77 pages • 2 hours read
Anger Is a Gift
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
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 1-6
Reading Check
1. Why is Moss and Esperanza’s train from the mall back to West Oakland delayed?
2. What is the name of the handsome paramedic that attends to Moss in Chapter 2?
3. Where does Moss’s mother (Wanda) work?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How does Moss’s friendship group represent a number of marginalized identities and experiences? Name at least two of the friends in your response.
2. In Chapter 6, why does Shamika tell Moss that he should marry Diego “right now”?
3. In Chapters 1-6, what is an example of how violence is normalized for Moss and his friends?
Paired Resource
“How ‘Twilight’ Changed Mark Oshiro’s Life”
- In this brief interview with Den of Geek, Mark Oshiro discusses Anger Is a Gift and how the vampire cult classic franchise Twilight changed his life.
- In Oshiro’s take of Twilight, he mentions how the series Angered him in certain ways.
- Are you at all surprised to learn about Oshiro’s take on Twilight? Why or why not?
CHAPTERS 7-13
Reading Check
1. In Chapter 7, which student is escorted out of English class by Officer Hull to have their locker searched?
2. How does Moss immediately win over Javier’s mother, Eugenia, in Chapter 10?
3. What is the name of Moss’s barber, who is also a family friend?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Why does Moss refuse his mother’s offer to speak with administrators at the school about the incident with Officer Hull and Shawna?
2. In Chapter 9, Moss suddenly feels his anxiety turn into rage, which he views as an “unwanted tourist.” What does he mean by this?
3. Esperanza suggests that if no one shows up to their meeting, they could always just do a petition at a local farmer’s market. How does this suggestion expose Esperanza’s privilege?
Paired Resource
“The High Cost of Random Student Searches”
- The National Education Association explains how random metal detector searches reinforce the school-to-prison pipeline.
- The school-to-prison pipeline, which primarily affects students of color, is the result of Institutional Racism.
- What are the key reasons why the National Education Association sees random student searches as problematic? What solutions do they offer instead?
CHAPTERS 14-20
Reading Check
1. In Chapter 15, Moss has a nightmare about what?
2. Over breakfast in Chapter 18, what do Moss and Javier mutually decide about their sex life?
3. At the end of Chapter 19, who does Wanda say would be proud of Moss for helping organize the protest?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Why is Moss angered by the news reports of the incident with Reg, when he is injured by police after being forced through the metal detectors at school?
2. When Javier asks Esperanza what it’s like having white parents, how does she respond?
3. At the meeting held at Blessed Way Church, what does Reg say in his statement, as read to the crowd by Kaisha?
Paired Resource
“Your Rights When Facing Metal Detectors in Schools”
- The American Civil Liberties Union of New York offers this fact sheet related to student rights when it comes to metal detectors.
- Related to Police Brutality, unnecessary student surveillance is another measure that reinforces the school-to-prison pipeline.
- How do you think the American Civil Liberties Union of New York would advise Moss and Reg?
CHAPTERS 21-29
Reading Check
1. In Chapter 22, what time of day does the protest officially begin?
2. Moss gives Eugenia what item of clothing of Javier’s, which Moss had picked up when Javier was killed?
3. As revealed in Chapter 27, whose parent told the principal about the student protest, naively believing that she was helping?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How do police officers indirectly intimidate students in Chapter 21, as a result of knowing about the protest?
2. What were the events surrounding Javier’s murder?
3. In Chapter 23, Esperanza makes a comparison between Javier and Moss’s father that makes Moss realize her privileged naiveté. What does she say?
Paired Resource
“Minnesota Students Walk out of School to Protest Racial Injustice”
- This NPR piece describes how Minnesota students staged a protest around the wrongful murder of Daunte Wright, who was killed by police during a routine traffic stop.
- The article mentions that Wright’s murder in a case of Police Brutality happened less than a year after the killing of George Floyd.
- What are some of the similarities and differences between this real-life walk out and the walk out from Anger Is a Gift?
CHAPTERS 30-39
Reading Check
1. What does Sophia Morales, the NBC reporter, ask Moss in Chapter 31 that causes him to freeze?
2. What is Carlos doing to honor Javier’s memory?
3. In Chapter 34, Martin reveals that the police are bringing out a crowd control weapon that “makes you feel like you’re on fire.” What is this weapon called?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. As revealed in Chapter 32, why did Wanda stop protesting?
2. In Chapter 37, Moss realizes that there was only one thing that needed to happen to make Esperanza fully believe him about the police’s brutality. What was it?
3. In Chapter 39, how does the mayor’s statement of apology to Moss compare with the chief of police’s statement?
Recommended Next Reads
The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale
- The End of Policing is a best-selling nonfiction title that urgently outlines the numerous problems within the American police system.
