View a FREE sample

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

Short Answer Questions

1. Thornton Wilder cited an unnamed writer of sonnets as saying only one line drops from where?

2. What did Dillard study in Chapter 5?

3. What did Frederick Buechner note about an author realizing that he is actually writing?

4. At the island on Haro Strait, why would a man overboard die within ten minutes?

5. Who watched Dillard chop wood every morning in Washington?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Dillard mean in Chapter 5 when she writes, '...instead we watch television and miss the show'?

2. Why does Dillard say it makes more sense to write one big book than to write many stories or essays?

3. How does Dillard say that she believes a writer must control his or her own energies in order to work?

4. Why does Dillard say that the life of the mind of a writer is hard to be called "living"?

5. How does Dillard say that she learned the correct way to split wood on the chopping block?

6. How does a work in progress turn on its author, according to Dillard?

7. Why does Dillard say that she needed more materials than a pencil and paper in order to write something like a second draft for a thirty-page chapter?

8. Why does Dillard compare a writer writing a first draft to a Zulu warrior and an Aztec maiden?

9. How does Dillard compare a writer to a Seminole alligator wrestler?

10. What did writers such as Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Ralph Ellison, and Eudora Welty have in common when learning to write, according to Dillard?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Explain the vision of what a projected work of art is, whether it be writing or painting. How does the vision lead one to a finished product?

Essay Topic 2

What is meant by Thoreau's statement to "know your own bone"? How is this advice helpful to a writer?

Essay Topic 3

Dillard states that "Appealing workplaces are to be avoided."

1. Why might this be true?

2. How does Dillard know this to be true for her?

3. What should a writer's workplace consist of, and why?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 995 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample