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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 does Captain Kidd wish he had with him as he enters a wooded area on the road in Chapter 5?

2. What is the next town Captain Kidd and Johanna are heading toward, once the cross through the Cross Timbers?

3. In Chapter 4, what does Johanna expect to have to do?

4. Where did Jefferson Kyle Kidd grow up?

5. Where did the Curative Waters wagon Captain Kidd buys originally come from?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is it that gets a reaction out of Johanna in Chapter 4?

2. What kind of impression does Johanna’s appearance makes on Captain Kidd?

3. What does Britt Johnson give Captain Kidd when he is about to leave from Wichita Falls?

4. Why does the narrator say that there is no Kiowa word for thank you?

5. Why is Johanna nervous when they encounter the army on the road in Chapter 5, and how does Captain Kidd take care of her?

6. What is Captain Kidd’s uniform for his news reading performances?

7. How does Johanna handle her first introduction to the hotel in Dallas?

8. How does Mrs. Gannet fare, taking care of Johanna in the hotel room?

9. How does Captain Kidd choose his news stories to manage the crowd?

10. How is Johanna saved from being left with Simon and Miss Dillon?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The cultural territory between Native American and white Americans has always been both tense, in a military sense, and fertile, in a cultural sense, as Native Americans have occupied a symbolic place in America’s sense of its identity as a country. How does Paulette Jiles locate her historical novel in that longer history? Is she prone to romanticizing Native Americans, or does she depict Native American culture in realistic and nuanced terms?

Essay Topic 2

When is News of the World most itself? What is its characteristic passage, or moment? What makes that moment or passage the most representative of the book as a whole? Are there any places where the book seems to depart from its typical self, as if to become a different book?

Essay Topic 3

Evaluate the ending of News of the World. Does it ring true to you? Does it successfully resolve the problems and tensions that preceded it? What would you change, if anything? What are you left wishing for closure on, if anything?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 999 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample