Name: _______________________________________ Date: ______________________________ Per: ______
Reading Notes
Chapter: 1, The Liberation Army Dancer, pages 3-18
Topic/Question
Circle One:
Question
Comment
Predict
Notes
Name: _______________________________________ Date: ______________________________ Per: ______
Reading Notes
Chapter: 2, Destroy the Four Olds!, pages 19-37
Topic/Question
Chapter Summary
Question 1:
Describe Grandpa
Hong’s bookstall (pg
19).
Notes
Ji-li and her friends received money from their parents to go rent
books at Hong book store. On Sundays they happily looked for
books of all genres; fairy-tales, animal books, and adventure books.
She loved looking at the stack of wonderful, interesting books. Just
when they finally got settled An-Yi barged in and told them that
people were destroying a sign at the prosperity market. People were
stomping on the expensive signs, breaking them, running over them
with truck, and chopping them with an ax.
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Question 2:
How does the signbreaking show how
people are
destroying the “four
olds”? (pg 22)
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Circle One:
Question
Comment
Predict
Name: _______________________________________ Date: ______________________________ Per: ______
Reading Notes
Chapter: 3, Writing Da-zi-bao, pages 38-51
Topic/Question
Chapter Summary
Question 1:
Descreibe the da-zibao made by Pauper
(pg 41).
Notes
Chairman Mao says that the education system has been poisoning
young children's minds. All the children in Ji-Li’s class start making
da-zi-baos about the teachers and pasting them all over the school.
Ji-Li cannot think of anything bad to write about her teachers, so she
copies an article from the newspaper instead. A few days later,
some of her classmates go to her Aunt Xi-wen’s house to make her
read the da-zi-bao about herself. Later, she discovers that someone
wrote a da-zi-bao about her saying she must have had a relationship
with one of the teachers because he gave her good grades. She and
her friend An Yi are both upset.
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Question 2:
Why did the students
criticize Aunt XiWen? Why does Ji-li
feel she has to go
along? (pg )
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Circle One:
Question
Comment
Predict
Name: _______________________________________ Date: ______________________________ Per: ______
Reading Notes
Chapter: 4, The Red Successors, pages 52-71
Topic/Question
Chapter Summary
Question 1:
Why can’t Ji-li be
elected a Red
Successor? What is
her family history?
(pg 57-58).
Notes
The Red Guards emerge and become powerful. They are looked at as heroes to
everyone, including the Jiang family. Her school decides to start an organization
called "The Red Successors." This organization acts just like the Red Guards. JiLi was originally nominated to be a Red Successor, but then Yin Lan-lan (one of
the girls she used to help with math) said that the nominations should be done by
class status instead of grades. Then Du Hai reveals something damaging about
Ji-li’s family history. After everyone in her class discovered what her family
was, she was cornered after school by the Successors and they said she had to
change her ways, and“to remold her ideology.”
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Question 2:
Is Ji-li’s dedication to
the government
changing her view of
her family? (pg 6971)
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Circle One:
Question
Comment
Predict
Name: _______________________________________ Date: ______________________________ Per: ______
Reading Notes
Chapter: 5, Graduation, pages 72-79
Topic/Question
Chapter Summary
Notes
Ji-Li and An Yi graduate, but they are sad because they believe they won’t
get into good schools since they do not have a respectable class status.
Luckily, their teacher found a very reputable school in Shanghai. They are
only to be disappointed again when they find that their teacher’s
recommendations have been declared invalid and they are put into schools
according to their neighborhoods.
_______________________________________________________
Question 1:
Why might Ji-li feel
that the new way of
choosing junior high
schools is unfair?
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Circle One:
Question
Comment
Predict
Name: _______________________________________ Date: ______________________________ Per: ______
Reading Notes
Chapter: 6, The Sound of Drums and Gongs, pages 80-99
Topic/Question
Chapter Summary
Question 1:
Do you think Song
Po-Po was being
exploited? Explain.
Notes
This chapter is about the summer before Ji-Li goes to high school. This is when
we see the Red Guards becoming extremely corrupt. They start searching houses
of suspected rightists and taking all of their valuables in the name of the
revolutionaries. A lot of the Jiang family's neighbors get searched and the Jiangs
start preparing for their time to get searched. Ji-li’s mom had to dismiss Song Popo, their housekeeper, so they wouldn’t be accused of exploiting her. As a result,
the children had more chores to do around the house. Mr. Jiang painted
Grandma’s dowry trunks black so they wouldn’t be seen as fourolds. The women
turned the ancestors’ beautiful old clothes into comforter covers, and turned silk
ties into a mop.
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Question 2:
Why do you think Ji-li
was proud to go food
shopping for her
family?
