74 pages • 2 hours read
Me Talk Pretty One Day
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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 1-3
Reading Check
1. What consonant sound does young Sedaris avoid using when speaking to “Agent Samson” in Chapter 1?
2. What company did Sedaris’s father work for as a computer engineer?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What object does Mister Mancini ask Sedaris to name, and why is Sedaris’s response unsatisfactory?
2. What does Sedaris’s father explain to the fishermen by drawing in the sand, and how do they respond to his demonstration?
Paired Resource
“Why ‘Coming Out’ Can Take a Lifetime”
- This article from the BBC shows the complicated emotions and experiences young people go through when discussing their sexuality with the people closest to them.
- This connects to the theme of Self-Identity and Sexuality.
- How are young Sedaris’s behaviors at odds with what others consider “typical” for heterosexual adolescent behavior?
Jhumpa Lahiri and the “Power of Language Learning”
- This essay from Ohio State University’s College of Arts and Sciences offers information about author Jhumpa Lahiri and her fearless efforts to learn and write exclusively in Italian after writing Pulitzer Prize-winning works in English.
- This connects to the theme of Language.
- Which findings about learning a new language from the reading are confirmed by the experiences David Sedaris writes about in Me Talk Pretty One Day?
CHAPTERS 4-6
Reading Check
1. Who heckles Sedaris during his museum show when he is about to cut his hair with shears?
2. What nickname does Sedaris’s younger brother, Paul, go by?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How do Sedaris’s artistic talents compare to his sister’s, and what effect does this have on him?
2. How does the family assimilate to North Carolina life after so many years in New York State?
CHAPTERS 7-9
Reading Check
1. How do Mr. Sedaris’s students respond when he tells them how much he makes in a year?
2. In which room of John’s house does the chapter entitled “Big Boy” take place?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What does Sedaris instruct his students to write as an assignment, and how does one student respond?
2. Why does Valencia command Sedaris to capture a pigeon?
CHAPTERS 10-13
Reading Check
1. What does Sedaris enjoy eating because it is “so simple and timeless that [he] can recognize it, immediately, as food”? (Chapter 10)
2. Who wears a false suit for Christmas to appear larger?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How are Alisha’s and Bonnie’s behaviors different?
2. Why do concerned passersby ask about Amy Sedaris’s appearance, and how does she respond to them?
Paired Resource
“David Sedaris and His Latest Joke on Restaurants”
- Over two decades after the release of Me Talk Pretty One Day, Sedaris continues to comment on pretentious trends in dining on CBS Sunday Morning.
- This amusing look at “heganism” engages with the themes of Language and Self-Identity and Sexuality.
- How does Sedaris use humor to satirize both the upscale San Francisco dining life and Americans’ tendency to be contrarian?
CHAPTERS 14-16
Reading Check
1. What tall object does Hugh possess that makes Sedaris interested in meeting him?
2. What delivers chocolate on Easter, according to French custom?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What does Sedaris type on index cards to study, and why don’t these cards turn out to be helpful?
2. Who are Sedaris’s classmates, and how do they help the Muslim student who asks a religious question?
CHAPTERS 17-19
Reading Check
1. Who sends Sedaris a care package that includes a pocket dictionary of French medical terms?
2. What are the two types of French that French-learning people can choose to speak, according to Sedaris?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How does Sedaris’s deficiencies with the French language result in him purchasing four pounds of tomatoes?
2. How did Hugh’s childhood differ from Sedaris’s, and why does this cause Sedaris to be envious?
CHAPTERS 20-22
Reading Check
1. Which publication’s crossword puzzles does Sedaris obsess over?
2. What does Sedaris keep from his time in Paris in Chapter 21?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Why is Sedaris “devastated” to learn that his former boyfriend is good at crossword puzzles?
2. Why is Sedaris annoyed about a sign next to a bronze statue of gorillas at the San Diego Zoo, and what does he feel it says about Americans?
CHAPTERS 23-25
Reading Check
1. What type of criminal does Sedaris get mistaken for by an American lady on the Paris Métro?
2. Where was Sedaris when he once witnessed a near disaster involving a woman with long blonde hair?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What is a vachette, and what is dangerous about being near one?
2. With whom does Sedaris take an intelligence test, and what are the results?
CHAPTERS 26-27
Reading Check
1. In Sedaris’s fantasy called “Mr. Science,” what does his brilliant discovery help grow more quickly than otherwise possible?
2. What does Sedaris’s father accidentally eat, thinking it was a cookie?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What causes Sedaris to entertain elaborate fantasies, and do these fantasies fulfill their intended purpose?
2. Why does Sedaris have reservations about eating holiday meals at his father’s house?
Paired Resource
“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” by James Thurber
- A critic once called David Sedaris “part Walter Mitty,” and Chapter 26 shows the influence of this famous work of American humor.
- This connects to the themes of Imagination and Reality and Self-Identity and Sexuality.
