Raio Review for Short Story Unit Test

Raio
Review for Short Story Unit Test
The test you will take Monday is designed to simulate the 8 th grade New York State ELA
exam. It gives me a benchmark assessment early in the year so I can get an idea of reading
skills after our short story genre study. Do your best. It’s just a test. Read carefully and
always go back to the text to find proof for your answers. Read all the choices on multiple
choice questions. Choose the best answer. Don’t be fooled by the ‘distracter’ answer.
Character:
Generally characters in stories are revealed by:
What the character says
What the character does
What others say about the character (including the narrator)
The way others react to or behave towards the character.
Tone:
Tone is generally the attitude an author or narrator takes towards the subject.
Mood:
The mood of a piece of writing is the feeling or atmosphere that the author creates through
the careful choice of details and words. The sights, sounds and scents that the author
chooses to mention can crate a mood of mystery, merriment, chaos, peace, etc.
Irony:
A literary device that uses contradictory statements or situations to reveal a
reality different from what appears to be true. It is ironic for a firehouse to burn
down, or for a police station to be burglarized.
Irony is, basically, when the surface meaning and the underlying meaning
are not the same.
Verbal irony is a figure of speech that occurs when a person says one thing but
means the opposite. Sarcasm is a strong form of verbal irony that is calculated
to hurt someone through, for example, false praise.
Dramatic irony creates a discrepancy between what a character believes or says
and what the reader or audience member knows to be true.
Situational irony exists when there is an incongruity between what is expected
to happen and what actually happens due to forces beyond human
comprehension or control.

Theme:
The Literary Element of Theme
Theme is:
• the central, underlying, and controlling idea or insight of a work of
literature.
• the idea the writer wishes to convey about the subject—the writer’s
view of the world or a revelation about human nature.
Theme is NOT:
• expressed in a single word
• the purpose of a work
• the moral
• the conflict
Identifying the Theme in Five Steps
To identify the theme, be sure that you’ve first identified the story’s plot, the
way the story uses characterization, and the primary conflict in the story.
Use these steps to determine the theme for a work:
1. Summarize the plot by writing a one-sentence description for the
exposition, the conflict, the rising action, the climax, the falling action,
and the resolution.
2. Identify the subject of the work.
3. Identify the insight or truth that was learned about the subject.
• How did the protagonist change
• What lesson did the protagonist learn from the resolution of the
conflict
4. State how the plot presents the primary insight or truth about the
subject.
5. Write one or more generalized, declarative sentences that state what
was learned and how it was learned.
Theme Litmus Test
• Is the theme supported by evidence from the work itself
• Are all the author’s choices of plot, character, conflict, and tone
controlled by this theme.