75 pages • 2 hours read
Sing, Unburied, Sing
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During Reading
Reading Questions & Paired Texts
Reading Check and Short Answer questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.
CHAPTERS 1-4
Reading Check
1. How old is Jojo turning in Chapter 1?
2. What is the name of the bar where Leonie works?
3. What does Jojo find hidden in his clothing?
4. What event caused Michael to lose his job, resulting in a life of cooking and selling meth?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What is Jojo’s mother’s name, and why does he decide to start calling her by her first name?
2. Who does Leonie begin to see in her present-day life, and what is unsettling about these visions?
3. Why was Given killed, and how did the authorities respond to his death?
4. Why does Leonie insist that Michael tells the violent details of life in prison, and what is Michael’s response?
Paired Resource
“Inside Mississippi’s Notorious Parchman Prison”
- This webpage from PBS Newshour describes Parchman Prison (the Mississippi State Penitentiary) and explores the way its legacy influenced Mississippi’s identity and culture.
- This resource connects to the theme of The Violent Legacies of Racism and Poverty.
- What is the history of Parchman Prison, and how does an understanding of this history help provide context for the characters’ experiences in Sing, Unburied, Sing, specifically Pop and Richie?
CHAPTERS 5-8
Reading Check
1. What did Jojo name the betta fish that Leonie got him?
2. Who does Richie recognize when his ghost appears beside the car?
3. What does Leonie do to hide the drugs when they are pulled over by the police?
4. What does Michael ask Jojo to buy from the store to help Leonie?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What are Jojo’s thoughts about the blackberry plants that Leonie has gathered for Kayla and why does he think this?
2. What does the scaled bird offer Richie, and what does this object allow Richie to do?
3. What does Leonie say to insult Jojo after bathing Kayla, and why does she lash out at him?
Paired Resource
“Jesmyn Ward: MacArthur Fellows Program”
- This is the link to Ward’s page for the MacArthur Fellows Program and includes a helpful 3-minute video of her own words.
- This resource connects to the theme of The Spiritual Unity of All Things and Caretaking and Selfless Love.
- How does Sing, Unburied, Sing contain aspects of much of Ward’s work, specifically those concerning community, possibility, and lost potential?
CHAPTERS 9-12
Reading Check
1. What is the nickname of the prostitute who visits Parchman and tells Pop and Richie about a lynching?
2. Where does Leonie want to go with Michael, Jojo, and Kayla instead of back to her parents’ house?
3. What does Mam ask Leonie for help preparing for?
4. Who can Mam hear at the end of Chapter 11?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What is the main difference between Jojo and Richie, as described by Richie at the beginning of Chapter 9, and why does this difference exist?
2. Why does Leonie slap Kayla’s leg after Kayla kicks her seat in the car, and what does this reaction show about Leonie?
3. What animal does Jojo feel like when he sees Pop, and what does he hear these animals saying to him?
4. Who does Richie follow away from the house and where does this person go?
Paired Resource
“For Jesmyn Ward, Writing Means Telling ‘The Truth About The Place That I Live In’”
- This resource is a recording (and transcript) of Jesmyn Ward’s 2017 appearance on NPR’s Fresh Air to discuss Sing, Unburied, Sing in the wake of its publishing. It is a 19-minute story, but can easily be cut into smaller segments. In the middle of the story, Ward discusses the role that Parchman Prison had on her own awareness of home and place when she was growing up in Mississippi.
- This resource connects to the theme of The Violent Legacies of Racism and Poverty.
- What is significant about Ward’s own connection to the place that inspired the setting of many of her stories, including Sing, Unburied, Sing?
CHAPTERS 13-15
Reading Check
1. What is the name of the prisoner who took Richie with him when he escaped?
2. Who accompanies Mam to her death?
3. What does Michael tell Leonie they cannot do after Mam’s death?
4. Who is singing in the final scene?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What does Jojo ask Pop at the beginning of Chapter 13, and why does Jojo ask him this question?
2. What was Pop afraid would happen to Richie and why does he have this fear?
3. What are the first words that Given-not-Given says in the novel, and to whom does he direct these words?
Paired Resource
“Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans”
- This resource describes the life of Marie Laveau and how she came to be known as the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. It explains the history and origins of New Orleans Voodoo.
