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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 many children were in Puki's family?

2. What kind of tree could be seen through the glass wall?

3. What did one section of wallpaper depict?

4. What part of speech did Ashton-Warner first teach her Maori students to read?

5. Which student had a father who worked at the carnival?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Why was Ashton-Warner disappointed with the pictures the new teacher had chosen to personalize the children's coat hooks?

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

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

5. What was Ashton-Warner's reaction to the traditional Maori music performed by the children under the direction of Kahu?

6. How did the behavior of the children differ in the new classrooms compared to when Ashton-Warner taught at the school?

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

8. Why was Ashton-Warner upset about the way she handled Mark Cutter when his mother insisted that her son was advancing too quickly in class?

9. Describe the new teacher encountered by Ashton-Warner as she explores the renovated school.

10. Why was Ashton-Warner surprised at the appearance of the new classrooms when she visited?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Although Ashton-Warner was willing to sometimes rein in her classroom, overall she accepted the fact that there would be noisy chaos among the children. How does a teacher harness this sort of energy when asking the students to perform specific tasks? How does he ensure that it does not become disruptive? Based on Ashton-Warner's experiences, is this noise ever destructive? Would it be possible to allow this level of noise in most modern-day classrooms or would the differences among the children preclude allowing it?

Essay Topic 2

Ashton-Warner's students spend much time dancing in the classroom, whether as a form of exercise or in free-dance exploration. Write an essay exploring the use of dance in the classroom. What are the benefits of giving students access to this art form? Are the benefits solely physical? Does dance help center children and does it have an effect on concentration? How can free-dance periods help children express themselves and how can that impact other areas of the curriculum?

Essay Topic 3

Ashton-Warner wrote in detail about the importance of "first words" for beginning readers and how the traditional reading books used among young children did not use those words. Write an essay exploring how the use of a child's first words can enhance the learning process. Do children from different cultures develop different first words? Does learning to read from another culture's books necessarily lead to stunted development? If individual children are given their own unique texts, at what point can a teacher introduce standardized books to the entire classroom?

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