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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 end his readings in Chapter 7 with?

2. What does Captain Kidd not have with him, when the cavalry Captain asks for it in Chapter 5?

3. What does Johanna overturn, in her resistance to being washed?

4. What is it that Captain Kidd is drawn to about Mrs. Gannet?

5. Why does Captain Kidd realize he has not offered his attentions to Mrs. Gannet, these past few years?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Captain Kidd get Johanna out of her Kiowa dress and into western clothes?

2. What kind of challenge does Captain Kidd have, in teaching Johanna to use a knife and fork?

3. How does Captain Kidd settle his own doubts about whether he can take care of Johanna?

4. What is the town of Spanish Fort like?

5. Where does Johanna run off to in Chapter 7, and how does Captain Kidd get her back?

6. Who is Almay and what proposition does he make to Captain Kidd?

7. What was it that made Captain Kidd want to be a news reader?

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

9. How does the narrator characterize the political situation in Texas while Captain Kidd and Johanna are making their trip?

10. What is Captain Kidd’s approach to reading local news?

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

Paulette Jiles spends a good deal of time describing the details of people’s armament, distinguishing between types of rifles and handguns. Why are these details of manufacture important to the characters, and how does Jiles’ close descriptions of them affect the mood and tone of the narrative? What else does Jiles describe with similar attention to details of manufacture, and how do those descriptions affect the tone of the narrative?

Essay Topic 3

For Captain Kidd, the frontier is the outer edge of civilization, but from San Antonio and Houston, the modern world was much closer by. What changes were taking place in the outer borders of Captain Kidd’s world, and how would those changes affect life in the towns and cities where News of the World takes place? What were the dominant tensions in that modern world, and how do you think the main characters would adapt to those new tensions?

(see the answer keys)

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