying to tell us about hope and survival through Persian myths and legends and his family’s journey to and experience in the United States? Write an essay in which you explore the ways that hope appears in this text, both through the content of the stories it tells and through Daniel’s approach to narrating his life. Ultimately, connect your argument back to the theme of Hope and Anticipation in Trying Times.

Multiple Choice and Long Answer Questions create ideal opportunities for whole-text review, exams, or summative assessments.

Multiple Choice

1. Why does Daniel tell the readers to call him Daniel instead of Khosrou?

A) He thinks that readers are more likely to accept him if they are familiar with his name.

B) He doesn’t like his birth name and hopes to distance himself from it.

C) He prefers Daniel because Khosrou is his father’s name too.

D) He hopes to legally change his name in the future.

2. Why does Daniel think it’s important to make goody bags for American soldiers?

A) He wants to be a soldier when he grows up.

B) His father is in the army.

C) He thinks it will show that he is on the same side as his classmates.

D) He hopes that his crush, Kelly J., will notice him

3. Which of the following best describes how Daniel is like Scheherazade?

A) He is weaving stories in order to save his life.

B) He dreams of having wealth one day.

C) He hopes that he will be able to escape his home.

D) He tells one story after another.

4. Why does Daniel overlap his stories?

A) He wants to keep his reader’s attention.

B) He forgets the ends of stories.

C) He thinks that endings are permanent.

D) He plans on confusing his readers.

5. What sacrifice does Sima make for her family?

A) She gives up her life as a doctor so that Daniel can have a better life in the United States.

B) She marries Ray so that his income can help provide for Daniel and Dina.

C) She walks away from her husband because he is a bad influence on Daniel.

D) She works two jobs so that Daniel can go to a private school.

6. Which of the following moments exemplifies Daniel’s definition of bravery?

A) When Daniel beats up his bully

B) When Sima persists despite Ray’s terrible treatment

C) When Massoud stands up for his wife

D) When Dina doesn’t cry when her hand is hurt

7. Why does Massoud say, “it was religion that ruined everything”? (200)

A) If religion didn’t exist in the world, people would be less divided.

B) If Daniel had been Christian, he would’ve been accepted by his classmates.

C) If Sima had not become Christian, she wouldn’t have had to leave Iran.

D) If Massoud wasn’t Muslim, he would’ve been able to come to the United States.

8. Why does Daniel start writing down his memories?

A) He is afraid of forgetting everything.

B) He wants to gain acceptance from his peers.

C) He is doing so for a class assignment.

D) He wants to send them to his grandfather.

9. Which of the following adjectives best describes the way in which Daniel recounts his family’s flight from Iran?

A) He emphasizes their safety.

B) He portrays a harrowing flight.

C) He portrays a confusing flight.

D) He emphasizes its mythic quality.

10. What does Daniel think is the point of the stories Scheherazade told the king?

A) She wanted him to see that rulers are always corrupted by their power.

B) She wanted him to see that she is innocent.

C) She wanted him to see the humanity of others.

D) She wanted him to see that she was in love with him.

11. Why does Daniel feel like he left Khosrou in Iran?

A) He wants to embrace his American identity and forget his past.

B) He wants to remember who he was before he came to the United States.

C) His friends only know him as Daniel.

D) Dina can’t remember the time when he was Khosrou.

12. What does it tell us about Daniel’s mother that she enrolled Daniel and his sister in school while they were in Italy?

A) That she did not want to feel like they were just waiting around

B) That she believed education was more important than getting to the United States

C) That she regretted leaving the educational system in Iran

D) That she believed that they would live there permanently

13. What does Daniel think is the reason that Sima was able to make it through all of the terrible things that happened?

A) He thinks that she believed in God enough that they would be saved.

B) He thinks that she hoped Daniel would save her from life with Ray.

C) He thinks that she was waiting for Massoud to rescue her.

D) He thinks that she had a hope that everything sad would one day be made okay.

14. What does Daniel see as the cost of joy?

A) Happiness

B) Sacrifice

C) Friendship

D) Family

15. What does the author try to convey in his Author’s Note?

A) That this is his life, exactly as it happened

B) That he made everything in this story up

C) That the line between truth and fiction is thin

D) That he has lived a happy life overall

Long Answer

Compose a response of 2-3 sentences, incorporating text details to support your response.

1. What are readers supposed to take away from this story? Use at least one example from the text in your answer.

2. How is this story about Daniel’s mother?