English Literature SAT Subject Test

If you're attending university in the US, you may consider taking an English Literature SAT Subject Test. The college counselors have advised that you do so in May, while you're at your peak performance.

Summative Timed Writing

On April 24th and 25th you will complete a prose analysis summative timed writing assignment (Question 2). This way, we'll be able to compare your performance to model papers and receive feedback in time for the exam.

Pre-20th Century Prose Check-in

While we continue to read our novels, we´ll have some formative check-in´s to prepare for our Summative Open-Ended Question (Q3) in which you´ll need to write about your novel. 

As I look around, I don´t see that we´re annotating as we should be.

This is the rubric I´ll use.

Full-Length Multiple-Choice Exam (Summative)

On our full-length multiple-choice exam you will have sixty minutes to complete fifty-five questions See April Lesson Calendar on sidebar for dates.

The passages will be:
Sonnet 60 by William Shakespeare
Chapter 6 of The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James.
"Andrea del Sarto" by William Browning
"The Race" by Sharon Olds


vocabulary:
ominous
toil
dispassionate
inexorable
thwart
erudite
malelovent
reticent
ineffectual
ambivalent
impropriety
skeptical



terms:
octave
sestet
ballad
quatrain
couplet
poetic license
pastoral
epic
elegy
ode
lyric
synecdoche
onomatopoeia
hyperbole
allusion
stream of consciousness

In-Class MC Practice

Try taking this MC quiz with 14 minutes to complete.

Group Lead Literary Cenacle Discussions (formative)

Your literary cenacle will choose a passage from your pre-20th century novel with which to create questions around. Then the class will participate in four-five rounds of three-minute discussions. 

Your group is responsible for making copies of the passage you will discuss.



Groups will be evaluated on the clarity of their questions, their insight into the text and their ability to lead the conversation into profundity, rather than repeating the same inferences or observations about the text.

I will help the Candide groups to lead the first discussion.

You can find the discussion rubric here.

Q2 Student Samples

You can find student sample responses for Q2 here. 

Model Hamlet Timed Writing

While not without some flaws, this essay does a great job in connecting form and content.

Pre-20th Century Literary Cenacles

As we prepare to read our last book together, the EVL has made a webpage for some of your options should you wish to do some pre-research on each book. Check it out here. 

Bartleby Practice Prompt

Question 3
(40 minutes)

It has often been said that what we value can be determined only by what we sacrifice. Consider how this statement applies to a character from a novel or play. Select a character that has deliberately sacrificed, surrendered, or forfeited something in a way that highlights that character’s values. Then write a well-organized essay in which you analyze how the particular sacrifice illuminates the character’s values and provides a deeper understanding of the meaning of the work as a whole.

Student Samples of Q3

Take a look at some of the student samples. With your group using the scoring guide, give a grade to the first three essays.

Hamlet Videos

All productions of Hamlet must be uploaded to Youtube and linked to each actor´s blog by April 5th. Make sure you mark your videos as unlisted.

Poetry Quiz (formative)

We will have a quiz on "To the Same Flower" on Friday April 6th or Monday April 9th. This will be a formative quiz.

On the quiz the following words and terms will appear:

idyllic
apostrophe
stressed syllable
mercurial
sardonic
melancholy