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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 9 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which of the following does the narrator note having thrown from rooftops?

2. At what level of school does the narrator teach?

3. To which of the following does the narrator compare a student?

4. What song does the narrator remember his mother singing?

5. To which of the following does the narrator compare Sonny’s childhood acquaintance?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why had the narrator not known he had an uncle?

2. Why does the narrator note having taken up residence where he did?

3. Why does the narrator note being glad of Isabel’s presence when he brings Sonny home?

4. For what is Sonny arrested?

5. What does the narrator note would happen on Sunday evenings with his parents when someone turned on a light?

6. Why does the narrator note that Sonny and his father had not gotten along?

7. Why does the narrator posit his students are full of rage?

8. What are the narrator’s earliest memories of Sonny?

9. What outcome does Sonny’s old acquaintance foresee for him?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

To what other writer’s work in your experience does Baldwin’s seem most similar? What makes the writers similar? What differentiates them? Overall, which do you regard as doing better at the craft of writing, and why?

Essay Topic 2

Overall, what is the most important theme of “Sonny’s Blues”? What in the text indicates as much? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 3

A lack of formal sectional division in the short story obliges a fairly arbitrary breakdown of the text for purposes of study and discussion. On what grounds might the current divisions be in place? Why and how are they appropriate to the text?

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