Unit 4 – Love and Lesser Affections
I. Quotation Identification
This section will ask that you be able to identify the speakers of significant and telling quotations from the play. In addition to your annotations, your knowledge of each character’s traits will enable you to select the quote or quotes that can be attributed to them. For this section, be sure that you can characterize the following individuals:
- Balthasar
- Benvolio
- Juliet
- Friar Lawrence
- Lady Capulet
- Lady Montague
- Lord Capulet
- Lord Montague
- Mercutio
- Nurse
- Paris
- Prince Escalus
- Romeo
- Tybalt
II. Plot Structure
In this section, be sure that you can use Freytag’s Pyramid to analyze the plot structure of the play. Be able to identify and discuss exposition, inciting moment, rising action, climax (crisis), falling action, and resolution (catastrophe).
III. Literary Elements
This section will be just like your take-home quiz, with the exception of the fact that you will only have five choices for each quote as opposed to a full word bank. Be sure that you can identify and interpret examples of any and all literary elements we have covered this year. Most terms will come from the most recent set with emphasis on the following:
- Simile
- Allusion
- Metaphor
- Oxymoron
- Archaism
- Slant Rhyme
- Alliteration
- Consonance
- Assonance
- Parallelism
- Couplet
- Pun
- Verbal Irony
- Dramatic Irony
- Personification
- Apostrophe
- Aside
- Monologue
- Soliloquy
IV. Analysis
- Know the plot of the play through and through. We have spent a few weeks reading the play; there is no excuse for not knowing what happened. SparkNotes alone will not suffice; you will need to have a deep knowledge of what occurs AND why it occurs. Understand cause-effect relationships throughout the course of the play.
- Be able to analyze structural elements of Romeo and Juliet (i.e., the arrangement of events and ideas, the use of poetry and poetic devices, etc.).
- Be able to analyze the use of literary elements as they relate to given moments in the text.
- Be able to identify pairs of character foils and explain how the two characters are foils for one another.
- Be able to identify and analyze examples from the play that fit the motifs of religious language, the language of warfare, and light and dark imagery.
- Be able to distinguish among the types of dramatic speeches and analyze their use within the play.
- Be able to identify and analyze elements of foreshadowing throughout the play.
- Be able to analyze character motivation.
- Be able to discuss what ultimately causes the downfall and death of Romeo and Juliet.
- Be able to identify and discuss possible themes of the play.
V. Grammar
- Be able to determine whether a given modifier is an adjective or adverb. Once you have done so, determine what adjective or adverb question it answers and what other word in the sentence it modifies.
- Be able to identify and deconstruct appositive phrases. Be able to identify the word in the sentence that the appositive phrase renames.
- Be able to identify and deconstruct gerund phrases. Be able to determine whether the gerund phrase acts as a subject, direct object, indirect object, predicate nominative, or object of a preposition.
VI. Cold Reads
You will have THREE cold reads on the Unit 3 Test. They will be as follows:
- A passage from Romeo and Juliet – This section, which consists of approximately 6-8 questions, will be very similar to the AP quizzes that we took in class.
- A short modern drama – This section, which consists of approximately 6-8 questions, will ask that you be able to apply your knowledge of dramatic elements and other literary elements to an unfamiliar text. You will be responsible for making inferences, identifying character foils, analyzing stage directions, understanding puns, analyzing setting, and identifying theme.
- A sonnet – This cold read will ask that you be able to determine things like structure (including volta/turn) and rhyme scheme while answering basic literary analysis questions.