The Midyear Exam and How to Prepare for It

The midyear exam consists of four parts.
1. Vocabulary words taken from Beowulf, Frankenstein, and Lord of the Flies.
2. Questions about characters, events, symbols, and themes in Beowulf, Frankenstein, and Lord of the Flies. (Questions are derived from notes and quizzes on these books. Click here for quizzes.)
3. SAT reading comprehension questions.
4. An SAT-style persuasive essay about human nature, monsters, and heroes. (Click here for the prompt.)

SAT-style Essay for Midyear Exam

Writing on the Midyear Exam

The SAT-Style Essay
During the first semester we have studied several works of literature and one film that explores heroism and monstrousness. (These works include an epic poem (Beowulf), a film (Mary Shelley's Frankenstein), a "monster" book of your choice, a novel (Lord of the Flies), and a short story ("The Demon Lover"). Below are two quotations that we discussed during the second term.

"I believe that man suffers from an appalling ignorance of his own nature."
William Golding

"Simon thought of the beast, there rose before his inward sight the picture of a human at once heroic and sick."
from Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Plan and write a well-organized essay in which you support, refute, or revise one of the quotations. Develop your position with reasoning and examples taken from two works we have studied in English during the first semester and from personal experience and/or observation.

Notes: Be careful. Take some time to understand the quotation you have chosen and the essay prompt. Plan your essay ahead of time. You must have notes. In your notes you might (1) write down your understanding of the quotation including key terms, (2) brainstorm reasoning and examples to support your opinion on the quotation, (3) organize the brainstorm into an outline. Doing this ahead of time will allow you to spend the exam time developing your ideas fully and writing with clarity and accuracy. Notes are worth five points.

Warning: Make sure you go beyond merely identifying “ignorance” or pointing out “heroes” and “sickness”. Make sure you develop an argument. Convince me you're right.

Reflective Personal Epilogue
Then, in an epilogue – an extra paragraph – use first person (I, me, my) to carefully explain and fully develop an insight into human nature you have had while studying heroes and monsters this semester. The epilogue is worth five points.

Lord of the Flies Vocabulary #2 and #3

Click here for Lord of the Flies Vocabulary #2 and #3.

Here's the prompt for the essay you'll write in class on Monday

Imagine that you are William Golding. From his point of view write a letter to the students of Gloucester High School explaining how the character(s) you have been assigned (Ralph, Piggy, Jack, Simon, Roger, Sam and Eric, the littluns) and the motif you have been assigned (the island itself, shell, glasses, fire, rocks, pigs, or the boys’ appearance) contribute to the meaning of the novel. You will write one letter explaining the significance of both the character and the motif.

Support your explanation of the character’s and the motif’s significance by citing at least three specific places where you, as Golding the author, use the character to contribute to the novel’s meaning and three specific places where you, as Golding, use the motif to contribute to the novel’s meaning. Make sure you explain how the parts -- the particular uses of the character & motif -- contribute to the meaning of the novel as a whole.

When thinking about Golding's point of view and Golding’s purpose in constructing the novel, consider some things Golding has written about the novel.

“I believe that man suffers from an appalling ignorance of his own nature.”

“The theme (of Lord of the Flies) is an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature. The moral is that the shape of society must depend on the ethical mature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical or respectable.”

FOR THOSE OF YOU LOOKING TO EARN AN ADVANCED SCORE…

Also perhaps consider William Golding's life. The following is an excerpt from the Nobel Prize website. (Golding won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1983.)

"Taught at Bishop Wordsworth's School, Salisbury. Joined the Royal Navy in 1940 and spent six years afloat, except for seven months in New York and six months helping Lord Cherwell at the Naval Research Establishment. He saw action against battleships (at the sinking of the Bismarck), submarines and aircraft. Finished as Lieutenant in command of a rocket ship. He was present off the French coast for the D-Day invasion, and later at the island of Walcheren. After the war he returned to teaching [until 1962], and began to write again. Lord of the Flies, his first novel, was published in 1954."

And for more of Golding's views you'll find his Nobel Lecture at nobelprize.org.

Notes for Reviewing Lord of the Flies

Looking more closely at Lord of the Flies

the first half

Characters are in italics; motifs and symbols are in bold; connections to the world off the island are underlined

Chapter One: “Sound of the Shell”

Discussion of context off the island & scar on the island

7 Discovery of conch. Ralph’s role. Piggy’s role

15-17 Introduction of other characters including Jack, Simon, Roger, littluns…

18-22 Exploration of island: rock as “monster” & “bomb”; Jack not killing the pig 31; how characters react to “candle buds” (the island itself) 30; Ralph: “this is our island” 29

Chapter Two: “Fire on the Mountain” (island’s appearance)

33 Conch = order, voice for voiceless (?)

35 Introduction of the beast concept by the littlun with the birthmark

40 Fire: Piggy’s glasses, first failure, second “success”: squirrel to panther (beast) 44; boy w/ birthmark missing 46

Chapter Three: “Huts on the Beach” (island’s appearance)

48-50 Jack “dog-like” “like a shadow under darkness of the tree and crouched” “compulsion to track down and kill that was swallowing him up” / “not hunting, but—being hunted” (at meeting) > beast talk (52-53)

Simon considers beast “as if…the beastie…was real” (52); fruit to littluns 56; off by himself: “candle-like buds” and “scent spilled into the air and took possession of the island” (vs. this is our island)

Chapter Four: “Painted Faces and Long Hair”

60-62 Roger throws rocks around Henry (littlun) but doesn’t his because of “the taboo of the old life” (62) “protection of parents and school and policmen and the law” (62) in Roger’s head: “Roger’s arm was conditioned by a civilization that knew nothing of him and was in ruins.” (62)

63-64 Painted Faces/ “Mask” (the boys’ appearance) : Jack w/ Roger: “Like in the war”: “the mask was a thing on its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness.” “The mask compelled them.” (64)

64 Piggy’s appearance “the only boy on the island whose hair never seemed to grow.” Long hair.

66+ Fire out; Pig caught. Ralph’s priority ignored; Jack’s priority indulged.

