Find out what you can about how an old-fashioned saw-mill worked. What was the job Spunk was doing when he rode logs near the blade? What amount of steadiness and courage would be required to do this work?

Investigate the role of the supernatural in African- American folk beliefs, perhaps in Hurston's own collections Mules and Men (1935) and Tell My Horse (1938). What stories might the townspeople in "Spunk" have heard that would bring them to the conclusion that the bobcat is truly Joe's spirit come back for revenge?

Do you think "Spunk" is old-fashioned in terms of gender roles? Write a new version of the scene in which Joe confronts Spunk and Lena. Set your scene around the turn of the twenty-first century.

Hurston has often been praised for having a good ear for the way people speak, and for writing it...