Firekeeper's Daughter

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

Part 1, Chapters 1-6 

Reading Check

1. Daunis defers admission into what college, opting to go to Lake State instead?

2. In Chapter 4, we learn Daunis’s motive for inviting Levin to the party she and Lily have. What is that motive?

3. Running together on the treadmill, Jamie reveals to Daunis that his father is a member of what tribe?

Short Answer

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

1. Daunis has learned over the years when it is time to be a “Fontaine” and when it is time to be a “Firekeeper.” What does this mean?

Paired Resource

“The Spectacle of Latinx Colorism” from The New York Times

• “Colorism” refers to prejudice among people of the same ethnic or racial group against those with darker skin tones. As a lighter-skinned Indigenous person, Daunis is often exempt from colorist attitudes within her community. (Subscription may be needed to view article.)
• This article describes colorism within the Latinx community and, in doing so, also touches upon the issue of colorism among Indigenous populations as well.
• In Chapters 1-6, how does colorism affect Daunis’s life? How does it affect Daunis’s relationship with Lily?

Part 1, Chapters 7-13

Reading Check

1. Why does Daunis not dance in the powwow in Chapter 8?

2. What is the Indigenous manifesto that Jamie buys at Daunis’s recommendation?

3. On the first day of mourning Lily’s death, Daunis takes what substance to the polar tree?

Short Answer

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

1. In Chapter 7, Daunis reveals to Jamie the origin of the family conflict between her mother’s and father’s side of the family. What is it?

Part 2, Chapters 14-17

Reading Check

1. To better help the investigation, Ron tells Daunis that she should apply for membership in what before she turns 19 in a few weeks?

2. Daunis decides to join TJ’s grandpa (Grandpa Jonsy) to collect a certain item at the landfill on Sugar Island. What is the item?

3. What gift does Granny June give Daunis, which previously belonged to Lily?

Short Answer

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

1. How did Daunis’s Gramma Pearl feel about thunderstorms? Why did she feel this way?

Paired Resource

“A Look at Addiction in Indigenous Communities” from Recovery Unplugged

• Published by a non-profit against substance abuse, this article explains the underlying causes, and most common addictions, within the Indigenous community.
• Of the 10% of Indigenous people in the United States who suffer from a substance abuse disorder, nearly half of those struggle with an illicit drug use disorder. Methamphetamine use would fall under “illicit drug” category of addiction.
• As described in the article, what are some of the reasons why Daunis’s Obijwe family might be vulnerable to a substance abuse disorder?

Part 2, Chapters 18-20

Reading Check

1. Who is having a Labor Day cookout in Chapter 19?

2. As she explains to Jamie on one of their runs, what is the main reason why Daunis does not like “the firekeeper’s daughter” story?

Short Answer

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

1. In Chapter 18, Jamie explains some of the history of meth and how it began with a legitimate usage. Briefly describe this history and provide an example of one such “legitimate” use.

Part 2, Chapters 21-25

Reading Check

1. What animal does Daunis spot on Duck Island that makes her think of the creation story of the Ojibwe?

2. When Daunis thinks back on Heather’s bag of pills at the Labor Day party, what does she recall about how they look?

3. What is Daunis searching for when she goes to her GrandMary’s empty house in Chapter 23?

Short Answer

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

1. Why does Daunis get irritated with Jamie in Chapter 25 when he tries to give her advice during one of their morning runs?

Paired Resource

 “Taffy Abel: The ‘Michigan Mountain’ and Ojibwe Hockey Hero Gets His Due” from NPR

• “Taffy” Abel, whose family hailed from Sault Ste. Marie (just like Daunis’s), was a legendary hockey player from 1924 to 1934.
• Due to rampant discrimination, he was forced to keep his Ojibwe heritage a secret until 1939.
• How does Taffy’s experience of discrimination compare to Daunis and her hockey-playing Ojibwe family and friends?

Part 2, Chapters 26-29

Reading Check

1. How long before Daunis turns 19 does she have to apply for tribal enrollment?

2. What is the true reason, as Daunis learns, why Jamie does not know what community/tribe he belongs to?

3. How do the white hockey parents react to the news of Robin’s death?

Short Answer

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

1. Ron shares with Daunis some of the details about what was found on Heather Nodin’s body and how the body was found. What are some of those details? What, if anything, strikes Daunis as odd about what Ron reports?

