Grade 7

Reading Questions for The Giver by Lois Lowry 

After reading The Giver, please write with complete sentences to provide your thoughtful responses to the following questions. You may handwrite your responses in blue or black ink pen or type your responses.
1. What are two or three traditions the members of the community follow? Why has your community chosen to have each tradition you discuss?
2. Explain what happens during a naming ceremony and during a year 12 ceremony.
3. What assignment does Jonas receive at his year 12 ceremony?
4. How does Jonas feel about the rules he receives with his new assignment? How do these rules create the potential for change in Jonas’ life?
5. What are the responsibilities of “The Giver” and “The Receiver?”
6. Explain what happens when someone is “released.” How does Jonas feel about what happens when someone is “released?”

7. Write a brief description of what happens in the last part of the novel, from Jonas making his plans with The Giver to the end of the novel.
8. Briefly list two or three ways in which Jonas changes from how he acts and what he believes at the beginning of the novel to how he acts and what he believes by the end of the novel
9. Explain whether or not you think the community will change now that Jonas has left it and provide at least two reasons to support your ideas.

Red Scarf Girl is a historical fiction novel about Ji-li Jiang’s life during the Cultural Revolution in China.  It analyzes how the Cultural Revolution changed her country, her community, her family relationships, and how it changed her as an individual.  When we get to school in the fall, we’ll discuss further the elements of tradition and change seen in Red Scarf Girl.  Please use these questions as a way of reflecting on your reading and to help prepare you for our discussions once school begins.  Please answer the following questions in complete sentences and typed, if possible.
*** help with italicized words can be found in the last few pages of Red Scarf Girl.
Good luck!

Introduction Questions:
1.  In which country does Ji-Li live?
2.  In what year does the Cultural Revolution begin?
3.  During the Cultural Revolution, which political party was ruling China?  What was the name of their leader?

Liberation Army Dancer:
4.  The red scarves Ji-Li and others wore meant she belonged to which group?
5.  What was Ji-Li selected to do?  How did her parents react to her selection?
6.  What did Ji-Li’s parents do for a living?
7.  Describe the role of Song Po-Po within the Jiang family.

Destroy the Four Olds:
8.  Identify the four “Four Olds.”
9.  What event happened at the Great Prosperity Market?  Why did it happen?
10.  What did people believe the “Four Olds” were doing to their country?
11.  After reading the following quote, determine what it illustrates about the difficulties of destroying the “Four Olds”.
“Now our chance had come.  Destroying the fourolds was a new battle, and an important one: It would keep China from losing her Communist ideals.  Though we were not facing real guns or real tanks, this battle would be even harder, because our enemies, the rotten ideas and customs we were so used to, were inside ourselves.” (Jiang, pg. 28)
12.  For what reason did the crowd attack the man on the street?  Why was his appearance seen as “inappropriate?”
13.  Name three other examples of “Four Olds” seen by Ji-Li.

Writing Da-Zi-Bao:
14.  After reading the following quote, explain what the intended purpose was for this da-zi-bao.
“‘Although teachers do not hold bombs or knives, they are still dangerous enemies.  They fill us with insidious revisionist ideas.  They teach us that scholars are superior to workers.  They promote personal ambition by encouraging competition for the highest grades.  All these things are intended to change good young socialists into corrupt revisionists.  they are invisible knives that are even more dangerous than real knives or guns…'” (Jiang, pg. 40-41)
15.  What event first forced Ji-Li to choose between her family relationships and her political ideologies?

The Red Successors:
16.  Explain the reason why Ji-Li’s father’s class status of “landlord” prevented her from being selected as a member of the Red Successors.
17.  Why was Ji-Li criticized for calling her friend by the name of “Pauper”?
18.  Identify five other reasons the Red Successors gave Ji-Li for needing to remold her ideology?

The Sound of Drums and Gongs:
19.  Explain what was happening when you heard drums and gongs.
20.  Why did Ji-Li’s dad decide to paint her Grandma’s trunks?