- What personality traits do Mitty and Sedaris share? What commonalities exist between the writing styles of Thurber and Sedaris?
Recommended Next Reads
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris
- This 2004 book contains 22 essays about Sedaris’s childhood, his neighbors, and the challenges of growing up gay.
- Shared themes include Language and Self-Identity and Sexuality.
- Shared topics include life in France and escaping reality.
- Dress your Family in Corduroy and Denim on SuperSummary
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel
- This critically acclaimed graphic memoir tells the story of the author’s coming of age and fraught relationship with her father.
- Shared themes include Self-Identity and Sexuality and Imagination and Reality.
- Shared topics include family memoirs and the challenges of growing up gay.
- Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic on SuperSummary
Reading Questions Answer Key
CHAPTERS 1-3
Reading Check
Short Answer
1. Mister Mancini asks Sedaris to name his guitar. When Sedaris names it Oliver, Mancini reprimands him for giving the object a man’s name instead of a woman’s. (Chapter 2)
2. Sedaris’s father demonstrates a complicated equation that calculates the number of grains of sand in the world. The men listen curiously and ask follow-up questions. (Chapter 3)
CHAPTERS 4-6
Reading Check
Short Answer
1. Sedaris’s sister is respected for her artistic talent, while Sedaris struggles to complete the simplest artistic tasks. This causes him to envy her and secretly wish that somebody would kill her to relieve him of his jealousy. (Chapter 4)
2. The family resists the changes in culture, such as Mountain Dew, the use of “sir” and “ma’am,” and the use of the Carolina accent. (Chapter 5)
CHAPTERS 7-9
Reading Check
Short Answer
1. Sedaris instructs his students to complete a confusing assignment in which they write a letter to their mothers who are also in prison. One of his students states that they have family in prison. (Chapter 7)
2. Valencia commands Sedaris to capture a common pigeon that she has comically confused with Cheeky, a missing parrot, in hopes of earning a cash reward. (Chapter 9)
CHAPTERS 10-13
Reading Check
1. A hotdog (Chapter 10)
2. Sedaris’s sister, Amy (Chapter 12)
Short Answer
1. Alisha is a gracious and cooperative guest, but Bonnie is paranoid and rude, and she complains constantly. (Chapter 11)
2. Passersby ask about her appearance because she is wearing makeup to make her appear like she has been beaten. She responds to them, “I’m finally, totally in love, and I feel great!” (Chapter 12)
CHAPTERS 14-16
Reading Check
1. A ladder (Chapter 14)
2. A bell (Chapter 16)
Short Answer
1. Sedaris types out 300 different nouns in French to study, but the words he chooses—“slaughterhouse,” “sea monster,” etc.—prove not to help him in conversation. (Chapter 14)
2. Sedaris’s classmates are students from all over the world who are there to learn French. When the Muslim student asks about Easter, the other classmates do their best to inform her of the traditions in broken French, with hilarious results. (Chapter 16)
CHAPTERS 17-19
Reading Check
1. His sister, Amy (Chapter 17)
2. The “Easy Kind” and the “Hard Kind” (Chapter 18)
Short Answer
1. Sedaris avoids using singular nouns, as this requires him to remember the gender of each noun. As a result, he only speaks using plurals, resulting in him purchasing more items than he needs. (Chapter 18)
2. Hugh grew up in one far-flung location after another, as his father was an officer in the State Department. Sedaris is jealous because he had a more mundane American upbringing and also because responding with jealousy seems to be a natural reaction for him. (Chapter 19)
CHAPTERS 20-22
Reading Check
1. The New York Times (Chapter 20)
2. Movie ticket stubs (Chapter 21)
Short Answer
1. Sedaris is “devastated” because he finds the ability to do crossword puzzles a sign of intelligence, and this proves to Sedaris that his former boyfriend is both attractive and smart. (Chapter 20)
2. The sign reads “GORILLA STATUES MAY BE HOT,” which Sedaris sees as pointlessly obvious and a sign of Americans’ over-litigious society. (Chapter 22)
CHAPTERS 23-25
Reading Check
1. A pickpocket (Chapter 24)
2. On a roller coaster at an amusement park (Chapter 24)
Short Answer
1. A vachette is an “angry cow,” and they are dangerous because they can gore or kick the people who choose to be in the ring with them. (Chapter 24)
2. Sedaris and Hugh take the intelligence test together; Hugh scores higher than Sedaris. (Chapter 25)
CHAPTERS 26-27
Reading Check
1. Trees (Chapter 26)
2. Pieces of a hat (Chapter 27)
Short Answer
1. Sedaris engages in fantasies in an attempt to fall asleep; this does not help him, but he does not seem to mind. (Chapter 26)
2. Sedaris’s father only buys groceries that are ready to expire, and therefore his kitchen is stocked with rotting food. (Chapter 27)
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