Category: Writing

The Hound of the Baskervilles: Chapter 11
Answer the following questions using your own original thought, as well as textual evidence from the novel to support your points.
1. How did Watson persuade Laura Lyons to answer his question? Is she holding back any information in your opinion?
2. Why did Laura Lyons write to Sir Charles seeking a meeting? Is her story believable? Why, or why not?
3. Why didn’t Laura Lyons keep her appointment with Sir Charles? Does this make her a suspect in the crime? Does she feel any guilt for breaking the appointment?
4. What good information did Watson get from Frankland on his day of celebration?
5. Who was the “Man on the Tor?” How does this throw Watson off his track in helping to solve the mystery of Charles’ death? Is Watson disappointed? Why, or why not?

What if the play were rewritten in the form of fiction (whether short story or novel)?
You will demonstrate how either
The Importance of Being Earnest
OR
Antigone
could be rewritten as a short story or novel. Your goal is to present an argument about which form–drama or fiction– would resonate more with today’s readers and their understanding of what it means to be human in contemporary society. Keep your audience in mind. The students will have read both plays, but they will not have studied genre in detail.
The essay should cover explanations of each genre–drama and fiction–including key terms and concepts. Your thesis statement should argue for your chosen genre by answering the prompt above, providing the HOW and WHY. For example, if you were to argue that
Antigone
would resonate more with today’s readers as a novel, then you would need to include the reasons WHY fiction is better and HOW it would resonate more. Your close reading analysis of the play should consider the central themes, the behavior of and interaction among the characters, as well as ethical and cultural factors – in order to prove your argument about the preferred genre and what it conveys about the human condition.

When someone’s writing is not focused, clear, and precise the message is often lost or confusing. To succeed in today’s competitive, professional world you must be able to communicate effectively; especially through writing.
Describe a situation (real or fictional) where not having a focused message in your writing could lead to a problem or poor outcome. Describe how you can use the writing process to ensure your writing is focused and effective.
I need a brief 2 to 3 paragraph answer. Thank you!

As Tom testifies, Scout remarks that until Atticus explained it to her, she “never understood the subtlety of Tom’s predicament.” What is Tom’s predicament? Use evidence from the text to support your answer.

Discussion prompt:
The Youngers should have taken the money from Mr. Lindner.
Write paragraph that supports your opinion and then write reply paragraph. Reply paragraph should support the opposite point of view from your own.

The Story of an Hour (Chopin)
In a complete paragraph (10-15 sentences), please respond. In the context of this text, what are the effects of discrimination against women? Cite evidence from this text, your own experience, and other literature, art, or history in your answer.

1. To whom is Maya Angelou writing this poem?
2. What does the poem’s speaker mean by the phrase “I’ll rise”?
3. What effect does Angelou create by repeating the phrase “I’ll rise”?
4. What questions does the poem’s speaker ask of readers?
5. Why does the poem’s speaker ask questions throughout the poem? (What is the effect of this form?)
6. What are the most important words in this poem? Identify and list a key word from each stanza.
7. What mood or tone is created by these key words, when you consider them together?
8. In terms of how to approach life, what does Angelou’s poem suggest or recommend?
9. What does this poem suggest about Maya Angelou’s own life?
10. how to  complete sentence that expresses a theme of the poem “Still I Rise.”

Read the following sentence.
“Other plants, such as tomatoes, have been genetically altered in a similar fashion, to remain fresher longer.”
What is the denotative meaning of the word fashion as it is used in the sentence?
Select one:
a. a trendy style
b. a prevailing custom
c. a manner of doing something
d. a particular kind of person or object
Read the following sentence.
“Like most innovations, genetically modified foods are not without controversy.”
Which of the following best replaces the word innovations in this sentence?
Select one:
a. plants
b. nutrients
c. pesticides
d. discoveries
Use these dictionary entries to answer the question.
sum (root word): take [Latin]
-er (suffix): a person or thing that does something
What does the word consumer mean in this sentence?
“Because of these concerns, many consumers want to know if the food they eat contains GMOs.”
Select one:
a. a person who eats or uses something
b. an object of monetary value
c. a label added to products
d. a person who sells food
Read the following sentence.
“The table below illustrates these issues.”
What type of sentence is this?
Select one:
a. compound-complex
b. compound
c. complex
d. simple
Read this sentence.
The family did not realize that there was a wrinkle in their plan until they found themselves in a rainstorm without any shelter.
What is the connotative meaning of the word wrinkle as it is used in the sentence?
Select one:
a. problem
b. crease
c. trick
d. fold
Read this sentence.
Opponents of labeling defend GMOs, but proponents are skeptical.
What type of sentence is this?
Select one:
a. simple
b. complex
c. compound
d. compound-complex
Genetic modification makes pest-resistant corn, but genetically modified corn may be unhealthy.
What type of sentence is this?
Select one:
a. compound-complex
b. compound
c. complex
d. simple
Which of the following is a compound-complex sentence?
Select one:
a. Unlike my mother, I don’t care to get involved in the GMO controversy.
b. My mother is not in favor of mandatory labeling, but my sister supports mandatory labeling.
c. My mother and my sister are on opposite sides of the controversy, but I have chosen to stay out of it.
d. Although my father is not an activist, I have become involved in the GMO controversy, but I remain respectful of my father’s position.
Which sentence uses commas correctly?
Select one:
a. We toured an organic, farm, a conventional, farm, a food processing plant, and a grocery store.
b. We toured, an organic farm a conventional farm, a food processing plant and a grocery store.
c. We toured, an organic farm, a conventional farm, a food processing plant, and a grocery store.
d. We toured an organic farm, a conventional farm, a food processing plant, and a grocery store.
Which sentence uses commas correctly?
Select one:
a. The bread label lists, carbohydrates proteins, fats and sugars.
b. The bread label, lists carbohydrates, proteins, fats and sugars.
c. The bread label lists carbohydrates, proteins, fats, and sugars.
d. The bread label lists, carbohydrates proteins, fats, and sugars.
For which writing situation would it be appropriate to use third-person point of view?
Select one:
a. a pamphlet that gives instructions for a self-guided tour of Washington, D. C.
b. a letter from a student to the president of the United States
c. a journal entry about a class trip to Washington, D. C.
d. a biography of a former United States president
For which writing situation would it be appropriate to use second-person point of view?
Select one:
a. a booklet with instructions for a self-guided college campus tour
b. an essay about the kings of England in the 14th century
c. a fictional story about a king who lives in FarFaria
d. an article about the writer’s own hiking experiences
Read the following sentence.
The girls had to go back and look at the article again before they could answer the question.
Which pronoun correctly completes the sentence?
Select one:
a. he
b. she
c. they
d. them
Read the following sentence.
The farmers, who disagree about how GMOs should be regulated, decided to schedule a meeting to talk it out among themselves.
Which pronoun correctly completes the sentence?
Select one:
a. themselves
b. ourselves
c. himself
d. herself

