1. Research Bohemia and use your information to explain what Ántonia's family life might have been like if her family had stayed in the Old Country.
2. Research the immigrant experience in America. Was the Shimerda experience typical of what many families expected and experienced in coming to America?
3. In what ways did Cather's life influence her novel? Pair up with another person and present an interview with the author to answer this question.
4. Create a journal, written by Ántonia, that portrays her thoughts about several key scenes/stories in the novel.
5. Pretend you are a researcher going back to Black Hawk in the late 1900s. Make up the story of what happened to Jim Burden, Ántonia and Anton, and their children after the story ended.
6. Create a collage that represents the prairie and the seasons that influenced the novel.
7. Create a set of letters that Jim and his grandmother might have exchanged during the years he was in the East going to school.
8. Read Cather's short story about another immigrant family, "Neighbor Rosicky," and compare and contrast it with My Ántonia.