American Lit II Midterm Review
The midterm exam will be a multiple choice/true false/short essay open-book test to be taken via the Assignments folder linked in the Blackboard menu. Be sure to study the assigned readings, films, lectures, and quizzes taken thus far.
The midterm is worth a maximum of 200 points.
The exam tests your understanding of all works covered (Late 19th/Turn of the Century, "The Awakening," Moderns, and Harlem) and the material presented in this midterm review (including MLA, grammar, punctuation, terminology, and the lectures and films). There will be both objective questions (worth 100 points) and two short essays (worth a total of 100 points). The short essays should be about 300-500 words each. Please keep the first person conclusion brief. Do not self-plagiarize and use information from your discussion posts or Paper One.
NO RESEARCH ALLOWED IN THE SHORT ESSAY QUESTIONS.
Give your instructor at least 48 hours to grade the two essays and calculate your final grade.
If you need to retake the exam because you failed the objective section (scoring less than 70 points) or because you were kicked out of the test due to technological issues, wait at least 24 hours before retaking it-- and do not take it before I've had a chance to grade the two short essays. If you are booted more than twice due to tech issues, please email me and I will allow another attempt. It is vital that you use a reliable computer/device (or area with more effective connectivity to the internet).
Please note that you will only have one opportunity to view your first attempt at the objective section of the exam, so wait until you have time to do so before retaking the exam. (Keep in mind, that I will need time to grade the two essays, so don't be hasty.) In addition, the questions for each attempt may not contain the same questions and will not be in the same order as your previous attempt(s).
This exam is not timed; however, allow yourself at least 90 minutes for each attempt.
The Readings on the Exam (lectures are in the Assignment folders):
Late Nineteenth Century/Turn of the Century Readings
Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888): "My Contraband" (or "The Brothers")
Mark Twain (1835-1910): "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog"
Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909): "A White Heron "
Kate Chopin (1850-1904): The Awakening
Booker T. Washington (1856-1915): Up from Slavery (Chs. 1, 3, 6, 8, 14)
O. Henry (1862-1910): "Gift of the Magi"
W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963): The Souls of Black Folk (Chapters 1-3; 11-14)
Zitkala-Sa (Gertrude Bonnin) (1876-1938): "The School Days of an Indian Girl"
Ghost Dance Songs (1894)
"El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez" (1910, audio); About Gregorio Cortez (1875-1916)
Modern Period Readings (1910-1945)
Robert Frost (1874-1963): "Mending Wall"; "Out, Out"; "The Ax-Helve"; "Design"; "Provide, Provide"; "Road Not Taken"; "Stopping By Woods"
William Carlos Williams (1883-1963): "The Young Housewife"; "Portrait of a Lady"; "Spring and All"; "The Poor" ; "Danse Russe"; "The Great Figure"
Marianne Moore (1887-1972): "The Pangolin"; "Poetry"; "What Are Years"
T. S. Eliot (1888-1965): "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"; "The Waste Land"
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1932): "Hills Like White Elephants"
Katherine Anne Porter (1890-1980): "Flowering Judas"
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950): "The Spring and the Fall"; "Love is not all"; "The Return"; "Justice Denied in Massachusetts"; "Recuerdo"
Harlem Renaissance Readings: 1910-1945
Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000): "A Bronzeville Mother";"Lovers of the Poor"; "We Real Cool"; "The Mother"
James Baldwin (1924-1987): "Sonny's Blues"
What Can You Expect to See on the Exam?
Twenty-five multiple choice and true false questions worth a total of 100 points (MLA and Grammar; Late 19th/Turn of the Century, "The Awakening," Moderns, Harlem; essay structure; the terms--SEE BELOW).
Two short essays (three paragraphs each) worth 50 points each. (One question will be over the works from the Late 19th/Turn of the Century, Moderns, Harlem, and the other will be about Chopin's work). One third of your grade will be for content, one third will be for organization, and the final third will be for mechanics. Please avoid using quotes, but if you must, keep them short (and meaningful) and be sure to document with in-text citations and a WC. Be prepared to compare and contrast poetry (structure, language devices, theme, style, etc.) and understand the use of language devices, irony, characterization, conflict, and setting in the works.
Answer each short essay question in a three-paragraph essay (300-500 words):
Each answer must include analysis of at least one work from our reading list.
Using third person, the first paragraph should introduce the work(s) with the author and title, give a brief summary or explication, and conclude with a thesis statement, connecting the author(s) and/or work(s) to the prompt.
The purpose of paragraph two is to answer the prompt, so write a strong topic sentence. Provide examples from the text to support your analysis. Please use third person POV.
