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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 two problems does Dillard say she feels that a writer must solve when writing a book?

2. How does society regard the writer, in Dillard's experience?

3. What damage did the Smith-Corona typewriter do in Chapter 4?

4. What is a writer compared to in Chapter 5?

5. How did Dillard come to understand the proper way to split wood?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is ludicrous about the tea kettle in the faculty lounge of the university that Dillard wrote in?

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

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

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

5. Why was a moth trying to gain altitude and ultimately drowning, in Chapter 3?

6. What did the children who visited Dillard in Chapter 3 surprise her with?

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

8. Why does Dillard advise writers not to hoard a good idea for a later place in a book being written or for another book?

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

10. Who was Paul Glenn?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is wood-splitting a metaphor for in Chapter 3? What did Dillard learn besides how to properly split wood?

Essay Topic 2

What is the overall theme of Chapter 1? Give examples to support your answer.

Essay Topic 3

What advice did Dillard give to a reader asking if she would teach him to write? Describe the two different ways in which Dillard explains her advice.

(see the answer keys)

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