- Thirty third graders sit in five rows of six students each. Twelve of the students wear dresses, and eighteen of the students wear long pants. Four of the students in row three ride the bus, but all of the others walk and leave school first at the end of the day when a secretary announces “Walkers are dismissed” over the intercom. Two of the students, sitting three rows apart, share a surname, Williams. When a substitute teacher calls Evie Williams, a white girl raises her hand. When the teacher calls George Williams, a black boy raises his hand. Flustered, the teacher asks, “You’re not related, are you?” Relying on all you’ve learned, answer the teacher’s question.
- Add the following fractions: 3/5 + 3/5 + 3/5 + 3/5 + 3/5 + 3/5 ∞
- Arrange the following events in chronological order:
- The first time you heard the N-word.
- The day your mother told you to say, “eenie, meenie, miney, mo, catch a birdie by the toe” because the other way you were saying it wasn’t nice.
- The first time you consulted a usage guide to determine whether “African American” should be hyphenated.
- The morning your family stopped and ate pancakes at Sambo’s restaurant while driving to Florida.
- The first time you said the N-word.
- The day your white neighbor laughed at two black girls who were comparing their tans.
- The first time you wished you could identify as mixed-race so that you could feel exotic.
- The day your best friend told you that Brazil nuts had another nickname.
- The first time you heard the N-word called “the N-word.”
- The first time you wished you could identify as mixed-race so that you could feel relieved.
- List all the ways to be impolite. List three things that are worse than being impolite.
- If four of your cousins are driving a car on the turnpike and the police pull them over, how many cousins do you have left?
- Compare and contrast the following two headlines: “Gunman Robs Clerk at 7-11” and “Black Man Threatens Elderly Woman with Handgun at 7-11.”
- Create a family tree tracing your ancestry as far as you can. Beside each name, write that person’s country of birth. Where were your ancestors during each of the following years: 1619, 1808, 1850, 1857, 1861, 1863, 1865, 1896, 1954, 1963, 1968, 2008?
- Circle the word or phrase that does not belong: strange fruit, oreo, alligator bait, monkey.
- Four colleagues stand in an office. James has four children. The man wearing a white v-neck t-shirt also has four children. Michelle has one daughter. The other woman has no children, but she has applied to adopt a girl. On three of any seven days during early fall, fog stripes the mountains outside. The mountains are beautiful every day, but some mornings even long-term residents nearly gasp and feel tears fill their eyes. One of the women walks to work, appreciating the solitude. One of the men drives a gray pick-up which needs new brakes. Someone asks, “How will you raise a black child when everyone else here is white?” The woman wearing black slacks responds, “The girl I’m adopting is white.” The man who drives the gray pick-up says, “But I thought she was in foster care.” Relying on all you’ve learned, say anything.
Lynn Domina is the author of two collections of poetry, Corporal Works and Framed in Silence, and the editor of a collection of essays, Poets on the Psalms. Her more recent work appear or is forthcoming in Kenyon Review, Saranac Review, the museum of americana, the New England Review, and many other periodicals and anthologies. She is the creative writing editor of The Other Journal and currently lives in Marquette, Michigan, along the beautiful shore of Lake Superior.