T.J.’s real first name is “The Dao.” What is Crutcher’s rhetorical purpose in giving him this name? What ideas about the world is Crutcher trying to express through T.J. and his experiences?

• Why might T.J.’s birth mother have given him this name? What hopes for him does this name express?
• Why does he start going by “T.J.”? What does this indicate about how his unusual first name impacts him given the context in which he is growing up?
• How does T.J. grow during the story to become a better representation of Daoist ideas? What events cause these changes, and why?

Teaching Suggestion: This prompt asks students to consider what Crutcher is trying to accomplish by choosing T.J.’s unusual first name. As this is a fairly abstract question to consider, the bulleted sub-questions are provided to give more concrete thinkers a step-by-step way to connect the specific characters and events in Crutcher’s book with the more abstract ideas of Daoism. If your students are well-practiced in answering abstract questions like this, you might omit the bulleted guide questions to provide them with more of a challenge. Before students respond to this prompt, you may wish to briefly review the ideas of Daoism, wu wei, and yin-yang.