Warm-Up for Reading and Writing Literature Assessments

Reading lets you experience great stories, and writing helps you tell your own great stories. That's why some major assessments test your ability to read literature, write about it, and maybe even write your own stories.

What Is Literature Assessment?

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Literature assessments test how well you read stories and poems and whether you can write clearly about them. On some literature assessments, you will create your own stories. This unit will help you prepare for these kinds of assessments.

In the following activities, you’ll learn about close reading—reading to understand how a story or poem works. You’ll discover how writers use character, setting, plot, conflict, and theme to develop stories. You’ll also learn how poets use rhythm, rhyme, imagery, and figures of speech. Then you’ll discover strategies for on-demand writing—strategies for developing your own ideas during an assessment.

Thinking About Close Reading

To read closely, you need to think about the parts of a story: character, setting, conflict, and theme. Even flash fiction has these elements.

Reading a Phase Autobiography

Before writing about an important phase in your life, you should see how another writer wrote about his life. As you read the paragraph and full phase autobiography below, think about how the writer put ideas together and how you might use some of the same strategies in your own writing.

Reading an Autobiographical Paragraph

An autobiographical paragraph has three main parts. The topic sentence states the topic and focus of the story. The body sentences explain the main actions of the story. The ending sentence shares a lesson learned.

Sample Paragraph

1. What lessons did the writer learn from the experience? What details in the body sentences reflect these lessons?
2. What details did you find most interesting in the story? Name at least three.

Reading Historical Narratives

Before you recreate a historical moment, you'll want to see examples from other students. This lesson shows you a sample historical narrative paragraph and essay. As you read them, think about how the writer made the people, places, and events come to life through description, action, and dialogue.

Reading a Historical Narrative Paragraph

A historical narrative paragraph has three main parts. The topic sentence states the topic and focus of the story. The body sentences explain the main actions of the story. The ending sentence wraps up the historical narrative in an interesting way.

Sample Paragraph

Reading Personal Narratives

Before you share a story about a time when you learned a valuable lesson, you'll want to see how other students explored their topics. Read the sample paragraph and narrative essay in this lesson and answer the questions about them. Think about how the writer puts ideas together and how you might do so in your own narrative.

Reading a Narrative Paragraph

A narrative paragraph briefly shares a story about something that happened in the writer's life. It includes three parts: The topic sentence introduces the story. The body sentences describe what happened in time order. The ending sentence tells why the experience was important, possibly by stating a lesson learned.

Sample Narrative Paragraph