A Study Guide for Sharon M. Draper's "Tears of a Tiger"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Sharon M. Draper's "Tears of a Tiger," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Jun 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535834711

Book preview

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Tears of a Tiger

Sharon M. Draper

1994

Introduction

Tears of a Tiger is the gripping, emotionally charged debut young-adult novel by educator turned author Sharon M. Draper. With some twenty years of experience teaching English in public school in Cincinnati, Ohio, Draper had fairly mastered the art of inspiring students, but in 1991 it was her turn to be the recipient of inspiration when a student challenged her to submit a short story to an Ebony magazine literary competition. She did—and she won. On the heels of this success, she managed to see to publication her first novel, a dialogue-fueled account of the difficulties experienced by a high school basketball player, Andy Jackson, after he drives while intoxicated and causes a freeway crash and the death of his best friend, the star of the team, Robbie Washington. The novel is presented through more than forty brief sections consisting of either dialogue without narration—a format that presses the plot forward while making the reader pay close attention—or documents, such as homework assignments that offer insight into the characters' feelings and perspectives. Written for high-school-age readers, the novel does include limited accounts of violent scenes. First published in 1994, Tears of a Tiger was given the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for outstanding book by a new author and was also named a Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association.

Author Biography

Sharon Mills was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on April 11, 1952, and raised along with a brother and sister in a friendly, communal neighborhood. Her father, Victor Mills, was a hotel maitre d' (head waiter), and her mother, Catherine, was a classified-advertising manager for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Her parents read to her nightly, quizzed her on schoolwork, and insisted that she attend college. The young Mills was especially fond of playing school, happily teaching her dog, her dolls, and her friends, and she adored reading. In the fifth grade, she encountered a teacher who got the jump on convention by assigning advanced literature by the likes of Langston Hughes and William Shakespeare. Graduating from high school as a National Merit Scholar, Mills attended Pepperdine University in California. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in English in 1971, and though Pepperdine offered her a teaching position en route to a master's, she returned to Ohio and began teaching in public school in Cincinnati. Her first experience in charge of a class was trying—at one point she broke down in tears—but she had no intention of giving up. While honing her craft, she married Larry Draper (with whom she would eventually have four children) and gained a master's degree from Miami University of Ohio in 1974. She would spend the next two decades perfecting her approach to teaching.

It was in 1991 that Draper's life began to change dramatically, thanks to a challenge from a student: in light of her continual urging that students enter writing contests, a young man handed her a crumpled application form