View a FREE sample

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," how long has it been since David last spent the summer with his father?

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

3. In "Safe Harbor," what is the name of the woman that asks David to get her some cigarettes?

4. In "Smokes Last," what item of clothing is Tyson constantly trying, unsuccessfully, to keep clean?

5. In "Night of the Living Rez," what movie do the boys joke about that makes David hungry for fry bread?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. In "Night of the Living Rez," what does David think the woman has in the Gatorade bottle, and how does he later learn what the liquid really is?

3. In "Safe Harbor," what is the double meaning of the question David asks when he is brought into the emergency room?

4. In "Safe Harbor," what is written on the clinic's whiteboard, and what is David's reaction?

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

6. In "Half-Life," how do David's mother and grandmother seem to feel about him?

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

8. 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?

9. In "The Name Means Thunder," what is ambiguous about Bedogi's manner of death, and why?

10. 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"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

One of the hallmarks of Native literature is a conception of time as circular rather than linear, traveling around a repeating path where key events recur, with slight variations. How is this evident in the collapsing of time in "The Blessing Tobacco"? Where else in the collection do symbols, language, and events reinforce this concept of time? How does the collection's overall structure reinforce this same idea? Write an essay that contextualizes the confabulation of David's life with Robbie's in "The Blessing Tobacco," showing how it demonstrates a circular conception of time that is echoed in other facets of the story collection. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the collection, citing any quoted evidence in MLA format.

Essay Topic 2

How is the title of "Smokes Last" related to the expression "He who laughs last, laughs best"? What role do cigarettes play in this story? Why might David be feeling the need for triumph in this story--to "laugh last"? How do the adults around him--his family members, his community members, and the outside community of Overtown--let him down and make him feel as if his needs and his happiness do not really matter? What does the note that David's mother leaves him at the end of the story say? How is this related to the story's title? Why does the story end not with David's laughter but his mother's? Write an essay in which you consider what the story's title reveals about David's unmet needs. Support your assertions with both quoted and paraphrased evidence from throughout the story, citing any quoted evidence in MLA format.

Essay Topic 3

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.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,446 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample