000 12/02/2025 "Dust Tracks on a Road": Cultural Context

Poll

If someone wrote YOUR autobiography, which title would reveal the MOST about your personality?

• "The Life and Times of [Your Name]: A Complete History"

• "That Time I Accidentally Set the Kitchen on Fire: A Memoir"

• "How to Survive High School While Avoiding All Social Interaction"

• "The Comprehensive Encyclopedia of My Entire Existence, Volume 1"

Multiple Choice

What is the key difference between an autobiography and a memoir?

• Autobiography covers a whole life; memoir focuses on specific experiences

• Autobiography is fiction; memoir is based on true events and experiences

• Autobiography uses third-person; memoir uses first-person point of view

• Autobiography is written by someone else; memoir is written by the subject

Multiple Choice

Why might Hurston choose to write an autobiography rather than a memoir?

• To share her complete life story and show how she became who she is

• To focus only on her most embarrassing moments during the Harlem Renaissance

• To avoid revealing too much personal information about her childhood years

• To tell her story from multiple characters' different points of view

Multiple Choice

Where was Zora Neale Hurston raised, and what made this place significant?

• Eatonville, Florida—the first incorporated all-Black town in America

• Notasulga, Alabama—a major center for the civil rights movement era

• Harlem, New York—the birthplace of the famous Harlem Renaissance movement

• Eatonville, Florida—home to America's first drive-through coffee shop

Multiple Choice

Based on Hurston's roles as an author, anthropologist, and folklorist, what can you infer about her interests?

• She valued preserving and sharing stories about African American culture

• She preferred studying ancient civilizations rather than contemporary American life

• She was mainly interested in becoming wealthy and famous as quickly as possible

• She focused exclusively on writing romance novels set in European countries

Multiple Choice

When was Eatonville, Florida incorporated as America's first all-Black town?

• 1887

• 1891

• 1937

• 1776

Multiple Choice

How did growing up in Eatonville shape young Zora's personality differently than if she had grown up under strict Jim Crow?

• She developed self-assurance because she saw Black excellence as normal

• She learned to be extremely quiet and avoid speaking to any adults

• She became interested in moving to Europe to escape American racism

• She decided to become a mayor just like her father for three terms

Multiple Choice

If a Black child in the 1900s showed "forward" behavior toward white visitors, why would this be considered dangerous?

• Jim Crow laws enforced strict racial boundaries that punished such behavior

• White visitors always preferred children to be seen and never heard at all

• Schools had rules against students talking to any visitors during class time

• Children who talked too much always received detention after school ended

Match

Match the following terms to the correct definition, as given in the notes:

• forward (adj.)

• brazenness (n.)

• Jim Crow (n.)

• Harlem Renaissance (n.)

lacking proper modesty

shameless behavior

laws enforcing racial segregation

African American cultural movement

• lacking proper modesty

• shameless behavior

• laws enforcing racial segregation

• African American cultural movement

Multiple Choice

According to the lesson, does place expand or limit what we think is possible for ourselves?

• Place can do both—it shapes our sense of what opportunities are available

• Place only expands possibilities if you live in a large city with resources

• Place has no real effect on what people believe is possible for them

• Place only matters if you never leave your hometown during your lifetime

Open Ended

Write one of the quotes you identified as demonstrating young Zora's self-assurance AND EXPLAIN why/in what way it proves that characteristic.