Romeo and Juliet & Literary Concepts Part 1

Read the dialogue between the two main characters in Act I, scene v of Romeo and Juliet.

Romeo: [To JULIET.] If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this;
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

Juliet: Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.

Based upon this dialogue, Romeo is

Which are purposes of comic relief? Check all that apply.

Read the excerpt from Act IV, scene i of Romeo and Juliet.

Friar Laurence: On Thursday, sir? the time is very short.

Paris: My father Capulet will have it so;
And I am nothing slow to slack his haste.

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Friar Laurence: You say you do not know the lady's mind:
Uneven is the course, I like it not.

Paris: Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt's death,
And therefore have I little talk'd of love;
For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.

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Why does Paris's request create dramatic irony in this scene?

Which best defines a sonnet?

Read these lines from the prologue of Romeo and Juliet.

Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

What is the best way to paraphrase these lines?

Which viewpoint or theme best completes the chart?

Which lines spoken by Romeo in Act III, scene i of Romeo and Juliet best support the inference that Romeo desires future peace between the Montagues and Capulets? Check all that apply.

Read this line from the prologue of Romeo and Juliet.
Is now the two hours' traffick of our stage;

Which best paraphrases "two hours' traffick"?

________________is the literary device that provides clues or hints to suggest what will occur later in a story.

Read this excerpt from a short story.

The set committee had labored for weeks constructing a background to recreate a 1950s New York City neighborhood. The students in charge of costumes had scoured thrift shops for well-worn denim and leather. The cast had rehearsed lines and performed their songs until each member could recite their part forwards and backwards. But nobody wanted to perform for an empty house. The only remaining hurdle was the promotion of the play. As Pine Valley High's first spring production, the student body would need to be convinced that West Side Story should not be missed.

What complication is introduced in the excerpt?

Which line is written in iambic pentameter?

A paradox is a literary device often used to

A soliloquy is a long speech in which a character speaks one's thoughts to the

In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Romeo is a protagonist because he is a

The prologue of Romeo and Juliet reveals that the play's setting is a(n)

Fill in the blank.

My mom ______ me to go to the store.

Which sentence is written correctly?

Fill in the blanks in order.

Serena wanted to _______ a novel _______ her favorite author.

Read the sentence.

Digestion is divided into four parts, ingestion, digestion, absorption, and elimination.

Which revision is necessary?

Read the excerpt from The Code Book.

A theoretical breakthrough would be a fundamentally new way of finding Alice's private key. Alice's private key consists of p and q, and these are found by factoring the public key, N. The standard approach is to check each prime number one at a time to see if it divides into N, but we know that this takes an unreasonable amount of time.

Which statement is best supported by this excerpt?

A _____________ phrase is necessary to the meaning of a sentence.

Which sentences are punctuated correctly? Check all that apply.

Fill in the blank.

I want ______ part in this group project because I want to do my own.

Abigail is writing a comparative essay about two books. She would like to write an in-depth analysis of each book and then compare them.

Which organizational style would work best for Abigail?

Which transitional words show cause and effect? Check all that apply.

Read the sentence.

Alma plans to visit London and Paris, where her parents went on their first trip together as a married couple.

What best describes the underlined part of the sentence, and why?

Which are examples of an expository writing style? Check all that apply.

Read the excerpt from "A Quilt of a Country."

Today the citizens of the United States have come together once more because of armed conflict and enemy attack. Terrorism has led to devastation—and unity.

Which statement best explains the role context plays in better understanding this excerpt?

Read the excerpt from Outcasts United.

Luma pulled her Volkswagen Beetle into the center's parking lot on a sunny June afternoon in 2004, before her team's first tryouts. She wasn't sure what kind of response her flyers had generated among the boys in the complexes around Clarkston. They were naturally wary.

But on the other side of town, Jeremiah Ziaty had no doubt about his enthusiasm for the new team. His mother was still at work when he set out from the family's apartment, a small backpack on his shoulder, ready to play.

When Jeremiah arrived at the center, he joined twenty-two other boys on the small field behind the building.

Which statement best describes how the author is developing the plot in this excerpt?

