I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Chapter 28: Questions and Answers
by Maya Angelou

Study Questions
1. Describe the girls in the high school near Marguerite’s home in San Francisco.

2. Where was “T Town”?

3. What did the girls carry in their pompadours?

4. Whom did these brash girls intimidate?

5. What was the name of the first real school that Marguerite attended?

6. How well did Marguerite measure up to the other students at the first real school she attended?

7. Who was Marguerite’s favorite teacher there?

8. Where did Marguerite go on a scholarship?

9. What two classes did she take in the evening?

10. What made the California Labor School a questionable school in the eyes of some people?

Answers
1. The girls in the high school near Marguerite’s home were “faster, brasher, meaner, and more prejudiced than any I met at Lafayette County Training School.”

2. The students called Tulsa, Oklahoma, “T Town.”

3. Some of the “Negro girls . . . put knives in their tall pompadours. . . . ”

4. Some of the “Negro girls . . . intimidated the white girls and those Black and Mexican students ho had no shield of fearlessness.”

5. The name of the first real school that Marguerite attended was George Washington High School.

6. Marguerite was put up two semesters on her arrival, but she was not the most brilliant student there.

7. Marguerite’s favorite teacher was Miss Kirwin.

8. Marguerite attended the California Labor School on a scholarship.

9. In the evenings Marguerite attended dance and drama classes.

10. The school was a questionable school because it was on the “House Un-American Activities list of subversive organizations.”