- This resource connects to the theme of The Spiritual Unity of All Things.
- What role does spirituality, specifically elements of Voodoo, play in the novel? How does a better understanding of the history and origins of Voodoo help contextualize the significance of things like the gris-gris bag and the altar and litany that helps guide Mam to her death?
Recommended Next Reads
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
- The Nickel Boys is a novel based on the true story of the Dozier School. Set during the Civil Rights Movement, it follows the experiences of a young Black teenager named Elwood who is sent to this violent and abusive reform school.
- This novel connects to the theme of The Violent Legacies of Racism and Poverty.
- Shared topics include emancipation versus incarceration, racism, bonds between friends/family, and the legacy of slavery.
- The Nickel Boys on SuperSummary
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. The novel explores how the trauma of slavery impacts identity and relationships and considers the connection between memory and healing.
- Shared themes include The Spiritual Unity of All Things, The Violent Legacies of Racism and Poverty, and Caretaking and Selfless Love.
- Shared topics include intergenerational trauma, inheritance and legacy, familial relationships, and the past’s appearance in the present.
- Beloved on SuperSummary
Reading Questions Answer Key
CHAPTERS 1-4
Reading Check
1. 13 (Chapter 1)
2. The Cold Drink (Chapter 2)
3. A gris-gris bag (Chapter 3)
4. He loses his job after the Deepwater Horizon disaster. (Chapter 4)
Short Answer
1. Jojo’s mom’s name is Leonie. Jojo started calling her by her first name after she left him home alone once and he realized that he does see her as a mother. (Chapter 1)
2. She begins to see her dead brother, Given. This is unsettling because he was killed years before and because Leonie wonders if she, too, has some other-worldly gift like her mother and Marie-Therese. (Chapter 2)
3. Michael’s cousin murdered Given after Given won a bet in which could shoot a buck with his bow before the cousin could do the same with a gun. Michael’s father, who was also the sheriff, ruled it a hunting accident. (Chapter 2)
4. Leonie tells Michael that she wants to know the details; otherwise, she imagines the worst. In response, Michael begins to provide details of the reality of Parchman in his letters to Leonie. (Chapter 4)
CHAPTERS 5-8
Reading Check
1. Bubby Bubbles (Chapter 5)
2. He recognizes Jojo as “River’s boy.” (Chapter 6)
3. She swallows the bag whole. (Chapter 7)
4. Milk and charcoal (Chapter 8)
Short Answer
1. Jojo doesn’t want Leonie to give them to Kayla because he doesn’t think she knows what she is doing. He reflects that Leonie is neither Pop nor Mam, and she has never “healed nothing or grown nothing in her life.” (Chapter 5)
2. The scaled bird offers Richie one of its scales, and it allows Richie to fly alongside it. (Chapter 6)
3. Leonie comments on Jojo’s belly rolls, and she lashes out at him because she knows she can’t take her anger out on Kayla so she deflects it to Jojo. (Chapter 7)
CHAPTERS 9-12
Reading Check
1. Sunshine Woman (Chapter 9)
2. An apartment of their own (Chapter 10)
3. Death (Chapter 10)
4. Richie (Chapter 11)
Short Answer
1. Jojo is much more innocent than Richie was at the same age, and this is because Richie had already been imprisoned at Parchman. (Chapter 9)
2. Leonie slaps Kayla’s leg out of grief rather than annoyance with the actual kicking. She thinks, “That girl: so lucky. She has all her brothers.” This shows that Leonie is still grieving the death of Given. (Chapter 10)
3. Jojo feels like a rabbit and their patterns of running and halting suddenly. Jojo hears the rabbits saying, “Yes, I see you.” (Chapter 11)
4. Richie follows Leonie as she leaves Michael and walks down the road. Leonie is going to Given’s grave. (Chapter 12)
CHAPTERS 13-15
Reading Check
Short Answer
1. Jojo asks Pop to finish telling him the story of Richie, and he does so because Richie asks him to. (Chapter 13)
2. Pop is afraid that Richie would be lynched because of what Blue did, and Pop is afraid of this because he knows a White mob will attack any Black man they find, regardless of the fact that Richie is a young boy. (Chapter 13)
3. Given says, “Not. Your. Mother.” He is speaking to Richie, who wants Mam to enter her death with him. (Chapter 14)
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