Pre-AP English II: Test Preview for 9/23

Tomorrow (9/23) you will be taking an AP-style multiple choice test on "By the Waters of Babylon."

Please be familiar with the following literary terms, and vocabulary prior to the test. (Just because a word appears below doesn't mean it's the "right" answer.)

Literary Terms:

• Alliteration
• Allusion
• Anaphora
• Apostrophe (not the punctuation)
• Flashback
• Foreshadowing
• Hyperbole
• Imagery
• Metaphor
• Metonymy
• Onomatopoeia
• Oxymoron
• Paradox
• Personification
• Simile

Vocabulary:

• Elusive
• Forbade
• Idly

Pre-AP English II: Quest/Hero's Journey Storyboard (Waters of Babylon)

Review "By the Waters of Babylon" and identify the key aspects of the "Hero's Journey" in the six sections of the Storyboard Handout.

In the three boxes across the top, draw a picture representing the Quester (Box 1), the Destination/Prize (Box 2), and the Mentor (Box 3). Accompany each illustration with a quote from the story that backs up your identification for what you've drawn.

In the bottom three boxes, draw two examples of Challenges/Trials the quester overcame (divide Box 4 and the lines beneath it in two), the Underworld (Box 5), and the True Objective (Box 6). Again, a quote from the story should roughly match your picture.

You will have time to work on this in class tomorrow (9/22), but use today's work as a guideline of how much you'll need to complete tonight.

Pre-AP English II: Timed Writing on "Waters of Babylon"

Authors use a variety of techniques to influence the reader's emotional connection to the text. Using the excerpt of "By the Waters of Babylon" below, write a well-developed essay exploring how Stephen Vincent Benét uses literary devices such as, but not limited to, diction and imagery, in order to shape the mood the reader experiences in the story as a whole.

Then I saw the dead god. He was sitting in his chair, by the window, in a room I had not entered before and, for the first moment, I thought that he was alive. Then I saw the skin on the back of his hand—it was like dry leather. The room was shut, hot and dry—no doubt that had kept him as he was. At first I was afraid to approach him—then the fear left me. He was sitting looking out over the city—he was dressed in the clothes of the gods. His age was neither young nor old—I could not tell his age. But there was wisdom in his face and great sadness. You could see that he would have not run away. He had sat at his window, watching his city die—then he himself had died. But it is better to lose one's life than one's spirit—and you could see from the face that his spirit had not been lost. I knew, that, if I touched him, he would fall into dust—and yet, there was something unconquered in the face.