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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. What did Charlie hope to accomplish by placing old shoes beneath plants?
2. What chore done before a thunderstorm does Janisse use in the Introduction as a metaphor for the Georgian people seeing everything coming before it happens?
3. What type of business did Janisse's grandfather Charlie run with his wife Clyo until he got into a fistfight that destroyed the structure?
4. What game of pretend did Janisse and her brothers play inside the old school bus?
5. What did Frank use to beat Janisse and her brothers after they stood by while a neighbor boy killed a snapping turtle?
Short Essay Questions
1. What example of making something out of nothing does Janisse write about when showing her father Frank's ingenuity in the chapter entitled, "Native Genius"?
2. On page 79, Janisse includes the text of a letter her father Frank wrote to her. In the letter, Frank wrote that he was thankful for his mental illness and that it had taught him seven lessons. What were three of those lessons he said mental illness had taught him?
3. What is the author's purpose in relating the fact that her parents told their children false stories about their births?
4. What descriptions of her homeland does Janisse give in order to support her claim that her "homeland is about as ugly as a place gets" (13)?
5. What elements did Frank consider crucial to the business of buying?
6. What is the effect on the reader when in the chapter entitled Junkyard, Janisse writes, "I was six the year mental illness stole my father," (77) and how does the author create that effect?
7. What reasons does Janisse give for God disliking pine plantations?
8. How is foreshadowing used within Janisse's relation of how she used to love to play teacher with her brothers or even with her dolls?
9. When Janisse wrote that her father Frank was a "mechanic in the word's truest sense," what did she mean?
10. Whose idea was it to spread old shoes around underneath the grapevine and what was the intended purpose of that act?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
What parallels does Janisse Ray draw between a junkyard and the wilderness throughout the memoir? How does this unique viewpoint help to get across her message to the reader concerning environmentalism and the role humans ought to inhabit in relation to nature?
Essay Topic 2
Discuss the author's infrequent and therefore prominent use of second person within her memoir. What is the context for each of these instances and what effect does the author intend these usages of second person language to have upon the reader?
Essay Topic 3
Discuss the author's purpose for describing her love for the carnivorous pitcher plant in such great detail within the chapter entitled How the Heart Opens. What lessons does she learn from the plant, how does she apply these lessons within her life, and how does she use the depiction of her relationship with the pitcher plant to support the overall themes of the memoir?
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This section contains 1,510 words (approx. 6 pages at 300 words per page) |
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