A Jury of Her Peers

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. How have traditional gender roles shaped society throughout history? How have they changed?

Teaching Suggestion: “A Jury of Her Peers” deals with strict gender norms that were clearly defined in the early 1900s. Preparing students for this setting can help them understand the characters' actions and motivations.

• “Changing Ideals of Womanhood During the Nineteenth-Century Woman Movement” by Susan M. Cruea of Bowling Green State University provides historical context leading up to the story’s setting.
• “Women’s Suffrage: Crash Course US History #31” by John Green overviews the era of 1890-1920 through the lens of women in the United States.

2. What do you know about Susan Glaspell? Have you read any of her work or seen any of her plays? If not, what do you imagine a feminist writer and playwright would write about in the early 1900s?

Teaching Suggestion: While students may not be familiar with Glaspell’s work, familiarizing them with her life can help provide context for the story. Students might conduct a brief “search and find” with guided biographical questions or contribute bulleted information on the whiteboard or other shared displays as they investigate this writer.

• “About Susan Glaspell” from the International Susan Glaspell Society details her life as a part of the feminist movement.

Personal Connection Prompt

This prompt can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before reading the story.

How do your views on gender roles, gender norms, and society differ from or relate to those of your parents and grandparents? Why do you think this might be?

Teaching Suggestion: “A Jury of Her Peers” was written and is set during a time of clearly defined and difficult-to-challenge gender norms. Accessing students’ background knowledge on previous generations’ beliefs regarding sex/gender may help them to understand the conflict and the characters of the story at a deeper level. Discussion as a group after first allowing some freewriting to the prompt might be a beneficial strategy with this topic.

Differentiation Suggestion: This prompt can be answered in writing or orally. Visual learners might find it beneficial to use a graphic organizer that helps them track beliefs about sex/gender in each generation of their family. You may wish to encourage students using a graphic organizer to consider occupations of male and female members of a generation, if known, to connect to gender roles.