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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. Where is Laura when she sees an address in her mind and feels compelled to go there?

2. How old is Maddy when she comes to visit Laura's family for a week?

3. What does Laura say she would do if she could fly?

4. What does the Log Lady tell Laura about owls?

5. What is NOT one false thing Laura tells the reader that people say about her?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the Log Lady tell Laura in their meeting?

2. How does Laura respond to Maddy's offer to share some of her cigarettes with Donna and Laura on their night in the fort?

3. Discuss the meaning of the very first poem Laura writes within her diary on July 29, 1984.

4. What do stuffed animals symbolize within the first diary entry?

5. What does Laura say about why she loves her new diary?

6. When Laura arrives home and asks her mom about the Log Lady, what does Laura's mom tell her?

7. How is foreshadowing used within the scene of Laura receiving a pony for her birthday and checking the pony's gender?

8. What prompts Laura to proclaim that she is not sure that the Log Lady had been talking about the right Laura Palmer when she had predicted a happy life?

9. What does Laura say about her feelings after the escapade with the Canadian guys in the woods?

10. What event occurs that results in Laura's meeting with the Log Lady?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Explore the novel's status as an early example of a tie-in novel. How did the popularity of the series Twin Peaks and the novel The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer foreshadow the current proliferation of fan fiction, tie-in literature, comic conventions, and series spin-offs? What does this popularity demonstrate about the modern consumer of media and how do the novel's forewords by Mark Frost and David Lynch, the creators of the Twin Peaks series, connect to these elements?

Essay Topic 2

Write a persuasive essay that argues either for or against the use of The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer in high school classrooms. Support your argument using logical reasoning, poignant examples of modern teenage life, and concrete details from the novel's narrative.

Essay Topic 3

Discuss Donna's role as a foil within the novel. How does her character slowly emerge as a foil to Laura's character and what is the author trying to achieve with the juxtaposition of those two characters? Prove your claims with textual evidence from the novel.

(see the answer keys)

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