The summer reading assignment for Advanced English II will be Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons. During the first week of class, you will be given an essay test over the reading material. If you have not read the book by the scheduled registration day in August, you need to tell the counselor to take you out of Advanced English II. I have included a study guide that will help you organize your thoughts and take notes in order to pass the test.

You are responsible for purchasing, reading and annotating the book. You will also be responsible for taking notes over the novel. I have given you questions for each chapter that will assist you in studying for the test. I have also included examples of test questions. You are not REQUIRED to turn in written answers to these questions. You will be expected to give specific examples on the test to support your answers. Each answer should be developed and well thought out. I would expect approximately a page for each question divided into paragraphs with at least five sentences in each paragraph. The annotations and notes will each be assigned a test grade and will be graded as follows:

A (90-100) – Text has markings and written commentary throughout the entire book, including recognition of significant plot points and examples that support the main idea. Something significant in each chapter is identified. Literary elements such as theme, setting, imagery, figurative language, etc. are highlighted. Questions and comments are written in the margins and at the end of chapters that exhibit thinking beyond the surface level. Notes are 3 pages long and list important events and character analysis. You can also list questions that you might have about the novel or definitions of unfamiliar words in your notes.

B (80-89) – Text has many sections highlighted that have significance to the plot of the novel. There are some comments or questions written in the novel that make an attempt to analyze and/or interpret the text. The notes taken have some connection to the novel and are 3 pages long.

C (70-79) – The text has some sections of the novel highlighted for discussion, but there are no questions or notes written at the end of chapters or in the margins of the text. The notes taken on the novel are vague or have no relevance to the text and are less than 2 pages in length.

D (60-69) – The text has a small amount of highlighted sections and notes are less than a page in length.

F (0-59) – Either text is not annotated, notes are missing, or both.

The test will be given during the first week class to ensure that you have read the book. You need to make sure you bring all of your notes and the book with you on the first day of school. If you fail the test, you will be removed from the class. If you have NOT read the book, change your schedule prior to the first day of class so that your classes are not totally rearranged.

Notes on the author – Kaye Gibbons was born on May 5, 1960 in Nash County, North Carolina into poverty. Like the title character in Ellen Foster, Gibbons’ mother committed suicide when she was ten years old. Her father died three years later and she was passed around through relatives and foster care until finding stability with her older brother.

Gibbons has a degree in American Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While attending college, Gibbons met her mentor, Professor Louis Rubin, who encouraged her to write this novel. She was also diagnosed with manic-depression (bipolar disorder) that has plagued her off and on all her life.

Gibbons has also written A Virtuous Woman, On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon, and Life All Around Me by Ellen Foster which is the sequel to the novel we are reading.

Plot summary – Ellen Foster is a coming-of-age story told from the perspective of the eleven-year-old narrator Ellen. Kaye Gibbons creates a story that reflects some of her own childhood experiences in a way that is not melodramatic, but in fact inspirational in the way Ellen can create happiness from a life that is filled with woe. This novel does more than tell about a girl’s will to survive; it also focuses attention on the role of race in the Southern community. Ellen describes how her understanding of her friendship with Starletta, an African-American girl, grows as Ellen begins to understand the dynamics of love, friendship, and family.

Characters:

Ellen Foster- The novel's eleven-year-old protagonist, she suffers sexual and psychological abuse at the hands of her alcoholic father, and, after her mother commits suicide, is tossed from one unhappy home to another. All the while Ellen remains hopeful that she will someday find a loving home, which she eventually does.

Daddy - The novel's antagonist, he abuses his daughter, Ellen, sexually and psychologically. A severe alcoholic, he holds no job other than selling liquor and eventually drinks himself to death.

Mama - Ellen's mother. She has suffered from poor health since having "romantic [rheumatic] fever" as a child. When she is at last out of the hospital, she is so depressed by her husband's cruelty and her bleak situation that she commits suicide by ingesting a bottle of her prescription medication.

