Praxis II (0041) from ETS Study Guide – Flashcards
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Prewriting
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First stage of writing, involves gathering and selecting ideas. English teachers can help students prewrite in several ways: by creating lists, researching, brainstorming, reading to discover more about the author's style, talking, collecting memorabilia or clips from other texts, and free-writing.
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Drafting
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The second stage of writing. In this stage, students begin writing, connecting, and developing ideas. Depending on the purpose for writing and the audience of the piece, there may be few or several of these.
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Revising
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The third stage of writing. This stage of writing involves rewriting, or "re-seeing." At this point, the writer looks at the piece again, either alone or with the help of a teacher or capable peer. The writer strives to ensure that the reader is able to make meaning of the piece or writing. In this stage, emphasis is placed on examining sentence structure, word choice, voice, and organization of the piece.
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Editing
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The fourth stage of writing. This stage involves checking for style and conventions--spelling, grammar, usage, and punctuation. At this point in the writing process, the writer ensures that errors in conventions will not be intrusive when others read the piece of writing.
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Publishing
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The fifth stage of writing. The "going public" stage. A writer can share his or her writing with a larger audience in many ways. Teachers can encourage students to publish their writing in newsletters, online publications, performance, brochures, and magazines.
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Evaluating
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The sixth stage of writing. In this stage, the writer looks back at his or her work and self-evaluates, and the audience evaluates the effectiveness of the writing.
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compare and contrast
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The material is organized to emphasize the similarities and/or the differences between two or more items or topics. The items being considered usually fit into the same general category.
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cause and effect
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This pattern describes or discusses an event or action that is caused by another event or action.
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problem and solution
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The text presents a significant problem and explains it in detail. Then, a possible solution is proposed.
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spatial sequence
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information in a passage is organized in order of space or location. (usually uses prepositions- next to, behind, across for etc.)
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chronological sequence
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series of events arranged in order of time (beginning, middle, and end)
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creative discourse
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speech or written form in which one expresses thoughts and feelings with imagination and creativity.
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expository discourse
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speech or written form in which one explains or describes. Designed to convey information or explain what is difficult to understand.
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persuasive discourse
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the writer tries to convince others of his/her point of view regarding an issue. This sometimes involves convincing the reader to perform an action.
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Use of Analogy
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comparison of two pairs that have the same relationship
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Use of extended metaphor
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a comparison of two unlike things used throughout a work or over a series of lines in prose or poetry.
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appeal to authority
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a type of argument in logic in which an expert or knowledgeable other is cited for the purpose of strengthening the argument.
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appeal to emotion
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a type of argument in which the author appeals the reader's emotions (fear, security, pity, flattery) to prove the argument.
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peer review
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a process used for checking the work performed by one's equals (peers) to ensure it meets specific criteria.
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portfolios
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contains work that shows the student's progression through the course of the school year. This provides an excellent way to measure the growth of student work over a period of time.
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holistic scoring
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a set of evaluative criteria used to assess the quality or overall effectiveness of a piece of student work, with a single score or grade given for the complete performance rather than separate scores or grades for separate elements. This is best used when all the elements being assessed are closely related, such as in a persuasive or analytic essay.
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scoring rubrics
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A set of standard rules and procedures used to assign scores to students responses to short answer, essay questions, and performance tasks.
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self-assessment
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encourages students to reflect on their learning and results in their consciously improving how they learn.
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conferencing
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Feedback is given in person. This is usually more valuable when the student still has an opportunity to revise their work.
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proper noun
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names a specific person, place, thing, or idea. Examples: President Clinton, Chicago, Judaism
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common noun
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do not name specific people, places, or things. These nouns are not capitalized Examples: person, animal, car
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collective noun
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name a group or unit. Examples: gaggle, herd, community
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pronoun
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A word that takes the place of a noun.
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verb
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expresses action or state of being
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adjective
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describes a noun or noun phrase.
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adverb
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describe four different things: Time: tomorrow, monthly, momentarily, presently Place: there, yonder, here, backward Manner: exactly, efficiently, clearly, steadfastly Degree: greatly, partly, too, incrementally
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preposition
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word used to show the relationship of a noun or pronoun to some other word in the sentence. Examples: in, under, near, behind, to, from, over
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conjunction
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a part of speech that connects two words, sentences, phrases or clauses together.
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phrase
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groups of related words that operate as a single part of speech, such as a verb, verbal, prepositional, appositive, or absolute. For example," in the dog house" is a prepositional __.
