Warm-Up for Reading and Writing About Literature
Numerous tests in high school assess your ability to read and understand literature and poetry. The Common Core assessments for high school English, the ACT and SAT, and the exam for AP English Literature and Composition ask you to read works of literature, answer questions about them, and write thoughtful responses. The activities in this unit will help you develop the skills you need to succeed on these assessments. If you’d like to use these skills on a simulated assessment, see the unit “Practice Test for Reading and Writing About Literature.”
What Is Literature?
Listen to "What Is Literature?"
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We all tell stories—what happened during fifth hour, how the team came back 14 points to win, what the doctor said about your broken arm. . . . These everyday stories help us understand our lives and what is happening around us.
Over thousands of years, some of the best stories have risen to the top as "literature." Despite the lofty title, literature performs the same basic function as everyday storytelling. It helps readers understand what it's like to be alive—where we have been and where we are going. Reading literature also allows you to spend time with some of the most amazing storytellers who have ever lived.
Thinking About Stories
When reporters go out searching for news stories, they try to answer the 5 W's and H. You can use these same questions to think about the basic parts of any story, fiction or nonfiction:
- Who was involved in the story? (Characters)
- What was the issue? (Conflict)
- Where and when did the event take place? (Setting)
- Why does the story matter? (Theme)
- How did the story work out? (Plot)
To start thinking about these parts of all stories, you can answer the 5 W's and H about a situation that you recently experienced. Remember that your answer to "Who?" would be the people (characters) in your own real-life story, the answer to "What" would be the conflict, and so on.
- Who was involved in the story?
My brother and I
- What was the issue?
- Where and when did the event take place?
On the Lake Geneva shore path last Saturday
- Why does the story matter?
The awful weather just made it more fun. Al said, after his two-year deployment in the desert, he was glad to get soaked.
- How did the story work out?
We slogged on through the thunderstorm, laughing the whole way, and sat in sopping clothes for our victory dinner.
We'd planned an epic hike, but the weather was terrible. We got drenched in a downpour and waded through calf-deep sections of the path.
Outline your own story.
Answer each of the 5 W's and H below about an experience you had. Think of each answer in terms of the classic parts of stories.
- Who was involved in the story?
- What was the issue?
- Where and when did the event take place?
- Why does the story matter?
- How did the story work out?
Teaching Tip
High-stakes assessments will not ask your students to analyze a life event this way. However, if your students can make a personal connection with character, conflict, setting, theme, and plot, they will be much better able to analyze these components in the stories they read, whether fiction or nonfiction.
Thinking About Poetry
All poetry also has other common components.
- Words carefully selected and arranged
- Sounds created by consonants and vowels, rhythm and rhyme
- Images built from sensory details
- Thoughts such as reflections and predictions
- Emotions created by all of the parts working together
You can analyze any poem or song by considering each of these components. For example, note how one student analyzed the first stanza of a poem that also happens to be a song ("The Star-Spangled Banner" by Francis Scott Key).
Listen to the first stanza of "The Star Spangled Banner"
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What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O’er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
- Words?
The word "O" and the words "O'er" start half of the lines, as if the poet is saying "Oh!" while watching fireworks.
The poem has a lot of old-sounding words, like "hail'd," "perilous," "ramparts," "gallantly," and "spangled."
- Sounds?
The first and third lines rhyme, the second and fourth do, and so do the fifth and sixth, and the seventh and eighth (ABABCCDD).
Vowel sounds repeat in "stripes and bright" and "fight" as well as "that star-spangled banner yet wave."
Initial consonants repeat in "rocket's red" and "bombs bursting."
- Images?
The images are of dawn, with a glimpse of broad stripes and bright stars streaming over ramparts. At first, you can't make out what the poet is referring to, but by the time you reach "star-spangled banner," you realize it is the American flag. You also have images of glaring red rockets and bursting bombs.
- Thoughts?
The first sentence of the poem asks a question: "O say can you see?" The second sentence provides an answer: "Our flag was still there." The last line asks another question, wondering if this flag that survived the perilous fight still waves over this land.
- Emotions?
This poem of course is wrapped up in all kinds of patriotic feelings as well as a sense of Americana, being performed before sporting events. It also is wrapped up in protest over discrimination. Taken on its own, the poem has the emotion of anxiety during the dark night and relief when the sun dawns over a flag that still flies over a fortress.
Think about the parts of a poem.
Read the first four stanzas from "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe. Then write about the words, sounds, images, and so on used in the poem.
Mark: Please replace the audio file with the one you will find here: Drive > UnitMediaDownloads > Reading and Writing for Literature Assessment > TheRaven
Listen to Excerpt from "The Raven"
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Excerpt from "The Raven"
by Edgar Allan Poe
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Nameless here for evermore.
And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
“’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door—
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;—
This it is and nothing more.”
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door;—
Darkness there and nothing more.
- Words?
- Sounds?
- Images?
- Thoughts?
- Emotions?
Teaching Tip
Allowing students to warm up their thinking with these two very familiar poems ("The Star-Spangled Banner" and "The Raven") will help them gain the skills and confidence they need to analyze unfamiliar poems. Students who can break a poem into words, images, sounds, thoughts, and emotions can analyze even the most complex poetry.