Reading Questions
The Watsons Go to Birmingham
Chapters 9 - Epilogue
Chapter 9
Focus: characterization, flashback
1. Explain in a few sentences (more than one) why Momma and Dad
think it is important for Byron to live in Alabama.
2. Infer how you think Kenny likes to open presents.
How do you know?
3.
Why didn’t Joetta like the angel Mrs. Davidson gave her?
4. Why do Momma and Dad have Byron sleep in their room the night
before they left for Alabama?
5. On pages 91-92, what do you learn about the character of Momma?
(indirect characterization)
6. In Momma’s plans for the trip, on Day 1 they plan to spend the night in
a hotel but on Day 2 they plan to sleep in the car at a rest stop. Why?
7. Look at the flashback in this chapter. What is Byron’s plan to “get
back” at his family for taking him to Alabama?
Chapter 10
Focus: diction, mood/tone, setting, stereotype
1. At the first rest stop Byron and Kenny make a new discovery. Byron is
even more dismayed to find out the Grandma Sands has one in Alabama.
What is it?
What is the boys’ reaction?
2. Find and cite the allusion on pg. 97.
3. Explain the stereotyping on pg.100.
4. The author uses diction when describing the settings in this chapter.
At the Tennessee rest stop the tone/mood of the setting is
________________________________________________. But as
they drive away the mood/tone changes to ________________
___________________________________________________.
(Carefully annotate the diction in these paragraphs that create the
mood/tone)
5. The Watsons made several stops on their road trip and many new,
unpleasant discoveries about the south!
Name two things that bothered (upset, scared, etc.) one or several of the
kids when they stopped at a rest stop on their trip.
A.
B.
Ch. 11
Focus: personification, simile, irony, characterization,
setting
1. Dad makes up funny “country” names for the family. What “county” name
would you give yourself?
2. Describe the setting in Birmingham. What does Kenny notice?
3. Why is this chapter titled Bobo Brazil Meets the Sheik? (allusion)
4. Who/what would you choose to be good representations of evil versus evil?
Why?
5. Kenny has never seen Grandma Sands. Contrast what he thought she would be like to
how she really looks. Cite at least 3 examples from the text for each…
Grandma Sands
What Kenny imagined…
What Kenny really saw…
A..
A.
B.
B.
C.
C.
This is an example of ________________________ (literary term!)
Postcards were a common form of communication with friends and family when
away on vacation. Write a postcard from Kenny and from Byron telling about
their trip so far.
Post Card
Post Card
Chapter 12
Focus: setting, characterization, allusion,
figurative language, theme, idiom
1. The first sentence of the chapter is a ____________________
&_______________________. (type of figurative language)
What is the effect?
2. How is Mr. Robert like Toddy?
3. What did the Watson boys have a hard time believing about Mr. Robert?
4. Explain the allusion on pg.112 .
5. What was the “important” conversation Momma and Grandma Sands
were having?
6. How is Byron reacting to his new setting (environment)?
7. What is a theme in this chapter? (hint: the title of the chapter is an
idiom that can help you understand the theme!)
Ch. 13 Focus: foreshadow, irony, symbolism
1. The first paragraph is an example of____________________________.
Explain:
2. What does Byron tell Kenny and Joey the “Wool Pooh” is?
3. What really is the “Wool Pooh”?
4. While wading in the water, what happens to Kenny?
This is an example of a(n) ______________ conflict.
5. How does Kenny describe the “Wool Pooh”?
6. Who does Kenny think he sees under the water that causes him to fight back?
7. Who pulls Kenny out of the water?
8. Describe Byron’s reaction to Kenny’s almost drowning and explain it.
Reaction
Explain
9. The “Wool Pooh” is an example of symbolism. What does it represent?
Ch. 14
focus: symbolism, conflict, irony
1. Describe what Joetta wore to church.
2. Cause and Effect
Cause
Effect
Mama screams, and Byron runs
out of the house in his socks.
3. What does Kenny see a man carrying out of the church?
4. Why does the man look like “he’d been painting with red, red paint”? (184)
5. Walking into the church, what does Kenny see underneath some concrete?
6. Infer what Kenny thinks it is:
7. Who/what does Kenny take the shoe from?
8. What does this symbolize?
9. Why does Kenny leave the church?
10. What does Kenny think when he sees Joey back at Grandma
Sands house? Why?
