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SAT II Literature ClassFor the May '07 SAT II Literature test : Lafayette Class Schedule beginning Saturday March 31st Los Altos Class Schedule beginning Sunday April 1st |
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The SAT II Subject tests are required at upper tier colleges, in usually two but sometimes three subjects, and most students and parents are shocked to find that they are worth almost as much as the SAT I. Subject tests include sciences, languages, history, math and literature. The lit is a popular test to take if the student neither speaks another language fluently nor is taking an AP science class.
The literature test is not a test of who wrote what when, but rather a test of close reading and interpretation. Having been a TA and graduate student instructor to thousands of students in literature classes at UCB, I am in a very good position to help prepare students for the SAT II Literature. I have also taught classes for this test at Ames Seminars.
My goal for my lit classes is to give a survey of literature (especially poetry) in English by teaching:
1) the themes of significant literary eras--Elizabethan, Enlightenment, Romantic, Victorian, Transcendentalism, Modern and Postmodern,
2) the structures of each genre and sub-genre--epic, sonnet, elegy, lyrical ballad, comedy of manners, drama, literary criticism, and
3) the figurative devices used in belles-lettres--alliteration, conceit, allegory, irony, epithet, foil, satire, foreshadowing, stream of consciousness,
so that my students have a context in which to understand any passage on the test. Most students have the hardest time with poetry, so we go through dozens of poems and talk over elements such as punctuation, imagery, tone, diction, rhetorical tropes, parallelism and point of view.
The work we do in preparation for this test will undoubtedly give my students the skills to close-read literary language and so will benefit them not just on the test but in subsequent English classes in high school and in college. Moreover, it will cultivate a deeper appreciation for figurative language.
Students will take three full official tests (I have copies that are no longer available), as well as five unofficial tests.