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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. In "In a Field of Stray Caterpillars," what is one thematic point reinforced when Fellis cannot return the movie he was supposed to return?
2. In "Food for the Common Cold," what gift has David recently been given by his father?
3. In "The Blessing Tobacco," how many cigarettes does David say he smoked before he lost count?
4. In "In a Field of Stray Caterpillars," what movie are Fellis and David supposed to return?
5. In "In a Field of Stray Caterpillars," what is David's reaction when the janitor says that he might come to the reservation to see the caterpillars?
Short Essay Questions
1. In "Food for the Common Cold," what is the difference between the way the adult narrator David and the child David in the story see the mood in the household during the week that Frick is gone?
2. In "Burn," what does Fellis asks David to do when he goes back to town to get marijuana, beer, and chips, and why does Fellis ask David to do this?
3. In "Burn," how dis Fellis end up stuck in the snow?
4. In "The Blessing Tobacco," how does David end up smoking cigarettes at his grandmother's house?
5. In "The Blessing Tobacco," what is the rhetorical function of the passage where David considers whom he should "smoke like" (108)?
6. How does David discover the jar in "In a Jar"?
7. In "Get Me Some Medicine," which behaviors of Fellis's indicate that he has a habit of blaming others for his problems?
8. 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?
9. In "In a Field of Stray Caterpillars," how does Alice end up at Beth's house?
10. 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?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
David and Fellis's plan to steal from the tribal museum shows how disconnected they have come to feel from their own tribal community and implies that they feel entitled to a larger share of cultural and financial resources than the tribe has offered them. How does this relate to David's yearning for fry bread in "Night of the Living Rez"? How does it relate to David's remark about being cut off from traditional medicine in "Burn"? Where else in these stories do you see evidence that the tribal community is not taking collective responsibility for children like David? Write an essay in which you advance and defend an argument about what these stories say about the breakdown of community responsibility on David's reservation. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the collection, citing any quoted evidence in MLA format.
Essay Topic 2
You have already spent some time considering how the title "Half-Life" relates to the motif of sleep and unconsciousness. David is in many ways "half-alive" in this story. But the term "half-life" generally is used to refer to the decay rate of substances--radioactive elements, medications, and so on. How is this additional meaning related to David's drug-induced somnambulism? Write an essay in which you make and defend a claim about what might be "decaying" in David or in his life and show how this is related to the larger motif of "sleepwalking" through life. Support your assertions with evidence from throughout the story, citing any quoted evidence in MLA format.
Essay Topic 3
What distinction is David drawing in "Earth, Speak" when he says that his mother "spoke to to [him]--not to [his] body"? (221) How does this distinction explain why, even after he is physically cured of his methadone addiction, he returns to Ralph's sweat lodge to participate in a ceremony with Ralph? What belief about his addiction is David expressing in this story? Write an essay in which you analyze the relationship between body and mind that David is proposing in this story and how it relates to his addiction and eventual recovery. Support your assertions with evidence from throughout the story, citing any quoted evidence in MLA format.
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This section contains 1,362 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) |
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