The Propaganda Wall:
21.  How was the propaganda wall used to spread the changes taking place throughout the Cultural Revolution?
22.  Why were An Yi and her mother, Teacher Wei, criticized for mourning the death of An Yi’s grandmother?

A Search in Passing:
23.  Why did the Jiang family burn their family pictures?
24.  What was Ji-Li’s reaction to her home being searched?

Fate:
25.  Why did Ji-Li’s sister get called a “black whelp”?
26.  Explain Ji-Li’s attitude toward her grandfather and her fate?

Junior High School at Last:
27.  In your opinion, what was significant about the words and phrases Ji-Li and her classmates were learning first in their new English class?

Locked Up:
28.  How would the Communist government encourage people to confess to the political accusations against them?
29.  What were the reasons given for Ji-Li’s father being detained?
30.  After reading the following quote, determine where Ji-Li was when she was told these words.
“‘You are different from your parents.  You were born and raised in New China.  You are a child of Chairman Mao.  You can choose your own destiny: You can make a clean break with your parents and follow Chairman Mao, and have a bright future; or you can follow your parents, and then…you will not come to a good end.'” (Jiang, pg. 190)

An Educable Child:
31.  After reading the following quote, determine what Teacher Zhang meant when he spoke to Ji-Li after the meeting about the Class Education Exhibition?
“‘We cannot choose our families or our class status… No, you are not a leader, but you are still an ‘educable child.’  You can overcome your family background.'”  (Jiang, pg. 198)
32.  What was the point of having the Class Education Exhibition?

Half-City Jiangs:
33.  Why was Ji-Li’s father cleared of his charges?
34.  Explain why the Jiang family received the nickname “Half-City”?
35.  How did Ji-Li’s opinion of her family change after they published the “Half-City Jiang” newspaper article?
36.  What was Ji-Li thinking about doing when she was told the following:
“‘Chairman Mao says you can’t choose your class status but you can choose your future.  You couldn’t choose the family you were born into, but now that you’ve grown up, it’s time for you to choose your future.  You can tell your parents you’ll follow Chairman Mao, not them…'”  (Jiang, pg. 215)

The Class Education Exhibition:
37.  What was ironic about the presentation Ji-Li gave at the exhibition?
38.  At the meeting with Thin-Face and Teacher Zhang, what was Ji-Li asked to do to prove her commitment to the revolution?
39.  How did Ji-Li’s family status affect her position with the exhibition?

Rice Harvest:
40.  Why did Chang Hong say working in the countryside would help Ji-Li politically?
41.  Why did Ji-Li have to leave the rice harvest early?

The Incriminating Letter and Sweeping:
42.  What was the letter about that Ji-Li was entrusted to hide?
43.  How did Ji-Li’s attitude towards her family change after the letter incident and when she saw her grandmother forced to sweep the alley?

Epilogue:
44.  After Chairman Mao’s death in 1976, how did the view of the Cultural Revolution change?
45.  What did Ji-Li find so surprising about life in America?

Preparation for the beginning of the year:
This year we’ll be focusing on tradition and change.  We’ll look at traditions within societies and how/ why those traditions change.  Your task this summer was to read Red Scarf Girl and to start looking at elements of tradition and change that can be seen in the book.  The following questions are intended to help you prepare further for our discussions in the fall.  These questions do not have to be answered now, but you will be addressing these questions as we start the new year.  Please read them over to get a better idea of how Red Scarf Girl will fit into the “bigger picture” of our curriculum.

*How do you think the Cultural Revolution changed China?
*What was the intended purpose of the Cultural Revolution?
*Which cultural elements did the changes of the revolution impact?
*Were the changes of the Cultural Revolution positive or negative?  Why?
*What were some examples of change in Ji-Li’s life that were illustrated in the book?

*Is political change the only type of change that can affect a society?  Which others?
*Are there ways of preventing change?  What might be some consequences?
*Why would someone want to keep tradition alive?
*How does tradition impact your identity?