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participial phrase
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a group of words consisting of a participle and the modifier(s) and/or (pro)noun(s) or noun phrase(s) that function as the direct object(s), indirect object(s) or complement(s) of the action or state expressed in the participle, such as: Removing his coat, Jack rushed to the river. The __ __ fuctions as an adjective modifying Jack Removing (participle) his coat (direct object of action expresed in participle)
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prepositional phrase
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this phrase will begin with a preposition and end with a noun, pronoun, gerund, or clause, the "object" of the preposition.
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appositive phrase
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a noun or noun phrase that renames another noun right beside it. This can be short or long combinations of words. Example: The insect, "a cockroach", is crawling across the kitchen table.
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clause
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groups or related words that have both a subject and a predicate. For example, " I have a tendency to procrastinate when I have a high-stakes assignment" contains the clause " I have a tendency to procrastinate."
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independent/ coordinate
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dependent/ subordinate
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subject-verb agreement
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subjects and verbs must agree with one another in number (singular or plural). This, if a subject is singular, its verb must also be singular; if a subject is plural, its verb must also be plural.
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present tense
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is used to describe situations that exist in the present time. Example: Celia and Tray ATTEND Curtis Corner Middle School.
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past tense
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is used to tell about what happened in the past. Example: They "attended" Wake Field Elementary School.
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present perfect tense
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is used when action began in the past but continues into the present. Example: Annie HAS ATTENDED a charter school for two years.
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past perfect tense
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is used to express action that began in the past and happened prior to another past action. Example: Dr.Hicks reported that redistricting HAD ALLEVIATED the crowding problem in school.
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future tense
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is used to express action that will take place in the future. Example: Next year, they WILL ATTEND Broad Rock High School
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future perfect tense
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is used to express action that will begin in the future and will be completed in the future. Example: By this time next year, Tory and Celia WILL HAVE GRADUATED eighth grade.
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active voice
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In most English sentences with an action verb, the subject performs the action denoted by the verb. Example: The man must have eaten five hamburgers. The man (subject) is doing the eating (verb). The subject does or "acts upon" the verb in these sentences.
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passive voice
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The subject is no longer active, but is, instead, being acted upon by the verb. Example: Five hamburgers must have been eaten by the man. Hamburgers (subject) are being eaten (verb).
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pronoun-antecedent agreement and weak reference
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A pronoun is a word that takes the place of a noun, and an antecedent is the original noun to which the pronoun refers. Jenny (antecedent) walks her(pronoun) dog every day. The antecedent and pronoun must follow these rules: Singular antecedent = singular pronoun Plural Antecedent = plural pronoun weak- Without a campfire, IT is difficult to stay warm. better- Without a campfire, staying warm is difficult.
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correct use of infinitive and participle
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http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/sequence.htm#modal_sequence
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declarative
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This sentence makes a statement about a person, place, thing or idea
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interrogative
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This sentence asks a question.
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exclamatory
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This sentence communicates strong ideas or feelings.
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imperative
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This sentence issues a command
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simple sentence
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This type of sentence can have a single subject or a compound subject and a single predicate or a compound predicate. The distinguishing factor is that this sentence type has only one independent clause, and it has no dependent clauses. This type can contain one or more phrases. Single subject, single predicate My dog growls. Compound subject, single predicate My dog and my cat growl. Compound subject, compound predicate My dog and my cat growl and appear agitated. Independent clause with two phrases I must have vicious pets from the pound in my town.
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compound sentence
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This sentence type is made up of two independent clauses. The clauses must be joined by a semicolon or by a comma and a coordinating conjunction. My dog growls at the mailman, but my cat growls at her littermate. My dog growls at the mailman; my cat growls at her littermate.
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compound-complex sentence
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This sentence type has two or more independent clauses and one or more dependent clauses. I just earned my teaching degree [independent clause], and I plan to get a teaching job [independent clause] because I need a career [dependent clause].
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sentence fragment
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Fragments are incomplete sentences. Usually, fragments are pieces of sentences that have become disconnected from the main clause. One of the easiest ways to correct them is to remove the period between the fragment and the main clause. Other kinds of punctuation may be needed for the newly combined sentence. Example: Fragment:Purdue offers many majors in engineering. Such as electrical, chemical, and industrial engineering. Possible Revision: Purdue offers many majors in engineering, such as electrical, chemical, and industrial engineering.
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understanding elements of the history, development, and structure of the English language
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beginning proficiency
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intermediate proficiency
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advanced proficiency
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alliteration
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The repetition of initial consonant sounds in words, such as "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers."
