Half Broke Horses

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. At the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, the American West was rapidly transforming from an era of pioneering to increased modernization and industrialization. How did the onset of industrialization affect pioneer homestead communities? What are some of the hardships that pioneer communities would have experienced prior to modernization? Would industrialization have relieved these hardships? Why or why not?

Teaching Suggestion: This Short Answer question invites students to consider the novel’s historical setting. The increasingly industrialized Midwest and Western states of the US serve as the backdrop of Walls’s narrative. Lily notes how her father tries to resist this modernization; however, she believes that embracing technological progress such as automobiles and airplanes is important in adapting to the modern lifestyle. This question also provides an opportunity to introduce the themes of Learning How to Fall and Half-Broke Horses.

• The Library of Congress offers information on “Rural Life in the Late 19th Century.”
• The University of California Los Angeles shares a historical overview of farming homesteads on the American frontier.