- Vitale’s book is considered the definitive account of Police Brutality in the United States.
- At the core of The End of Policing, Vitale describes how racial injustice and policing go hand in hand.
- The End of Policing on SuperSummary
The Sun and the Star: A Nico di Angelo Adventure by Rick Riordan and Mark Oshiro
- Co-written by Mark Oshiro and Rick Riordan, The Sun and the Star is an addition to the Percy Jackson series, featuring two of its most popular characters in the franchise (Nico di Angelo and Will Solace).
- As the son of Hades, demigod Nico di Angelo has a traumatic past, resulting in a range of intense personal emotions, from Anger to fear and everything in between.
- Though set in a more fantastical world than Anger Is a Gift, The Sun and the Star features two teen protagonists who must overcome their troubled histories—including difficult experiences related to their fathers.
- The Sun and the Star on SuperSummary
Reading Questions Answer Key
CHAPTERS 1-6
Reading Check
1. Because of police activity at the West Oakland station (Chapter 1)
2. Diego (Chapter 2)
3. The post office (Chapter 4)
Short Answer
1. Bits is nonbinary, Njemile is a lesbian with two lesbian mothers, and Kaisha is asexual. Reg is biromantic and physically disabled, while Rawiya is a Muslim punk. (Chapter 3)
2. Javier asked for Moss’s number after witnessing his panic attack. Shamika thinks that since Javier is apparently “already cool” with seeing Moss at this low point, then he’s a step above most people. (Chapter 6)
3. The effect of normalized violence can be seen in Moss’s response to the police presence at the station, as well as to the demonstrators themselves. Protests are an ongoing feature of Moss and his friends’ everyday lives; their agency to engage in the “American dream” is affected by a lingering sense of danger all around them, due to their marginalized identities. (Chapters 1-6)
CHAPTERS 7-13
Reading Check
1. Shawna Meyers (Chapter 7)
2. He offers to do the dishes for her (Chapter 10)
3. Martin (Chapter 12)
Short Answer
1. Moss says he has enough to deal with already. Furthermore, Moss believes the school will stop its policy after the incident. (Chapter 8)
2. Moss sees his emotions of anxiety and rage from a removed distance. He recognizes that there may be a need for anxiety/anger, but he’s simply tired of these emotions consuming him so often. (Chapter 9)
3. Esperanza seems to have forgotten how the white liberals at the farmer’s market kicked them out when they were trying to do a bake sale to raise money for Reg’s surgery. Her ability to simply forget/let go of this event is evidence of her privilege and naiveté. (Chapter 11)
CHAPTERS 14-20
Reading Check
1. Faceless police officers bursting into his room (Chapter 15)
2. That neither of them is ready yet (Chapter 18)
3. Moss’s father (Chapter 19)
Short Answer
1. The news reports do not accurately describe the events of what happened. They downplay both the severity of the incident and the school’s culpability in allowing it to happen. (Chapter 14)
2. Esperanza says it’s a mixed experience. She says sometimes they are ignorant, and people question her identity because of it, but ultimately, she’s lucky to have them. (Chapter 16)
3. Reg says that the incident with the metal detector has worsened his injury, so much so that he might never walk again. He says he does not want the crowd’s pity; he wants their anger. (Chapter 17)
CHAPTERS 21-29
Reading Check
Short Answer
1. The officers frisk students on the way in. They treat the students roughly, even asking them to remove their shoes. The officers wear highly militarized uniforms as well. (Chapter 21)
2. At the protest, Javier throws himself atop Moss, who is being savagely beaten by a police officer with a baton. The officer eventually becomes frustrated in the struggle and rips his helmet off and produces a gun; he fires at Javier, who bleeds from his chest and mouth. (Chapter 22)
3. She says that Javier’s death is not quite the same as that of Moss’s father because Moss’s father was clearly innocent. Moss is outraged at the implication that Javier was somehow not innocent. (Chapter 23)
CHAPTERS 30-39
Reading Check
1. If it’s true that his father was killed by police (Chapter 31)
2. Creating a mural of him (Chapter 32)
3. Silent Guardian (Chapter 34)
Short Answer
1. She feared for her life. She recalls filming the police murdering an unarmed Black woman, and when the footage was traced back to her, the police threatened her. (Chapter 32)
2. Esperanza needed to see with her own eyes how unlawful they could be in their treatment of people of color. When Esperanza is slammed against a van wall, Moss realizes that she needed to experience it firsthand to truly get it. (Chapter 37)
3. The mayor’s apology to Moss seems sincere; he holds eye contact and doesn’t simply read from his notes. Meanwhile, the police chief’s apology is less sincere. The police chief commits to the department’s narrative, which says that they were only acting out of a commitment and concern for the safety of the city’s residents. (Chapter 39)
Unlock all 77 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 9,250+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
