Directions: Use the themes, questions and video clips below to teach and learn with portions of C-SPAN's American Writers program featuring Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Scarlet Letter. Link to the complete video clip list to identify clip descriptions and create your own lessons. Each theme contains questions and video clips appropriate for varying grade levels.

1. Identify some of the prominent women in Nathaniel Hawthorne's life and in his fiction. Describe their character traits and behavior.
2. What happens to Hester Prynne? Why? Describe her reactions. How much of her character's traits and actions depend on her sex? What lessons can anyone facing the challenges of societal persecution learn from her?
3. Determine Hawthorne's view of women and their position in society. Was he successful in incorporating this view into his story?
4. Compare the actions of Hester Prynne to those of prominent women contemporary to Hawthorne, i.e Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Margaret Fuller. To what degree does Hester advance or diminish the cause of women's rights?
5. Compare Hester to any people or characters from today who challenge our perceptions of women.

1. What is the legacy of Puritanism in American? What characteristics do you associate with Puritans?
2. What is Hawthorne's own connection to Puritanism? Identify some of the ways that he reacted to his own heritage, and that of Salem.
3. Consider how the element of mystery was a part of Puritanism. How did Hawthorne employ this sense of mystery in his work?
4. What other elements of Puritanism does Hawthorne explore? Choose at least one element and explore the way Hawthorne employs it as a literary device.
5. How did Hawthorne's characters either accept or reject religious beliefs? What aspects of religion does Hawthorne elevate in the novel? In what ways is religion portrayed as destructive? How might Hawthorne define religion?

1. Why did Hawthorne want to be a writer? What were the attractions? What were the detractions?
2. Discuss the different influences on him as a writer. Differentiate the experiences that were explicitly personal and those that had some connection to politics, current events, economic, societal or cultural conditions.
3. Identify the unique qualities and oustanding features of his writing. Choose a passage of his work and explain how it is representative of his style. Why did Hawthorne achieve popular and critical success? Why is he still popular today?
4. What effect does his writing have? on the reader? on our collective identity?
5. Identify Hawthorne's goals as a writer. Did he achieve his professional and artistic goals?