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TennesseeEnglish Language

Reading Literary Texts

5 dot points across 5 inquiry questions. Click any dot point for a focused answer with worked past exam questions where available.

How do you state a theme as a complete idea about life rather than a one-word topic, and how do you find the evidence in the text that proves it?

Analyzing theme and central idea in literary texts: stating a theme as a complete sentence about life or human nature (not a topic word), distinguishing theme from subject and from moral, and tracing how a writer develops a theme through plot, character, and detail across a TNReady English I or II literary passage.
How to analyze theme on a TNReady English I or II literary passage: stating theme as a full sentence about life rather than a one-word topic, telling theme apart from subject and moral, and tracing how plot, character, and detail develop it. Theme appears in multiple-choice, hot-text, and two-part evidence items.
9 min answer →

How do you infer a character's traits and motivation from what the text shows, and how does point of view shape what the reader knows?

Character and point of view: inferring character traits and motivation from words, actions, and others' reactions (indirect characterization), tracking how a character changes, and identifying narrative point of view (first person, third limited, third omniscient) and how it controls what the reader knows, on a TNReady English I or II literary passage.
How to analyze character and point of view on a TNReady English I or II literary passage: inferring traits and motivation from indirect characterization, tracking character change, and identifying narrative point of view (first person, third limited, third omniscient) and its effect on what the reader knows.
9 min answer →

How do you identify a figure of speech or literary device and, more importantly, explain the effect it creates in a TNReady passage?

Figurative language and literary devices: identifying simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, imagery, symbolism, and tone, and explaining the effect each creates and how it contributes to meaning, on a TNReady English I or II literary or poetic passage.
How to analyze figurative language and literary devices on a TNReady English I or II passage: identifying simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, imagery, symbolism, and tone, and (the higher-order skill) explaining the effect each creates and how it shapes meaning.
9 min answer →

How do the parts of a plot fit together, what kind of conflict drives a story, and how do a writer's structural choices shape meaning on a TNReady passage?

Plot, conflict, and structure in fiction and drama: identifying the stages of plot (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution), the type of conflict (internal versus external, and its specific kind), and how structural choices such as flashback, foreshadowing, and pacing shape meaning on a TNReady English I or II literary passage.
How to analyze plot, conflict, and structure on a TNReady English I or II literary passage: the stages of plot, internal versus external conflict, and structural devices (flashback, foreshadowing, pacing) and how they shape meaning. Structure questions ask why a writer ordered events as they did.
9 min answer →

How do you read a poem on the EOC for its meaning, using structure, sound, and figurative language, rather than getting lost in unfamiliar form?

Reading poetry on the EOC: reading a poem for meaning by attending to the speaker, structure (lines, stanzas, line breaks), sound devices (rhyme, rhythm, repetition, alliteration), figurative language, and tone, and tracing how these choices build the poem's central idea, on a TNReady English I or II poetic passage.
How to read a poem on the TNReady English I or II EOC: attending to the speaker, structure (lines, stanzas, line breaks), sound devices, figurative language, and tone, and tracing how these choices build the poem's central idea. Poetry questions reward meaning, not jargon.
9 min answer →