Praxis ELA (5038) Reading

Questions 1 – 3 refer to the stanzas of “The Slave’s Dream” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

A.

Beside the ungathered rice he lay,

His sickle in his hand;

His breast was bare, his matted hair

Was buried in the sand.

Again, in the mist and shadow of sleep,

He saw his native land.

B.

Wide through the landscape of his dreams

The lordly Niger flowed;

Beneath the palm-trees on the plain

Once more a king he strode;

And heard the tinkling caravansDescend the mountain-road.

C.

Before him, like a blood-red flag,

The bright flamingoes flew:

From morn till night he followed their flight,

O’er plains where the tamarind grew

Till he saw the roofs of Caffre huts,

And the ocean rose to view.

D.

The forests, with their myriad tongues,

Shouted of liberty;

And the Blast of the Desert cried aloud,

With a voice so wild and free,

That he started in his sleep and smiled At their tempestuous glee.

E.

He did not feel the driver’s whip,

Nor the burning heat of day;

For Death had illumined the Land of Sleep,

And his lifeless body layA worn-out fetter, that the soul Had broken and thrown away.

Which of the following phrases best describes the tone of the poem?

Which stanza uses personification to express the ideal that freedom will prevail, no matter how harsh the reality?

Which stanza provides textual evidence supporting the implication that the man described in the poem did not spend his entire life in slavery?

Knowledge of the literary context of a text includes recognizing

An example of satirical prose is

Questions 6 – 8 refer to the following excerpt from “The Poet at the Breakfast Table” by Oliver Wendell Holmes.

I want it to be understood that I consider that a certain number of persons are at liberty to dislike me peremptorily, without showing cause, and that they give no offense whatever in so doing.

If I did not cheerfully acquiesce in this sentiment toward myself on the part of others, I should not feel at liberty to indulge my own aversions. I try to cultivate a Christian feeling to all my fellow-creatures, but inasmuch as I must also respect truth and honesty, I confess to myself a certain number of inalienable dislikes and prejudices, some of which may possibly be shared by others. Some of these are purely instinctive; for others I can assign a reason. Our likes and dislikes play so important a part in the order of things that it is well to see on what they are founded.

…

There is one blameless person whom I cannot love and have no excuse for hating. It is the innocent fellow-creature, otherwise inoffensive to me, whom I find I have involuntarily joined on turning a corner. I suppose the Mississippi, which was flowing quietly along, minding its own business, hates the Missouri for coming into it all at once with its muddy stream. I suppose the Missouri in like manner hates the Mississippi for diluting with its limpid but insipid current the rich reminiscences of the varied soils through which its own stream has wandered. I will not compare myself to the clear or the turbid current, but I will own that my heart sinks when I find all of a sudden I am in for a corner confluence, and I cease loving my neighbor as myself until I can get away from him.

What is the best summary of the central idea of this passage?

What question might be asked by a critic who is writing a queer analysis of Holmes’ text?

What literary device does the author use to make his ideas clear to the reader?

Questions 9 – 11 refer to following stanzas from “Without and Within” by James Russell Lowell.

My coachman, in the moonlight there,

Looks through the side-light of the door;

I hear him with his brethren swear,

As I could do—but only more.

Flattening his nose against the pane,

He envies me my brilliant lot,

Breathes on his aching fist in vain,

And dooms me to a place more hot.

…

I envy him the rugged prance

By which his freezing feet he warms,

And drag my lady’s chains and dance

The galley-slave of dreary forms.

Oh, could he have my share of din,

And I his quiet—past a doubt’

would still be one man bored within

And just another bored without.

What technique does the poet use in “Without and Within”?

What irony is expressed by the speaker?

Lowell is most closely associated with which group of poets?

During which period of British literature were many epic poems about heroes and morality shared orally?

In what way does Francis Bacon’s aphorism below, from The Essays, reflect the constructivist view of the reading classroom? “Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man. And therefore, if man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning to seem to know that which he doth not.”

The context of a text includes literary context, historical context, and which of the following aspects?

Questions 15 – 17 refer to the speech “On Women’s Right to Vote” by Susan B. Anthony, 1873.

Friends and fellow citizens: I stand before you tonight under indictment for the alleged crime of having voted at the last presidential election, without having a lawful right to vote. It shall be my work this evening to prove to you that in thus voting, I not only committed no crime, but, instead, simply exercised my citizen’s rights, guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitution, beyond the power of any state to deny…

The only question left to be settled now is: Are women persons? And I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood to say they are not. Being persons, then, women are citizens; and no state has a right to make any law, or to enforce any old law, that shall abridge their privileges or immunities. Hence, every discrimination against women in the constitutions and laws of the several states is today null and void, precisely as is every one against Negroes.

Which sentence best illustrates the logical appeal that Anthony is using?

What is the purpose of Anthony’s speech?

What TWO rhetorical strategies does Anthony use? (Select two)

A quality research source

Which perspective asserts that readers interact with text by using their own thinking, in combination with the features of the text, to formulate an understanding of the text’s meanings?

To verify the claims of a source, a researcher must

Questions 21 – 23 refer to the speech “Tribute to the Dog” by George Graham Vest.

Gentlemen of the Jury: The best friend a man has in the world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son or daughter that he has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name may become traitors to their faith. The money that a man has, he may lose. It flies away from him, perhaps when he needs it most. A man’s reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action. The people who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with us, may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads.

The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous is his dog. A man’s dog stands by him in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground, where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he may be near his master’s side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer. He will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounters with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince. When all other friends desert, he remains. When riches take wings, and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens.

