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| Name: _________________________ | Period: ___________________ |
This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.
Short Answer Questions
1. In "Safe Harbor," what is the name of the woman that asks David to get her some cigarettes?
2. In "Half-Life," what is the name of the assisted living facility that Frances is living in?
3. In "The Name Means Thunder," how does David's mother's memory differ from David's?
4. In "Half-Life," what does David frequently mention as a way of implying that his circumstances are getting worse and worse and he feels powerless to save himself?
5. In "Smokes Last," what is the most likely explanation for the difference between what David's father tells him and what his mother tells him?
Short Essay Questions
1. What aspects of the narrative voice in "The Name Means Thunder" clarify for the reader the time period in which David is telling these stories?
2. In the beginning of "Smokes Last," what is ironic about David's mother's instructions to him before he leaves to play in the woods with his friends?
3. In "Safe Harbor," what is written on the clinic's whiteboard, and what is David's reaction?
4. In "Half-Life," what series of questions does David ask himself about his life?
5. In "The Name Means Thunder," how do the words that David whispers to Bedogi contrast with what David is really thinking and feeling?
6. In "The Name Means Thunder," how does Paige's window screen end up playing an important role in the plot?
7. In "The Name Means Thunder," how does David's mother's behavior change once Bedogi is in the house?
8. In "Half-Life," how do David's mother and grandmother seem to feel about him?
9. In "Earth, Speak," what is the ostensible reason that David and Fellis go to see Daryl?
10. At the end of "Night of the Living Rez," how is David's mother's behavior similar to her behavior near the end of "Earth, Speak"?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
What symbolic role does hair play in the stories in Night of the Living Rez? In "Burn," why is Fellis trapped by his hair, why does he want David to retrieve it, and what do David's thoughts about whether to get the hair or some pot first signify? Why is there hair in the jar in "In a Jar?" Why does David make a point of mentioning his mother's short hair several times in the earlier stories, and what happens to her hair over the course of the collection? In later stories, what is the significance of characters whose hair has come unbraided? Using evidence from the text and from outside resources, write an analysis of the symbolic value of hair in Night of the Living Rez. Cite quoted material and borrowed ideas 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
How does the physical business with coffee in the story "Safe Harbor" convey David's inability to find comfort in the world? Why does it matter that he is having coffee with his mother in this story? How does coffee figure into the story's conclusion? What are some of the associations that a reader might be expected to bring to the idea of coffee--what age are the people who generally drink it, how is it supposed to make them feel, and so on? Write an essay that describes the role that coffee plays in the story and analyzes its significance. Support your assertions with evidence from throughout the story, citing any quoted evidence in MLA format.
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This section contains 1,456 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) |
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