Student worksheet · Short story
The Yellow Wallpaper
Charlotte Perkins Gilman · 1892 · 6,147 words
Name ________________________ Date ________________________
Answer in complete sentences. Give source lines, chapters, parts or staves with each response.
- What do John and the narrator each infer from the rented house and her illness in the opening entries? Give one piece of evidence for each position.
- Track the wallpaper under two kinds of light. How does a change in the conditions of looking change the observer’s conclusion?
- Compare the nailed bed or the groove along the wall with a material detail in the final scene. Separate what is observable from what the narrator infers.
- Explain how the secret writing and the interruption of entries affect what a reader can know. Cite two occasions.
- Read the locked-door exchange and the last sentence closely. Give two defensible, competing interpretations of her apparent victory.
Essay
Who has the authority to describe a sickroom? Build a claim about how Gilman makes the same physical space support incompatible accounts. Consider a plausible rival reading.
Write at least 650 words on separate pages. Develop a thesis, interpret three located passages from different parts of the text, and address a serious counterreading.
Student worksheet · One-act play
Trifles
Susan Glaspell · 1916 · 5,271 words
Name ________________________ Date ________________________
Answer in complete sentences. Give source lines, chapters, parts or staves with each response.
- Identify two details in the initial stage direction and explain how each shapes what the audience expects the investigators to notice.
- Reconstruct Hale’s arrival on the previous morning. Separate his reported observation, Minnie’s statement, and his interpretation.
- Trace the stitches, cage and bird in the order in which the women encounter them. What does each add, and what remains unproved?
- Compare Mrs. Hale’s memory of Minnie with Mrs. Peters’s memories of the kitten and the child. What changes in their relationship?
- Who tries to move the box at the end and who succeeds? Explain how the final joke and the placement of the pocket communicate to an audience.
Essay
How does Glaspell use stage space, props and withheld speech to make the audience responsible for weighing evidence? Address a serious objection to the women’s decision.
Write at least 650 words on separate pages. Develop a thesis, interpret three located passages from different parts of the text, and address a serious counterreading.
Student worksheet · Novella
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Robert Louis Stevenson · 1886 · 25,665 words
Name ________________________ Date ________________________
Answer in complete sentences. Give source lines, chapters, parts or staves with each response.
- In “Story of the Door,” reconstruct exactly what Enfield sees and how the cheque is verified. Distinguish evidence from his account of blackmail.
- In “The Carew Murder Case” and “Incident of the Letter,” track two objects. Explain which inferences are warranted when Utterson first encounters them.
- Why does the scene at the window fail to settle the case? Attend to the order of looking, invitation and closure.
- Follow Poole and Utterson through the break-in. Identify one convincing sensory detail and one interpretation that those present get wrong.
- Compare Lanyon’s narrative with Jekyll’s statement on the role of choice in the transformation. What can each narrator actually attest to?
Essay
Why does Stevenson give the legal investigator so much of the narrative and then give the last word to two doctors? Test your argument against evidence from the opening, the search and both final accounts.
Write at least 650 words on separate pages. Develop a thesis, interpret three located passages from different parts of the text, and address a serious counterreading.
Student worksheet · Novella in five staves
A Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens · 1843 · 28,616 words
Name ________________________ Date ________________________
Answer in complete sentences. Give source lines, chapters, parts or staves with each response.
- How do the charity collectors’ visit and Marley’s chain expose different meanings of business? Identify a precise detail from each exchange.
- In Stave Two, contrast the economics of Fezziwig’s party with the parting between Belle and the younger Scrooge.
- Follow one material object at the Cratchits’ dinner. How does Dickens make the reader see both pleasure and shortage without canceling either?
- What is the order in which the last Spirit shows an unregretted death, the Cratchits’ grief and the grave? Why delay the name?
- In Stave Five, identify two acts of repair. How can a reader distinguish a practical act from a kindly intention?
Essay
What does Dickens make Scrooge learn about interpreting evidence before he can spend his money differently? Develop an argument across at least three staves and assess the limits of individual generosity.
Write at least 650 words on separate pages. Develop a thesis, interpret three located passages from different parts of the text, and address a serious counterreading.
Student worksheet · Science-fiction story in three parts
The Machine Stops
E. M. Forster · 1909 · 12,260 words
Name ________________________ Date ________________________
Answer in complete sentences. Give source lines, chapters, parts or staves with each response.
- In Part I, compare Vashti’s first exchange with Kuno and the unfamiliar experience on the airship. Identify one specific physical inconvenience in each.
- Reconstruct Kuno’s route to the surface and his return. Identify what the Book can explain and what only his body teaches him.
- How do a lecture and the ritual surrounding the Book each turn mediated knowledge into authority? Locate them in their narrative context.
- Distinguish an early change in service quality from a late failure that puts lives in immediate danger. How do people respond to each?
- What exactly can Vashti and Kuno see or know at the end? Separate what the text shows from a prediction about survivors.
Essay
How does Forster stage a disagreement about what counts as a good idea? Test the defense of mediated knowledge against Kuno’s experience and the story’s ending.
Write at least 650 words on separate pages. Develop a thesis, interpret three located passages from different parts of the text, and address a serious counterreading.
Student worksheet · Novel in nine chapters
The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald · 1925 · 48,467 words
Name ________________________ Date ________________________
Answer in complete sentences. Give source lines, chapters, parts or staves with each response.
- Compare the principle of Nick’s father (paraphrase it) with one early instance in which Nick judges somebody. Do his admissions make him more reliable?
- Trace the books in Gatsby’s library, the medal and the Oxford photograph. What does each artifact establish, and what does it leave open?
- Reconstruct the colors, ownership, passengers and drivers of the cars on the outbound and return journeys in Chapter VII. Identify which facts reach the reader at second hand.
- Compare the green light before and after the reunion with what Nick makes it mean at the end. Separate Gatsby’s behavior from Nick’s interpretation.
- Contrast the conduct of two associates after Gatsby dies with that of Mr. Gatz or Owl Eyes. What challenges Nick’s account of total abandonment?
Essay
When Nick turns a particular man’s failure into an American story, what earns him the right to generalize and what resists him? Argue from at least three chapters, including the final one, and develop a counterreading.
Write at least 650 words on separate pages. Develop a thesis, interpret three located passages from different parts of the text, and address a serious counterreading.