Starletta - Ellen's black best friend. Starletta helps Ellen to see that skin color makes no difference in the quality of a person. She lives with her mother and father in a ramshackle cabin with no indoor toilet and often provides Ellen with refuge from her father. Gradually, she transforms from an unsophisticated child into a mature young woman, and she develops a crush on a white boy from school.

New Mama - Ellen's foster mother. She is everything for which Ellen could have hoped. New Mama is kind, caring, nurturing, always has enough money to pay for groceries, and has plenty of love to give Ellen and the other children she fosters.

Mama's Mama - Ellen's grandmother. She is old and miserly and treats Ellen with the utmost cruelty, as she vehemently hates Ellen's father and seeks vengeance on him through Ellen. After winning custody of Ellen in court, she immediately sends her to work the fields with the black field hands on the farms she owns in the scorching summer heat. At the end of the summer, she dies of illness, even after Ellen has taken extraordinary good care of her.

Mavis- A kind field hand on Ellen's grandmother's farm. Mavis takes Ellen under her wing and teaches her how to row the land and how to stay cool in the unbearable summer heat. She tells Ellen of how she had known her mother as a child and says that Ellen looks very much like her. Mavis has a large, happy family that Ellen admires and wants to emulate.

Nadine- Ellen's aunt on her mother's side. Nadine is false and pretentious and lies to herself that she is wealthy and successful to gain confidence. She is forced to take Ellen for a short period of time, though she eventually kicks her out of the house on Christmas day. She dotes on her daughter Dora and treats Dora like a small child, although she is the same age as Ellen.

Study Guide – these are questions to guide your reading only. They are meant to help with your understanding of important points in the novel. I suggest you read over the questions at the beginning of each chapter.

Chapter 1

1. Who does Ellen consider killing?
2. What method does Ellen consider using to kill someone?
3. Who is the main character in the story?
4. How does Ellen's father die?

5. Who visits Ellen at school after she is a ward of the state?
6. One day Ellen is given an inkblot test. What does Ellen call the inkblots?
7. What type of sickness does Ellen say weakens her mother's heart?
8. Why does Ellen feel that her mother is better off in the hospital than at home?
9. What does Ellen think her father is?
10. What has Ellen's mother's absence forced Ellen to obtain for herself?
11. What writing tense does the author use to tell Ellen's story?
12. Where does Ellen tell her father to sleep when he passes out in the bathroom?

Chapter 2

1. What item spills out of Ellen's mother's purse?
2. What does Ellen's father stroke while he is yelling at Ellen and her mother?
3. In Ellen's new life with her new mama, what runs smoothly?
4. What luxuries does Ellen have in her new life that did not exist in her old life?
5. What does Ellen use reading for?
6. Why does Ellen's mother's heart stop beating?
7. Who does Ellen blame for her mother's death?
8. What does Ellen do when her mother goes to bed?
9. How does Ellen feel about her aunt?
10. What is Ellen's father's name?
11. What make-up item does Ellen contemplate wearing to her mother’s funeral?
12. From what room does Ellen observe her family from?

Chapter 3

1. What is the pony's name that Ellen wants to ride?
2. Whom must Ellen share the pony with?
3. How does Ellen describe her family before the funeral?
4. Ellen's family attends a funeral for what character?
5. What color is the outfit Ellen wears to the funeral?
6. Which character gives Ellen the outfit to wear to the funeral?
7. Who is Dora?
8. What does Ellen contemplate before leaving the bathroom to give everyone something to talk about?
9. What food item does Ellen take with her on her pony ride?
10. What season does the funeral take place in?
11. What occupation does Aunt Nadine have?
12. What bad habit does Dora have?

