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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 "Night of the Living Rez," why is the road by the football field closed off?

2. In "Smokes Last," what is implied when David tells his mother about the Western Union money and she says "I think I can drive" (152)?

3. In "The Name Means Thunder," what techniques are used when David says that the sun will eventually "expand and swallow the Earth like food" (265)?

4. In "Earth, Speak," what does David infer when he hears the dogs barking?

5. In "Smokes Last," what is the answer to the security question David answers for Western Union?

Short Essay Questions

1. In "The Name Means Thunder," how does David's mother's behavior change once Bedogi is in the house?

2. At the end of "Night of the Living Rez," how is David's mother's behavior similar to her behavior near the end of "Earth, Speak"?

3. In "Smokes Last," how do the events taking place in David's life parallel the events in Frick's stories from his youth, and what is the significance of this parallel?

4. In "Half-Life," what incident early in the story demonstrates how much time David has begun losing to his drug use?

5. In "Earth, Speak," why is Fellis so angry at Daryl?

6. In "Night of the Living Rez," what is David's rhetorical purpose in describing the details of how his mother is driving as she questions him about his father?

7. In "Smokes Last," what story does Frick tell about shooting in his childhood, and how does it reinforce a motif in the way he relates to David?

8. In "Earth, Speak," how does David's mother respond when she realizes that it is him in her boiler room?

9. In "Safe Harbor," what suspicion does David have about the worker outside the clinic in the beginning of the story that is borne out by the man's remarks near the story's end?

10. Which details in "Half-Life" demonstrate that David does not fully trust Fellis?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What symbolic role does hair play in the stories in Night of the Living Rez? In "Burn," why is Fellis trapped by his hair, why does he want David to retrieve it, and what do David's thoughts about whether to get the hair or some pot first signify? Why is there hair in the jar in "In a Jar?" Why does David make a point of mentioning his mother's short hair several times in the earlier stories, and what happens to her hair over the course of the collection? In later stories, what is the significance of characters whose hair has come unbraided? Using evidence from the text and from outside resources, write an analysis of the symbolic value of hair in Night of the Living Rez. Cite quoted material and borrowed ideas in MLA format.

Essay Topic 2

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.

Essay Topic 3

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.

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