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allusion
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A reference to a familiar person, place, thing, or event - for example, Don Juan, brave new world, Everyman, Machiavellian, utopia.
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analogy
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A comparison of objects or ideas that appear to be different but are alike in some important way.
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characterization
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A method an author uses to let readers know more about the characters and their personal traits.
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cliche'
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An expression that has been used so often that it loses its expressive power - for example, "dead as a doorknob"
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Dialect
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A variety of a language used by people from a particular geographic area.
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slang
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diction
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An author's choice of words based on their clearness, conciseness, effectiveness, and authenticity.
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metaphor
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A figure of speech in which a comparison is implied but not stated, such as "This winter is a bear."
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simile
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A comparison of two unlike things, usually including the word like or as.
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hyperbole
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An exaggeration fro emphasis or rhetorical effect.
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personification
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A literary device in which animals, ideas, and things are represented as having human traits.
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foreshadowing
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A literary technique in which the author gives hints or clues about what is to come at some point later in the story.
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imagery
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The use of words to create pictures in the readers' minds.
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irony
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The use of a word or phrase to mean the exact opposite of its literal or expected meaning. Dramatic: The reader sees a character's errors, but the character does not. Verbal: The writer says one thing and means another. Situation: The purpose of a particular action differs greatly from the result.
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mood
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The feeling a text evokes in the reader, such as sadness, tranquility, or elation.
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point of view
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The perspective from which a story is told.
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first-person
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The story is told from the point of view of one character.
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third-person objective
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The story is told by some outside the story.
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third-person omniscient
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The narrator of the story shares the thoughts and feelings of all the characters.
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setting
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The time an place in which the action of a story takes place.
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style
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How the author uses words, phrases, and sentences to form ideas.
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symbolism
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A person, place, thing, or event used to represent something else, such as the white flag that represents surrender.
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tone
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The overall feeling created by an author's use of words.
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voice
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Distinctive features of a person's speech and speech patterns.
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sonnet
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A fourteen-line poem, usually written in iambic pentameter, with a varied rhyme scheme. The two main types of sonnet are the Petrarchan (or Italian) and the Shakespearean (or English). A Petrarchan sonnet opens with an octave that states a proposition and ends with a sestet that states the solution. A Shakespearean sonnet include three quatrains and a couplet.
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haiku
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A type of Japanese poem that is written in 17 syllables with three lines of five, seven, and five syllables, respectively. Haiku expresses a single thought.
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epic
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A long narrative poem detailing a hero's deeds. Examples include The Aeneid by Virgil, The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer, Beowulf, Don Quizote by Miguel Cervantes, War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, Faulst by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
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free verse
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Verse that contains an irregular metrical pattern and line length; also known as vers libre.
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couplet
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A stanza made up of tow rhyming lines.
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elegy
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A poem that is a mournful lament for the dead. Examples include William Shakespeare's "Elegy" from Cymbeline, Robert Louis Stevenson's "Requiem," and Alfred Lord Tennyson's "In Memoriam."
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limerick
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A humorous verse form of five anapestic (composed of feet that are short-short-long or unaccented-unaccented-accented) lines with a rhyme scheme of aabba.
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novel
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An extended fictional prose narrative.
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short story
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science fiction
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Fiction that deals with the current or future development of technological advances. Examples include Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, George Orwell's 1984, Aldos Houxley's Brave New World.
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fable
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A short story or folktale that contains a moral, which may be expressed explicitly at the end as a maxim. Examples of Aesop's fables include The Country Mouse and the Town Mouse, The Tortoise and The Hare, and The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.
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myth
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Narrative fiction that involves gods and heroes or has a theme that expresses a culture's ideology. There are myths from around the world. Examples of Greek myths include Zeus and the Olympians and Achilles and the Trojan War. Roman myths include Hercules, Apollo and Venus.
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legend
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A narrative about human actions that is perceived by both the teller and the listeners to have taken place within human history and that possesses certain qualities that give the tale the appearance of truth and reality. Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is well-known legend; others include King Arthur and The Holy Gail.
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folk tale
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A narrative form, such as an epic, legend, myth, song, poem, or fable, that has been retold within a culture form generations. Examples include The People Could Fly retold by Virginia Hamilton and And the Green Grass Grew All Around: Fold Poetry from Everyone by Alvin Schwartz.
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fairy tale
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A narrative that is made up of fantastic characters and creatures, such as witches, goblins, and fairies, and usually begins with the phrase "Once upon a time...." Examples include Rapunzel, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Little Red Riding Hood.
