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. Doc O’Connor asserts that there are more gay people in Laramie than are immediately apparent. At the same time, he tells readers that the gay people in Laramie are not “the queens, the gay people, the queens, you know run around faggot type people” (Act I, Moment 8).

• What does Doc’s comment suggest about how the LGBTQ+ community is commonly portrayed? (topic sentence)
• Identify 2-3 examples from the text and analyze the damaging effect of the stereotypes of the LGBTQ+ community.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, consider how the persistence of harmful stereotypes speaks to the larger theme of The Violent Effects of Anti-LGBTQ+ Bias.

2. Laramie’s religious leaders express a range of responses to the murder of Matthew Shepard.