90 Miles to Havana

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 below bulleted outlines. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. This novel is written in a first-person perspective from Julian’s point of view.

• What changes are you able to see in Julian’s process of growing up because the story is in the first person? (topic sentence)
• Find and discuss 3 examples from the novel in which the first-person narrative reveals these ongoing changes.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, summarize the significance of the changes involved in Julian’s overall coming-of-age.

2. When Julian is in Cuba, he encounters many different perspectives on the changing political system brought by the Revolution. After his Displacement from Cuba, at Camp Kendal, he struggles along with his friends against bullying.

• What does his struggle with bullying at Camp Kendal add to his understanding of the obstacles to living democratically? (topic sentence)
• Find examples of other characters’ attitudes about Cuba’s political structure along with examples of the children’s attempts to overcome Caballo’s control over them from the text to support your topic sentence.