Holper
Eng.
1B
Top 10 Errors in Writing
about Literature:
Second Practice Sheet
1)
What mistake has the writer made here?
Jackson writes, "She watched while
Mr. Graves came around from the side of the box." (247)
Answer:_______________________________________________
2)
What mistake has the writer made here?
The student titled her essay "One Flew Over The
Cuckoo's Nest Revisited"
Answer:_______________________________________________
3)
What mistake has the writer made here?
"Sun so high," she cried,
leaning back and looking... " (139).
4)
In the short story "Everyday Use", if the mother is considered the
protagonist, what would Dee be?
Answer:_______________________________________________
5)
In the short story "Barn Burning", if Abner Snopes is the antagonist,
what is his son Sarty?
Answer:_______________________________________________
6) What
mistake has the writer made here?
In
the short story "The Portable Phonograph", Dr. Jenkins shared a recording
of a Debussy nocturne with three other men.
As the music played, "Even the musician lifted his head in
amazement..." (284).
Answer:_______________________________________________
7)
What mistake has the writer made here?
In the short story "An Occurence at Owl Creek
Bridge", the narrator tricks the reader into believing that the
protagonist, Peyton Farquhar, escapes his execution by hanging. We witness the rope break, his flight from a
hail of bullets and artillery—and because the scene is described in such minute
detail—we are convinced (or at least that is the writer's hope) that the
protagonist is able to elude a small company of well-armed soldiers. We see him carried down the river; we see
him flee into the woods; and we eventually watch as he makes it home, after a
long night's walk through an unfamiliar woods.
Answer:_______________________________________________
8)
What mistake has the writer made here?
In Sandra Cisneros's "The House on
Mango Street", we sense the social prejudice against the narrator and her
family. "Where do you live? she
asked. There, I said pointing up to the
third floor. You live there?"
(280).
Answer:_______________________________________________
9) What
common error might a writer make in providing a title for her essay? (And I don't mean capitalization, italics,
bold, etc.)
Answer:_______________________________________________
10)
What mistake has the writer made here?
In Ernest Hemingway's story
"Soldier's Home", he describes how Krebs faces the challenge of
trying to adjust to peacetime life when his values have significantly
altered.
Answer:_______________________________________________
11)
What is an allegory?
Answer:_______________________________________________
12)
When an audience know more than a character, that's called
Answer:_______________________________________________
13)
When something that a character feared happens, in spite of all attempts to block
that, this is called
Answer:_______________________________________________
14)
Irony is commonly defined as
Answer:_______________________________________________
15)
What mistake has the writer made here?
In "The Portable Phonograph",
the author shows how in a post apocalyptic world, those remaining might well
treasure literature and music most of all.
For instance, the four men share a reading from Shakespeare's play The
Tempest. They discuss the Bible, Moby Dick, The Divine Comedy. One man says that "We are the doddering
remnant of a race of mechanical fools" (282). And, finally, they share a recording of a Debussy nocturne,
during which the men listen in awed silence to the beauty of what seems to have
been irretrievably lost.
Answer:_______________________________________________
16)
What does QQISA stand for?
Answer:_______________________________________________
17)
What does AHEQI stand for?
Answer:_______________________________________________
18)
What narrative point of view is the following?
"The musician selected a Debussy
nocturne. The others considered and
approved. They rose to their knees to
watch the doctor prepare for the playing, so that they appeared to be actually
in an attitude of worship" (284).
Answer:_______________________________________________
19)
What narrative point of view is the following?
"When this woman got closer to me,
she looked at me hard and then she threw up her hands. She must have seen me somewhere before because
she said, 'It's you'" (137).
Answer:_______________________________________________
20)
How does one indicate a title of someone else's short story?
Answer:_______________________________________________
21)
How does one indicate a title of someone else's book?
Answer:_______________________________________________
22)
What does an unreliable narrator do?
Answer:_______________________________________________
23)
What does a naive narrator do?
Answer:_______________________________________________
24)
When a writer integrates a quotation, what two things does she usually do?
A)
Answer:_______________________________________________
B)
Answer:_______________________________________________
25)
What does a thesis do?
Answer:_______________________________________________
26)
What mistake has the writer made here?
In the short story "What I have Been
Doing Lately", Jamaica Kincaid uses a dream-like narrative to show how her
protagonist, a young girl, faces the challenge of maturing in an environment
dominated by limiting expectations. One
example of this occurs almost immediately when the protagonist steps out and
compares the air to ink used in government-run schools, suggesting some sort of
institutional indoctrination. Another
example of this is the mother figure that the protagonist encounters in her
journey acts exasperated with the protagonist, which seems to have a clear
connection with the protagonist's thought about being a dutiful child. Finally, while the protagonist at first
considers a group of black people as beautiful (replete with beautiful black
items of clothing), she later reconsiders and sees them as mere mud, suggesting
perhaps that her concept of ethnicity has been warped under colonial rule. Thus, the narrator's maturation becomes a
significantly more complex goal to achieve than one might first have expected.
Answer:_______________________________________________