64 pages • 2 hours read
This Is Where It Ends
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During Reading
Reading Questions & Paired Texts
Reading Check and Short Answer Questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.
CHAPTERS 1-3
Reading Check
1. How does Sylv feel about Tyler returning?
2. What does dancing represent for Autumn?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What connection do Claire and Chris share?
2. How does Tomás characterize Tyler?
CHAPTERS 4-6
Reading Check
1. What prepares Claire to respond to the crisis as it unfolds?
2. What is Claire’s attitude toward Tyler?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What is Tyler’s role in the lives of the main characters and in the unfolding crisis?
2. How do the conflicting attitudes of the characters toward Tyler add to the suspense of the story?
Paired Resource
“Pumped Up Kicks Music Video” and “Mark Foster on ‘Pumped Up Kicks’ Eight Years Later & Why it’s Time to Retire the Song”
- This song by Foster the People satirizes the mass shooting phenomenon. It has been accused of glorifying atrocity and making perpetrators appear sympathetic.
- The song touches on themes of Personal Relationships and Family Trauma.
- How do both the songwriters and authors depict mass shootings and characterize the perpetrators? Does exploring or humanizing the perpetrator of such an event represent an amoral lapse on the part of the authors? Explain.
CHAPTERS 7-9
Reading Check
1. What is Opportunity’s creed?
2. What word does Claire use to describe Tyler at the moment of their breakup?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What role do secrets play in the unfolding crisis Tyler orchestrates?
2. What is Tyler’s goal?
Paired Resource
- This transcript of the 1977 Harvey Milk speech is alluded to in the novel.
- It relates to the theme of Heroic Courage.
- Why do you think Nijkamp chose to include a direct reference to this speech? What is the overlap in theme and message, and how does it contextualize the novel’s plot?
CHAPTERS 10-12
Reading Check
1. What does Sylv believe her abuela would attribute Tyler’s actions to?
2. What motive does Tyler’s aim at Autumn’s leg confirm?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. In what ways does Tomás’s and Sylv’s relationship provide a foil for Autumn and Tyler’s relationship?
2. What do the social media posts show about the situation?
CHAPTERS 13-15
Reading Check
1. How did Autumn’s mother die?
2. How does Tomás communicate with those inside the auditorium?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What does Autumn apologize and take responsibility for?
2. What does Tyler’s picking on Matt reveal to Autumn?
Paired Resource
“Descent”
- This short story by Carmen Maria Machado examines the subject of secondary trauma related to school shootings through the lens of a ghost story.
- It relates to the themes of Personal Relationships and Family Trauma and How News Spreads Through a Community.
- How do Machado and Nijkamp explore different facets of mass shooting phenomenon, and how do their stylistic choices support conclusions about the lasting effects of personal relationships and trauma?
CHAPTERS 16-18
Reading Check
1. How do Claire and Chris view the arriving reporters?
2. What do Matt’s texts to Claire foreshadow?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What is ironic about unlocking the doors to allow students to escape?
2. How does Nijkamp explore the idea of guilt by association in this section?
Paired Resource
“‘Media Contagion’ is a Factor in Mass Shootings” and “The Powerful Impact of Digital Media on Mass Shootings”
- Both articles offer a scholarly look at the role of media in driving instances of mass violence.
- These resources relate to the theme How News Spreads Through a Community.
- How do the articles corroborate Nijkamp’s fictionalized depictions of media responses to the events at Opportunity High?
CHAPTERS 19-21
Reading Check
1. What military term does Claire use to describe Matt’s lupus?
2. What job does the deputy finally offer Chris and Claire?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What role do narrative time leaps like flashbacks and future projections play in the narrative?
2. How do Matt’s texts and Tomás’s admonishments echo each other?
CHAPTERS 22-24
Reading Check
1. What does impromptu grief counseling reveal to Claire about courage?
2. What emotions does reading the survivor’s names bring to the waiting parents and survivors?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What does the flashback of Tomás running in the rain reveal about his character?
2. What does Autumn’s assurance to Tyler that he “never had to be alone” imply about their relationship and his relationship with the rest of the town?
Paired Resource
- This classic short story by Flannery O’Connor offers a deep examination of the many iterations of evil, the grey areas of morality, and the motives of those who commit acts of violence.
