• What stops us from acting on issues we care about? Have there been issues where you've wanted to take a stand, but didn't? Why do you think you didn't?
• Do you feel like ordinary citizens really can make a difference? Or do you hold back from acting because you think your efforts are futile?

Section One: Seeds of the Possible
"Ordinary Resurrections," by Jonathan Kozol

• Do you know kids like those in the South Bronx neighborhood Kozol visits? Have you ever lived in a neighborhood like this?
• Are you surprised by the fierceness of a love where they leave Rice Crispies for dead friends or explain "this was his chair" in attempt to honor their missing lives?
• Why do you think Kozol entitled the excerpt (and book by the same name) "Ordinary Resurrections"? Who or what is "resurrected" in this essay?

Section Two: Dark Before the Dawn
"The Dark Years" by Nelson Mandela

• Why would Mandela and his ANC colleagues go to such lengths to get news of the outside, like passing it from cell to cell on scraps of toilet paper? What's the relationship between isolation from others who are acting and lack of hope, and a sense of community and maintaining hope?
• Most of us will not face the hardships of imprisonment like Nelson Mandela, but in what other ways can we be imprisoned? What qualities does Mandela suggest help human beings surmount even the greatest of challenges? 

Section Three: Everday Grace
"The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry

• How does the natural world liberate Berry from despair? Where do you go to renew your spirit? Describe that place or write a poem about it. Why is it important for people to have a place of renewal? 

Section Four: The Flight of Our Dreams
"Childhood and Poetry" by Pablo Neruda

• In this piece, Neruda describes a very simple exchange between two children. How does this simple exchange lead the author to believe “that all of humanity is somehow together." 

Section Five: Courage is Contagious
"Not Deterred" by Paxus Calta-Star

• Have you ever been told that your hopes for change are unreasonable? That you have to be "realistic?" Who defines what is realistic and what is not in terms of our common future?
• Calta-Star says that "old gray-haired men with many initials after their names dominate discussion and policy making." Who dominates discussion and policy making in your immediate community? Whose voices are not being heard? How can you find a voice, like Polina, in order to be heard?

Section Sex: The Global Stage
"Curitiba" by Bill McKibben

• Several essays in this anthology celebrate the power of human imagination. Cite examples where you see the power of imagination at work in the city of Curitiba. How had the government of Curitiba blended the imaginative and the practical?
• Would you like to live in Curitiba? Explain. What are some of the challenges U.S. cities face that are similar to the challenges Curitiba faced? Is a city like Curitiba possible in the United States? Why or why not?
• Did it surprise you that a poor city could come up with solutions that rich cities and countries had not even tried? How does our affluence sometimes create blinders on our vision?

Section Seven: Radical Dignity
"Behemoth in a Bathrobe" by Carla Seaquist

• The voice of conscience describes Americans as having a "can-do" spirit then gives landing a man on the moon as an example. Provide additional examples of American can-do spirit.
• Do you agree/disagree that reality TV shows "exalt humiliation, violence, sex-a tawdry reality to convey to our kids." Support with specific examples. What would it take for people to pay as much attention to the big issues of our time as they do to celebrities or Survivor?

Section Eight: Beyond Hope
"Hope against Hope" by Nedezhda Mandelstam

• Mandelstam explains how "fear and hope are bound up with each other." Explain this relationship in your own words.
• "Fear is a gleam of hope, the will to live, self-assertion. It is a deeply European feeling, nurtured on self-respect, the sense of one's own worth, rights, needs and desires." Explain how this feeling is, in particular, "a deeply European feeling." Would you say this is a deeply American feeling, too? Explain. 

Section Nine: Only Justice Can Stop a Curse
"Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou

• This poem has a number of images that capture efforts to humiliate someone, and their tenacious assertion of their dignity. How does the poem exemplify the book's over-arching theme of hope?

Study Guide Questions from http://www.paulloeb.org/newimp/impstudy.htm

This page last modified on February 13, 2008.