English 2130-27H
American Literature (Survey)
Fall 2006
MIDTERM
(SAMPLE—THIS IS NOT THE ACTUAL MIDTERM GIVEN ON SEPTEMBER 27!!! However, individual
examples from this handout may appear on the actual midterm.)
General Instructions: Please bring a bluebook for your exam! Only write in black or blue ink, no
pencil! Please write legibly and indicate paragraph breaks. You may use your texts, your notes,
a dictionary, and scrap paper to outline your essays. The times given next to each assignment
give you an idea of how much you spend on each to finish the exam in a timely fashion (These
are approximate values; you can structure your time according to your own preference.) You
may begin with the identifications or the short essay questions, but you have to label clearly each
section! Good luck and much success!
A) IDENTIFICATIONS
Instructions: Pick five (5) out of ten (10) given key terms, names, titles, themes, historical
event, etc.! Write a one-paragraph (i.e. no more than 3 or 4 sentence) identification!
Your paragraph should highlight the significance of an author or work, define a theme or
genre, summarize the central question of a text, and so on. The information does not
have to go beyond what we have covered in class. Please write complete sentences only!
Please provide only clear, focused, and concise information/facts; no textual examples,
speculation, analysis, etc.!
Indicate which terms you are working with by circling them clearly; also, write the
number and term at the beginning of each paragraph!
Examples:
1) Nathaniel Hawthorne (author ID)
2) Samuel Keimer (person/character ID)
3) Spiritual autobiography (genre or literary term ID)
4) The Pequot War (historical background ID)
5) Education (theme ID)
Time: 4 minutes for each ID (i.e. circa 20 minutes for section)
What you should focus on:
Author ID:
- Important biographical details that relate to the author’s work, themes,
concerns, or significance in American literary history (e.g. Hawthorne’s
relationship to the Puritans through his family ancestry)
- Significant detail about the author’s cultural, historical, ethnic background
- author’s significance in American literature and culture (e.g. Apess probably
published the first Native American autobiography)
- author’s primary concern (in the text we read)
-
innovation in literature or contribution to changes in American culture (e.g.
Franklin’s emphasis on the ability of human beings to improve themselves
morally and economically leaving behind Puritan doctrine of innate human
depravity)
Person/character ID:
- where and why this person appears in the text
- role of this person or character in the account/text we read (e.g. Panfilo de
Narvaez as an example of the bad leader)
- importance of the person/character for the overall meaning and interpretation of
the text (e.g. Pearl as a symbol)
Genre/literary term ID:
- define a genre by naming its most important concerns (e.g. the tracing of a
person’s development of depravity to salvation in spiritual autobiography) as
well as structural/formal characteristics (i.e. the spiritual autobiography
moving from
- define the meaning of a literary term, such as “synecdoche”
Historical Background ID:
- quickly explain the historical event (Pequot War as an early conflict between
New England puritans and Native Americans in 17th century, in which the
Puritan forces almost exterminated the entire Pequot tribe)
- say something about the relevance of this historical background for the author
or text (e.g. the Spanish re-conquista and the influence on American
conquistador’s attitude toward colonizing “infidels” or “heathens” in the new
world).
Theme ID:
- identify a specific author and/or text for whom this theme plays an important
role (e.g. education highlighted in Franklin’s Autobiography)
- explain how the theme features in the text (e.g. Franklin describing the steps
and techniques of improving his writing)
- one sentence about the significance of the theme in the larger text (e.g.
emphasis on education for Franklin shows agency in shaping his own life)
B) BRIEF ESSAYS:
Time: 25 minutes for each essay.
Instructions: Please choose two (2) essay questions from the five (5) options provided below.
Please write a circa two-page essay (handwritten pages) in response to each question. Your
essay should be written in complete prose and have an introduction, middle paragraphs, and a
conclusion. It should be written in complete sentences and correct prose. Please use scrap paper
to outline your ideas and the structure of the essay before you start writing in your blue book!
Focus/content: Any of the discussion/reading questions I have provided throughout the
semester could serve as an essay question. You do not have to come up with any new ideas of
your own, but you should give a concise idea of the results of our class discussion in response to
this question. Your introduction should very briefly state—in a thesis style manner what the
essence of our reading/discussion was. Each paragraph (maybe 2?) should discuss a specific part
of that these/central idea and provide one or more textual examples (here, you may refer
generally to a specific feature of the text or specifically quote from the text—since you are
allowed to use the texts). The conclusion should not restate the thesis but rather explain the
larger significance (in literary, cultural, historical terms) of this particular element of the text
under discussion.
Example: Evaluate the use of “Errata,” a printer’s term, for the mistakes in Benjamin Franklin’s
life. In what colors does it paint his transgressions or mistakes? What concepts does this term
replace?
Sample Outline:
Intro/Thesis: Franklin replaces the religious idea of sin or transgression with the printer’s
term “errata” in order to demonstrate that mistakes in one’s personal life can be corrected
and that human beings can be improved like a literary text.
Paragraph One: Franklin links the retelling of his life to the revision or resetting of a
text.
Example One: Explaining, to his son, the relationship between writing an
autobiography and one’s life
Example Two: the epigraph (“here lies the body of…”)
Concluding sentence:
Paragraph Two: Throughout his Autobiography, Franklin demonstrates how he could
have avoided or how he corrected certain errors or “errata” in his life.
Example One:
Example Two:
Concluding Sentence: By comparing personal mistakes to printer’s errors,
Franklin argues that human beings can improve their lives in a mechanical,
orderly fashion.
Conclusion: [Explain how Franklin’s rejection of the idea of sin in favor of
“errata” introduces the idea of personal responsibility and an ethos of self-improvement
into American culture => larger significance of a text and theme in American
literature/culture]