Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood

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. Ibtisam chooses to begin her memoir in 1981, when she is a teenager.

• How does Ibtisam using a frame narrative affect the reader? (topic sentence)
• What vital context for understanding Ibtisam’s childhood does she provide by framing it with scenes from her teenager years?
• In your conclusion, explore how Ibtisam uses framing as a literary device to explore the theme of The Loss of Childhood Innocence.

2. Ibtisam calls her brothers the “heroes of [her] childhood” (v).

• Why do you think Ibtisam feels this way about her brothers? (topic sentence)
• What are 2-3 moments in the text when Ibtisam’s brothers behaved heroically? When describing these scenes, pinpoint who is the “villain” and if Ibtisam’s brothers are the “heroes.”
• In your conclusion, describe what the term “hero” might mean to someone like Ibtisam, whose childhood and entire life has been upended by The Poison Inside: The Lasting Effects of War. 

3. Free-verse poetry is interwoven throughout Tasting the Sky.

• How does Ibtisam’s use of free-verse poetry inform her memoir? (topic sentence)
• Why do you think she chose to include poetry, and what effect do the poems have on the reader?
• In your conclusion, consider how the theme Finding Refuge: The Healing Power of Words is exemplified in how Ibtisam processes her trauma in free-verse poetry.

Full Essay Assignments

Student Prompt: Write a structured and well-developed essay. Include a thesis statement, at least three main points supported by textual details, and a conclusion.

1. Describe the arc of Ibtisam’s relationship with her mother, from how they related to one another when Ibtisam was a young child to when she became a teenager. How would you characterize their relationship? Consider how Ibtisam’s Loss of Childhood Innocence was mitigated by her relationship with her parents and, in doing so, compare and contrast the mother-daughter relationship with Ibtisam’s relationship to her father. How are the two relationships different? Are there ways in which they are similar? What impacts does each relationship have on Ibtisam as a young child, and how did the effects of those relationship carry into later life?

2. Ibtisam says in Part 1 that her losses are “written on [her] heart” (19). Unpack and analyze this quote. First, describe some of the things that Ibtisam has lost, beyond physical possessions—are there people, places, and feelings that, in a sense, she has “lost”? What does it mean that these losses are “written” on Ibtisam’s physical being, metaphorically speaking? In your conclusion, explore how, for Ibtisam, this turn of phrase fits into Ibtisam’s notion of Finding Refuge: The Healing Power of Words.

3. Why do you think Ibtisam chooses to remember painful memories instead of following her mother’s advice and forgetting, even going so far as to commemorate those painful memories in a published book? How does the act of remembering and writing and sharing her memories change Ibtisam? In your essay, consider how Poison Inside: The Lasting Effects of War are purged from Ibtisam’s consciousness, in some ways, through her writing.