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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. In "Food for the Common Cold," how old is David?

2. In "Food for the Common Cold," what does David's grandmother imply is the reason Frick does not accept David and Paige as his own children?

3. When Fellis asks Meekew why he is with "winooches" in "Get Me Some Medicine," what is it most reasonable to infer that "winooch" means (43)?

4. In "In a Jar," where does Frick place the yellow straw wrapped in red cloth?

5. In "Food for the Common Cold," what is the cause of the terrible smell in David's mother's house?

Short Essay Questions

1. In "Food for the Common Cold," what is the difference between the way the adult narrator David and the child David in the story see the mood in the household during the week that Frick is gone?

2. In "In a Field of Stray Caterpillars," what does David point to as the beginning of the breakdown in his relationship with Tabitha?

3. In "Get Me Some Medicine," why does Fellis get so angry at David for saying that Meekew could beat Fellis in a fistfight?

4. In "In a Field of Stray Caterpillars," how does Alice end up at Beth's house?

5. In "Burn," what does Fellis asks David to do when he goes back to town to get marijuana, beer, and chips, and why does Fellis ask David to do this?

6. In "Food for the Common Cold," when David's mother tells David's grandmother "Miracles can happen.... But I don't want to risk what happened before," what is she talking about (65)?

7. How does David discover the jar in "In a Jar"?

8. In "In a Jar," what does David's mother tell him about Goog'ooks?

9. Which details does Talty include in "In a Jar" that make clear to the reader that David's life before the reservation did not include many other Native people?

10. In "Get Me Some Medicine," what details demonstrate that David's friendship with Fellis does not blind David to Fellis's faults?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What distinction is David drawing in "Earth, Speak" when he says that his mother "spoke to to [him]--not to [his] body"? (221) How does this distinction explain why, even after he is physically cured of his methadone addiction, he returns to Ralph's sweat lodge to participate in a ceremony with Ralph? What belief about his addiction is David expressing in this story? Write an essay in which you analyze the relationship between body and mind that David is proposing in this story and how it relates to his addiction and eventual recovery. Support your assertions with evidence from throughout the story, citing any quoted evidence in MLA format.

Essay Topic 2

In "Night of the Living Rez," Talty makes a claim for Native representation by Native peoples. How does his own biography support his implicit claim that he is qualified to tell the stories he tells in this collection? Where did he grow up? What relationship do the book's characters have to people in the author's real life? Did Talty have experiences in his own life that these stories reflect? Use outside research into Talty's life, including interviews he has given on this subject, to construct and support an argument about his qualification to tell the stories in Night of the Living Rez. Support your argument with evidence drawn from your outside research and from throughout the story collection, citing all quoted evidence and evidence from outside sources in MLA format.

Essay Topic 3

Given the events in the stories in this collection, it is clear that there are drawbacks to being a member of David's family, and that intergenerational trauma has a negative impact on his life. But what are the strengths of this family and of the tradition to which they belong? How might David's life have been diminished and his outcomes been worse if the family did not have these strengths to draw on? Write an essay that demonstrates that David's family and community pass on more than trauma to the younger generation. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the story, citing any quoted evidence in MLA format.

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