The final paragraph should be a first-person reflection--much like the conclusion for Paper One.
Please proofread for grammar and mechanical errors. No Works Cited is necessary unless you are quoting from the works (don't worry about double spacing, headings, headers, or hanging indentation).
Check out the rubric for the short essay questions by scrolling to the bottom of this page.
Scholastic Dishonesty, AI, and Plagiarism
All acts of plagiarism and scholastic dishonesty, including having someone complete assignments for you, are violations of academic integrity subjected to disciplinary action.
Scholastic Dishonesty includes using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to write papers, create presentations, or complete graded coursework. Any improper use of AI-programs, including but not limited to ChatGPT or DALL-E, is subject to due process and disciplinary action. However, the use of programs that assist in translating, formatting your papers, improving word choices, and utilizing proper grammar and spelling, such as Grammarly, is encouraged.
Plagiarism is intentionally or knowingly representing the words or ideas of another as one's own.
Self-Plagiarism, which is submitting a paper (or discussion post) you completed in this or another class (K-12 or college), is also forbidden.
Literary Terms
Know the definitions and be prepared to give an example of the following terms:
Naturalism: a literary movement beginning in the late nineteenth century, embracing determinism, detachment, and social commentary. In determinism, which is defined as the opposite of free will, a character's fate has been decided, even predetermined, by impersonal forces of nature beyond human control and a sense that the universe itself is indifferent to human life.
Realism: A literary technique that denotes a particular kind of subject matter especially the representation of the middle-class life. It was a reaction against romanticism, an interest in scientific method, the systematizing of the study of documentary history and the influence of rational philosophy all affected the rise of realism.
Prose: The ordinary language that people use in writing such as poetry, stories, editorials, books, etc. and comes in two types of text – narrative and expository.
Ode: A relatively long, serious poem that discusses a noble subject in a thoughtful and dignified manner. The term was used by poets to more describe the meditative mood of a poem rather than its form and therefore tend to be irregular in both meter and rhyme. ("Ode to a Grecian Urn")
Lyric: The term originally derived from the Greek word meaning "for the lyre" and indicating verses that were written to be sung.
Sonnet: A closed poetic form that consists of 14 lines or iambic pentameter that are structured as an octave and a sestet or as three stanzas of four lines followed by a couplet. Structure and meaning often intersect in sonnets.
Epic Poem: A long narrative poem whose hero is a noble person, upon whose actions hinge the fate of a nation or a people. Consequently, epics tend to be of national or even of cosmic importance. The diction of the poem tends to be formal, elevated and decorous. The setting is expansive and even global, as the hero embarks upon journeys that may take place over many years, often decades.
Narrator: The voice and implied speaker of a fictional work, to be distinguished from the actual living author. For example, Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” contains a communal narrator, identified only as “we.”
Speaker: The created narrative voice of the poem that is not necessarily the poet but an invented speaker for the poem in order to give him/herself more freedom to compose the poem.
Foot: A measured combination of heavy and light stresses.
Meter: The number of feet within a line of traditional verse. Ex: Iambic pentameter
Iambic: A rhythm of unstressed, stressed foot
Iambic pentameter: Unstressed, stressed rhythm, five feet long. The most natural and common kind of meter in English; it elevates speech to poetry.
Masculine Rhyme: Single rhymes that occur when the last syllable in a word rhymes with the last syllable in another word, when the words are single syllables such as "bat" and "cat."
Feminine Rhyme: Occurs in words of more than one syllable where the stressed syllable is followed by an unstressed syllable. Ex: "nearly" and "clearly" or "meeting" and "greeting." It is also possible to have triple feminine rhymes where the stressed syllable is followed by two unstressed syllables as in "liable" and "friable." Feminine Rhyme is used in front stressed meters such as trochaic.
Internal Rhyme: A pattern of rhyming words inside the same line.
Alliteration: The repetition of identical consonant sounds, most often the sounds beginning words, in close proximity.
Assonance: The repetition of identical vowel sounds in different words in close proximity. Ex: deep green sea.
Consonance: A stylistic literary device identified by the repetition of identical or similar consonants in neighboring words whose vowel sounds are different.
Stanza: a group of poetic lines corresponding to paragraphs in poetry.
Quatrain: A four line stanza or poetic unity. In an English or Shakespearean sonnet, a group of four lines united by rhyme.
Refrain: A line or phrase that recurs throughout a poem - especially at the end of stanzas.
Incantation: Words/lines which are spoken or changed in a magical fashion Ex: the witches of Macbeth – "Fair is foul and foul is fair."
Click here for a review of figurative language.
Click here for a review of the elements of fiction.
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Check out the rubric for the short essay questions below:
