Critical Reading
This type of question asks what a passage is mostly about.
What is the main idea?
The Jazz Age was during this decade.
What are the 1920s?
She is the most famous pilot in the race.
Who is Amelia Earhart?
The book centers on women breaking these.
What are gender barriers?
Author of Up from Slavery.
Who is Booker T. Washington?
Poet of all four poems in the guide.
Who is Langston Hughes?
Questions that focus on how an author writes target this reading skill.
What is analysis?
Millions of African Americans moved North in this demographic shift.
What is the Great Migration?
This pilot rebuilt a car engine at age eleven.
Who is Marvel Crosson?
The main event of the book.
What is the Women’s Air Derby?
He wrote a student memory about Booker T. Washington.
Who is William Holtzclaw?
In “Mother to Son,” life is compared to this.
What is a staircase?
A passage arranged from least to most important uses this structure.
What is order of importance?
This innovation made cars cheaper and more available.
What is Henry Ford’s assembly line?
He organized the first Women’s Air Derby.
Who is Cliff Henderson?
The pilots represent this broader 1920s social change.
What is the New Woman movement?
Isabel Wilkerson’s TED Talk focuses on this major movement.
What is the Great Migration?
“I, Too” ends with this declaration.
What is “I, too, am America”?
A question about a writer’s attitude is asking about this.
What is tone?
This movement in a New York neighborhood brought major artistic growth.
What is the Harlem Renaissance?
Her brother, Joe, was also a pilot.
Who is Marvel Crosson?
This tragic event becomes a turning point in the story.
Who is Marvel Crosson’s crash?
Washington walked hundreds of miles to attend this school.
What is Hampton Institute?
“The Weary Blues” imitates the sound of this musical style.
What is blues/jazz?
Figurative statements meaning the opposite of what is said are examples of this.
What is diction?
A musical feature of jazz where rhythms fall “off-beat.”
What is syncopation?
She flew alcohol illegally before joining the race.
Who is Pancho Barnes?
The women’s courage and innovation reflect this idea.
What is the pioneering spirit?
Wilkerson compares migration to this powerful concept.
What is a life-changing decision?
Hughes uses this technique to mimic musical rhythm.
What is syncopation or musical rhythm?
This term refers to an author’s specific vocabulary and word choice.
What is diction?
This delayed-payment method helped trigger economic problems.
What is buying on credit?
This pilot became known as “The Flying Housewife.”
Who is Louise Thaden?
(Accept also: Gladys O’Donnell)
The media calling the pilots “girls” and “housewives” demonstrates this challenge.
What is sexism/gender bias?
Holtzclaw describes Washington as dedicated to this institution.
What is Tuskegee Institute?
In “Homesick Blues,” the speaker longs for this region.
What is the South?