Every Day Use

The narrator could best be described as…

• cruel

• tough

• self-conscious

• fragile

How does the narrator feel in response to Dee’s actions in the exposition?

• She feels inferior to Dee.

• She feels unappreciated.

• She feels respected by Dee.

• She feels unintelligent.

Which of the following describes Maggie’s reaction to Dee’s arrival?

• enthusiastic

• terrified

• joyful

• uneasy

Dee changed her name because…

• she believed it represented injustice.

• she didn’t like it.

• it didn’t reflect her true heritage.

• she didn’t like her aunt.

Dee wants the churn top and dasher because…

• they are important to the family.

• they remind her of her upbringing.

• she likes the way they look.

• she needs them to churn butter.

PART A: Which of the following best identifies the main theme of the text? (RL2)

• Sometimes adopting a new heritage can result in the rejection of a person’s true heritage and family history.

• A person must understand their family history before they can truly understand themselves.

• The modern world often demands that people change, whether they want to or not.

• Physical objects can often offer people a connection to their family history and family members who have passed

PART B: Which detail from the text best supports the answer to Part A? (RL1)

• “Pressed us to her with the serious ways she read, to shove us away at just the moment, like dimwits, we seemed about to understand.” ( Paragraph 10)

• “You didn’t even have to look close to see where hands pushing the dasher up and down to make butter had left a kind of sink in the wood.” ( Paragraph 54)

• “‘These are all pieces of dresses Grandma used to wear. She did all this stitching by hand. Imagine!’” ( Paragraph 62)

• “I didn’t want to bring up how I had offered Dee... a quilt when she went away to college. Then she had told me they were old-fashioned, out of style.” ( Paragraph 69)

PART A: What prompts the narrator to refuse to give Dee the quilts she wants? (RL3)

• She knows that Dee doesn’t want the quilts to remember her grandmother.

• She realizes that she has been neglecting Maggie.

• She is tired of being pushed around by Dee.

• She realizes that Maggie never gets what she deserves.

PART B: Which section from the text best supports the answer to Part A? (RL1)

• “She had filled her bottom lip with checkerberry snuff, and it gave her face a kind of dopey, hangdog look.” ( Paragraph 76)

• “She looked at her sister with something like fear, but she wasn’t mad at her. This was Maggie’s portion. This was the way she knew God to work.” ( Paragraph 76)

• When I looked at her like that, something hit me in the top of my head and ran down to the soles of my feet.” ( Paragraph 77)

• “I did something I never had done before: hugged Maggie to me, then dragged her on into the room” ( Paragraph 77)

What does the phrase “the scalding humor that erupted like bubbles in lye” suggest about Dee? (Paragraph 14) RL4

• Her sense of humor is hurtful.

• She has a boring sense of humor.

• She doesn’t often show her funny side.

• Her sense of humor is difficult to understand.