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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 much money had been lost in poker and beer by the parent of one student, in the section "Composition"?

2. What illustration was NOT included in the pictures on the new coat hooks for the students?

3. What story was Ashton-Warner asked to read while trying to get the child to nap?

4. Which student wrote about a father drinking all the beer at the party?

5. What did one section of wallpaper depict?

Short Essay Questions

1. What was the reaction of strangers to Ashton-Warner's multi-colored Maori belt?

2. What set the local Maori pa (village) where Ashton-Warner taught apart from other pas?

3. Why did Ashton-Warner write at the end of "Holidays" that she was no longer lonely?

4. Why was it important to offer only present tense verbs to new readers?

5. Why did Ashton-Warner criticize herself for the way she handled Matawhero's defiance after he hit Gordon?

6. What happened when Ashton-Warner attempted to secure school uniforms for her students from a nearby shop?

7. Why did Ashton-Warner focus on teaching her Maori students nouns at first?

8. How did sentence length differ between whites and Maoris?

9. To what did Ashton-Warner attribute the lack of cohesiveness in some of her later students' stories?

10. What revelation did Ashton-Warner have in "Post-Holiday Notes" about using Maori readers with both Maori and white students?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

As Ashton-Warner listened to a Maori adult teach her students a traditional song, she realized that she could not have done that because she was not Maori herself. She knew she could not bring forth the same passion that the Maori teacher did. How did being white affect Ashton-Warner's abilities as a teacher to a mostly-Maori classroom? Did it limit her in any way? Was she required to make changes to her technique because of the racial difference? Were there other situations (besides the traditional song) in which Ashton-Warner would have been at a significant disadvantage as a white person? Is it necessary to have teachers reflect the ethnic or racial makeup of their classrooms?

Essay Topic 2

Ashton-Warner wrote at length about the importance of tone in the classroom. Write an essay exploring how tone is set in the classroom and how several people have a role in setting that tone. Does the tone have to be the same from classroom to classroom or school to school? Or should there be variations based on the unique needs of the teachers and students? How does a teacher determine what tone works best for her students and how does she achieve that tone, especially if it differs from what she would normally like to see?

Essay Topic 3

Based on categorizing the "first words" collected from her students, Ashton-Warner decided that there were two main instincts represented in these words--fear and sex. Is that a fair and accurate assessment? Are these two "emotions" universal (in terms of being expressed as "first words" among children)? Is fear something that all children feel and need to express? What is their likely understanding of the role of sex in their lives and the life of their community? Would children of different cultures also focus on words related to fear and sex and would those words differ from the Maori ones? What do these first words say about human nature?

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