In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens

Reading Check and Short Answer Questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.

PART 1

Reading Check

1. Which author does Walker refer to most when she discusses her own model in “Saving the Life that is Your Own”?

2. What staple food item is Walker’s mother in need of in “The Black Writer and the Southern Experience”?

3. At what university does Walker give the commencement address in “A Talk: Convocation 1972”?

4. What is the title of Jean Toomer’s most well-known work?

5. What central term to Walker’s writing does she introduce in her essay “Gifts of Power: The Writings of Rebecca Jackson”?

6. What are the names of the Black women whom Walker refers to as an “unholy trinity” in “Zora Neale Hurston: A Cautionary Tale and a Partisan View”?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. In “The Black Writer and the Southern Experience,” which author does Walker compare William Faulkner to and what is the major contrast between them?

2. How is the essay “But Yet and Still the Cotton Gin Kept on Working…” structured, and how does this structure support Walker’s message?

3. What is significant about the construction of Flannery O’Connor’s grandfather’s house, and how does Walker reflect on this detail?

4. What is the name of the novel Walker references in “A Writer Because of, Not in Spite of, Her Children,” and what is Walker’s evaluation of the novel?

5. Where does Walker travel in “Looking for Zora,” and why?

Paired Resource

“She Unnames Them”

• This essay by Ursula K. Le Guin imagines a sequel to the biblical Genesis story in which Eve unnames the creatures of the world and explores the power of language, naming, and self-determination.
• This essay connects to the theme of The Role of Mothers and Daughters.
• How is the outcome of the story of Genesis reimagined in Le Guin’s essay? In what ways does this essay, like Walker’s essays, explore the relationship between mothers and daughters?

PART 2

Reading Check

1. What other 1960s movement does Walker reflect on in her essay “The Civil Rights Movement: What Good Was It”?

2. Where did Walker deliver the speech “Choice: A Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”?

3. Where in Europe was Walker heading to when she first met Coretta Scott King?

4. How old was Walker when she attended the March on Washington?

5. What is Walker’s personal history with Taylor Reese, as mentioned in “Lulls”?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. How does Walker remember her time in college, and what did she realize once she left?

2. What is Walker’s general opinion of the novel The Almost Year, and what is her main critique of the novel’s message?

3. Which poet is the focal point of Walker’s essay “Good Morning, Revolution: Uncollected Writings of Social Protest,” and what part of this poet’s legacy does Walker explore?

4. What country does Walker visit in “My Father’s Country is the Poor,” and why did she travel there?

Paired Resource

“A Litany for Survival”

• This poem by Audre Lorde was first published in 1978 and explores the power of speaking out even in seemingly powerless situations.
• This poem connects to the theme of How to be a Politically Engaged Artist.
• What is Lorde saying about the power of using one’s voice? How does this poem intersect with Walker’s message about art as both a personal and political endeavor?

PART 3

Reading Check

1. Which poetic foremother does Walker use as an example to “provide a backdrop for our mothers’ work” in “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens”?

2. What book of poetry did Walker write during the week after her abortion?

3. What is the nickname of Walker’s childhood friend Cassie Mae Terrell?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What two Black authors does Walker compare to each other in “From an Interview,” and why does she see them as similar?

2. How is Walker forced to confront colorism within her own life, and what does she understand about the nuances of this tension? 

3. What ultimately happened to the memo that Walker sent to the editors at the Black Scholar, and why?

4. To what does Walker attribute her ability to understand her father in “Brothers and Sisters,” and why does she come to this conclusion?

Paired Resource

“the lost baby poem”

• This poem by Lucille Clifton explores a pregnancy loss and the impact it has on the speaker’s relationship to this baby as well as her other children and her community.
• This poem connects to the theme of The Role of Mothers and Daughters.
• How does Clifton’s poem speak to intergenerational connectedness as well as the particular grief concerning the loss of a child? How does it connect to some of Walker’s essays around parenthood, inherited trauma, and personal relationships, specifically in Part 3?

PART 4

Reading Check

1. Why does Walker dislike the term “Civil Rights”?

2. Who wrote the book Nuclear Madness?

3. What is Walker’s daughter’s name?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What were Walker’s worries about her daughter living with her while she wrote The Color Purple, and how were those worries resolved?

2. How does Walker’s family answer her question about if she changed after her eye accident, and what is Walker’s response to their answer?

Paired Resource

“The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House”

• This essay by Audre Lorde explores the shortcomings of white, mainstream feminism and explains the necessity of a diverse, intersectional coalition of women to not just remodel patriarchal institutions but completely dismantle and reimagine them.
• This essay connects to the themes of Womanism Versus Feminism and How to be a Politically Engaged Artist.
• How does Lorde reimagine feminism and what it means to build a more equitable and just world? What does it mean when she says the personal is political, and how does this intersect with what Walker explores in her collection of essays?

Recommended Next Reads 

• Beloved by Toni Morrison
• Beloved was published in 1987 and tells the story of Sethe, a runaway enslaved woman who kills her own daughter to prevent her capture and enslavement. Years later, the spirit of that daughter, named Beloved, returns to Sethe and her remaining daughter Denver.
• Shared theme includes The Role of Mothers and Daughters.
• Shared topics include how the trauma of enslavement impacts identity, intergenerational trauma, inheritance and legacy, the personal as political, the connection between memory and healing, and storytelling as a vehicle for asserting the validity and sacredness of one’s existence.
• Beloved on SuperSummary

Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde

• Sister Outsider is a collection of essays and speeches published in 1984. The book gives voice to Lorde’s personal and political philosophies and explores the development of her literary identity as a “Black, lesbian, feminist, socialist, mother, warrior, poet.”
• Shared themes include Womanism Versus Feminism and How to be a Politically Engaged Artist.
• Shared topics include the necessity of building a community of women, intersectionality, activism and social progress, and self-love and acceptance.
• Sister Outsider on SuperSummary