Cultures of American Childhood

Question.docx

Home >Reading homework help >Cultures of American Childhood

Question 1

Please match the quotation with the character who says it.

	“I know... it could be a magic country like Narnia, and the only way you can get in is by swinging across on this enchanted rope. ... Let’s find a place to build our castle stronghold.”
	“Ba-room, ba-room, ba-room, baripity, baripity, baripity, baripity—Good. His dad had the pickup going. He could get up now.”
	“You ain’t scared to let a girl race are you, Fulcher?”
	“When they pulled up at his house, his father sat quietly, and Jess could feel the man’s uncertainty, so he opened the door and got out, and with the numbness flooding through him, went in and lay down on his bed."

A.	Narrator
B.	Jess
C.	Leslie

2 points

Question 2

In terms of its biographical roots, Paterson’s novel Bridge to Terabithia is different from texts such as Esperanza Rising in that

		It is based partly on the experiences of the author’s son rather than those of an older family member such as a grandmother
		Some of the most pressing social injustices in the novel are not ones that Paterson or her family members experienced personally, so the ethical problem of how to properly “witness” or testify to these injustices as an outsider becomes a potential issue
		Both

0.5 points

Question 3

Bridge to Terabithia exemplifies how the experiences of American children have been influenced by intersectionality, especially the intersectionality of

		Socioeconomic inequality and confining conceptions of masculinity
		Religious persecution and confining conceptions of femininity
		Both

0.5 points

Question 4

One key element of intersectionality is the idea that intersecting forms of prejudice shape each other rather than being purely additive. For instance, a woman of color may not just experience racial and gender discrimination; she may also experience different forms of gender discrimination because of her ethnicity. In Bridge to Terabithia, this mutually constitutive component of intersectionality is visible when

		Leslie is forced to wear boys’ hand-me-down clothes because of her family’s low income
		Jess is forced to do agricultural chores instead of focusing on his artwork
		Miss Edmunds is judged for wearing pants rather than dresses at her job at the local school

0.5 points

Question 5

Together with Cosgrove’s article on the “Portraits from an Appalachian Battleground,” Bridge to Terabithia indicates that many Americans in the 1960s and 1970s were interested in exploring the effects of which social injustice on American childhood?

		Racial inequality
		Socioeconomic inequality
		The exploitation of immigrants

0.5 points

Question 6

Duane suggests that some of the potential ethical issues with photography in marginalized communities include

		How to accurately portray the subject of the photograph
		How to accurately portray the subject of the photograph while preserving the subject’s dignity
		How to accurately portray the subject of the photograph while preserving the subject’s dignity and avoiding reinforcing destructive stereotypes

0.5 points

Question 7

Reading Duane’s article alongside Bridge to Terabithia and Cosgrove’s article suggests that

		Because of its more multifaceted nature, a novel like Paterson’s may be more capable than the photographs published in Life Magazine of ethically depicting the struggles of low-income children in the United States
		Because it is a simple text intended for children, a novel like Paterson’s may be less capable than the photographs published in Life Magazine of ethically depicting the struggles of low-income children in the United States
		Because of the potential ethical issues involved, it is better for writers and photographers not to attempt to document the struggles of low-income children in the United States