Interior Chinatown

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the bulleted outlines below. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. Interior Chinatown makes it clear that despite the aspirational nature of becoming Kung Fu Guy, the role comes with significant drawbacks.

• What does it mean to be Kung Fu Guy? (topic sentence)
• Give at least two examples from different sections of the text to support each aspect of Kung Fu Guy that you identify in your topic sentence.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, show how the text uses Kung Fu Guy to convey ideas about Elusive National Identity, A Typecast Life, and The Need for Self-Definition.

2. Willis’s daughter, Phoebe, is in some respects very different from Willis himself.

• What hope for the future is conveyed through the characterization of Phoebe? (topic sentence)
• Give at least three examples of the characterization of Phoebe, explaining clearly how each example supports the idea that she represents hope.