My Dungeon Shook: A Letter by James Baldwin

Which rhetorical strategy does Baldwin use to make a statement that seems contradictory but really points to an important truth, and help readers to think more deeply about familiar ideas?

"It is the innocence which constitutes the crime".

• Oxymoron

• Repetition

• Parallelism

• Paradox

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CCSS.RL.8.3

CCSS.RL.2.6

Baldwin is using which writing strategy with this line?

"You must accept them and accept them with love. . . ."

• Personification

• Hyperbole

• Paradox

• Repetition

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CCSS.RL.8.3

CCSS.RL.2.6

What is the best definition for the underlined word?

"Like him, you are tough, dark, vulnerable, moody—with a very definite tendency to sound truculent because you want no one to think you are soft".

• soft, mild, meek

• loud, boisterous, animated

• short, to-the-point, succinct

• eager for a fight; fierce

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CCSS.RL.11-12.4

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Consider the paradox in lines 36–37. What point is Baldwin making?

"It is the innocence which constitutes the crime"

• He's saying that when you are innocent you can't actually commit a crime or wrongdoing

• He is saying that the innocent ones are often also the ones committing reprehensible crimes

• He's saying that if you are racist you were not actually innocent.

• He is saying that it is unfair that the people (whites) who are doing the destroying are ignorant and unaware of the consequences of racism, their crime

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CCSS.RI. 9-10.2

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By referencing

1. described . . . by Charles Dickens: a British novelist whose works frequently described the hardships suffered by the poor in London.

2. E. Franklin Frazier: African-American sociologist (1894–1962) who studied the structure of black communities.

and 3. "the country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom one hundred years too soon." (The Emancipation Proclamation In 1863, Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freed all slaves in the Confederate States

What strategy has he implemented?

• Logos

• Allusion

• Pathos

• Connotation

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CCSS.RI.9-10.5

CCSS.RI.11-12.5

Reread lines 60–74. What is Baldwin’s main point?

Let me spell out precisely what I mean by that, for the heart of the matter is here...

• He should take the path that society has deemed acceptable and righteous

• Baldwin's nephew should make the same decisions that his elders and peers made because it ended up okay for them in the long-run

• Society tells African Americans the path they must take. However, Baldwin indicates that his nephew must know his own personal history and make his way based on this.

• His point is that this country is unfair to blacks and therefore his nephew should know how to fight back

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Which statement utilizes parallel structure?

• “It will be hard, James, but you come from sturdy peasant stock, men who picked cotton and dammed rivers and built railroads, and, in the teeth of the most terrifying odds, achieved an unassailable and monumental dignity.”

• "They have had to believe for many years, and for innumerable reasons, that black men are inferior to white men. Many of them, indeed, know better, but, as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know."

• "You come from a long line of great poets, some of the greatest poets since Homer. One of them said, The very time I thought I was lost, My dungeon shook and my chains fell off."

• "To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger. In this case, the danger, in the minds of most white Americans, is the loss of their identity"

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CCSS.RL.8.3

CCSS.RL.2.6

In Baldwin’s view, why was the boy’s grandfather defeated?

• He fought back with physical violence rather than tolerance

• He didn't listen to his son's advice about life

• He internalized racist views of himself

• He never got a real education

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What does Baldwin say acceptance means?

• to love and protect the people who accept the same doctrine you have

• African Americans must accept the limitations of whites’ understanding.

• To accept everyone regardless of their political views

• To accept how things are and be okay with a life of "mediocrity"

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CCSS.RL.8.3

CCSS.RL.2.6

What is the significance of the title?

• It alludes to the Biblical story of Paul and Silas (Acts 16), who were freed from an unjust imprisonment by the action of an earthquake.

• It alludes to the Emancipation Proclamation, 100 years before the letter was written.

• It is also the title of the painting included which suggests the ongoing struggle of African Americans for dignity and human rights.

• It is also the title of another famous piece of writing

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