Chapter 4

1.A drive through what part of town is necessary to reach the place where the funeral is being held?
2.What is Aunt Nadine's response to the drive through there?
3.What object does Ellen spy in one yard that she would like to have?
4.At the grave site, who does Ellen avoid looking at?
5.Who is Ellen's friend that attends the funeral?
6.What does Ellen's friend's family sometimes eat?
7.What happens to Ellen when she eats that same thing?
8.What well-to-do relative of Ellen's attends the funeral?
9.What name does the well-to-do relative call Ellen's father?
10.Before the end of the service, but after the fight with Ellen's father, what does this well-to-do relative do?
11.What is the weather like at the funeral service?
12.What animal does Ellen hope her pony will scare away?

Chapter 5

1. How long is Ellen's father gone the day after the funeral?
2. The day after the funeral, where does Ellen prepare to go?
3. How does Ellen honor her mother?
4. How does Ellen refer to her large head?
5. When Ellen returns to school after the funeral, what does a teacher bluntly ask?
6. How does Ellen respond to the blunt question asked by a teacher?
7. Who does Ellen stop speaking to?
8. Who are Rudolph and Ellis?
9. What does Ellen's father sign over to his relatives?
10. What is left in Ellen's mailbox each month?
11. Who takes Ellen into town for a new coat?
12. What organization does Ellen join to curb her boredom in the winter?

Chapter 6

1. Where does Ellen celebrate her first Christmas after her mother's death?
2. What type of employment does Starletta's parents do?
3. Who is the only member of Starletta's family who can read?
4. Why does Ellen refuse to play with Starletta's toys?
5. What present does Ellen receive from Starletta's family?
6. What present does Ellen give to Starletta's family?
7. What happens to Ellen's mother's clothes?
8. What activity has become an escape for Ellen?
9. How many siblings does Ellen have at her new mother's house?
10. What hygiene task does Ellen let her new mama perform on her?
11. What activity does Ellen's father entertain his guests with on New Year's Eve?
12. What does Bill do to Ellen on New Year's Eve?

Chapter 7

1. How much money does Ellen offer Starletta's family to let her stay with them?
2. In order to stay the night at Starletta's house, what lie does Ellen tell Starletta's parents?
3. Why does Ellen wear her coat to bed?
4. Where does Ellen hide on New Year's Day while she waits for her father and his friends to leave her house?
5. Who does Ellen plan on living with after her stay at Starletta's?
6. How long does Ellen's new roommate let her stay when Ellen runs away from her father's home?
7. What errand does Ellen enjoy partaking in with her new mama?
8. What item does Ellen's new mama never seem to run out of?
9. What on Ellen's arm draws attention from her teachers?
10. How does Ellen explain the item on her arm?
11. Who does Ellen tell the teacher she wants to live with when the teacher asks Ellen to call someone to pick her up?
12. Why doesn't Ellen tell anyone about her problems with her father?

Chapter 8

1. Who agrees to let Ellen live with them temporarily?
2. Who is Julia's husband?
3. In what room does Ellen stay at her first temporary home?
4. Who is Julia?
5. What does Julia encourage Ellen to do?
6. Where are Julia and Roy originally from?
7. What is Julia as a child?
8. What hobby does Ellen remember helping her mother with?
9. What does Ellen almost forget?
10. How many guests does Ellen invite to her birthday party?
11. What is Starletta fascinated with at Ellen's new home?
12. What gift do Julia and Roy give Ellen for her birthday?

Chapter 9

1. Who comes looking for Ellen with money in hand asking her to come back to live with them?
2. Where does someone show up looking for Ellen?
3. What incentive does someone offer Ellen when they show up looking for her?
4. Who shows up and stops the person with the money from harassing Ellen?
5. Who decides that Ellen must move in with a family member?
6. Who is Ellen placed to live with?
7. What is mandatory every Sunday in Ellen's new home?
8. When do Dora and Nadine attend church?
9. Who are Stella, Frances, and Jo Jo?
10. What activity always happens after church?
11. Why doesn't Jo Jo have to participate in the after-church activity?
12. What other activities must Ellen do on Sundays in her new home?