Good Dirt Quiz: 20 Questions to Test Your Knowledge
This quiz covers the full span of Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson, from the Freeman family’s heirloom jar to the present-day journeys of Ebby, Henry, and Avery. Questions are divided into four sections: plot/sequence, character motivation, theme/symbol, and synthesis. After you finish, check the answer key for brief explanations.
Plot and Sequence
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What event triggers the narrative’s present-day timeline?
A. Baz Freeman is killed during a home invasion
B. Ebby’s wedding to Henry is called off
C. The stoneware jar, Old Mo, is shattered
D. Ebby flees to France -
What object do the children decorate with a paper mustache and baseball cap in the prologue?
(Short answer) -
Who finds Baz’s body after the shooting?
A. Ebby
B. Ed Freeman
C. Mrs. P (Adelaide Pitts)
D. The retired neighbors -
After Henry abandons the wedding, where does Ebby flee to first?
(Short answer) -
What object does Ed secretly save and repair after Baz’s death?
A. The wooden X
B. Baz’s clock radio
C. The jar Old Mo
D. A famous photograph of Ebby -
Who inscribes the phrase “The Mind Cannot Be Chained” on the bottom of the jar?
(Short answer) -
What event causes Henry to investigate the jar theft?
A. He finds a newspaper article about a stolen jug
B. He overhears his father’s friend mention the broken jar at a bridge game
C. Ebby tells him the full story
D. He sees the jar in a museum exhibit -
In the epilogue, what is the name of Moses’s integrated pottery business?
(Short answer)
Character Motivation
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Why does Avery pursue Henry after his breakup with Ebby?
A. She wants his money and status
B. She has a long-standing crush and deliberately strategized to become his partner
C. She feels sorry for him
D. She wants to hurt Ebby -
Why does Ebby refuse to tell her parents what she witnessed the day Baz died?
(Short answer) -
Why does Henry leave Ebby on their wedding day?
A. He fell out of love
B. He overheard a detail about the jar that made him suspect his father’s friend Harris was involved
C. His parents disapproved of Ebby
D. He had an affair -
Why does Ed hide the insurance payout for the broken jar from his family?
(Short answer) -
What drives Soh to slap Henry when he comes to apologize?
A. She blames him for Baz’s death
B. She is mentally unstable
C. Her anger at him for abandoning Ebby and her protective motherly instinct
D. She dislikes his family
Theme and Symbol
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What does the stoneware jar “Old Mo” symbolize in the novel?
(Short answer) -
The phrase “good dirt” appears multiple times. What does it primarily represent?
A. A literal gardening metaphor
B. The clay soil that connects the characters to their ancestors and the potential for growth
C. The Freeman family’s wealth
D. The burial ground where Baz is interred -
What is the significance of the burned wooden X that appears with the jar?
(Short answer) -
The character Moses learns to read and write despite laws forbidding it. This act represents:
A. Religious devotion
B. Personal ambition
C. Economic necessity
D. Resistance through literacy and preserving identity
Synthesis
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How does the novel connect the 1803 enslavement of Kandia to the present-day story of Ebby?
(Short answer) -
Which of the following best describes the novel’s treatment of trauma?
A. Trauma is easily overcome with time
B. Trauma only affects the direct victim
C. Trauma can be inherited, and characters cope through secrecy, flight, art, or community
D. Trauma should be ignored to move forward -
At the end of the novel, why does Ebby decide to share the jar’s story publicly?
(Short answer)
Answer Key
1. B – Ebby’s wedding to Henry is called off in Chapters 4–5, which sets the present-day crisis in motion.
2. The stoneware jar (Old Mo). In the prologue, the narrator and her brother put a paper mustache and baseball cap on the jar, making their parents laugh.
3. C – Mrs. P (Adelaide Pitts) discovers Ebby kneeling over her brother’s body; she performs CPR and calls for help (Chapter 95).
4. Maine. After the wedding collapse, Ebby dyes her hair blue and stays in Maine before later accepting Hannah’s offer to go to France (Chapter 18).
5. C – Ed secretly retrieves the shattered pieces of Old Mo from the crime scene and later has a potter restore it (Chapter 101).
6. Moses. The enslaved potter carves the five-word phrase into the bottom of a storage jar; the specific wording is revealed in Chapter 114 as “The Mind Cannot Be Chained.”
7. B – At a bridge game, Henry overhears Harris mention the broken jar, a detail that was never made public, and this leads him to investigate (Chapter 31).
8. Lewis and Freeman. Moses partners with a white businessman after emancipation; the business is named Lewis and Freeman (Chapter 115).
9. B – Avery admits she has had a crush on Henry for years and deliberately positioned herself to become his girlfriend after his engagement ended (Chapter 16).
10. Ebby feels guilty for freezing instead of calling for help when she saw the intruders, and she blames herself for Baz’s death (Chapters 86 and 92).
11. B – Henry overhears a detail about the jar that implicates his father’s friend in the robbery, and he cannot bring himself to tell Ebby, so he runs away (Chapter 31).
12. Ed uses the insurance money to secretly pay for the jar’s restoration; he is overwhelmed with guilt over Baz’s death and wants to preserve the heirloom without drawing attention (Chapter 101).
13. C – Soh is furious that Henry abandoned her daughter, and her slap is an instinctive maternal reaction (Chapters 81–83).
14. The jar represents family legacy, resilience, the undervalued contributions of enslaved ancestors, and the hidden stories that shape identity (Chapters 7, 89, 101).
15. B – “Good dirt” refers to the clay soil that holds ancestral memory and the potential for renewal; it appears in key moments like Ebby’s wedding garden and Moses’s pottery (Chapters 4, 13, 115).
16. The burned wooden X is a signal from the Freeman ancestors that guided Willis to freedom; it later becomes a symbol of the family’s journey and is placed inside the jar (Chapters 72, 89, 101).
17. D – Moses’s literacy is an act of resistance that allows him to record hidden messages and preserve his humanity despite the laws forbidding enslaved people to read and write (Chapters 32, 60).
18. Kandia, a captive from 1803 who treasures clay and her unborn child, is the ancestor whose resilience flows through Moses, Willis, and ultimately Ebby. The jar itself bears the memory of Kandia’s earth, linking past and present (Chapters 14, 20, 112).
19. C – The novel shows characters like Ebby, Ed, Soh, and Henry each dealing with trauma through secrecy, running away, therapeutic art, or finding community; trauma is portrayed as inherited and multi‑generational (Chapters 24, 28, 54, 78).
20. Ebby decides to share the jar’s story publicly to honor her brother Baz, reclaim her family’s history, and illustrate that the legacy of resilience endures even after loss (Chapters 101, 106, 114).