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mystery
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A suspenseful story that deals with a puzzling crime. Examples include Edgar Allan Poe's "The Murder in Rue Morgue" and Charles Dickens' The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
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historical fiction
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Narrative fiction that is set in some earlier time and often contains historically authentic people, places, or events - for example, Lincoln by Gore Vidal.
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Harlem Renaissance
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writers: Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen
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British Romantics
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John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron
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Metaphysical Poets
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John Donne, Andrew Marvell, George Herbert
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Transcendentalism
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Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau
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Maya Angelou
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"I Know why the Caged Bird Sings"
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Jane Austen (1775-1817)
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English author during the Romantic Period (1780-1840). Her works include: Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion.
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Ray Bradbury (1920- )
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His timeless, constant appeal to audiences young and old has proven him to be one of the truly classic authors of the 20th Century -- and the 21st. He is recognized for his work in science-fiction. His most popular works include: The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Fahrenheit 451 and Something Wicked This Way Comes.
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Willa Carther (1873-1947)
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One of the leading figures of American literary Modernism. Her most notable works include: O Pioneers!, My Antonia, The Song of the Lark and One of Ours.
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Stephen Crane (1871-1900)
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This author wrote notable works in the Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism and Impressionism. He is recognized by modern critics as one of the most innovative writers of his generation. His most notable work is The Red Badge of Courage (1895).
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Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
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An American Poet. Her work was heavily influenced by the Metaphysical poets of seventeenth-century England, as well as her reading of the Book of Revelation and her upbringing in a Puritan New England town which encouraged a Calvinist, orthodox, and conservative approach to Christianity.
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Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
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This author was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. His most notable works include: Nature (1836),
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F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)
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was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. His most famous novel is The Great Gatsby (1925).
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Anne Frank (1929-1945)
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A Jewish girl who had to go into hiding during the Second World War to escape Nazi's. She is known as one of the most renowned and most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Acknowledged for the quality of her writing, her diary has become one of the world's most widely read books, and has been the basis for several plays and films. The Diary of Anne Frank was first published in 1947.
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Robert Frost (1874-1963)
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Though his work is principally associated with the life and landscape of New England, and though he was a poet of traditional verse forms and metrics who remained steadfastly aloof from the poetic movements and fashions of his time, This poet is anything but a merely regional or minor poet. The author of searching and often dark meditations on universal themes, he is a quintessentially modern poet in his adherence to language as it is actually spoken, in the psychological complexity of his portraits, and in the degree to which his work is infused with layers of ambiguity and irony. His most notable poems include: "Road not Taken", "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening", and "Fire and Ice".
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Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960)
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This author is considered one of the pre-eminent writers of twentieth-century African-American literature. She celebrated the courage and the struggle of African Americans in the rural South in the early years of the past century. A contributor to the Harlem Renaissance, her chief interest was in folklore which she collected and published under various titles. Her most notable work is Their Eyes Were Watching God (novel), 1937.
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John Keats (1795-1821)
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An English Romantic poet, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death. His poetry is characterized by sensual imagery, most notably in the series of odes. He composed six odes in a short period of time that have become some of his most famous poems. They are united and ordered as a set by various critics to form a greater truth, each depending on the original order. The first five poems were written during the spring, * "Ode on a Grecian Urn", "Ode on Indolence", "Ode on Melancholy", *"Ode to a Nightingale", and "Ode to Psyche", and *"To Autumn" was composed in autumn.
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Harper Lee (1926- )
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American writer, famous for her race relations novel TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, (her only novel) which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1961.
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C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)
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This author was one of the intellectual giants of the 20th century and arguably the most influential Christian writer of his day. His major contributions in literary criticism, children's literature, fantasy literature, and popular theology brought him international renown and acclaim. He wrote more than thirty books, his most distinguished and popular accomplishments include The Chronicles of Narnia, Out of the Silent Planet, The Four Loves, The Screwtape Letters, and Mere Christianity.
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Herman Melville (1819 - 1891)
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This author was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick.
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George Orwell (1903-1950)
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An English novelist and journalist. His work is marked by keen intelligence and wit, a profound awareness of social injustice, an intense opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language and a belief in democratic socialism. He is best known for the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) and the allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945).
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Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849)
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He is widely acknowledged as the inventor of the modern detective story and an innovator in the science fiction genre, but he made his living as America's first great literary critic and theoretician. His reputation today rests primarily on his tales of terror as well as on his haunting lyric poetry. His most famous works include "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Raven," and "The Fall of the House of Usher."
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J.D. Salinger (1919-2010)
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This author wrote powerful realist American fiction. The Catcher in the Rye is his first (and so far only) published novel. Appearing in 1951, its popularity grew over the ensuing decades and is today established as a modern English-language literature icon.