What rhetorical device does Vest use?

What organizational pattern does Vest use?

The excerpt above deals with a

To persuade readers to do or think something is an example of a

Examples 25 – 27 refer to the speech “The Destructive Male” by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1868.

I urge a sixteenth amendment, because ‘manhood suffrage,’ or a man’s government, is civil, religious, and social disorganization. The male element is a destructive force, stern, selfish, aggrandizing, loving war, violence, conquest, acquisition, breeding in the material and moral world alike discord, disorder, disease, and death. See what a record of blood and cruelty the pages of history reveal! Through what slavery, slaughter, and sacrifice, through what inquisitions and imprisonments, pains and persecutions, black codes and gloomy creeds, the soul of humanity has struggled for the centuries, while mercy has veiled her face and all hearts have been dead alike to love and hope!

The male element has held high carnival thus far; it has fairly run riot from the beginning, overpowering the feminine element everywhere, crushing out all the diviner qualities in human nature, until we know but little of true manhood and womanhood, of the latter comparatively nothing, for it has scarce been recognized as a power until within the last century. Society is but the reflection of man himself, untempered by woman’s thought; the hard iron rule we feel alike in the church, the state, and the home. No one need wonder at the disorganization, at the fragmentary condition of everything, when we remember that man, who represents but half a complete being, with but half an idea on every subject, has undertaken the absolute control of all sublunary matters.

What rhetorical device does Stanton use?

Which of the following does Stanton display in this piece?

Upon what evidence is Stanton’s argument based?

Examples 28 – 30 refer to the first stanza of the poem “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

“The blood-dimmed tide is loosed” is

“The Second Coming” is written in

The novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe takes its title from this poem. What is the connection between the poem and the novel?

A lyric poem with fourteen lines usually written in iambic pentameter is

Asking students to observe their own thinking and learning is referred to as

Questions 33 and 34 refer to the poem “When You Are Old” by William Butler Yeats.

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Which of the following does the poet use to reveal the situation of the woman who is the subject of the poem?

What is the mood of this poem?

Questions 35 – 37 refer to the initial lines from the poem “The Pyramids of Egypt,” in Introductory to Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia by Philip Freneau.

’Tis darkness all, with hateful silence joined—

Here drowsy bats enjoy a dull repose,

And marble coffins, vacant of their bones,

Show where the royal dead in ruin lay!

How would a semantic map of the poem help students understand the poet’s use of concrete imagery to suggest an abstract idea?

Which statement best summarizes how imagery conveys the author’s idea of the Egyptian pyramids?

If a teacher asks her students to use details of this poem to explain how the words “darkness,” “coffins,” and “silence” make them feel; what critical approach is she using?

Questions 38 – 40 refer to the speech “The Man with the Muckrake” by Theodore Roosevelt, delivered April 14, 1906.

In Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” you may recall the description of the Man with the Muckrake, the man who could look no way but downward, with the muckrake in his hand; who was offered a celestial crown for his muckrake, but who would neither look up nor regard the crown he was offered, but continued to rake to himself the filth of the floor.

In “Pilgrim’s Progress” the Man with the Muckrake is set forth as the example of him whose vision is fixed on carnal instead of spiritual things. Yet he also typifies the man who in this life consistently refuses to see aught that is lofty, and fixes his eyes with solemn intentness only on that which is vile and debasing…

There are in the body politic, economic and social, many and grave evils, and there is urgent necessity for the sternest war upon them. There should be relentless exposure of and attack upon every evil man, whether politician or business man, every evil practice, whether in politics, business, or social life. I hail as a benefactor every writer or speaker, every man who, on the platform or in a book, magazine, or newspaper, with merciless severity makes such attack, provided always that he in his turn remembers that the attack is of use only if it is absolutely truthful…

At the risk of repetition let me say again that my plea is not for immunity to, but for the most unsparing exposure of, the politician who betrays his trust, of the big business man who makes or spends his fortune in illegitimate or corrupt ways. There should be a resolute effort to hunt every such man out of the position he has disgraced. Expose the crime, and hunt down the criminal; but remember that even in the case of crime, if it is attacked in sensational, lurid, and untruthful fashion, the attack may do more damage to the public mind than the crime itself…

What literary device is being used in this passage?

A teacher asks students to think of examples of muckraking in politics and then to discuss their examples with a partner by exploring and listing the consequences of muckraking. In doing this, the teacher is engaging students in what kind of activity?

What is one way students could determine the central idea of this text?

Questions 41 – 43 refer to the poem “Light-winged Smoke, Icarian Bird” by Henry David Thoreau.

Light-winged Smoke, Icarian bird,

Melting thy pinions in thy upward flight,

Lark without song, and messenger of dawn

Circling above the hamlets as they nest;

Or else, departing dream, and shadowy form

Of midnight vision, gathering up thy skirts;

By night star-veiling, and by day

Darkening the light and blotting out the sun;

Go thou my incense upward from this hearth,

And ask the gods to pardon this clear flame.

Which of the following best describes this poem?

The word pinions means

If an English teacher divides the class into groups and gives each group a small section of this poem to explain, he is using a

Why is it important to include a targeted review in an English lesson?

What is an example of a research-based instructional strategy?

Which of the following terms describes vivid descriptions that appeal to the reader’s senses?

Which of the following describes a reference to a historical person or event, a fictional event or character, an artistic work, the Bible, or mythology?

How can studying conflict in a story reveal that story’s theme?

What literary text uses mockery, appeals to a reader’s sense of virtue, and reveals the folly of a person or group?

A creative text that is written about a factual situation or occurrence is an example of