A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, was the first novel I ever taught — way back in student teaching, and I’ve loved it ever since.
On one hand, its depiction of teenaged boys in a private boarding school just before World War II (based on Knowles’ own experience at the elite Phillips Exeter Academy) is so far-removed from most of my students’ lives that it may as well be science fiction. On a deeper level, however, these boys are not so different from my students today.
Knowles does a beautiful job of presenting a believable unreliable narrator, a boy locked so tightly within his own insecurities and guilt that he can’t give the key to the one person who desperately tries to get in. I’ve heard it said that you can’t love anyone until you love yourself. Gene can’t love anyone.
Available Teaching Materials
- Anticipation Guide – Word File
- Character Analysis – Word File
- Sample Reading Log – Word File
- Quiz #1 – chapters 1-3 – Word File (not available for download)
- Analysis worksheet – chapters 4-6 – Word File
Chart can be adjusted easily for any chapter(s). Asks for examples of setting (time), setting (place), indirect characterization, direct characterization, vivid language, foreshadowing, simile, metaphor, and alliteration.
- Quiz #2 – chapters 4-6 – Word File (not available for download)
- Quiz #3 – chapters 7-9 – Word File (not available for download)
- Analysis worksheet – chapters 1-9 – Word File
Chart can be adjusted easily for any chapter(s). Asks for examples of alliteration, dramatic irony, foreshadowing, metaphor, simile, rhetorical question, and verbal irony.
- Quiz #4 – chapters 10-11 – Word File (not available for download)
- Quiz #5 – chapters 12-13 – Word File (not available for download)
- Final Activity – Word File
- Test Study Guide – Word File
- Final Test – Word File (not available for download)
© 2008 – 2010, mrshawke-dot-com.

Most of my teaching resources are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License, which means you can feel free to use them with attribution as long as you don’t use them commercially. If you’re not sure, don’t hesitate to ask me. Unfortunately, I am currently unable to send out my tests and quizzes, but I am hoping to establish a less time-consuming alternative for this in the near future. Sorry!!






