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William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
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was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His surviving works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. He is well known for his tragedies, including Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and Macbeth.
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Mary Shelley (1797-1851)
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was an English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818).
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Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
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was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. He is most famous for such classic anthology verse works as Ozymandias, Ode to the West Wind, To a Skylark, Music, When Soft Voices Die, The Cloud and The Masque of Anarchy.
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Amy Tan (1952)
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is an American writer whose works explore mother-daughter relationships. Her most well-known work is The Joy Luck Club(widely hailed for its depiction of the Chinese-American experience of the late 20th century).
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J.R.R. Tolkein (1892-1973)
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an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion
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Mark Twain (1835-1910)
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was an American author and humorist. He is most noted for his novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885).
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Alice Walker
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is an American author, poet, and activist. She has written both fiction and essays about race and gender. She is best known for the critically acclaimed novel The Color Purple (1982) for which she won the National Book Awardand the Pulitzer Prize.
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Walt Whitman
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Modeling
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Questioning
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Scaffolding
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Activating Prior Knowledge
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Building Metacognition
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skimming
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scanning
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note taking
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concept mapping
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graphic organizers
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semantic feature analysis
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anticipation guides
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Increasing students' knowledge of prefixes,roots, and suffixes
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Increasing students' ability to use context clues
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Increasing students' command of the relationships between concepts and the vocabulary used to represent the concepts introduced in their courses
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MLA citations
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APA citations
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Wuthering Heights- Emily Bronte
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Setting: 1801, England About a manor called Wuthering Heights, an estate in which Mr. Earnshaw, Hindley, and Catherine live. Mr. Earnshaw brings Heathcliff home and Hindley becomes jealous. Heathcliff and Catherine have a complicated relationship. When Mr. Earnshaw dies, Hindley and his wife Frances inherit the estate. Hindley treats Heathcliff very poorly, and even worse when his wife dies during child labor. Catherine is engaged to Edgar Linton who lives at the Thrushcross Grange. Heathcliff runs away after the marriage and returns three years later. He longs for revenge and forces Hindley to go crazy and Isabella Linton to elope with him. He intends to inherit both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. Nelly Dean is telling the current tenant, Lockwood, the story of Wuthering Heights and Heathcliff through her recollections (flashbacks). Themes: The Destructiveness of a Love That Never Changes The Precariousness of Social Class
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1984
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Winston Smith is a low-ranking member of the ruling Party in London, in the nation of Oceania. Everywhere Winston goes, even his own home, the Party watches him through telescreens; everywhere he looks he sees the face of the Party's seemingly omniscient leader, a figure known only as Big Brother. Winston dislikes the party and is intrigued by one of it's members, O'Brien. He believes that O'Brien is part of an organization called the Brotherhood, a secret organization that works to overthrow the party. Winston meets begins having relations with a girl named Julia, who shares his same disdain towards the party. O'Brien deceives them both by claiming that he is a part of the brotherhood. O'Brien tortures Winston by threatening to put a cage of rats on his head and letting them eat his face. This threat causes him to give up Julia, which O'Brien wanted all along. When he is let go, his spirit is broken and he learned to love big brother. Themes: The Dangers of Totalitarianism Psychological Manipulation Physical Control Control of Information and History Technology Language as mind control
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Animal Farm
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Old Major, a prize-winning boar, gathers the animals of the Manor Farm for a meeting in the big barn. He tells them of a dream he has had in which all animals live together with no human beings to oppress or control them. He tells the animals that they must work toward such a paradise and teaches them a song called "Beasts of England," in which his dream vision is lyrically described. The animals greet Major's vision with great enthusiasm. When he dies only three nights after the meeting, three younger pigs—Snowball, Napoleon, and Squealer—formulate his main principles into a philosophy called Animalism. The farm animals take over by running Mr.Jones, the farmer, off of the land. They live harmoniously until there is a power struggle between Napoleon and Snowball. Napoleon runs off Snowball by having his dogs attack. Napoleon declares himself the new leader and makes Snowball out to be a bad leader. Snowball and the other pigs gradually become more and more human to the point where the other animals cannot distinguish the pigs from the human beings. Themes: -The Corruption of Socialist Ideals in the Soviet Union -The Societal Tendency Toward Class Stratification -The Danger of a Naïve Working Class -The Abuse of Language as Instrumental to the Abuse of Power
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Moby Dick
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Ishmael, the narrator, intends to board a whaling ship and meets a man named Queequeg at an Inn. The two decide to work on a vessel called the Pequod under Captain Ahab. Captain Ahab lost his leg due to an encounter with a white whale called Moby Dick. When the captain finally appears, he expresses his desire to find and kill Moby Dick and offers a reward to the first person who sights the whale. During the hunt, a group of men, none of whom anyone on the ship's crew has seen before on the voyage, emerges from the hold. The men's leader is an exotic-looking man named Fedallah. These men constitute Ahab's private harpoon crew, smuggled aboard in defiance of Bildad and Peleg. Ahab hopes that their skills and Fedallah's prophetic abilities will help him in his hunt for Moby Dick. As the quest continues, the captains longing to kill Moby Dick intensifies. The other ships they encounter claim to have had encounters with Moby Dick that ended badly. Finally, they sight Moby Dick and try to kill the whale for three days. The whale takes the boat under and the only crew member to survive is Ishmael. Themes: The Limits of Knowledge The Exploitative Nature of Whaling *Melville was influenced in the writing of Moby-Dick by the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter, whom he met in 1850 and to whom he dedicated Moby-Dick. Melville had long admired Hawthorne's psychological depth and gothic grimness and associated Hawthorne with a new, distinctively American literature.
