Record Your Results
O Open your Multiple Choice chart in your Google AP Lit folder and
record your results:
O Test name = 2009
O 55 questions
O For the grade: 100% = 70% on the test (38 correct). 1 pt e/c 39
and above
O Copy of test for your reference.
O Return ALL bubble sheets and tests to front table.
O This year’s student average = 72%
O High score = 91% (Anyone who scored over 89% can opt out of
the next practice test scheduled for 4-25. )
O Next, create a document in your AP Lit folder called “Babbitt.”
Then close your lid and take out your annotated copy of Ch. 1 of
Babbitt.
Seven Minute Passage strategy
O Let’s say you just run out of time. Many students struggle to
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3.
4.
5.
work through all four or five passages. If you just have a few
minutes left for a last passage, don’t give up. Do this:
Don’t read the passage at all. Not one word. Go straight to
the questions.
Answer them in this order of priority:
Answer any literary term or grammar question.
Answer any question that asks for the meaning of a single
word or phrase.
Go to any other question that gives you a line reference.
Go to any question on tone or attitude
Bubble blanks before the time is up. No penalty for
guessing.
Excerpt from Babbitt
by Sinclair Lewis
Working with satire, diction, setting, and
characterization
Sinclair Lewis
O 1885 - 1951
O Best known as social critic with critical views of
American society and capitalism after WWI
O 1930 – wins Noble Prize for literature – first
American to do so
O Babbitt –
O best-selling novel published 1922
O characteristic of his style that combines wit,
humor, and sympathy
Satire
O A term used to describe any form of
literature that blends ironic humor and wit
(sometimes sarcasm) with criticism for the
purpose of ridiculing folly, vice, stupidity--the
whole range of human foibles and frailties-in individuals and institutions.
O The end goal of satire is to bring about
change. It blends a censorious attitude with
humor and wit for improving human
institutions or humanity - a moral purpose.
Two ingredients
for successful satire
O 1) either wit, humor based on the ability to relate
seemingly disparate things so as to illuminate or
amuse, or humor based on a sense of the
absurd
O "Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply
calisthenics with words" (Dorothy Parker).
O Sarcasm is a form of caustic wit intended to
wound or ridicule another.
O 2) a target
Other ingredients
O Almost always involves some use of irony
O a: the use of words to express something other than and
especially the opposite of the literal meaning
O b: a usually humorous or sardonic literary style or form
characterized by irony
O Hyperbole = exaggeration for effect
O Incongruity – a kind of irony that brings together two ideas (or
events or people) that do not belong together). Incongruous =
“not fitting together”
O Some satire employs fantasy – the creation of a world where
common sense has collapsed (Alice in Wonderland, 1985)
Sometimes fantasy turns to the absurd or the grotesque,
and we can get what is known as gallows humor. (Jonathan Swift’s
A Modest Proposal suggests cannibalism as a solution to an
economic problem – it’s in the anthology if you want to read it.)
* www.merriam-webster.com
With your partner
O Make a list of what Lewis is satirizing in this
chapter.
O Share ideas – write on the board.
Sample character analysis
paragraph
O In the first paragraph, Dickens’s narrator reveals his central character directly
by what he says. Gradgrind’s tone is confident, authoritative, perhaps
obstinate and arrogant. He is clearly a man who “knows best”; in fact, he
knows the “only” way to form young minds. Dickens provides direct
description in paragraph two. The “square wall of a forehead” and “two dark
caves” for his eyes both suggest a Neanderthal-like being. Moreover, the
description of Gradgrind’s hair presents him as quite ridiculous looking, as
an object of ridicule. Another method at work here is carefully chosen
diction. “Monotonous,” “inflexible,” “dictatorial,” “obstinate,”
“unaccommodating,” and “stubborn” all directly contribute to the
characterization; they “all helped the emphasis,” in the words of the narrator,
of Gradgrind as one whose supreme confidence may grind on the nerves of
those he encouters .
Quick write
O Discuss with partner: How does Lewis use
language to characterize Babbitt?
O Write a thesis statement.
Assignment for tomorrow
O Look over together.
O https://docs.google.com/a/k12.sd.us/docu
ment/d/1G2kBbdCs7xKty59etj8UG8j0vfJR
610a4DwN1jtxZ8k/edit?usp=sharing
O No late work – we will be using in class.
Babbitt, day 2
AP Test Tip of the Day:
So what?
O Conceptual sentences must be followed with
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evidence. And all evidence must be explained.
Analyze the line/words from the text, and explain
how the quotation works as evidence for your
assertion. Answer the question, "So what?"
How?
Why?
What is the effect?
So what?
So what?
So what?
Looking ahead:
O A: For Tuesday:
O 1. Read the poem "The Unknown Citizen" by W. H. Auden p. 489 in lit..
Answer, in writing, the following questions:
1. Explain the allusion and the irony in the title. Why was the citizen “unknown”?
2. This obituary of an unknown state “hero” was apparently prepared by a
functionary of the state. Give an account of the citizen’s life and character from
Auden’s own point of view.
O 3. What trends in modern life and social organization does the poem satirize?
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O 2. Read the poem “Departmental” by Robert Frost p. 788 and answer, in
writing, the For Analysis and the Writing Topic questions.
O 3. Compare and contrast “The Unknown Citizen” with “Departmental” in
content and manner. You may write in paragraph form, or you may create a
visual to show the comparisons and contrasts (Venn diagram, T-chart,
etc.). Deep analysis either way!
O No late work.
O Bring your anthologies to class Tuesday. You will be turning them in. 
Babbitt continued
O Share analysis paragraphs.
O First with your neighbor.
O Now, random “magic card” with class.
O See Brett’s sample, LHS Class of 2012
O Everyone: Write another analysis paragraph
analyzing Lewis’s use of diction in the final
section, connecting his use of language to
his main ideas.