Read the following passage carefully before you choose your answer.
The following is an excerpt from an autobiography written in the third person by Henry Adams, a prominent Bostonian.
The chief charm of New England was harshness of contrasts and extremes of sensibility—a cold that froze the blood, and a heat that boiled it—so that the pleasure of hating—one’s self if no better victim offered—was not its rarest amusement; but the charm was a true and natural child of the soil, not a cultivated weed of the ancients. The violence of the contrast was real and made the strongest motive of education. The double exterior nature gave life its relative values. Winter and summer, cold and heat, town and country, force and freedom, marked two modes of life and thought, balanced like lobes of the brain. (5)Town was winter confinement, school, rule, discipline; straight, gloomy streets, piled with six feet of snow in the middle; frosts that made the snow sing under wheels or runners; thaws when the streets became dangerous to cross; society of uncles, aunts, and cousins who expected children to behave themselves, and who were not always gratified; above all else, winter represented the desire to escape and go free. Town was restraint, law, unity. Country, only seven miles away, was liberty, diversity, outlawry, the endless delight of mere sense impressions given by nature for nothing, and breathed by boys without knowing it.
Boys are wild animals, rich in the treasures of sense, but the New England boy had a wider range of emotions than boys of more equable climates. He felt his nature crudely, as it was meant. (10)To the boy Henry Adams, summer was drunken. Among senses, smell was the strongest—smell of hot pine-woods and sweet-fern in the scorching summer noon; of new-mown hay; of ploughed earth; of box hedges; of peaches, lilacs, syringas1; of stables, barns, cow-yards; of salt water and low tide on the marshes; nothing came amiss. Next to smell came taste, and the children knew the taste of everything they saw or touched, from pennyroyal and flagroot2 to the shell of a pignut and the letters of a spelling-book—the taste of A-B, AB, suddenly revived on the boy’s tongue sixty years afterwards. Light, line, and color as sensual pleasures, came later and were as crude as the rest. The New England light is glare, and the atmosphere harshens color. (15)The boy was a full man before he ever knew what was meant by atmosphere; his idea of pleasure in light was the blaze of a New England sun. His idea of color was a peony, with the dew of early morning on its petals. The intense blue of the sea, as he saw it a mile or two away, from the Quincy hills; the cumuli3 in a June afternoon sky; the strong reds and greens and purples of colored prints and children’s picture-books, as the American colors then ran; these were ideals. The opposites or antipathies, were the cold grays of November evenings, and the thick, muddy thaws of Boston winter. With such standards, the Bostonian could not but develop a double nature. (20)Life was a double thing. After a January blizzard, the boy who could look with pleasure into the violent snow-glare of the cold white sunshine, with its intense light and shade, scarcely knew what was meant by tone. He could reach it only by education.
Winter and summer, then, were two hostile lives, and bred two separate natures. Winter was always the effort to live; summer was tropical license.
(1918)
In context, the word “drunken” (sentence 10) is best understood to mean
exciting
confining
consumed
frightening
stupor-inducing
Which of the following best characterizes the development of sentence 21 (“After a January blizzard… by tone”)?
An argument supported by detail and allusion
Comparisons enhanced through personification
Descriptions alternating between impression and reality
Evocative details arranged to enhance a description
Juxtaposed concepts that enhance a simile
Which most accurately summarizes the characterization of the seasons at the opening of the first paragraph?
Summer is freedom; winter is confinement.
Summer is liberation; winter is deliverance.
Summer is orderly; winter is disciplined.
Summer is restrained; winter is limitation.
Summer is weakness; winter is strength.
Which quotation most accurately reflects a central theme of the passage?
“He could reach it only by education” (sentence 22)
“The double exterior nature gave life its relative values.” (sentence 3)
“The New England light is glare, and the atmosphere harshens color.” (sentence 14)
“The violence of the contrast was real and made the strongest motive of education.” (sentence 2)
“Winter and summer, cold and heat, town and country, force and freedom, marked two modes of life and thought, balanced like lobes of the brain.” (sentence 4)

Compare – in detail – how each artist suggests the illusion of space in their artworks. What techniques to represent the illusion of space overlap? What’s distinct? Support your ideas with specific details from the paintings and use proper art vocabulary.