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The Joy Luck Club (1989)
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contains sixteen interwoven stories about conflicts between Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-raised daughters. The book hinges on Jing-mei's trip to China to meet her half-sisters, twins Chwun Yu and Chwun Hwa. When Jing-mei's mother, Suyuan, dies she takes her place playing mahjong in the joy luck club. The other members, Lindo, Ying-ying, and An-mei tell Jing-mei that her mother found that address of the long lost sisters and they urge her to go to China so that the sisters can her their mother's story. The novel is composed of four sections, each of which contains four separate narratives. In the first four stories of the book, the mothers, speaking in turn, recall with astonishing clarity their relationships with their own mothers, and they worry that their daughters' recollections of them will never possess the same intensity. In the second section, these daughters—Waverly, Jing-mei, Lena, and Rose—relate their recollections of their childhood relationships with their mothers; the great lucidity and force with which they tell their stories proves their mothers' fears at least partially unfounded. In the third group of stories, the four daughters narrate their adult dilemmas—troubles in marriage and with their careers. Although they believe that their mothers' antiquated ideas do not pertain to their own very American lifestyles, their search for solutions inevitably brings them back to their relationships with the older generation. In the final group of stories, the mothers struggle to offer solutions and support to their daughters, in the process learning more about themselves. Lindo recognizes through her daughter Waverly that she has been irrevocably changed by American culture. Ying-ying realizes that Lena has unwittingly followed her passive example in her marriage to Harold Livotny. An-mei realizes that Rose has not completely understood the lessons she intended to teach her about faith and hope. When Jing-mei finally travels to China and helps her half-sisters to know a mother they cannot remember, she forges two other mother-daughter bonds as well. Her journey represents a reconciliation between Suyuan's two lives, between two cultures, and between mother and daughter. This enables Jing-mei to bring closure and resolution to her mother's story, but also to her own. In addition, the journey brings hope to the other members of the Joy Luck Club that they too can reconcile the oppositions in their lives between past and present, between cultures, and between generations. Themes: The Challenges of Cultural Translation The Power of Storytelling The Problem of Immigrant Identity
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The Diary of a Young Girl
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Anne's diary begins on her thirteenth birthday, June 12, 1942, and ends shortly after her fifteenth. The Frank's moved to the Netherlands in the years leading up to World War II to escape persecution in Germany. After the Germans invaded the Netherlands in 1940, the Franks were forced into hiding. With another family, the van Daans, and an acquaintance, Mr. Dussel, they moved into a small secret annex above Otto Frank's office where they had stockpiled food and supplies. The employees from Otto's firm helped hide the Franks and kept them supplied with food, medicine, and information about the outside world. During the two years recorded in her diary, Anne deals with confinement and deprivation, as well as the complicated and difficult issues of growing up in the brutal circumstances of the Holocaust. Her diary describes a struggle to define herself within this climate of oppression. Anne's diary ends without comment on August 1, 1944, the end of a seemingly normal day that leaves us with the expectation of seeing another entry on the next page. However, the Frank family is betrayed to the Nazis and arrested on August 4, 1944. Otto Frank is the family's sole survivor, and he recovers Anne's diary from Miep. He decides to fulfill Anne's wishes by publishing the diary. Themes: The Loneliness of Adolescence The Inward versus the Outward Self Generosity and Greed in Wartime
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Fahrenheit 451 (1953)
