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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. Which magazine published pictures of Emmett Till after his brutal death in 1955?

2. What nightmare did Trethewey have shortly after moving to Atlanta?

3. What question did Trethewey's mother ask her in Part I in her dream?

4. Which Supreme Court case ruled that laws prohibiting interracial marriage were unconstitutional?

5. Who did Gwendolyn visit a few weeks before she was killed?

Short Essay Questions

1. When and where did Trethewey first encounter racism from other children?

2. Why did Trethewey's father want to take her and her mother to Mexico in the 1960s?

3. What image did Trethewey keep in her head from the first day after her mother's death?

4. What name did Trethewey's father bestow on her in his fiction writing and why is it significant?

5. What does the photograph from May 1974 make plain to Trethewey when she looks at it now?

6. What is one thing Trethewey remembered her mother doing to their apartment in Atlanta to try to make her feel more at home?

7. What pain did Trethewey's grandmother describe long after Gwendolyn had died?

8. Why did it take longer than it might have for Trethewey to realize her father and mother had separated?

9. Why did the Ku Klux Klan burn a cross in the driveway of Trethewey's grandmother's house in the 1960s?

10. What did Trethewey begin to notice when she was out as a child with each of her parents?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How and when did Trethewey become aware that her parents are separating? What were her feelings around the separation at that time? Write an essay explaining your answers.

Essay Topic 2

At the end of her memoir, do you think Trethewey has found any kind of peace regarding her relationship with her mother and her mother's killing? Why, or why not? Write an essay explaining your answers, citing specific information from the text to support your answers.

Essay Topic 3

What happened to the cassette tape Trethewey unexpectedly found after Gwendolyn's murder that contained her mother's voice? How did Trethewey explain her choice to deliberately try to forget some of her memories from growing up? Write an essay explaining your answers.

(see the answer keys)

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