“link between him [Ralph] and Jack had been snapped…fastened elsewhere” (73) Where? (Jack & Roger???)

71 Jack attacks Piggy: breaks one lens of glasses

74 Simon provides pig for Piggy

74-75 Dance (circle) vs. Meeting (shell & triangle) 74-5

Chapter Five: “Beast from Water”

Ralph’s meeting (with conch) to re-estabilish logic/order devolves into beast talk (Percival, littlun: beast from sea):

Simon: “…maybe it’s [the beast is] only us” 89

Ralph: What are we? Humans? Or animals? 92 (contrast with what Simon says)

Jack: Bollocks to the rules! (i.e. shell) We’re strong—we hunt! 92

Chapter Six: “Beast from Air”

“a sign came down from the world of grown-ups” 96

Sam & Eric see the “beast” (i.e. the dead parachuter) 98

Explore the unexplored part of the island (Castle Rock???): Simon “incredulity” re: beast: “However Simon thought of the beast, there rose before his inward sight the picture of a human at once heroic and sick” (103) Simon doesn’t believe in “beast” (105)

Boys (including Roger) roll rocks instead of tending to fire, says Ralph 107-08

Jack: seek beast instead of tending to fire (others do not answer “mutinously”) 108

Looking more closely at Lord of the Flies

the second half

Chapter Seven: “Shadows and Tall Trees” (island’s appearance)

111 Simon to Ralph: you’ll be saved; Ralph to Simon: you’re “batty”

113-115 Ralph attacks pig / Ralph participates in play hunt & dance

123 Ralph, Jack, Roger (ch 1 exploration Ralph, Jack, Simon) see beast / dead parachuter: “ruin of a face” (cf “civilization…in ruins” ch 4)

Chapter Eight: “Gift for the Darkness” (island’s appearance / beast)

127 Jack splits (cf. 73 and 108)

131 weather (island’s appearance) “in sympathy with great changes…”

135 sow rape leads to sacrifice (perverse new civilization w/ its own quasi-rituals quite different from the shell-ordered meetings)

140 Jack & mask; Ralph & fire; Piggy & shell (Samneric peer at edge of the forest)

137-8 & 143-4 Simon talks w/ pig’s head (which is the “lord of the flies” & another form of beast); Simon falls into the blackness of its mouth.

Note “sea” “air” “tall trees” “shadows” “darkness” What’s the common thread in the chapter titles 5-8?

Chapter Nine: “A View to a Death”

146 Simon learns truth about “beast” / dead parachuter

150-153

Ralph & Piggy join Jack’s band for protection from weather / island and to eat pig;

the boys play dance in circle around Roger-as-pig (contrast w/ conch meetings); Roger leaves center which “yawned emptily” (mouth!!! Of a beast???) & boys chant (mouth!!!);

Simon / “the beast” appears from the forest; circle becomes horseshoe which Simon / beast enters; “mouth of new circle crunched & screamed” then “tearing of teeth and claws”

Storm (island’s appearance)

Parachuter / beast blown away

Simon’s body taken by sea

Chapter Ten: The Shell and the Glasses

157 Ralph & Piggy talk about beast / Simon: face what they did? Or forget it?

163 Sam & Eric’s role?

168 glasses not shell

Chapter 11: “Castle Rock” (Castle hmm… what kind of government?)

172 paint (boys’ appearance)

173 Sam & Eric’s role?

181 Piggy & shell; Roger & rock; Ralph v. Jack

Chapter 12: “Cry of the Hunters” (Is that a pun on “cry”?)

185 Ralph & the pig’s skull (cf Simon & pig’s head 143-4)

190 Sam & Eric’s role? Give pig to Ralph to eat. “stick sharpened at both ends” (cf pig’s skull)

192-3 Sam & Eric’s role? Twins split; one reveals Ralph to Jack & Roger; attack Ralph with destructive rock

200-2 Jack, Roger, etc. hunt Ralph; island on fire; naval officer arrives, wonders why the boys’ haven’t done better (Does the office have “an appalling ignorance of [man's] own nature”?); Ralph ("end of innocence"; end of "ignorance"?) cries (see chapter title? hunters also "cry"; that's what "ululation" means) for the death & savagery

Lord of the Flies #11, 12, 13 (Chapters 10, 11, 12)

Chapter 10:

1. How is the conversation at the beginning of the chapter between Piggy and Ralph significant?

2. Explain what happens with the objects that are mentioned in the chapter title. How might what happens be thematically or symbolically significant?

Chapter 11:

3. What dramatic and violent event occurs in the chapter? Who is involved and how? How are two important motifs involved? How might the event symbolically represent changes on the island? (In other words what happens and what might it represent?)

Chapter 12:

4. Think about the chapter title. Who are the hunters? Who is the hunted? (What side are Sam and Eric on now?)

5. Think about the very end. What happens in the end and how might it be thematically and symbolically significant?

Lord of the Flies #10: O'Maley Experiment Turning Point (& #14 O'Maley Ending)

Use at least eight of the Lord of the Flies Vocabulary Words (part 2) to help you write a third-person narrative about a turning point in the O'Maley experiment that involves the character you have been assigned. This is assignment #10.
Option: You can write an ending for the O'Maley experiment as part of your "turning point" narrative or you can write am ending in class on Wednesday. This is assignment #14.