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Guy Montag is a fireman who burns books in a futuristic American city. In Montag's world, firemen start fires rather than putting them out. The people in this society do not read books, enjoy nature, spend time by themselves, think independently, or have meaningful conversations. Instead, they drive very fast, watch excessive amounts of television on wall-size sets, and listen to the radio on "Seashell Radio" sets attached to their ears. A girl named Clarisse innocently questions Guy about nature and other topics that are no longer discussed. A series of tragic events happen to Guy which leads him to open up a few books he has stashed. Beatty, the fire chief, finds him and explains that books are bad. He offers to let Guy have twenty-four hours to read the books so he can see if he finds anything meaningful. Overwhelmed by the task, he visits Faber, an old English professor. They devise a plan in which Faber will contact a printer and begin reproducing books, and Montag will plant books in the homes of firemen to discredit the profession and to destroy the machinery of censorship. Montag becomes frustrated with his wife and her friends superficial nature, and decided to read a poem to them. This upsets his wife and she betrays him by contacting Beatty. Beatty forces Montag to burn his own house and arrests him. Montag escapes and turns to Faber. Faber goes to St. Louis to get the books printed while Montag escapes his pursuers. He finds a group called " the book people" and joins them in their quest to memorize literature in the hopes that it will come into use after the war. Themes: Censorship Knowledge versus Ignorance
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O Pioneers! (1913)
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O Pioneers! opens on a blustery winter day, in the town of Hanover, Nebraska, sometime between 1883 and 1890. The narrator introduces four principal characters: the very young Emil Bergson; his stalwart older sister, Alexandra; her gloomy friend Carl Linstrum; and a pretty little Bohemian child, Marie Shabata. From town, Emil and Alexandra and their neighbor Carl return home to the desolate stretch of plains known as the Divide. Alexandra's father, John Bergson, is dying. He tells his two eldest sons, Oscar and Lou, that he is entrusting the farmland, and the preservation of all that he has accomplished since his immigration from Sweden, to his daughter. It becomes clear that Alexandra is stronger and more resolute than her brothers. When drought and depression strike three years later, Alexandra's determination allows her to persevere. Many families, including Carl Linstrum's, sell their farms and move away. But Alexandra believes in the promise of the untamed country, and so she convinces her brothers to re-mortgage their farm and buy more land. She also convinces them to adopt innovative farming techniques. The narrative jumps sixteen years into the future, when Alexandra's faith in the land has been repaid. Lou and Oscar are married, and each owns his own farm. Alexandra's farm is the most prosperous on the Divide. Emil has been provided the wealth and luxury to leave the Divide for the State University. Crazy Ivar, the elderly, slightly imbalanced man who, earlier in the novel, gave Alexandra some controversial farming advice, now works in Alexandra's stables, although Lou and Oscar disapprove of his presence. Amid this underlying tension, Carl Linstrum returns for a long visit after years of travel. /PARAGRAPH. Meanwhile, Marie Shabata is trapped in an unhappy marriage with a sullen and difficult husband, and it becomes clear that she and Emil are falling in love. Emil decides to travel to Mexico City, fleeing the temptation that Marie presents. Alexandra and Carl slowly regain their teenage intimacy. In reaction, Lou and Oscar drive Carl out of town, fearing that his relationship with Alexandra might threaten their own children's prospects of inheriting Alexandra's farm. Emil returns from Mexico nearly a year later, only to find that his love for Marie has grown during their separation. Once again, he resolves to flee the Divide. Before he can leave, though, tragedy strikes: his best friend, Amedee, dies unexpectedly. At a church mass, Emil enters a state of rapture and resolves to say farewell to Marie. He finds her in a similar ecstasy in her orchard, and he lies down next to her. Her jealous husband, Frank Shabata, finds them. Blinded by fury, he shoots them both dead. Months after the murders, Alexandra Bergson has achieved some limited recovery from her sorrow; she now possesses a stoic exhaustion with life. She resolves to try to win a pardon for Frank, who is serving a ten-year sentence in a Lincoln jail. Returning from a visit to Frank in Lincoln, she finds Carl Linstrum waiting for her. As soon as he heard of Emil's death, he returned from Alaska. They find comfort and companionship in each other, and they decide to marry. Themes: Pioneers in Nebraska. Love and marriage. Feminism. Realism. Isolation. Temptation is deadly.
