U.S. Literature Final Exam Information
Part 1: You will have one essay in which you will have to compare and contrast a given text with a selection from your literature circle book. In your essays you may address the following: What literature periods/traditions do each of these works come from? What are the similar or different elements of style used by the authors? What important changes do these similarities and differences show to shared concept or theme? Think about the changes in ideas, values, perception, literature and American culture.
Part 2: You will have another essay in which you will have to compare and contrast two other texts that we’ve read this year. Once again, in your essays you may address the following: What literature periods/traditions do each of these works come from? What are the similar or different elements of style used by the authors? What important changes do these similarities and differences show to shared concept or theme? Think about the changes in ideas, values, perception, literature and American culture.
*American Literary Styles:
- Pre-colonial
- Colonial
- Romanticism
- Transcendalism
- Realism
- Modernism
*You should have information from class and PowerPoint notes to help you review these
Texts that may be used:
The Great Gatsby
The Sun Also Rises As I Lay Dying The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn The Crucible Of Mice and Men Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” Emerson’s “Nature” Hughes’ “Let America Be America Again” Poe’s “The Masque of Red Death” |
Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle”
Okita’s “In Response to Executive Order 9066”
Jefferson’s “The Declaration of Independence” Patrick Henry’s “Speech to the Virginia Convention” Gonzales’ “I am Joaquin” Frost’s “Mending Wall” Crevecoeur’s “What is an American”
Emerson "Self Reliance"
Hemingway’s
“End of Something”
|
Evaluation
Your essays will be
evaluated primarily on your ability to make insightful relevant connections
between the texts that reflect your critical reading ability, your
understanding of the texts, and your understanding of the literary styles we’ve
studied.