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Circle One:
Question
Comment
Predict
Name: _______________________________________ Date: ______________________________ Per: ______
Reading Notes
Chapter: 7, The Propaganda Wall, pages 100-117
Topic/Question
Chapter Summary
Question 1:
Why did An Yi’s
grandmother commit
suicide? (pg. 114)
Notes
• The Red Guards start doing whatever they want whenever they want in the
name of Mao, and make people who had been in the Black Categories (like
Aunt Xi Wen) bow in front of a picture of Mao on it and chant “Long life to
Chairman Mao!” Then they had to confess their guilt and sweep the area.
• Later the Red Guards made Old Qian kneel on a washboard until he fainted
after many hours from the heat of the sun.
• An Yi's grandmother committed suicide perhaps because she thought she
would have to suffer as Old Qian did.
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Question 2:
What keeps An Yi and
her mother from
mourning her
grandmother’s
death? (pg. 114)
Circle One:
Question
Comment
Predict
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Name: _______________________________________ Date: ______________________________ Per: ______
Reading Notes
Chapter: 8, A Search in Passing, pages 118-139
Topic/Question
Chapter Summary
Question 1:
What does Ji-li
realize about her
Grandma when they
first visit the park
together? (pg 120122)
Notes
• Ji-Li’s family becomes more and more scared of being searched.
• Every day Grandma and the children go to the park and play. When they go
back if they see the mop in the window then they know that the house is
being searched so they will wait until it passes.
•One night, Ji-li’s parents quietly burn photos of ancestors in fourold clothing.
Ji-li says, “I wish I had been born into a red family so I could do my
revolutionary duties without worrying.”
• The next night, when they are all home, the house is searched because their
family downstairs was suspected so they had to have their house searched in
passing. Fortunately at this time none of them were accused of anything, but
they did take Ji-li’s treasured stamp collection.
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Question 2:
What are Ji-li’s
thoughts about the
search as she cleans
up her home? (pg
138-139).
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Circle One:
Question
Comment
Predict
Name: _______________________________________ Date: ______________________________ Per: ______
Reading Notes
Chapter: 9, Fate, pages 140-155
Topic/Question
Chapter Summary
Question 1:
Describe the methods
used against Teacher
Wei during the
struggle meetings.
(pg. 140-141)
Notes
•The Red Guards criticize and beat An Yi’s mother, Teacher Wei, forcing her
to shout, “I am a reactionary teacher. I am a reactionary monster.” Later on,
she is forced to climb a hot chimney.
•Ji Li sees her Aunt Xi-wen fall on the ground while sweeping. Then her own
son walks on by her without caring because she is considered a rightist.
•Ji-li and An Yi come across Du Hai’s mother being humiliated by an angry
group.
•Ji-li’s younger sister comes home from school and tells about the boys who
are bullying her for being a “black whelp.” Ji-li’s brother’s friends’ fathers
have been arrested. One dies and one is humiliated.
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Question 2:
When Aunt Xi-wen
falls, why doesn’t
Shan-shan or Ji-li
rush to help her? (pg.
142-143)
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Circle One:
Question
Comment
Predict
Name: _______________________________________ Date: ______________________________ Per: ______
Reading Notes
Chapter: 10, Junior High School at Last, pages 156-172
Topic/Question
Chapter Summary
Question 1:
Why is Ji-li
disappointed and
bored with Junior
High School? (pg.
160-164)
Notes
•Ji Li finally starts Junior High School. She is happy to find out that none of her
old classmates are in her class.
•She begins to succeed in school again and is able to rise to the top of her class
because no one knows what her class status was.
• Ji Li gets paranoid and starts to make up stories that make it look like she is
working class and not a landlord's granddaughter.
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Question 2:
Why is Dad in
“political study”
class? (pg 166)
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Circle One:
Question
Comment
Predict
Name: _______________________________________ Date: ______________________________ Per: ______
Reading Notes
Chapter: 11, Locked Up, pages 173-190
Topic/Question
Chapter Summary
Notes
•Ji Li's father's friend from the theater got beaten up because he did not confess to
listening to foreign radio even though he actually hadn't.
•Then Ji-li’s father is locked up on the same charges. Ji-Li's family is extremely
worried about their father but no one knows anything about him and they haven't
heard from him.
•Finally they send Ji-Li to the place that her father is held at. When she gets there
she is allowed to see her father but he can't see her. The foreman of the place tries
to get Ji-Li to testify against her father.
_______________________________________________________
Question 1:
What is the Red
Guards’ policy of
psychological
pressure? (pg 175177)
_______________________________________________________
Question 2:
Why are Ji-li and
Chang Hong jealous
of each other? (166167)
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Circle One:
Question
Comment
Predict
Name: _______________________________________ Date: ______________________________ Per: ______
Reading Notes
Chapter: 12, An Educable Child, pages 191-205
Topic/Question
Chapter Summary
Notes
• Ji-li stays home from school for a long time to take care of her Grandmother and
her mother.
