Elatsoe

Reading Check and Short Answer questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.

Chapters 1-5

Reading Check

1. What is unusual about Ellie’s dog?

2. What do Ronnie’s parents object to about her boyfriend, Al?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. When Trevor appears in Ellie’s dream, what does he tell her about his death, and what does he ask her to do for him?

2. Why do Ellie and her father plan to go to Willowbee, Texas?

3. What did Six-Great realize about the river monster’s face?

Paired Resource

“Federal Government Seeks Solutions to the Crisis of Missing Indigenous People”

• This article by Will Walkey, hosted by Wyoming Public Radio, details the ongoing national crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people.
• This resource relates to the themes of Grief and Letting Go and Prejudice and Privilege.
• What relationship is there between systemic prejudice and the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people? How does this article demonstrate the heartache and anger this issue causes for Indigenous families and communities? What actions have some Indigenous people taken to try to bring attention to this issue? What light does this shed on Ellie’s immediate willingness to investigate Trevor’s death and defend his wife and child?

Chapters 6-10

Reading Check

1. What does Ellie believe is the reason store security follows her around at the mall?

2. What does Ellie learn Abe Allerton has tattooed on his lower back?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What decision did Lenore make about future children when she married Trevor, and why did she make that decision?

2. What makes Willowbee seem strange and out of place?

3. Why is Ellie suspicious when she sees Allerton’s car?

Paired Resource

“How Much Racism Do You Face Every Day?”

• This interactive New York Times article by Amy Harmon offers teens a chance to consider how their own experiences with microaggressions compare with others’ experiences. (Subscription may be needed to view.)
• This resource relates to the theme of Prejudice and Privilege.
• What point is this article trying to make about microaggressions like following minority teens in stores? What is the rhetorical purpose of framing this message as an interactive quiz? How does this article’s message compare with the experiences Ellie shares about facing similar issues? Do you imagine that Ellie faces more of these microaggressions than she shares? Why might Little Badger have chosen to offer just a glimpse of the prejudices Ellie faces instead of detailing all of them?

Chapters 11-15

Reading Check

1. What is Chloe Alamor’s profession?

2. Who are the figures around the Allerton house when Ellie and her mother go there looking for Lenore in Chapter 13?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What do Ellie, Jay, and Aunt Bell discover about what happened to Trevor when they investigate the scene where he was found and then trace his more usual route?

2. In Chapter 14, what does Ellie notice about Lenore’s hands, and what is Lenore’s explanation?

3. What happens when Ellie takes the trilobite fossil to the park to try to wake its ghost?

Paired Resource

“Memory Sack”

• This brief poem by acclaimed Muscogee author Joy Harjo meditates on the role of ancestry in shaping a person’s path through life.
• This resource relates to the themes of Family Legacies and Expectations and Prejudice and Privilege.
• What “first cry” does this poem refer to? What is the “ancestor road,” and how is it related to the two kinds of circles the speaker mentions? How is it related to the “pack of memories”? Why are these memories depicted as something carried on the back? What blessings and burdens does Ellie’s ancestry confer upon her? How is this similar to and different from Allerton’s situation? How do Ellie and Allerton demonstrate the ways that the path our ancestry opens for us can be both “destruction” and “creation”?

Chapters 16-20

Reading Check

1. What does “Elatsoe” mean?

2. What do Ellie and Jay find growing all over at Allerton’s clinic?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What is Vivian’s reaction when Ellie tells her about her experience in the park?

2. In Chapter 18, what theory about Trevor’s death do Ellie and Jay form while they are eating ice cream and talking the mystery over?

3. When Ellie tries to look at a satellite image of Allerton’s mansion on her computer, what does she see?

Chapters 21-25

Reading Check

1. When Jay texts Ellie about a news article he has read, what does he tell her a farmer found in his field?

2. In the dream Ellie has in Chapter 25, she sees Trevor in the underworld. Who touches Trevor’s hand?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What does Trevor tell Ellie about the water in her Chapter 21 dream about finding him buried up to his waist in a dry riverbed?

2. What theory about Trevor’s death does Ellie share with her mother and Lenore at the beginning of Chapter 23?

3. What story about Six-Great does Vivian share with Ellie to try to dissuade her from spending time in the underworld?

Paired Resource

“The Tragic Myth of Orpheus and Eurydice”

• This 5-minute TED-Ed video retells the classic myth of Orpheus’s attempt to retrieve his wife from the underworld.
• This resource relates to the theme of Grief and Letting Go.
• How is this story similar to and different from the story Vivian tells about Six-Great and her husband? What beliefs about death and the underworld are conveyed by the Orpheus and Eurydice story? How are these beliefs similar to and different from the beliefs about death and the underworld conveyed in the story of Elatsoe? What messages about Grief and Letting Go are conveyed by stories like these?

Chapters 26-30

Reading Check

1. At the beginning of Chapter 26, whom does Ellie discover has disappeared?

2. What animal’s ghost does Ellie summon to protect herself and Jay from Glorian?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Why can’t Ellie banish Glorian when he traps her and Jay at the mansion?

2. When Ellie, Al, and Jay are escaping the mansion, what do they find outside, and whom does Ellie suspect is responsible?

3. After the ghost admits it is not Trevor, what does it try to get Ellie to do?

Paired Resource

“Revenge”

• This 7-minute video features poet Taha Muhammad Ali reading his poem “Revenge.” (Note that his translator reads this poem in English beginning at 3:58.)
• This resource relates to the theme of Justice Versus Vengeance.
• For most of the poem, what seem to be the circumstances under which Ali says he would not take revenge? What point does this make about the difference between taking revenge to make yourself feel better and seeking justice in order to protect society itself? How does the poem’s ending change your understanding of what the poem is really saying? What virtue does the poem’s ending elevate above the desire for revenge? How similar to this are Elatsoe’s messages about Justice Versus Vengeance?

Chapters 31-36

Reading Check

1. What does Ellie summon to defeat Allerton’s exorcists?

2. What kind of hitchhiker does Ellie’s family pick up in Chapter 34?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What story does Vivian tell Jay and Ronnie about a mammoth?

2. During the fight in the ballroom, what does Ellie learn about the existence of Willowbee?

3. At the end of the novel, what does Kirby bring back with him from the underworld, and what does Ellie suspect its origin is?

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• A Snake Falls to Earth on SuperSummary

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• Trail of Lightning on SuperSummary