HBL Summer Reading Exam

Winchester High School

Fall 2009

Directions:

This assignment tests your ability to synthesize meaning across seemingly disparate texts.  Please take the first ten to fifteen minutes to brainstorm and plan before responding to the essay prompt that follows:. 

This is a 90 minute take-home exam.  Before reading the exam prompt you should open and share a Google doc with me (homework4mrlister@gmail.com). The sharing of the document will start the exam clock.  When the ninety minutes are finished, you should click save on the Google doc and close the browser window.  This act of saving will stop the clock. Please be advised that Google docs allows me to check your revision history and see how long you worked on the exam.  This exam should be taken in one ninety minute block on Friday evening unless you have contacted me in writing (elister@winchester.k12.ma.us) with schedule conflicts.

I will adhere to a strict word limit of 500, which is a little more than the amount of writing on this exam sheet. The goal of this exercise is for you to choose the most effective evidence and synthesize it as concisely as possible. (The quotations you use should not be the important quotations picked on Spark Notes or any other study aid.) One of our goals in this class is to understand that more is not necessarily better—sometimes it is just more.  Great writing knows what to include and what to exclude.

When you share your document with me it should have a subject line formatted as in the example below:

(Your Name)  HBL Summer Reading Exam 2009 (Your Block)

Note:  Obviously, this format seems to favor a five paragraph essay—but can one write an effective five paragraph essay in 500 words?  Does writing a paragraph about each book really reach any kind of meaningful synthesis, or would it just be three mini-essays bound between an introduction and conclusion?  Think about the form of the essay and its content as you plan.

Essay topic:

Blood is a central thematic element in our summer reading.  Discuss its implications across three of the works of art assigned for this summer.   Of course, there is blood—as in the red stuff that flows through our bodies—but there is also blood as it relates to families, lineage and becoming “blood brothers”.

Final word:   Although this grade will count towards your quarter and semester grades, it will not disqualify you from being able to earn an “A”.  Since each of the works included on the summer reading list will be an integral part of the curriculum, you will be held responsible for the reading in a more meaningful way than can be addressed in a single testing period.  You will be required to integrate thoughtful analysis from summer reading into one of the major projects that will be assigned to you this year.