EOCT Review
Day 1
Poetry
1. Always read the poem all the way through.
2. Look for the author’s use of language—alliteration,
imagery, simile, metaphor, tone, personification,
hyperbole, allusion, symbolism
3. Look at the poem’s structure—rhythm, rhyme
scheme—form: free verse, blank verse, narrative, lyric,
ballad, ode
4. Think about what the author is trying to say—what is
the universal theme (message, moral, lesson) that all
of humanity can relate to, benefit from, or learn from?
Poetry
Example:
Our share of night to bear,
Our share of morning,
Our blank in bliss to fill,
Our blank in scorning.
Here a star, and there a star,
Some lose their way.
Here a mist, and there a mist,
Afterwards—day!
Emily Dickinson
1. What language do you
notice?
Alliteration in the repetition
in ‘bl’—Personification—stars
lose their way
2. What structural features
do you see? Repetition –
Rhythm (6 syl 5syl then
7syl 4 syl)
3. What universal theme is
there?
All of us (which is why our is
repeated) have to bear life’s
night (pain) but there is also
happiness. We make our own
bliss (fill in the blank). We
make our own pain
(scorning). But in the end
there is always day which
could mean the light at the
end of the tunnel or also a
new start.
Fiction
1. Stay alert even if the text is boring.
2. Pay attention to the elements of fiction:
setting, protagonists, antagonists, plot
location: exposition, rising action, climax,
falling action, denouement, internal & external
conflict, irony.
3. Pay attention to the author’s use of language &
style: diction, dialect, word play, sentence
length and structure, imagery, simile,
metaphor, mood
Fiction
4. Pay attention to the structure of the text—From what
point of view is it told, 1st (close, participant) 3rd limited
(distant) 3rd Omniscient—Do you trust the narrator?
Are the events happening in chronological order? Is it a
frame narrative? In Medias Res? Epistolary? Flashback?
Foreshadowing?
5. Pay attention to the literary periods and common
themes in American Literature—Colonial?
Revolutionary? Romantic? Transcendentalism?
Realistic? Modern? Post Modern?—American
Individualism, The American Dream, Diversity and
Tolerance, Secret Sin, Greed, Guilt, Insanity, Regret.
6. Stay alert even if the text is boring.
Fiction example:
His fist clenched. What was the use of running away? He
ought to stop right here in the middle of the sidewalk and
shout out what this was. It was so wrong that surely all
the black people round him would do something about it;
so wrong that all the white people would stop and listen.
But he knew that they would simply grab him and say that
he was crazy. He reeled through the streets, his bloodshot
eyes looking for a place to hide. He paused at a corner and
saw a big black rat leaping over the snow. It shot past him
into a doorway where it slid out of sight through a hole.
He looked wistfully at that gaping black hole through
which the rat had darted to safety.
Richard Wright’s Native Son
Fiction
His fist clenched. What was the use of
running away? He ought to stop right
here in the middle of the sidewalk and
shout out what this was. It was so
wrong that surely all the black people
round him would do something about
it; so wrong that all the white people
would stop and listen. But he knew
that they would simply grab him and
say that he was crazy. He reeled
through the streets, his bloodshot eyes
looking for a place to hide. He paused
at a corner and saw a big black rat
leaping over the snow. It shot past him
into a doorway where it slid out of sight
through a hole. He looked wistfully at
that gaping black hole through which
the rat had darted to safety.
Richard Wright’s Native Son
1. Mood?
tense (use of strong verbs)
2. Setting?
winter time before
integration
3. Symbolism?
black man on the run in the
white world- black rat
running through snow
4. Point of view?
3rd person limited (close)Use of 3rd person he, his &
judging what he should do,
judging as wrong, wishful
thinking