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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 gang members find him in the store?

2. What have the Gun Totin' Hooligans decided to do to honor Pumpkin?

3. What happens when two girls charge the swings where Gunnar and his sisters are?

4. For what is Franz assigned on the plantation where he lives?

5. What does Wolfgang do for a living?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is one of Gunnar's favorite past times from a young age and what is he known for among his friends?

2. How do Gunnar and his sisters get along with the other children in the neighborhood?

3. What does Gunnar reveal himself to be in the Prologue and how does he feel about his role?

4. How did the Gun Totin' Hooligans come to be a gang?

5. What happens to Gunnar the morning after they move to a new neighborhood and his mother tells him to go get breakfast?

6. With whom does Gunnar make friends during his first semester at his new school and what does he choose in his second semester schedule?

7. What do police officers in Gunnar's new neighborhood ask him and what is his response?

8. How does Nick help Gunnar fit into the neighborhood better and how does Gunnar get a basketball?

9. What does Nick do to handle some of the attention directed at him and how does that affect Gunnar?

10. What does Psycho do to get Gunnar to dance and how does their time at dances often end?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The counselor was shocked that a black student could get the high SAT scores that Gunnar made.

1. Refute or defend the following statement: Stereotypes about people are generally true. Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

2. How do you think stereotyping or generalization in schools can affect students? Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

3. The only statement that can be true about a population is if that population consist of only one person. Discuss this statement in view of the counselor stereotyping black students.

Essay Topic 2

The White Boy Shuffle could be said to be a "bildungsroman" of Esi. Discuss the following:

1. Define the concepts "bildungsroman" and "coming of age."

2. Thoroughly trace and analyze The White Boy Shuffle as a bildungsroman of Gunnar. Give specific examples. What does Gunnar learn? How has he changed? Is the change for the better?

3. Thoroughly trace and analyze The White Boy Shuffle as a black power story. Give specific examples. What does Gunnar learn? What does Nick learn? What would blacks say about Gunnar's actions?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss one of the following:

1. Trace and analyze the theme of growth in The White Boy Shuffle. Consider the following questions as you write: What characters are most concerned with growth? Why? What are some symbols of growth? Symbols of rigidity? What characters seem rigid?

2. Trace and analyze the theme of individual freedom in The White Boy Shuffle. Which characters struggle with this issue? Why? Which characters seem to possess individual freedom? Why?

3. Trace and analyze the theme of tradition in The White Boy Shuffle. What is Gunnar's view of tradition? Gunnar's mother? Nick's? Gunnar's father. Why is tradition important to some characters? Is anyone willing to abandon traditional viewpoints? Who? What are the positive and negative sides to holding fast to tradition?

(see the answer keys)

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