American Literature
Fall Semester Exam Study Guide
Your exam will consist of two essays.
1. Essay #1 (60 points)
Rhetorical Devices and Literary terms to know for the final:
ethos, pathos, logos, repetition, parallelism, alliteration, allusion, hyperbole, diction,
understatement, anecdote, metaphor, simile, imagery, satire, dialect, colloquial language,
rhetorical questions
You will be expected to identify these devices in a passage and explain how the writer uses
them to convince an audience of something. This is a formal, analytical essay.
2. Essay #2 (40 points)
Review the literature we read this semester. You will express your opinion on a general
topic and support it with evidence from any of the following readings. This is an informal,
personal essay.
Sonia Sotomayor, My Beloved World (memoir)
Maya Angelou, “Graduation” and “Victory” from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (memoir)
and “Eulogy for Coretta Scott King” (eulogy)
Thomas Jefferson “Declaration of Independence”
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions”
Susan B. Anthony, “On Women’s Right to Vote” (speech)
George Saunders, “Address to the Graduates” (speech)
Chief Joseph, “I Will Fight No More Forever” (speech)
Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (novel), “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of
Calaveras County” (tall tale)
Edgar Allan Poe, “Annabel Lee” (poem)