Content Notes: Looking for Alaska addresses themes of death and suicide. You may want to prepare your students, in case any of them have recent traumas around these issues that might come up. This is a difficult and personal subject, and should be treated with sensitivity.
The thought questions in this lesson plan provide material and ideas that students can use to write short original essays. For the sake of improving the power of expression, teachers should encourage students to write on topics that have been discussed in class, this time in the more formal writing style expected in a literary essay. However, students should never be discouraged from choosing their own topics.
The...