Why does Hurston interact with the white tourists without fear while the adults avoid them as much as possible?

Literary Non-Fiction Assignment
Choose one of the following options for the literary essays we have discussed in class
and answer each of the included questions in paragraph form for a total of five
paragraphs.
You must directly answer the question in the first sentence of the paragraph. Each
paragraph should follow the paragraph conventions that we have discussed in class
(supporting points, concluding sentence, topic sentence, etc.).
Each paragraph should include at least 5 sentences and be around 150 – 200 words
each.
Your answers should include specific references to the text, but you should depend
more on paraphrasing the text than quoting it.
Your answers should be written in a formal tone (avoid first and second person,
contractions, slang, clichés, etc.).
Please double-space your answers and use MLA Style for you citations.
Remember that you should only use the text itself as your source. Do not seek
help from other sources for analysis.
1. “How It Feels To Be Coloured Me” by Zora Neale Hurston.
i) What does Hurston mean when she says that “[she] remember[s] the very
day that [she] became Coloured”?
ii) When Hurston arrives in Jacksonville, she says that she “was not Zora of
Orange County anymore.” What does she mean when she says this?
iii) What does Hurston mean when she says that she “do[es] not weep at the
world” because she is “too busy sharpening her oyster knife”?
iv) Who or what is the “brown spectre” mentioned on page 41, and what is its
significance?
v) What is the significance of Hurston’s metaphor of the different coloured
bags?
2. “How It Feels To Be Coloured Me” by Zora Neale Hurston.
i) Why does Hurston interact with the white tourists without fear while the
adults avoid them as much as possible?
ii) Why does her experience change so drastically when she leaves her
hometown of Eatonville?
iii) On page 41, Hurston describes her skin as a “fast brown – warranted not
to rub nor run.” What does she mean when she says this?
iv) On page 42, Hurston describes being “a dark rock surged upon” at the
bottom of a river. Why does she feel this way in the situation
described?
v) What overall point is Hurston trying to make in her essay?
3. “Advice to Youth” by Mark Twain
i) How does Twain trick the reader at the beginning of the essay?
ii) How does Twain subvert the reader’s expectations throughout the essay?
(Use at least one specific example)
iii) Why does Twain use humour in his essay (besides being funny) rather
than simply providing straightforward advice?
iv) Why does Twain choose to mock conventional advice in this way?
v) What is Twain’s opinion on the conventional advice throughout the essay?
4. “Advice to Youth” by Mark Twain
i) Why does Twain encourage children to disobey their parents?
ii) Does Twain want people to solve disputes by throwing bricks at
each other? If not, why does he use this example?
iii) Why does Twain encourage lying?
iv) Why is “a truth not hard to kill”?
v) What overall advice is Twain trying to give to youth in this essay? (I am looking
for the essay’s overall message, not a summary of the essay)
5. “A Father’s Faith” by Miriam Toews
i) What does the opening description of Toews’ father walking through the
town tell us about her father?
ii) What does her description of the town on page 103 (On the way into town
… Mennonite and Conservative) suggest about the town?
iii) Why does Toews go from loving and understanding her town to becoming
“suspicious and critical and restless and angry”?
iv) Why might the fact that most of the townspeople can trace their ancestry
back to one time and place be significant to the town’s character?
v) Why does the town want to “keep the world away from their children and
their children away from the world”?
6. “A Father’s Faith” by Miriam Toews
i) At the beginning of the essay, Toews’ description of her father and his walk
through the town are shattered by the abrupt introduction of his
suicide. What is the significance of this dramatic shift in Toews’
narrative?
ii) What is the implied connection between the restrictive rules Toews’
mentions, such as dancing and drinking being sinful and women being
prohibited from addressing the church congregation, and her
grandmother’s alcoholism?
iii) What is the significance of Toews’ statement that “every family had a
secret” in the context of the town’s overall character?
iv) What role might the Mennonite Church’s history of “shunning” people
with depression have played in Toews’ father’s depression and
suicide?
v) What significance does the fact that Toews later discovers that “the
number of mentally ill Mennonites is abnormally high” have in
relation to all the problems she has mentioned?
7. “Finding Father” by Richard Wagamese
i) Why does Wagamese say that his dream “is all [he] ever knew of [his]
father”?
ii) Why does Wagamese say that when he was put in foster care, he
disappeared?
iii) What does Wagamese mean when he says that “time and politics and
history prevented [him] from [becoming Ojibway]”?
iv) Wagamese says that “there were a number of men who adopted the name
and role of father in my life when I disappeared.” What does this
passage suggest about his time in foster care?
v) How did the foster-care system affect Wagamese overall?
8. “Finding Father” by Richard Wagamese
i) Why can’t Wagamese see his father’s face in his dream, even though he has
seen photographs of him?
ii) Why does Wagamese come to associate his father with the landscape?
iii) Why does he want to return to the site of his birth even though he has no
memory of it?
iv) Why do Wagamese and his father run together in the dream at the end of
the essay?
v) What is the overall message of the essay?
What am I looking for in this assignment?
1. Analysis: your answers should analyze rather than summarize the essays.
2. Structure: your paragraphs should follow the conventions discussed in class.
3. Focus: your paragraphs should be focused on the questions asked. Do not stray into
unrelated ideas. Do not try to cover every issue the essay mentions in one paragraph.
4. Clarity: your writing should be easy to read and understand.
5. Grammar and syntax: your writing should follow the rules of grammar and syntax
discussed in class.
Penalties and Reminders
All take-home assignments are required elements of the course. Failing to hand in an
assignment will result in a mark of NP in the class, which is a failure calculated at 40%.
30 or more grammatical errors = 45%
Referring to outside sources (anything other than the essay itself) without permission =
10% penalty
Late papers = 5% penalty per day late
Late papers will only be accepted up to 5 days after the due date unless you have
received an extension.
If you need an extension, please contact me as soon as possible. Extensions are not
retroactive.

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