The Only Road

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. Where is Guatemala? List facts you know (or can make realistic speculations about) regarding the country and what living there might be like for the majority of people.

Teaching Suggestion: The action of The Only Road is driven by conditions in the main characters’ home country of Guatemala. Learning more about this country will increase students’ understanding of the novel’s plot and their empathy for Jaime and Ángela. You might ask students to attempt a preliminary answer to this prompt before accessing the resources below as a way to activate their prior knowledge and increase their retention of any new information they encounter.

• This 11-minute video from Geography Now! introduces Guatemala’s geography, demographics, and culture. If you play this video with its subtitles on, students will be able to gather helpful hints about how to pronounce words they will encounter in The Only Road (such as “Xavi”).
• This 15-minute video from Discover Humanity offers a visually engaging and thoughtful profile of Guatemalan life. Note that this video is presented in Spanish, but accurate English subtitles are available.