- It connects to the themes of Personal Relationships and Family Trauma and Heroic Courage.
- Compare the novel and short story‘s depictions of confrontations between a killer and their next victim. How do both authors examine these relationships, and what points do both texts make regarding who is at fault for violent crimes?
CHAPTER 25-EPILOGUE
Reading Check
1. What is Sylv’s special name for Autumn?
2. Which teacher do they specifically honor with their lantern vigil?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What is Tyler’s final act of revenge, and why is it significant to Autumn?
2. What promise does the lantern vigil and Fareed’s speech encourage?
Recommended Next Reads
Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
- All Will Holloman has to do to avenge his brother Shawn is take his gun and ride the elevator down to confront his brother’s killer, but as each floor passes, ghosts from the past enter and share stories that complicate Shawn’s death and confuse Will’s desire for revenge.
- Shared themes include Personal Relationships and Family Trauma.
- Shared topics include gun violence, revenge, multiple perspectives on a single event, intertwining relationships, and the exploration of complicated motives.
- Long Way Down on SuperSummary
Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
- When tapes detailing the reasons why Hannah Baker died by suicide appear in a box addressed to him, Clay Jensen finds himself unraveling a web of increasingly violent secrets and shame that may implicate him and several other students for her death.
- Shared themes include Personal Relationships and Family Trauma and How News Spreads Through a Community.
- Shared topics include the effects of violence and trauma, multiple perspectives events, intertwining relationships, and the exploration of complicated motives.
- Thirteen Reasons Why on SuperSummary
Reading Questions Answer Key
CHAPTERS 1-3
Reading Check
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Aside from being on the track team and in JROTC, both come from military families and understand the weight of having family members deployed and in danger. (Chapter 2)
2. While Tomás reveals that he happily slammed Tyler into lockers, he alludes to something Tyler may have done to his sister and is convinced he will find disciplinary actions in his file. He also describes him as both a person who holds contempt for everyone and a genius whose only failed class was “Humanity 101.” Though it seems like Tomás has bullied Tyler, it seems Tyler may also be a bully. (Chapters 2-3)
CHAPTERS 4-6
Reading Check
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Tyler’s role is as a polarizing and divisive figure. His actions have put wedges between Sylv and Tomás, Sylv and Autumn, Chris and Claire, and himself and Autumn, though it is not clear yet how he has done this. His hate speech against Kevin, an “out and proud” student, divided the student body against him. As the active shooter, he also divides the students against themselves, making them take part in locking the doors and scaring them to the point where they are not working together. (Chapter 6)
2. Autumn and Claire’s characterization of Tyler clashes with Tomás, Sylv, and Chris’s characterization of him. Because Autumn and Claire knew Tyler’s vulnerable side, they are surprised that he is the shooter. Sylv, Tomás, and Chris are less surprised that he is acting this way. This raises two questions: Why can different people have such different reactions to the news, and what are Tyler’s motivations? The author creates in the reader a desire to find the answers to these questions; the reader not only wants to see characters in a bad situation get to safety, but also to find out why Tyler would commit such terrible acts. (Various chapters)
CHAPTERS 7-9
Reading Check
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Autumn, Sylv, and Claire all hold themselves responsible for keeping red flags about Tyler secret. Claire and Autumn both failed to report their father’s abuse, Autumn knew he was upset about her plans for Julliard, Claire did not encourage Sylv to reveal what Tyler did to her at the dance, and Sylv did not report his assault on her over the summer. However, it is unclear whether coming forward with these secrets would have changed the outcome. (Chapters 7-8)
2. Tyler is deliberately splitting families and friends to force others to feel as alone and hopeless as he has felt, indicating that his goal is revenge. (Chapter 9)
CHAPTERS 10-12
Reading Check
1. Brujería (Chapter 11)
2. Revenge (Chapter 12)
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. The relationships provide insight into functional and dysfunctional relationship dynamics. Though both sibling pairs were once close and have drifted apart, Tomás and Sylv have not allowed this break to create rage or animosity. Sylv may be leaving for Brown at the end of the summer, but unlike Tyler—who views Autumn’s hopes for Julliard as a betrayal—Tomás accepts that he and Sylv will go separate ways and understands that this change does not diminish their bond or care for each other. (Chapter 11)