Which statements about Outcasts United express theme? Check all that apply.

When a reader evaluates the clarity of a written procedure, which would be considered an error in organization?

Read the excerpt from "A Quilt of a Country."

What is the point of this splintered whole? What is the point of a nation in which Arab cabbies chauffeur Jewish passengers through the streets of New York—and in which Jewish cabbies chauffeur Arab passengers, too, and yet speak in theory of hatred, one for the other? What is the point of a nation in which one part seems to be always on the verge of fisticuffs with another, blacks and whites, gays and straights, left and right, Pole and Chinese and Puerto Rican and Slovenian? Other countries with such divisions have in fact divided into new nations with new names, but not this one, impossibly interwoven even in its hostilities.

Which statement best summarizes the central idea of this paragraph?

Read the excerpt from "A Quilt of a Country."

America is an improbable idea. A mongrel nation built of ever-changing disparate parts, it is held together by a notion, the notion that all men are created equal, though everyone knows that most men consider themselves better than someone. "Of all the nations in the world, the United States was built in nobody's image," the historian Daniel Boorstin wrote. That's because it was built of bits and pieces that seem discordant, like the crazy quilts that have been one of its great folk-art forms, velvet and calico and checks and brocades. Out of many, one. That is the ideal.

The reality is often quite different, a great national striving consisting frequently of failure. Many of the oft-told stories of the most pluralistic nation on earth are stories not of tolerance, but of bigotry. Slavery and sweatshops, the burning of crosses and the ostracism of the other. Children learn in social-studies class and in the news of the lynching of blacks, the denial of rights to women, the murders of gay men. It is difficult to know how to convince them that this amounts to "crown thy good with brotherhood," that amid all the failures is something spectacularly successful. Perhaps they understand it at this moment [in the aftermath of 9/11], when enormous tragedy, as it so often does, demands a time of reflection on enormous blessings.

Which statement best traces the development of a central idea from one paragraph to the next?

To evaluate the clarity of a written procedure, which questions should a reader ask? Check all that apply.

One reason that Korns's excerpt from "How to Ride" would score higher than Ward's excerpt from The Common Sense of Bicycling: Bicycling for Ladies when evaluated for clarity is that

Read the excerpt from Ward's The Common Sense of Bicycling: Bicycling for Ladies.

Now, the question of that other foot. By this time which "the other foot" is will have become quite evident; it is always the foot to which attention for the moment in not directed, and which consequently may meet unexpected disaster—a lost pedal, perhaps, with its accompanying inconveniences.

Which evaluation for clarity is most valid?

In poetry, diction is the poet's ________ .

Read the excerpt from Outcasts United.

Somehow, Luma would have to find a way to get all these kids to play as a unit. "It was about trying to figure out what they have in common," she said.

While Luma was trying to find a way to get the kids to play together, she was also getting to know their parents, most of whom were single mothers. She quickly discovered that these women needed help—mostly in understanding paperwork. With her Arabic and French, Luma was able to translate documents and answer some of their questions. She made appointments with doctors and social workers. Luma gave her cell phone number to her players and their families, and soon they were calling with requests for help. Teachers learned to call Luma when her players' parents couldn't be found or were at work. The families showed their gratitude by offering Luma tea and inviting her to dinner. Luma felt needed, and couldn't help but notice how much better this kind of work felt than running Ashton's.

Based on Luma's actions, which statement best describes the theme in this excerpt?

Read this description of the man in "The Legend."

A few sounds escape from his mouth,
a babbling no one understands
as people surround him
bewildered at his speech.
The noises he makes are nothing to them.

What theme does the speaker's description of the man support?

Read these excerpts from "Fences."

Mouths full of laughter,
the turistas come to the tall hotel
with suitcases full of dollars.

Every morning my brother makes
the cool beach new for them.
With a wooden board he smooths
away all footprints.
...

Once my little sister
ran barefoot across the hot sand
for a taste.

My mother roared like the ocean,
"No. No. It's their beach.
It's their beach."

What theme is revealed by the speaker's view of the tourists?