Connect students with events from the past by completing fun, challenging activities and lessons with this guide about a story based on tragic events that occurred in Birmingham as a result of racism. The Watsons visit their grandma in Birmingham, intending to have their troubled son stay with her to learn some discipline, but return home when there is a bombing in a local church. This literary instructional guide is filled with rigorous cross-curricular lessons and activities that work in conjunction with the fictional text to teach students how to comprehend complex literature and help them understand the significance of the historical events the story is based on. This resource supports Common Core Learning Standards and is packed with tools to teach students how to analyze story elements in multiple ways, practice close reading and text-based vocabulary, determine meaning through text-dependent questions, and more. This is the perfect way to add rigor to your students' explorations of rich, complex literature.