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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why does Dray beat up Bad Leg in Chapter 24?

2. Who confronts Fabiola in Chapter 25?

3. What does Kasim give Fabiola in Chapter 20?

4. What does Imani tease Fabiola about in Chapter 17?

5. In Chapter 21, what does Fabiola realize about three people opening the door to the Francois house?

Short Essay Questions

1. In "8800 American Street," what happens with the house? What sets up at the crossroads of American Street and Joy Road?

2. What does Fabiola tell the Francois sisters in Chapter 27? How does she convince them not to do this?

3. What do Kasim and Fabiola do in Chapter 28 at Kasim's house? What does Fabiola tell Kasim at the end of the Chapter?

4. What do they see when they arrive back home in Chapter 30? What does Fabiola do?

5. What does Fabiola see on Donna's phone in Chapter 18? What does she do with this?

6. In "Drayton's Story," what does Dray reveal about his connection to Phillip? What had he felt because of that connection?

7. In Chapter 31 where does Fabiola say she was when the Haiti earthquake hit? How does she relate this to when she opens her eyes in the present?

8. What happens to Donna in the evening in Chapter 23? What does Fabiola think about America?

9. Why does Donna break it off with Dray in Chapter 19? What does she do with him?

10. Where do the cousins and Fabiola go in Chapter 23? What does Dray come by and do?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Research the earthquake in Haiti. Use two sources to write about what happened. Then look at how Fabiola remembers the experience of being in the earthquake and how she relates this to the events at the end of the novel. How is the book a memory project of the events of the earthquake? How does it show a survivor of an event such as this continues to interpret their experience after it happens?

Essay Topic 2

At the end of the novel, Fabiola says, "I realize that everyone is climbing their own mountain here in America. They are tall and mighty and they live in hearts and everyday lives of the people. And I am not a pebble in the valley. I am a mountain" (324).

From this quote, what are the mountains in the lives of all of the characters? What is Fabiola's mountain? How do she, and each of them climb it in the novel? Choose two characters in addition to her for a four-page analysis with textual examples. Finally, what does this quote say about what it means to be American or live in America?

Essay Topic 3

In Chapter Twenty One, Fabiola dreams of the history of 8800 American Street, and then in the next chapter the detailed history of 8800 American Street is revealed. What does this structure say about how Fabiola learns the stories revealed in the novel? Are they actually being spoken to her or does she learn them in other ways? If she learns them in other ways, what are these ways of knowing? Choose three of the backstories to develop an argument about how she knows these.

Finally, what is the novel saying by having these stories revealed in this way? What is Fabiola's role related to the other characters of the novel and to the reader?

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