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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. Dillard repeated the phrase, 'It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay' over and over like a song in Chapter 5. What poem is this line from?

2. Where was Ferrar heading as he rowed against the current all night?

3. Why did Dillard feel that an author must visit her work every day?

4. Who or what will teach someone to write, according to Dillard in Chapter 3?

5. What did Emily Dickinson love best in her writing?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why was a moth trying to gain altitude and ultimately drowning, in Chapter 3?

2. What did the children who visited Dillard in Chapter 3 surprise her with?

3. The next-to-last sentence of Chapter 5 reads, 'Shall we go rowing again, we who believe we may indeed row off the edge and fall?' What does this refer to?

4. When Dillard mentions that Thoreau's firewood warmed him twice because he labored to cut his own wood, why does she say that her wood froze her twice?

5. Why does Dillard say that the life of the mind of a writer is hard to be called "living"?

6. Why does Dillard say that she needed more materials than a pencil and paper in order to write something like a second draft for a thirty-page chapter?

7. How does Dillard say that she learned the correct way to split wood on the chopping block?

8. What does Dillard mean in Chapter 5 when she writes, '...instead we watch television and miss the show'?

9. What was Glenn's story about Ferrar Burn?

10. Who was Paul Glenn?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Explain the vision of what a projected work of art is, whether it be writing or painting. How does the vision lead one to a finished product?

Essay Topic 2

Why did a young photographer in Chapter 1 submit the same landscape every year for judgment to the same person, only to be rejected every year? What was the photographer's ultimate goal in his recurring submission? What does having worked long and hard on a particular project lead a creator to believe?

Essay Topic 3

Dillard taped up her pen drawing of the scene outside her window to the venetian blinds. Explain how this helped her concentrate on her work.

What was missing in the drawing of the scene that was really outside the window? Why wasn't it enough for her to just close the blinds?

(see the answer keys)

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