The Glass Castle Part 2: The Desert

Why does Jeannette make sure to tell us the details of her hospital stay after she is burned from cooking hot dogs?

• To draw a contrast between the hospital and her home life

• To demonstrate that she is not a fan of hospitals or doctors

• To show us that her family cares for her health

• To show us that her parents will do whatever it takes to care for all of their children

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CCSS.RI. 9-10.2

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Why does Jeannette tell us about the scene where she melted her Tinkerbell doll's face off?

• To show us that she is a pyromaniac

• To show us that she probably lit herself on fire on purpose

• To show us that she is probably suffering from effects of trauma/PTSD

• To show us that she doesn't care for her belongings

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What do we learn about Jeannette while she moves from place to place?

• She is intelligent and resilient (can recover from difficult situations)

• She is not as smart as she thinks she is

• She is the weakest in her family

• She is unable to keep up with the moves and throws a tantrum whenever they have to skedaddle

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CCSS.RL.11-12.6

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What do we learn about Rex from all of the jobs he has held?

• He considers his only real job to be building the glass castle

• He's actually very smart but incapable of keeping a job because he has authority issues

• He is very smart and very selective because he wants to find the right job for him

• He is not as smart as he thinks he is

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CCSS.RL.11-12.6

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"In my mind, Dad was perfect, although he did have what Mom called a little bit of a 

drinking situation." What can we infer from this quote?

• Jeannette is still very innocent and Rose Mary refuses to admit that things are bad

• Jeannette doesn't care what her dad does and Rose Mary has too much faith in Rex

• Jeannette is dumb and Rose Mary is a liar

• Jeannette is an unreliable narrator and Rose Mary is actually the one with the drinking problem

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"How many places have we lived?" I asked Lori. "That depends on what you mean by 'lived,'" she said. "If you spend one night in some town, did you live there? What about two nights? Or a whole week?" I thought. "If you unpack all your things," I said.

What is interesting about the fact that they have to DEFINE what it means to LIVE in a place?

• They have traveled a perfect amount. Rex and Rose Mary want their children to be educated through travel.

• They have lived in fewer places than they originally thought. Maybe they are being too hard on their parents.

• They have rarely unpacked all of their things so they end up determining they haven't really lived anywhere

• They have traveled so much they have to categorize the places they've been to otherwise it'd be impossible to count

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