This past year, I had the opportunity to teach all of the English 11 classes at the Langston campus of GWHS, and although I used to teach the course every semester my first five years of teaching, it had been years since then, and I really had to rework my materials to get my students ready for those end-of-course achievement tests.
In Virginia, once students reach the high-school level, they take English Standards of Learning (SOL) tests only during their English 11 classes. The English SOL is in two parts: one part covers writing, which is made up of two parts in itself (direct writing, which is writing an essay from a prompt, and multiple choice), and the other part covers reading, literature, and research. Students must pass both of these end-of-course SOL tests in order to graduate.
One method I used for helping my students get ready for the Reading/Literature and Research SOL was to immerse them in literary terms. I went through the handbook in the back of their literature book (Prentice-Hall’s 2005 edition of The American Experience) and separated every single term into six sections. I tried to categorize the terms — with a section of genre-related terms, drama-related terms, poetry-related terms, etc. There is some overlapping, though, because I wanted to keep the numbers fairly consistent.
I created a review worksheet for each, in matching form, with the terms at the top and the definitions directly from the book to match. I didn’t use letters, so my students would have to write the actual words (and I took off points for spelling errors, since the words are right there ;). I used the same format for the quizzes, simply mixing up the definitions.
On one day, I had students complete the review worksheet, which wasn’t as easy as it sounds, since some of the definitions are within the definitions for other terms (and I didn’t tell them which…). Then, I took a cue from my fellow teachers in the GW Langston Social Studies department and had students make flash cards with the terms (the term on one side and the definition on the other). I checked and gave a grade for the review and cards.
I allowed classtime for reviewing the flash cards, individually, in pairs, and in groups. The day after the reviews and cards were due, I usually went through the terms with them, giving them some mnemonic devices here and examples of the terms in use there, focusing especially on the ones I felt were most difficult or confusing. About a week after the initial review assignment, students took a quiz on the terms. Usually, right after they turned in the quiz, they began working on the next set of terms, and the process continued.
I’m planning to use these reviews and quizzes with my classes this fall, and I will definitely revise them to match the terms and definitions in the handbooks in other levels’ textbooks. (I’m not sure yet which classes I’ll be teaching this fall, back at GW’s main campus…)
Term review in itself isn’t especially helpful, but alongside a lot of practice in examining literature, it’s vital. And — though students aren’t tested on the definitions of any terms, per se — without understanding the meanings of the terms, students can’t possibly answer questions concerning their usage in literature.
I would love to hear about other methods you’ve used to review terms!
Available Teaching Materials
- Literary Terms Review #1 – Word File
23 terms: Allegory, Autobiography, Biography, Description, Drama, Essay, Exposition, Fiction, Folk literature, Genre, Journal, Legend, Letter, Myth, Narration, Narrative, Nonfiction, Novel, Oratory, Persuasion, Poetry, Prose, Short story
- Literary Terms Quiz #1 – Word File (not available for download)
- Literary Terms Review #2 – Word File
25 terms: Allusion, Ambiguity, Climax, Conflict, Denouement, Exposition, External conflict, Falling action, First-person point of view, Flashback, Foreshadowing, Inciting incident, Internal conflict, Limited third-person point of view, Mood, Narrator, Omniscient third-person point of view, Plot, Point of view, Resolution, Rising action, Setting, Suspense, Theme, Tone
- Literary Terms Quiz #2 – Word File (not available for download)
- Literary Terms Review #3 – Word File
25 terms: Anecdote, Antagonist, Character, Characterization, Crisis, Dialogue, Direct characterization, Dramatic irony, Dynamic character, Epiphany, Flat character, Foil, Hyperbole, Indirect characterization, Irony, Irony of situation, Major character, Minor character, Motivation, Parody, Protagonist, Round character, Static character, Symbol, Verbal irony
- Literary Terms Quiz #3 – Word File (not available for download)
- Literary Terms Review #4 – Word File
28 terms: Ballad, Blank verse, Cinquain, Couplet, Dramatic monologue, Dramatic poem, End rhyme, Epic poem, Feet, Free verse, Iambic pentameter, Idyll, Internal rhyme, Lyric poem, Meter, Metrical romance, Narrative poem, Ode, Pastoral poem, Poetry, Quatrain, Rhyme, Rhyme scheme, Rhythm, Scansion, Slant rhyme, Sonnet, Stanza
- Literary Terms Quiz #4 – Word File (not available for download)
- Literary Terms Review #5 – Word File
25 terms: Alliteration, Analogy, Aphorism, Apostrophe, Assonance, Connotation, Consonance, Denotation, Diction, Figurative language, Figure of speech, Image, Imagery, Metaphor, Onomatopoeia, Oxymoron, Paradox, Parallelism, Personification, Refrain, Sensory language, Simile, Speaker, Style, Symbol
- Literary Terms Quiz #5 – Word File (not available for download)
- Literary Terms Review #6 – Word File
27 terms: Act, Archetypal literary elements, Aside, Classicism, Dialect, Drama, Epigram, Gothic, Grotesque, Harlem Renaissance, Imagism, Local color, Monologue, Naturalism, Oral tradition, Plain style, Scene, Realism, Regionalism, Romanticism, Satire, Soliloquy, Spiritual, Stage directions, Stream of consciousness, Symbolism, Transcendentalism
- Literary Terms Quiz #6 – Word File (not available for download)
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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!!
