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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. How did Janisse and her siblings get access to books which they knew would garner their father's disapproval?

2. How old was Frank when Charlie first talked him into partnering with him in the wrecking yard business?

3. In what year was Janisse born?

4. When her brothers did not want to play school, what would Janisse do instead?

5. For how many years does Janisse say her family had been in Appling County, Georgia?

Short Essay Questions

1. Besides the fact that he thought it had better prices than other stores, why did Frank shop at Winn-Dixie?

2. Whose idea was it to spread old shoes around underneath the grapevine and what was the intended purpose of that act?

3. How does Janisse describe her feelings toward her father when he was mentally unwell?

4. How does Janisse Ray use her great-grandfather Pun's career progression to show how white-collar jobs can be even more damaging to the environment than can blue-collar jobs?

5. Why do people call certain parts of the wood of the longleaf pine "fat-lightered"?

6. What reasons does Janisse give for God disliking pine plantations?

7. How does the passage regarding the bank robber Foster Sellers exhibit the theme of identity prevalent throughout the memoir?

8. The second sentence of the chapter entitled Timber says, "About the same time, the production of naval stores in North Carolina began to wane and big turpentine producers in North Carolina sashayed into Georgia" 99). What is the effect of the author's choice of the verb "sashayed" and what is her purpose in making that choice?

9. 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?

10. What happened during one of the Ray family's only vacations that highlighted the fact that they were a subject of fascination for others?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Explain the significance of the memoir's title. What does it mean and how does it contain all of the main themes put forth within the whole of the memoir?

Essay Topic 2

Examine the appendices included at the end of the memoir. Why does the author include them and what message is the author sending to the reader by encouraging their use?

Essay Topic 3

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?

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