Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

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. The story is named after common phrases that worried parents might say to their children. How do you expect this to be a factor in this story set in the 1960s about a young American woman? What do you think this story might be about?

Teaching Suggestion: Though the themes of the story are universal, a bit of particular context for students might help them understand the generational divide between a parent and teenager in the 1960s, especially when considered through aspects of hippie culture and the freedom and danger it represented. Connie’s Search for Identity can be explored in the friction between the parental voice that names the story and the teenage protagonist who bristles against it and who ultimately must move into a more twisted version of adulthood.

• Why thousands of teens ran away from home in the 1960s – This BBC article explores the undercurrent of anxiety that persisted throughout the 1960s, looking at root causes of teenage rebellion.

2. What do you associate with the suburbs? Why do you think so many horror stories are set in the suburbs?