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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 must a writer's moral sense coincide with?

2. What type of artist does O'Connor say is most deviled by the public?

3. Who said if you want to write stories not to drive the poor from your doorstep?

4. Which Steinbeck novel in O'Connor's examples did parents seem to object to?

5. Who wrote in his notebook: "If I had not known you, I would not have found you"?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does O'Connor say she believes fiction should be taught?

2. Why might a Catholic writer have to include more violence in his work than he is comfortable with?

3. How does O'Connor feel about literature being taught by way of psychology?

4. Why does O'Connor write powerfully, especially about God?

5. What problem does O'Connor say Catholic writers face?

6. Why might a Catholic novelist feel angst about being both a Catholic and a fiction writer?

7. What story does O'Connor tell at the beginning of "Catholic Novelists and Their Readers"?

8. How does O'Connor say that fiction writers and English teachers have common ground?

9. What does O'Connor say about "The Foundling" written by Cardinal Spellman?

10. What does O'Connor say about being specific in her writing?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Explore the perspective used in this nonfiction work. How would O'Connor's lessons on writing be different if they were written from a third-person perspective, like they would be in a textbook? What could the reader gain from a less personal perspective? What is gained from the first-person perspective that O'Connor uses instead?

Essay Topic 2

Examine what O'Connor says about the writer's preoccupation with the poor. Why does she believe that writers tend to write about poor people? In what ways do poor people make interesting stories? What is it about the poor and their manners that attract writers? What does she mean when she says that everyone is poor in the eyes of the novelist?

Essay Topic 3

How does she propose that teachers teach literature? How does she go about proposing this? What is her tone? Does she flesh out her ideas enough for teachers to put them into practice? Do you think her suggestions would work in practice? Why or why not? Use examples from the text to support your answer.

(see the answer keys)

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