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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. How does David imagine feeling when he returns to Rab's?

2. In "The Blessing Tobacco," what does David's grandmother offer him after she offers him a cigarette?

3. In "In a Jar," what happens to Paige on the night the siblings hear the knocking in the walls?

4. In "The Blessing Tobacco," why does David hurry to fill his grandmother's wood box?

5. In "In a Field of Stray Caterpillars," why is David so quick to agree to take Fellis to his frequent mental health appointments?

Short Essay Questions

1. In "Burn," why was David's first trip into town to get marijuana unsuccessful?

2. In "Burn," what does the reservation doctor tell David he is ineligible for, and what does David see this as an example of?

3. In "In a Field of Stray Caterpillars," how does David use the layout of the hospital as a metaphor for the human mind?

4. In "Food for the Common Cold," what are David's mother's and David's grandmother's opposing opinions about telling Frick about the hysterectomy?

5. In "Burn," what point about economic realities on the reservation does David make as he steps in the boot prints along the sidewalk on his way home?

6. In "In a Field of Stray Caterpillars," what does David point to as the beginning of the breakdown in his relationship with Tabitha?

7. Which details does Talty include in "In a Jar" that make clear to the reader that David's life before the reservation did not include many other Native people?

8. In "Burn," how dis Fellis end up stuck in the snow?

9. In "Get Me Some Medicine," how do David and Fellis end up binge-watching an old television series?

10. In "Food for the Common Cold," when David's mother tells David's grandmother "Miracles can happen.... But I don't want to risk what happened before," what is she talking about (65)?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is the significance of the questions David keeps asking himself throughout "Night of the Living Rez"? How is the precise wording of his questions important, including the way this wording shifts during the story? How do these questions indicate the pivotal role this story plays in the collection's overall structure? Write an essay that analyzes the significance of David's repeated questions in "Night of the Living Rez" and that links these questions to the function of this story in the overall collection. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the collection, including quoted evidence focused on the diction David employs in "Night of the Living Rez." Cite all quoted evidence in MLA format.

Essay Topic 2

Given the events in the stories in this collection, it is clear that there are drawbacks to being a member of David's family, and that intergenerational trauma has a negative impact on his life. But what are the strengths of this family and of the tradition to which they belong? How might David's life have been diminished and his outcomes been worse if the family did not have these strengths to draw on? Write an essay that demonstrates that David's family and community pass on more than trauma to the younger generation. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the story, citing any quoted evidence in MLA format.

Essay Topic 3

In "Night of the Living Rez," Talty makes a claim for Native representation by Native peoples. How does his own biography support his implicit claim that he is qualified to tell the stories he tells in this collection? Where did he grow up? What relationship do the book's characters have to people in the author's real life? Did Talty have experiences in his own life that these stories reflect? Use outside research into Talty's life, including interviews he has given on this subject, to construct and support an argument about his qualification to tell the stories in Night of the Living Rez. Support your argument with evidence drawn from your outside research and from throughout the story collection, citing all quoted evidence and evidence from outside sources in MLA format.

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