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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. At the college where Mike worked, what was the name of the other English A teacher?

2. How many hours a day did Mike spend at the UCLA library?

3. Who said, "It was an exercise that was all analysis and no synthesis"?

4. What did a person being arrested throw into Mike's yard?

5. Who wrote Piers Plowman?

Short Essay Questions

1. What did Mike learn from Ted Erlandson?

2. During Mike's high school years, what were his feelings about going to college?

3. How did Mike feel that the students at Loyola related to each other?

4. Why did Mike say that he wrote "Lives on the Boundary"?

5. What type of school was Loyola when Mike attended in the early sixties?

6. What did Mike say he learned from the four men who gave him a good liberal education?

7. In school, how did Mike defend himself against things he couldn't understand?

8. How did Mike describe the community of Maravilla?

9. What did Mike say were primary and secondary qualities?

10. How did childhood reading open up Mike's world?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss what methods Mike used to get his students interested in the world of language and literature. Use examples from the book.

Essay Topic 2

Discuss how in some ways Mike's childhood helped him to understand and fit into El Monte and how in some ways it prevented him from understanding El Monte. Use examples from the book.

Essay Topic 3

Discuss what impact the Newsweek article "Why Johnny Can't Write" had on Mike. Use examples from the book.

(see the answer keys)

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