Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build students’ literary analysis skills by requiring textual references.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, helpful strategies include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the bulleted outlines below. Cite details from the text to support your work.

1. Names are a recurring motif in the novel.

• What theme does this motif reinforce? (topic sentence)
• What does Toswiah’s name mean to her? Why does Cameron choose the name “Anna” for herself? What does the other Toswiah being different from Evie signify, and how does their dynamic change over the course of the novel?
• In your conclusion, discuss Toswiah’s change of heart about her new name, and what this means for her sense of identity.

2. On the night the Greens’ house is shot at, Toswiah finds Jonathan looking at a photograph of himself with the other members of his precinct.

• What is the significance of this photograph? (topic sentence)
• Why is Jonathan’s statement about not feeling safe anymore important? What does Toswiah notice about the photograph, upon closer inspection? How does the photograph point to the theme of the pervasiveness of racial biases?
• In your conclusion, discuss how Toswiah’s reexamination of the photograph mirrors the change in her family’s status from a police family to a Black family.