My Sister, the Serial Killer

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. What is a literary “vignette”? What types of vignettes are there? What kinds of effects might be created by constructing a narrative from vignettes?

Teaching Suggestion: My Sister, the Serial Killer is made up of vignettes rather than more traditional scenes and chapters. If your students are unfamiliar with this form, you can offer them the resources listed below before they attempt to consider the possible effects of structuring a novel from vignettes. If they are struggling to infer how the use of vignettes might impact the reader, you might explain that vignettes are like still photographs of a moment in time—so reading a narrative composed of vignettes is like scrolling through photos rather than seeing a complete film.

• This entry from LiteraryTerms offers a definition and examples of the vignette form.
• This vignette, “Salvador Late or Early,” by Sandra Cisneros, illustrates the power of the form.

2. Where is Lagos? What are some characteristics of this city? To what does the term “noir” refer in literature? What would you expect from a genre called “Nigerian Noir” or “Lagos Noir”?