2. The social media posts reveal the ways people try and connect with those outside in what might be their time of crisis and how others removed from the situation respond. The troll represented by “Bored Opportunist” and the reporter, both removed from the situation, try and use the story for their own benefit, both to alleviate boredom by casting doubt on the messages and to break a big story for the news. Media has a way of turning another person’s crisis into entertainment. (Chapter 12)
CHAPTERS 13-15
Reading Check
1. Exhaustion-related car accident (Chapter 13)
2. Tapping a song (Chapter 14)
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Autumn believes she is to blame for their mother’s death since she died on the way to pick her up from ballet practice. Even without her father’s abuse, she knows both Tyler and her father hold her responsible. She hopes her apology will at least distract him, if not convince him to stop. (Chapter 13)
2. Tyler had been so good with Matt, Claire’s younger brother, and Matt was always a positive and kind influence, so to turn on a blameless person the way he has, Autumn realizes the Tyler she knew is gone. (Chapter 15)
CHAPTERS 16-18
Reading Check
1. As vultures (Chapter 16)
2. His death (Chapter 17)
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Though Tomás, Fareed, and Sylv unlock the doors and begin getting students out while Tyler is distracted by Autumn, the movement eventually alerts Tyler. Attempting to regain control of the situation, he fires randomly into the crowd, killing more. The rescuers wonder if opening the door was a mistake, but there is no way of knowing what might have happened. (Chapter 16)
2. Claire’s first reaction upon seeing Tyler’s father in the crowd is to blame him, shouting, “You ruined him,” in reference to the abuse she suspected Tyler sustained. Similarly, when Tyler goes after Sylv, Tomás, and Fareed, Autumn tries to organize the auditorium, but students express frustration that she was unable to stop him. Chris, however, offers the grounding opinion that most abuse victims do not respond like Tyler. Other students come to Autumn’s defense, pushing back against the anger that lashes out when someone chooses to commit violent acts. (Chapter 18)
CHAPTERS 19-21
Reading Check
1. SNAFU (Chapter 19)
2. Grief support/greeting survivors (Chapter 21)
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. The time leaps explain cause and effect, and they create empathy. They also narratively capture the mood of a traumatic situation in which one feels regret, fear, and hope in competing waves, mimicking a life flashing before one’s eyes. (Various chapters)
2. In both cases, the brothers are saying goodbye to their sisters and expressing their last-minute messages to pass on to others, indicating that they know they will not survive. (Chapter 21)
CHAPTERS 22-24
Reading Check
1. It is terrifying (Chapter 22)
2. Relief and sorrow (Chapter 22)
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Sylv remembering her brother’s love for running in the cold rain and her abuelo’s prediction that Tomás will catch his death from it illustrates that Tomás is fearless and full of life, and that he is reckless, but only because he loves life and wants to live it to the fullest. In that same way, he set out to save Sylv while being at peace with his choices and fearless because of his love for her. Abuelo’s prediction comes true. (Chapter 22)
2. Showing her ballet slipper charm as proof that she has always kept him close implies that the rift that grew between them was his own choice. He pushed her away, whereas she was only moving forward with her life, not away from him. His loneliness is a thing he did to himself by pushing people away, and she will not let him justify taking revenge on others for the fallout of his own actions. (Chapter 24)
CHAPTER 25-EPILOGUE
Reading Check
1. Golondrina (Chapter 25)
2. Mr. Jameson (Epilogue)
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Consumed by his own fear and hate, and unable to do more with SWAT arriving, Tyler destroys Autumn’s knee, taking from her the thing he believed she loved most in the world, and then taking himself out. This act confirms Autumn’s belief that he is not the brother she once knew, and that his anger has left no room for love or compassion on any level. (Chapter 25)
2. The symbolism of the small lights in the vast darkness encapsulates the survivors’ plight. They are amid a terrible darkness of grief, and yet they owe it to themselves and their missing loved ones to shine their light. Even if it cannot dispel the darkness Tyler brought, it prevents it from being absolute. Fareed encourages the students to dream big and move forward so that Tyler, and the darkness he brought, does not take over their lives, their relationships, and their town. (Epilogue)
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