•Ji-li is summoned to a meeting and finds out that her classmates don't really hate
her, even though her father was detained by the revolutionaries.
•Ji-li is picked to be a presenter in an exhibition about communism. She accepts
and spends a long time working on the project with her classmates.
_______________________________________________________
Question 1:
What is the purpose
of the Class
Education
Exhibition? (pg 195)
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Question 2:
What does Teacher
Zhang tell Ji-li
regarding her class
status and her future
in the Communist
party? (pg 195-199)
Circle One:
Question
Comment
Predict
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Name: _______________________________________ Date: ______________________________ Per: ______
Reading Notes
Chapter: 13, Half-City Jiangs, pages 206-217
Topic/Question
Chapter Summary
Question 1:
Why does Ji-li go to
the police station?
(pg 212-213)
Notes
•Ji-li’s father comes home, but he is with two red guards and he has to go back to
jail; he was only allowed to come and get some clothes.
•The newspaper says that Ji-li’s relatives are still landlords and that their
nickname was “Half City Jiangs.” This was because they were rumored to own
half the city.
•Ji Li struggles with trying to change her family name but luckily she is not
completely brainwashed and sees how important her family really is.
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Question 2:
Why does Ji-li decide
not to change her
name? (pg 215)
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Circle One:
Question
Comment
Predict
Name: _______________________________________ Date: ______________________________ Per: ______
Reading Notes
Chapter: 14, The Class Education Exhibition, pages 218-229
Topic/Question
Chapter Summary
Notes
•Ji-li gives her presentation at the exhibition. She does a very good job and
moves a lot of people with her speech.
• Thin Face, the foreman at her fathers job, comes to see Ji-li. He wants her to
testify against her father in a court hearing. He tells her if she does not she will
be disgraced and she will be taken off the committee. Even with the threats, she
still holds strong and does not betray her father.
_______________________________________________________
Question 1:
What is the subject of
Ji-li’s presentation?
How do people react?
(pg 216-217)
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Question 2:
Why is Ji-li replaced
at the exhibition? (pg
228-229)
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Circle One:
Question
Comment
Predict
Name: _______________________________________ Date: ______________________________ Per: ______
Reading Notes
Chapter: 15, The Rice Harvest, pages 230-243
Topic/Question
Chapter Summary
Notes
•Ji Li goes to a farm and has to harvest five rows of corn each day. This is very
hard and she is out almost all night harvesting corn.
•One day she cuts herself in a work accident, but she is determined to improve her
class status. She keeps working until Bai Shan comes to help her even though she
wants to do it by herself.
•Ji-li loses consciousness and passes out from working. After that, she has to go
back to Shanghai to go to a meeting that will try to get her to testify against her
dad again.
_______________________________________________________
Question 1:
How does Chang
Hong convince Ji-li to
leave Shanghai to
work in the
countryside? (pg
230-234)
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Question 2:
What is working in
the rice fields like?
(pg 239-241)
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Circle One:
Question
Comment
Predict
Name: _______________________________________ Date: ______________________________ Per: ______
Reading Notes
Chapter: 16, The Incriminating Letter pages 244-259
Topic/Question
Chapter Summary
Question 1:
What is the secret
letter about?
Describe it. (pg 245246)
Notes
•Ji-li returns home. One of her father's colleagues came to talk to Ji-li's mom
about an important government letter. The letter asks the communist
government to take over control of the oppressors in their father’s company.
• The next day Red Guards come to search the house. Ji-li hides the letter in
the cat box.
•The red guards make grandma kneel in front of the wall and say she cannot
get up until some one confesses.
•Finally, the cat goes to the bathroom and turns up the letter getting the
whole family in trouble. Their Grandma has to register as a proprietor's
wife and has to sweep the street every day.
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Question 2:
Describe Thin Face’s
actions during the
search. Do you think
the Cultural
Revolution has gone
too far? (pg 251-256)
Circle One:
Question
Comment
Predict
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Name: _______________________________________ Date: ______________________________ Per: ______
Reading Notes
Chapter: 17, Sweeping, and Epilogue pages 260-272
Topic/Question
Chapter Summary
Notes
•Ji-li leaves school to work with her family.
•Ji-li’s mother and grandmother are extremely worried that they are going to be
detained like their father. Therefore, Ji Li says that she promises to take care of
her sister and her brother if their parents ever are detained
• Epilogue: After Chairman Mao's death, people realized that he had really taken
advantage of their trust and loyalty. Ji-li and her family moved to the United
States thirty years later.
_______________________________________________________
Question 1:
How does Ji-li resolve
the conflict between
her duties to her
family and to
Chairman Mao? (pg
262-263)
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Question 2:
Why did Ji-li start the
East West Exchange?
Does this book help
her mission? (pg 271272)
Circle One:
Question
Comment
Predict
_______________________________________________________
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_______________________________________________________
Name: _______________________________________ Date: ______________________________ Per: ______