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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 Trethewey see on her mother's face in her dream in Part I that related to her mother's death?

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

3. What protest did Trethewey's grandmother join in 1963?

4. Which great-grandmother does Trethewey write about in Part I?

5. What years did Trethewey try to forget as much about as she could?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Why did Trethewey's father encourage her to become a writer?

3. What did Trethewey want more than anything after moving to Atlanta?

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

5. Why did Trethewey's parents travel to Ohio to elope in 1965?

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

7. What was Trethewey's last image of her mother while her mother was living?

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

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

10. What monument was very close to the apartment where Trethewey's mother was killed?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Why did Trethewey decide not to tell her parents the first time children insulted her because she is mixed race? What connection did Trethewey make between this incident and her path to becoming a writer? Write an essay explaining your answers.

Essay Topic 2

How and when did Threthewey begin to feel more separated from her mother and her mother's life? Write an essay explaining your answers, citing specific references to the text to help support your answers.

Essay Topic 3

In what specific instances and/or timeframes did Threthewey cast doubt on the accuracy of her own memories throughout the memoir? Write an essay explaining your answers, citing specific references to the text to help support your conclusions.

(see the answer keys)

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