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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 does Jake confiscate from Layla after the confrontation with the Director?

2. What does Ahmed say is deeply rooted in American history?

3. How does Dr. Han help the cause of the internees?

4. How does David address his previous conversation with Layla when he sees her again?

5. What instruction does Ahmed end the Author’s Note with?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Layla answer the harassment she faces from Saleem and Fauzi and the others on her block, at morning check-in?

2. How does Layla’s second article get out of Mobius?

3. What is the outcome of the protest Layla and her friends stage during the Red Cross visit?

4. What does Samira Ahmed say makes her angry in the Author’s Note, and what does she say gives her hope?

5. What is the image Khadijah auntie recites to Layla, and what effect does it have?

6. When Layla gets back from the brig, what does she find has happened to her parents?

7. What is the threat that looms over Layla’s head, and how does she adjust herself to avoid it?

8. What does Layla tell the crowd when she gets the bullhorn, and what does she say about America?

9. When the Director visits Layla in her cell, what does he tell her about his view of the world and the need for the camp?

10. How does Layla characterize the crowd that advances to the gates?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Who is the audience for Internment? What is the ideal reader for Internment likely to think about the book’s main topics? How does this book try to affect the reader? What is it trying to teach him or her, or get him or her to do?

Essay Topic 2

Evaluate Internment as a bildungsroman, a coming-of-age narrative. What are the challenges Layla and Ayesha and Soheil endure, to perform rites of passage in this novel? How do they overcome these challenges, and what do they learn at each stage? Are they complete human beings at the end of the novel, or do they die too early to learn all the lessons a person would need to learn?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the difference between writing a novel and performing activism. How are they similar, how are they different? Is Ahmed’s book a form of activism? What are the advantages and disadvantages of writing a novel as a form of activism?

(see the answer keys)

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