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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What color is the Bachman's sparrow?

2. Where did Janisse get pants to wear on the rafting trip, her very first time wearing pants due to her family's religious convictions?

3. How old was Janisse when her maternal grandfather Arthur died of cancer?

4. What evidence of the Lower Creek Indians' prior presence did Lee Ada find on Beulah's property when she was a little girl?

5. The author writes that although the families in her area would have defended the land to the death, they lacked three things that would have allowed them to care about the actual health of its natural communities. What were those three things?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Janisse draw parallels between the red-cockaded woodpecker and the Cracker people who inhabit her homeland?

2. What were the two pieces of advice given to Frank by the doctor in the state mental hospital who had taken an interest in his case?

3. What story does Janisse use to show how careful and smart her grandmother Clyo was when trying to run her bootlegging operation without getting caught?

4. When Janisse says of her grandmother Clyo and grandfather Charlie, "Both of them knew what the food symbolized and neither was willing to make further amends," (148) what does she mean?

5. How does the concept of determinism emerge in the final paragraph of the chapter entitled Poverty?

6. What is the main characteristic present in indigo snakes that led to much of their endangered status, in addition to the fact that they use endangered gopher tortoises' burrows as shelter?

7. What were some elements of Frank's childhood that belie the poverty his family suffered during the aftershocks of the stock market crash in 1929?

8. Who was the first person to spark Janisse's interest in the natural world and how did that person spark her interest?

9. If she had any spare time, what did Janisse always want to do and how did her mother feel about that pastime?

10. How did Lee Ada's father Arthur feel about Frank's and Lee Ada's decision to elope?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Examine the appendices included at the end of the memoir. Why does the author include them and what message is the author sending to the reader by encouraging their use?

Essay Topic 2

Find instances of the author drawing parallels between the creatures of southern Georgia and the people who inhabit the region. How does each instance send its own message and how do they work in concert with one another to send a larger, cohesive message to the reader of the memoir?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the author's infrequent and therefore prominent use of second person within her memoir. What is the context for each of these instances and what effect does the author intend these usages of second person language to have upon the reader?

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