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Joyce Carol Oates, I, the Juror

Joyce Carol Oates, I, the Juror

Read I, the Juror and check your comprehension by answering the following questions. Then “submit” your work.

1. How does Oates list herself at voter registration?

novelist

Princeton professor

freelance writer

housewife and teacher

2. Oates compares the trial she watched as a child to a gigantic

windmill.

jet engine.

slaughterhouse.

grinding machine.

3. Oates’s experience with jury selection shocks her with its

high level of melodrama.

institutionalized racism.

lack of professionalism.

disorganization.

4. As an atheist, what is Oates’s reaction to swearing on the Bible?

She crosses her fingers while she does so.

She refuses to do so.

She does so without exactly touching the book.

She closes her eyes while she does so.

5. Whose testimony did the jury find particularly hard to believe?

the police officer’s

the victim’s

the accused’s mother’s

the informant’s