Part 2, Chapters 30-34

Reading Check

1. What kind of test is used to confirm Daunis’s paternal lineage, related to her tribal enrollment?

2.  In Daunis’s reoccurring dream with Travis and Lily, Daunis remembers more details each time she has the dream. In Chapter 31, after waking up from this dream, she recalls Travis mentioning something, a detail that the elders often mention. What is it?

3. When Teddie confronts Daunis in Chapter 32, what does Teddie suspect is the root cause of Daunis’s recent “disappointing” behavior?

Short Answer

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

1. When Teddie invites Daunis to her house in Chapter 33, why does Daunis agree to go, even though she is still upset with Teddie?

Paired Resource

“Ojibwe Dreamcatcher Legend” from WeRNative

• Daunis’s dreams feature prominently in this section of the novel. At this link, you will learn the story behind the Ojibwe dreamcatcher, which is a small circular willow hoop, woven with net or web, and hung at a person’s window.
• The non-profit WeRNative is an organization “for Native youth and by Native youth, providing content and stories about topics that matter most to them.”
• What might Daunis’s dreams represent symbolically at this juncture of the story? What connections might you make between her dreams and the novel’s themes of Trusting One’s Sense of Self and Seeing the “Whole Story”?

Part 2, Chapters 35-39

Reading Check

1. Teddie whisks Daunis away in Chapter 36 for a special ceremony. What is the ceremony called?

2. In thinking back on Travis and Lily’s on-again/off-again relationship, Daunis remembers a notable incident in which Lily refused what substance from Travis on Valentine’s Day?

3. Daunis learns that she is granted enrollment early into the official Ojibwe tribe on what special day?

Short Answer

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

1. Daunis has a major revelation in Chapter 35, regarding the “vision” that Travis and Leonard’s cousin saw just before they died. What is this revelation?

Part 2, Chapters 40-44

Reading Check

1. The morning after Shagala, Daunis opens a gift from Levi. What is it?

2.  What is Levi concealing in hockey pucks, which Daunis discovers in a box underneath his bed?

Short Answer

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

1. Why does Jamie get Daunis a strawberry beaded bracelet for the Shagala?

Paired Resource

"Debunking Crystal Meth Myths"

• In this brief documentary, part of their “War on Drugs” series, VICE debunks popular myths surrounding methamphetamine.
• Where does Daunis’s story fit into this narrative, as VICE presents the crystal meth epidemic? How might addiction treatment differ for Ojibwe addicts, as opposed to white ones?

Part 3, Chapters 45-52

Reading Check

1. When Daunis wakes up shackled to a metal bedframe alongside Jamie, where does she deduce that they have been taken?

2. According to Mike, how did Travis’s mom get addicted to meth?

Short Answer

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

1. Daunis confronts Levi about why he did not give her their father’s scarf when she asked for it. How does Levi respond?

Part 4, Chapters 53-57

Reading Check

1. In Daunis’s near-death experience, she has a vision in which she sees Lily. What does Lily put over Daunis’s head in the vision?

2. Daunis wakes up in the hospital after the car accident. According to her mother, who has died?

Short Answer

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

1. Briefly describe the vision Daunis has in Chapter 56 featuring a little boy. What snaps Daunis out of the vision?

Recommended Next Reads

LaRose

• This novel by Louise Erdrich, an enrolled member of the Ojibwe people, is the 2016 winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. The book explores how two Ojibwe families deal with a tragic death of a five-year-old child in their community. 
• La Rose touches upon similar themes as Firekeeper’s Daughter, such as drug addiction affecting Community and Seeing the “Whole Story” of its characters.
• LaRose on SuperSummary.com

An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People

• The 2019 adaptation for younger readers of Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s 2015 seminal work An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States
• In its exploration of colonial history, and the reprehensible treatment of Indigenous people under colonialism, the book will deepen students’ understanding of Daunis’s character as a person of both Indigenous and European heritage.
• An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People on SuperSummary.com