This Pass or Prepared? is based on Paul Beatty'sWhite Boy Shuffle. We suggest that for this exercise you read the following materials online: Reading Along with jeanne and Vocabulary as Status: The Red Badge of Courage
With Examples Drawn from Beatty's White Boy Shuffle

1. What do you think Gunnar means on p.34 when he refers to "trying our hardest not to stay inside the lines?"

   One Plausible Answer

   Recall that Gunnar tells you in the prologue that he is brilliant, a poet, with both an understanding of the academic's world and an understanding of the streets. I think that the line "trying our hardest not to stay inside the lines" refers to both his creative needs and the frustration of rebellion. In teaching art, one of the most difficult things to teach is how you manage to tap your creativity. Many famous artists are fascinated with the art work of children for they have not yet learned to be rigid and to shy away from their inner feelings.

   Gunnar may also be expressing his frustration with those who "made the rules" without including him and his people.

2. Who is the "scruffy Bukowski barfly sitting in the lotus position along the bike trails"? What period in U.S. History does this take us back to?

   One Plausible Answer Bukowski was a product of the Sixties and the generation of "beatniks." He always called it as he saw it, hung out in local bars, and stuck to the language of his

3. How would a sociologist explain the difficulty Gunnar has with looking people in the eye in Hillside?

   Deference behavior. Reference to the south, and to appropriate deference.

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