Personal Response to Texts Assignment
Time: approximately 45 to 60 minutes
Read the following texts and complete the assignment that follows.
What does the poem suggest to you about the significance of our response to challenge in
shaping our outlook on life? Support your idea(s) with reference to one or more of the
texts presented and to your previous knowledge and/or experience.
Guidelines for Writing:
In your writing, you should
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Select a prose form that is appropriate to the ideas you wish to express and that will
enable you to effectively communicate to the reader.
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Discuss ideas and/or impressions that are meaningful to you.
For the text you are referencing, briefly identify the central idea thas is most relevant to what you
intend to explore.
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Briefly identify what idea you intend to explore.
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Text 1.
Text 2.
Enlightenment and Muscular Dystrophy
The first miles were easy,
you’ve heard it before.
I took sixteen years in giant strides,
on impulse, in flight.
Breath-less, care-less
child.
And it was over about that quickly.
I was left with a string of small water planets,
a charmed circle I wear around my throat.
It’s taken me these last fourteen years to learn that certain things
broken
stay broken.
And also to notice the space the breaking has made
that let’s the whole world in.
Now wherever I go I always go slowly.
Gravity and I have long conversations through my legs.
I cooperate with the smallest pebble.
I study imperceptible inclines
I fall and I
get up
and I fall and I get up.
up and
I fall and
I
get up.
My miles are good long miles.
When I work hard I think better.
But I lose a little more each year,
a few degrees of motor control.
So far always
less than they predict,
and always more
than I can surrender.
This year in a photograph, I did not recognize my hands.
It’s a fierce thing, this enlightenment.
Eli Coppola
CRITICAL/ANALYTICAL RESPONSE TO LITERARY TEXTS ASSIGNMENT
Suggested Time: Approximately 1.5 to 2 hours
Reflect on the ideas and impressions that you discussed in the Personal Response to Texts
Assignment.
The Assignment
Consider how the significance of our response to challenge in shaping our
outlook on life has been reflected and developed in a literary text or texts that
you have studied. Discuss the idea(s) developed by the text creator(s) about
the significance of our response to challenge in shaping our outlook on life.
In your planning and writing, consider the following instructions.
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You must focus your discussion on a literary text or texts other than the texts provided in
this examination booklet.
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When considering the work(s) that you know well, select a literary text or texts
meaningful to you and relevant to this assignment. Choose from the short stories, novels,
plays, screenplays, poetry, films, or other literary texts that you have studied in English
Language Arts 10-1.
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Carefully consider your controlling idea or how you will create a strong unifying effect in
your response.
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As you develop your ideas, support them with appropriate, relevant, and meaningful
examples from literary text(s).
CRITICAL/ANALYTICAL RESPONSE TO LITERARY TEXTS ASSIGNMENT
Initial Planning
You may use this space for your initial planning. This information assists markers in identifying
the text(s) you have chosen to support your ideas. The markers who read your composition will
be very familiar with the literary text(s) you have chosen.
Literary Text(s) and ___________________________________________________
Text Creator(s)
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PERSONAL REFLECTION ON CHOICE OF LITERARY TEXT(S)
Briefly explore your reasons for selecting the literary text(s) as support for your response.
You may respond in point form, using a diagram such as a mind map, or in another format of
your choice. Markers will consider the information you provide here when considering the
effectiveness of your supporting evidence.
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