FIRST YEAR RESOURCES
Summer assignment
After receiving the book and prior to New Student Orientation in August, you should read the entire book. While you read, you may want to consider the follow questions:- For most people the question of “identity” is simple: they have names, birthdates, and straightforward family trees. What factors make the formation of identity more complex for many of the characters in Run? What causes their perceptions of themselves to change by the end of the book? How do their self-perceptions remain the same?
- How do the lives of the characters show the difference between being compelled to do or think or want something and feeling one ought to do, think, or want something? Why does the motivation for making certain choices matter?
- Despite parents’ best efforts to treat them exactly the same, siblings often perceive differences in their parent’s attitudes. How has their father’s different responses to their needs and goals affected the Doyle brothers’ choices and their relationships with one another?
- “So what do you like,” Kenya asks Tip, “Other than fish?” Each of the characters in Run seems to be asking the same question of him or herself. They also seem to be asking themselves, “What do I need? What do I want?” How do their answers differ, and what is significant about these differences?
Ms. Patchett received a Bunting Fellowship at Ratcliffe College in 1993 and earned a Guggenheim fellowship for The Magician’s Assistant. She was the editor for the 2006 edition of Best American Short Stories, and has written for numerous publications, including the New York Times Magazine, Harper’s Magazine, The Atlantic, the Washington Post, Gourmet, and Vogue.
Ms. Patchett lives in Nashville, Tennessee with her husband, Karl VanDevender.
Take a Carillon Class