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The Red Badge of Courage
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During the Civil War, a Union regiment rests along a riverbank, where it has been camped for weeks. A tall soldier named Jim Conklin spreads a rumor that the army will soon march. Henry Fleming, a recent recruit with this 304th Regiment, worries about his courage. He fears that if he were to see battle, he might run. The narrator reveals that Henry joined the army because he was drawn to the glory of military conflict. Since the time he joined, however, the army has merely been waiting for engagement. At last the regiment is given orders to march, and the soldiers spend several weary days traveling on foot. Eventually they approach a battlefield and begin to hear the distant roar of conflict. After securing its position, the enemy charges. Henry, boxed in by his fellow soldiers, realizes that he could not run even if he wanted to. He fires mechanically, feeling like a cog in a machine. The blue (Union) regiment defeats the gray (Confederate) soldiers, and the victors congratulate one another. Henry wakes from a brief nap to find that the enemy is again charging his regiment. Terror overtakes him this time and he leaps up and flees the line. As he scampers across the landscape, he tells himself that made the right decision, that his regiment could not have won, and that the men who remained to fight were fools. He passes a general on horseback and overhears the commander saying that the regiment has held back the enemy charge. Ashamed of his cowardice, Henry tries to convince himself that he was right to preserve his own life to do so. He wanders through a forest glade in which he encounters the decaying corpse of a soldier. Shaken, he hurries away. After a time, Henry joins a column of wounded soldiers winding down the road. He is deeply envious of these men, thinking that a wound is like "a red badge of courage"—visible proof of valorous behavior. He meets a tattered man who has been shot twice and who speaks proudly of the fact that his regiment did not flee. He repeatedly asks Henry where he is wounded, which makes Henry deeply uncomfortable and compels him to hurry away to a different part of the column. He meets a spectral soldier with a distant, numb look on his face. Henry eventually recognizes the man as a badly wounded Jim Conklin. Henry promises to take care of Jim, but Jim runs from the line into a small grove of bushes where Henry and the tattered man watch him die. Henry and the tattered soldier wander through the woods. Henry hears the rumble of combat in the distance. The tattered soldier continues to ask Henry about his wound, even as his own health visibly worsens. At last, Henry is unable to bear the tattered man's questioning and abandons him to die in the forest. Henry continues to wander until he finds himself close enough to the battlefield to be able to watch some of the fighting. He sees a blue regiment in retreat and attempts to stop the soldiers to find out what has happened. One of the fleeing men hits him on the head with a rifle, opening a bloody gash on Henry's head. Eventually, another soldier leads Henry to his regiment's camp, where Henry is reunited with his companions. His friend Wilson, believing that Henry has been shot, cares for him tenderly. The next day, the regiment proceeds back to the battlefield. Henry fights like a lion. Thinking of Jim Conklin, he vents his rage against the enemy soldiers. His lieutenant says that with ten thousand Henrys, he could win the war in a week. Nevertheless, Henry and Wilson overhear an officer say that the soldiers of the 304th fight like "mule drivers." Insulted, they long to prove the man wrong. In an ensuing charge, the regiment's color bearer falls. Henry takes the flag and carries it proudly before the regiment. After the charge fails, the derisive officer tells the regiment's colonel that his men fight like "mud diggers," further infuriating Henry. Another soldier tells Henry and Wilson, to their gratification, that the colonel and lieutenant consider them the best fighters in the regiment. The group is sent into more fighting, and Henry continues to carry the flag. The regiment charges a group of enemy soldiers fortified behind a fence, and, after a pitched battle, wins the fence. Wilson seizes the enemy flag and the regiment takes four prisoners. As he and the others march back to their position, Henry reflects on his experiences in the war. Though he revels in his recent success in battle, he feels deeply ashamed of his behavior the previous day, especially his abandonment of the tattered man. But after a moment, he puts his guilt behind him and realizes that he has come through "the red sickness" of battle. He is now able to look forward to peace, feeling a quiet, steady manhood within himself. Themes: Courage Manhood Self-Preservation The Universe's disregard for human life
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Nature
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The Great Gatsby
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The Road Not Taken
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Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
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Fire and Ice
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Their Eyes Were Watching God
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Ode on a Grecian Urn
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Ode to a Nightingale
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To Autumn
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To Kill A Mockingbird
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Chronicles of Narnia
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The Raven
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The Tell-Tale Heart
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The Fall of the House of Usher
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Catcher in the Rye
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Hamlet
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Othello
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King Lear
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Macbeth
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Frankenstein
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Ozymandias
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Ode to the West Wind
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The Lord of the Rings
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Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Huckleberry Finn
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The Color Purple
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Harriet Beecher Stowe
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Uncle Tom's Cabin
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