Exam 2 Study Guide

Note: This page is intended as a guide, but it may not cover everything. Material not listed here might appear on the exam.

The notes you took in class should be your best guide. Check the American Author pages at http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/aufram.html for other resources.

You will not be able to use your book or notes on this exam. Bring notebook paper with you (no blue books) so that you can write the essay portion.

I. Format.  Exam 2 will consist of three to four parts:

• one section of multiple-choice questions;
• one or two sections of identification questions, term matching, or a short passage for close reading;
• and one essay question from a choice of two or three questions. 

It will be planned to last the normal class time (75 minutes), although you can have the full 2 hours to complete it.

II. Works Covered (You should know title, author, main characters, and the significance of scenes and events)

• Fitzgerald, "Winter Dreams" and "The Ice Palace" (917-936)
• Hemingway, "Hills Like White Elephants"
• Millay, poems (710-714)
• Thurber, "University Days," "Sex Ex Machina"
• Parker, poems; "You Were Perfectly Fine "; "New York to Detroit"
• O'Connor, "A Good Man is Hard to Find" (1301-1314)
• Faulkner, "A Rose for Emily"
• Frost, "The Oven Bird," "Fire and Ice," "Design," "Desert Places," "The Gift Outright" (592-593)
• Stevens, "The Snow Man" (613-614)
• Walker, "Everyday Use" (1450-1456)
• Morrison, "Recitatif" (1364-1379)
• Alexie, "What You Pawn I Will Redeem"(1502-1520)
• Pound, "In a Station of the Metro"
• Espada, "Bully" and "Alabanza"(1499-1500)
• Harjo, "New Orleans" (1483-1485)
• Coupland, from Microserfs (Hive of Dreams 179-196)
• Stephenson, from The Diamond Age (Hive of Dreams 197-214)
• Butler, from The Parable of the Sower (Hive of Dreams 45-60)

• Literary terms (you can find the full lists of poetry and fiction terms by clicking on the Assignments link above)
  • enjambment
  • caesura
  • alliteration
  • refrain
  • anaphora
  • genre fiction
  • double rhyme (feminine rhyme)
• The American dream
• Modernism
• Science fiction and its terms (dystopian, etc.)
• Web genres (in general terms)
• General information about magazines like The New Yorker (i.e., who the audience was for this magazine)
• Other material from lectures and discussions, including student presentations

IV. Potential Essay Questions.

1. Essay questions may ask you

• To compare and contrast
• A specific aspect or character of the two works
• Two characters from different stories.
• Themes or ideas in the works
• Technique or style
• To analyze a passage through close reading as it relates to the work as a whole
• To address a larger theme or idea as it relates to the work
• To analyze a particular pattern of imagery or symbolism in a work
• To respond to a critic’s statement about the work
• Your class notes and the discussion questions will be your best guides to potential essay questions.

2. In what ways do authors such as Harjo, Alexie, Walker, and Espada explore the idea of the theft of their heritage and their attempts to recover it? Choosing any two authors, write a thesis and develop an essay that addresses this question.

3. Compare and contrast perspectives on the relationship between human beings and technology in any two writers (Coupland, Thurber, Stephenson).

4. Compare the views of nature in poems by Stevens and Frost.

5. How do any two authors use history and historical figures in their fiction or poetry (Harjo, Espada, Alexie, Stephenson, Faulkner)?

6. In what ways do any two authors use the idea of the American dream, and how do they symbolize it within their works?

7. How has the role of women in courtship changed?