Making up for the First Seven
Weeks!
Multiple
Choice
• 45% of your overall score
• 4-5 passages (combination of
poetry, prose, and drama)
• 10-15 questions per passage
• 55 questions, 60 minutes
Essays
• 55% of your overall score
• 3 essays, 120 minutes
(approximately 40 minutes each)
Prose
Poetry
Open
 2015
Prose: The following excerpt is from
the opening of The Beet Queen, a 1986
novel by Louise Erdrich. Read the
passage carefully. Then write a welldeveloped essay in which you analyze
how Erdrich depicts the impact of the
environment on the two children. You may
wish to consider such literary devices as
tone, imagery, selection of detail, and
point of view.
 2015
Poetry: In the following poem by
Caribbean writer Derek Walcott, the
speaker recalls a childhood experience
of visiting an elderly woman storyteller.
Read the poem carefully. Then, in a welldeveloped essay, discuss the speaker’s
recollection and analyze how Walcott
uses poetic devices to convey the
significance of the experience.
 2014
Prose: The following passage is from
the novel The Known World by Edward P.
Jones. Read the passage carefully. Then,
in a well-organized essay, analyze how
the author reveals the character of Moses.
In your analysis, you may wish to
consider such literary elements as point
of view, selection of detail, and imagery.
 2014
Poetry: The following poem is by
the sixteenth-century English poet
George Gascoigne. Read the poem
carefully. Then write an essay in which
you analyze how the complex attitude of
the speaker is developed through such
devices as form, diction, and imagery.
 Is
determining what the prompt wants
you to do!
 Change the prompt to TWO QUESTIONS.
• What question: What is the speaker doing?
• How question: How does the speaker do it?
 Try
writing what/how questions for each
of the prompts.
 2015
Prose: The following excerpt is from
the opening of The Beet Queen, a 1986
novel by Louise Erdrich. Read the
passage carefully. Then write a welldeveloped essay in which you analyze
how Erdrich depicts the impact of the
environment on the two children. You may
wish to consider such literary devices as
tone, imagery, selection of detail, and
point of view.
 What
is the impact of the environment on
the children?
 How does the speaker use literary
devices, such as tone, imagery, selection
of detail, and point of view to depict the
environment?
 2015
Poetry: In the following poem by
Caribbean writer Derek Walcott, the
speaker recalls a childhood experience
of visiting an elderly woman storyteller.
Read the poem carefully. Then, in a welldeveloped essay, discuss the speaker’s
recollection and analyze how Walcott
uses poetic devices to convey the
significance of the experience.
 What
is significant about the childhood
recollection of visiting an elderly woman
story teller?
 How does the speaker use literary
devices to convey the significance?
 2014
Prose: The following passage is from
the novel The Known World by Edward P.
Jones. Read the passage carefully. Then,
in a well-organized essay, analyze how
the author reveals the character of Moses.
In your analysis, you may wish to
consider such literary elements as point
of view, selection of detail, and imagery.
 What
is Moses like?
 How does the speaker use literary
elements such as point of view, selection
of detail, and imagery to character to
reveal Moses’ character?
 2014
Poetry: The following poem is by
the sixteenth-century English poet
George Gascoigne. Read the poem
carefully. Then write an essay in which
you analyze how the complex attitude of
the speaker is developed through such
devices as form, diction, and imagery.
 What
is the complex attitude of the
speaker?
 How does the speaker use devices, such
as form, diction, and imagery to convey
the attitude?
 FORM
follows FUNCTION.
 Form—literary
devices
 Function—the purpose the literary
devices achieve
 Function
is MOST important.
 Close
Reading can be completed on ANY
text.
• Close reading is reading with a
purpose.
• Close reading means reading and rereading.
• Close reading is slow.
• Close reading means thinking about
what you’re reading.
 1. Narrative: Who
is speaking to whom?
• Talk about the speaker, not the author.
• What is going on? What is the
situation? Is there a “back story”?
• Can you imagine what happened
before this?
• Point of View: first person, second
person, third person limited, third
person omniscient
 2. DIDLS=Tone
• Diction: author’s word choice,
connotation and associations with the
words chosen
 Which words stand out to you?
 Are there strong connotations on any words?
 Does the speaker use mainly one specific part of
speech?
 Does the speaker use formal, informal, colloquial, or
slang diction?
 2. DIDLS=Tone
• Imagery: the images the author presents
 What does the author want you to see,
smell, taste, touch, hear?
• Details: What details are included or
omitted?
 Why does the speaker think it important
to include or not include these specific
details?
 2. DIDLS=Tone
• Language (all those literary devices
your teachers made you learn!)
 Figurative Language: Allegory, Apostrophe, Allusion,
Hyperbole, Metaphor, Onomatopoeia, Personification,
Simile, symbolism
 Repetition: Alliteration, Anaphora, Assonance,
Consonance, Euphony, Cacophony, Rhyme
 Juxtaposition: Irony, Inversion, Paradox, Oxymoron,
Pun, Satire
 2. DIDLS=Tone
• Structure: How is the passage
organized?
 Form
 Sentence structure/syntax
 Shift
 3. Tone: The
speaker’s attitude
• Should be based on the analysis
conducted
• Use the tonal scale to help determine
the speaker’s attitude
 4. Theme: the
 Follow
author’s “message”
this template:
 Title, a
genre by author is about abstract
concept and reveals that theme.
 Punctuate
titles correctly!!