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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. What does the term bricoleur mean?

3. Which of the following is an element of the dialect known as "Cracker speech"?

4. In what county in Georgia was Janisse raised?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the author's purpose in relating the fact that her parents told their children false stories about their births?

2. Due to their parents' religious beliefs and their resulting family rules, what were some of the practices forbidden to Janisse and her siblings?

3. Janisse said there was only one type of occasion that did not elicit shame from her role as a junkyard owner's daughter. What is the only thing that occurs that does not bring her shame?

4. Why were the conditions so favorable for Frank's junkyard business to make money?

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

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 are some ways in which Janisse shows her parents that she is a tomboy who likes to be outside in nature more than she enjoys any other activities?

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

9. 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?

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

Explain the significance of Janisse Ray's abject rejection of her great-grandfather Pun's advice to not "take more on your heart than you can shake off on your heels." How does her rejection of this maxim relate to the larger themes within the memoir?

Essay Topic 2

What is the significance of scene in which Janisse's grandfather Charlie leads Janisse to his secret copse of huckleberries? How does the author use this event as a metaphor for a particular piece of her worldview and what message does she send to the reader through her relaying of this event?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the irony within the scene in which Janisse brings home a botanist from college and he is so shocked by the state of the family's home and property that he locks himself in the bedroom, only coming out for meals. How does his disgust regarding Janisse's family home reflect what Janisse perceives to be the pervading reaction of the outside world when looking at people from her part of the country? And how does Janisse's father Frank's job as a salvage yard owner contrast with the botanist's view of the disarray he views as defining the family's situation?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,696 words (approx. 6 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample