Print
Word
PDF
|
| Name: _________________________ | Period: ___________________ |
This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.
Short Answer Questions
1. What did Dillard do when she was upstairs in a house and she felt a tremor under her feet in Chapter 4?
2. What did a Dinka believe his own memories and daydreams to be?
3. When Dillard left her cabin for home in Chapter 5 during a northeaster, how was she feeling, walking down the beach?
4. In Dillard's experience, what always wins over the vision being forgotten?
5. What does Dillard say she believes poets and novelists like?
Short Essay Questions
1. What is ludicrous about the tea kettle in the faculty lounge of the university that Dillard wrote in?
2. How does Dillard say that she believes a writer must control his or her own energies in order to work?
3. Why does Dillard say it makes more sense to write one big book than to write many stories or essays?
4. Why does Dillard compare a writer writing a first draft to a Zulu warrior and an Aztec maiden?
5. What did the children who visited Dillard in Chapter 3 surprise her with?
6. 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?
7. 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?
8. Why does Dillard say that the life of the mind of a writer is hard to be called "living"?
9. In Chapter 5, how does Dillard compare a writer to a tennis player?
10. Who was Paul Glenn?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
Dillard expresses the torturous, both in mind and body, experiences she has throughout the book. Her goal is to impart some wisdom and insight to the reader, especially those who want to write.
What wisdom has reading this book imparted to you? How will this wisdom be used?
Essay Topic 2
What was Dillard, as a reader, looking for and hoping to find when reading? What emotions and insights did Dillard hope to find? What does Dillard believe many people do that inspires her to write "..instead we watch television and miss the show"?
Essay Topic 3
What is the overall theme of Chapter 1? Give examples to support your answer.
|
This section contains 1,093 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) |
|
