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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 7 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. In the fourth stanza, what kind of person does the speaker ask if "you" want her to be?

2. What technique is used in lines 7 and 8, "’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells/ Pumping in my living room"?

3. Why is the speaker's past "rooted in pain" (line 32)?

4. What kind of "certainty" does the speaker claim to have in line 10?

5. What is the primary quality that the speaker's stanza eight description of a body of water is intended to convey?

Short Essay Questions

1. What do all of the questions the speaker asks have in common?

2. In the final stanza, what metaphor does the speaker use, and what does it signify?

3. What oppressive actions does the speaker suggest "you" might take, and how does she say she will respond?

4. Why is the poem titled "Still I Rise" and not just "I Rise"--what additional idea does the word "Still" convey?

5. What specific historical phenomenon does the speaker talk about rising above in the final two stanzas, and what allusion does she use to introduce the topic?

6. Describe the pattern that stanzas 2, 4, 5, and 7 have in common.

7. Describe how the final two stanzas of the poem differ from the first seven stazas.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How does "Still I Rise" employ apostrophe to challenge not just an unnamed oppressor but the poem's reader, as well? How does the speaker establish that the poem is an apostrophe? What clues are there about whom the apostrophe is addressed to? Is it possible that the reader is the intended audience of this apostrophe? What choices Angelou makes indicate whether she wants the reader to identify with the speaker or with the unnamed oppressor? Write an essay in which you take and defend a position about whether the reader is a bystander to the poem's apostrophe or is, in fact, the oppressor being addressed. Support your analysis with both quoted and paraphrased evidence from throughout the poem, and be sure to cite quoted evidence in MLA format.

Essay Topic 2

How is water used symbolically in "Still I Rise"? What forms of water are mentioned? Do they all seem to function in the same way, or is water operating in more than one way in the poem? Which forms of water is the speaker herself compared to? What do these forms of water have in common? How is the idea of "rising" water in this poem contrasted with the "falling" water represented by the image of teardrops? How do common literary meanings of water figure into this poem's symbolism, if at all? Write an essay that takes and defends a position on the symbolic meaning of water in "Still I Rise." Support your analysis with both quoted and paraphrased evidence from throughout the poem, and be sure to cite quoted evidence in MLA format.

Essay Topic 3

Is it possible to make an argument that even though the final two stanzas seem more focused on the speaker, they are also paradoxically less focused on the speaker? In what way do the first seven stanzas focus on individual characteristics of the speaker, and how do the final two stanzas shift this focus to the speaker as a representative of something larger than any one individual? Write an essay that makes an argument about how shifts in technical and content choices in the final two stanzas work together to alter the poem's focus from a personal disagreement to a historical one. Support your analysis with both quoted and paraphrased evidence from throughout the poem, and be sure to cite quoted evidence in MLA format.

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