11. Why doesn’t Kenny want to look at Joey at Grandma’s house?
12. What is Kenny’s internal conflict?
13. Why wasn’t Joey in the church when it blew up?
14. So, in a sense, at the whirl pool ________________ saves _______________
and at the church __________________ saves _____________________.
This is an example of __________________________.
15. This chapter is a good example of irony. Think back to the beginning of the
book and Mama’s description of the South. Now, explain the irony of this
chapter.
Ballad of
Birmingham
In "Ballad of Birmingham," Randall conjures one of the most vivid and vicious chapters from the
civil rights movement: the bombing of a church in 1963 that wounded 21 and cost four girls their
lives. The poem begins with a dialogue between mother and daughter during which, ironically,
the mother forbids the daughter to march for freedom, fearing that street violence will erupt.
Instead, she gives permission for the daughter to sing in the children's choir at their church. How
could the mother know, of course, that the streets, that day, might have offered some relative
safety? The tragedy, a central feature of many ballads, becomes especially clear and poignant at
the end, when the mother searches for her missing daughter. The poem can speak for itself.
Two men involved with the bombing finally received lifetime jail sentences in 2001, in one case,
and 2002, in the other, but "The Ballad of Birmingham" retains its relevance for other reasons:
the tenderness between mother and daughter, a well-chiseled pattern of stressed and unstressed
syllables, and haunting visual images, including the symbol of loss--the shoe--at the end. Many
of Randall's other poems, formal and free verse alike, contain this soft-spoken honesty and
truthfulness.
BALLAD OF BIRMINGHAM
"Mother dear, may I go downtown
instead of out to play,
and march the streets of Birmingham
in a Freedom March today?"
ANALYSIS
What does the child want to do?
"No, baby, no, you may not go,
for the dogs are fierce and wild,
and clubs and hoses, guns and jails
ain't good for a little child."
"But, mother, I won't be alone.
Other children will go with me,
and march the streets of Birmingham
to make our country free."
"No, baby, no, you may not go,
for I fear those guns will fire.
But you may go to church instead
and sing in the children's choir."
Why is she told “no”?
Why does the child feel she
will be safe?
Where does her mother tell her
to go? Why?
She has combed and brushed her nightdark hair,
and bathed rose petal sweet,
and drawn white gloves on her small brown hands,
and white shoes on her feet.
The mother smiled to know her child
was in the sacred place,
but that smile was the last smile
to come upon her face.
What is the emphasis
of this stanza?
This stanza contains what
literary element?
For when she heard the explosion,
her eyes grew wet and wild.
She raced through the streets of Birmingham
calling for her child.
Infer what the mother
thinks has happened.
She clawed through bits of glass and brick,
then lifted out a shoe.
"O, here's the shoe my baby wore,
but, baby, where are you?"
What has happened to
her daughter?
1. What factual information does the author include in the poem?
2. What do you think is the author’s purpose for writing this poem?
3. In the last stanza, why do you think the mother refers to her daughter as “baby”?
4. What similarities do you see between this poem and
The Watsons Go to Birmingham?
Ch. 15
Focus: conflict, characterization, irony, theme, point-of-view
1. What were the results (deaths, injuries) of the bombing?
2. When did the Watsons leave Birmingham?
Why?
3. After returning to Flint, who is Momma and Dad most worried about?
Why?
4. Where had Kenny been hiding?
Why there?
Kenny is upset about what happened in Birmingham yet he is also ashamed. (internal
conflict)
5. Why is he upset?
6. Why is he ashamed?
7. Who helps Kenny feel better? ____________________
How?
This is an example of ____________________
8. Byron tells Kenny that there are no “magic powers, genies, or angels” but Kenny
believes there is. What does Kenny discover is “magic’?
This is an example of a_____________________
9. Both Byron and Kenny are different at the end of the book than they are at the
beginning. Tell how each boy has changed. (dynamic character) Give several!!!
Kenny
before Birmingham
during/after Birmingham
Byron
before Birmingham
during/after Birmingham
10. What is the…
A. climax of the novel?
B. falling action of the story?
C. resolution of the story
11. What do you predict for Kenny?
12. What impact does the first person point-of-view have on the novel?
13. The Watsons Go to Birmingham has a very serious message about
a tragedy in American history, yet it is a funny story. Explain the
use of humor in the novel.
Epilogue
1. Why do you think Christopher Paul Curtis wrote this epilogue?
2. What are the themes of this novel? (give at least three!!!)
A.
B.
C.