Praxis II: English Content & Analysis Exam (5039)
Study Guide
Praxis II: English Content & Analysis Exam (5039)
Study
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Vocabulary:
• Constructivism: as readers become involved with a text they construct meaning through an active process of integrating what they are reading with their own reactions, knowledge, belief and ideas
• Schemas: cognitive connections that are molded in an individual’s mind over time and shape a person’s worldview
• Literary criticism: the formal study, analysis and evaluation of literary texts
• American literature: usually studied chronologically or thematically beginning with texts from the early colonists who wrote about exploration.
• Canon: a group of works that are considered to be culturally, artistically or historically significant.
• Conceit: a figure of speech that creates a parallel between two dissimilar things
o Ex: The Sun Rising by John Donne (the sun/busy old fool)
• Rhyme scheme: arrangement of rhyming words in a stanza or poem
• Slant rhyme: not a true rhyme, substitutes assonance or consonance
• Internal rhyme: rhyming two core more words in the same line of poetry
• Rhythm: heartbeat of a poem
• Meter: established rhythm within a poem in which accentuated syllables are repetitive and predictable
• Foot: unit of meter that has stressed and unstressed syllables
• Iamb: familiar poetic foot which occurs when an unaccented syllable is followed by an accented one
o EX: the word contain.
• Blank verse: poetry that is written in iambic pentameter and unrhymed – Shakespeare/Paradise Lost
• Free verse: poetry without patterns
• Repetition: to emphasize important ideas and heighten language
• Assonance: inclusion of words with the same vowel sound within one or two lines of poetry
• Consonance: repetition of the same consonant sounds at the end of a stressed syllable but following different vowel sounds
o “Whose woods are these”
• Closed form: poetry that follows a given formula or shape
o EX: quatrain, sonnet, ballad
• Open form: does not have restrictions
• Literary theory: using a set of principles or system of ideas to interpret literature from a unique angle
• Reader-response theory: centered on the idea that as readers read, they experience a transaction with the text.
• Feminist literary theory: involves asking questions about the degree to which a literary text perpetuates the ideas that women are inferior to and dependent upon men.
• Queer theory: investigates texts by asking questions about gender and sexuality
• Deconstructionist literary criticism: focuses on dissecting and uncovering the writer’s assumptions about what is true and false, good and bad.
• Semiotic analysis: study of signs, signals, visual messages, and gestures.
• Marxist theory: focuses on the economic system that structure society and the ways human behavior is motivated by a desire for economic power.
• Formalism/New Criticism: emphasizes closely reading the text and analyzing how literary elements create meaning in it.
Reading Strategies
• Pre-reading strategies: previewing, setting a purpose, making predictions
• Previewing: involves taking time to identify the author, genre and general subject matter of the work
• Set a purpose: guiding questions (what does it mean to be evil) or a hypothetical situation that pushes students to examine their value system.
• Making predictions: self explanatory
• Metacognition: the monitory and clarify strategy, thinking about what they are thinking as they read so they can regonize any confusion or uncertainty
• Annotating
o VISA
Vocabulary, inferences, summaries and a brief analyses
• Summarizing
• Synthesizing: a type of reflection understanding the text and its thematic and cultural relevance
• Make connections
• Textual evidence
Research-Based Strategies
• Targeted review of previous learning: regularly revisiting or reviewing a concept also known as spiraling or scaffolding
• Modeling: when teaching new material an instructor might incorporate a think-aloud and model the thought process for students
• Questioning strategies allow teacher to check understanding of new material
Literary Theory
• Literary theory is using a set of principles or a system of ideas to interpret literature from a unique angle
• Reader-response theory: is centered on the idea that as readers read they experience a transaction with the text
• Feminist literary theory: asking questions about the degree to which literary text perpetuates the ideas that women are inferior to and dependent upon men
o Queer theory: investigates texts by asking questions about both gender and sexuality.
• Deconstructionist literary criticism: focuses on uncovering the writers assumption about what is true, false good and bad. They begin by examining language.
• Semiotic analysis: study of signs signals and visual messages and gestures
• Marxist theory: economic systems that structure society and the ways human behavior is motivated by a desire for economic power.
Language Use and Vocabulary
Grammar
• Relative pronouns: begin dependent clauses
o Who, whom, which, that, whose
• Interrogative pronoun: begin questions
• Indefinite pronoun: replace nouns to avoid unnecessary repetition
o Some, any, none, all, most, more, both, few, several, many, each, either, neither, one, everyone, no one, someone, anyone, everybody, nobody, somebody, anybody, everything, nothing, something, anything, another
• Verbs
o Indicative verbs state facts
o Subjunctive verbs make a statement of speculation or wish
o Conditional sentences which use the auxiliaries would could and should use the subjunctive
o Transitive verbs and Takes an object
o Intransitive verbs have “I” as second letter (lie, rise, sit)
o Past participle: have sat
o Present participle: sitting
• Syntax
o The study of how words are combined to make sentences
o Phrase
A group of words that communicates partial ideas and lacks a subject or predicate
Appositive phrase: renames the word of group of words that precedes them
Gerund phrase: a verbal phrase that begins with a word that would normally act as a verb. She remembers ENJOYING THE SOUNDS OF MUSIC. WRITING CHRISTMAS CARDS is soothing. Acts as a noun
Participle phrase: ends in –ed, -ing, -d, -en, or –t. Can remove from sentence and sentence will still make sense.
Figures of Speech
• Alliteration
• Antithesis: contrast in a parallel phrase or clause
• Assonance: repetition of vowels or vowel sounds
• Euphemism: a pleasant sounding expression for words that might be unpleasant in meaning
• Euphony: words that sound pleasant because of their letter sounds
• Metaphor
• Oxymoron
• Paradox: a seemingly contradictory statement
• Simile
• Verbal irony: the use of words that have an entirely different meaning from their literal interpretation
Linguistics
• Sociolinguists: the study of language and its relation to society and culture
• Language policy: what a government does to regulate what language is/are spoken
• Regional and social dialects: varieties of a language that people in a certain region or social group speak
• Pidgin: a grammatically simplified mode of communication
• Communicative competence: being able to speak a language both appropriately in a social context as well as correctly in terms of rules and structure
• Linguistic competence: refers to knowledge of the linguistic competence of a language such as syntax semantics and so on.
• Sociolinguistic competence: means using the language in a socially appropriate ways
• Register: degrees of formality
• Discourse competence: deals with the knowledge of how to construct smaller units of language
• Strategic competence: the ability to recognize and repair instances of “communication breakdown” by strategic planning
• Differentiated equation: charting or graphic, comparing, debating, discussing, dramatizing, demonstrating, listening to music, role playing, study guides etc.
• Content area standards: identify what students are supposed to learn throughout a given time period in a specific subject area
• Content objectives: identify what students should be able to do at the end of a content area lesson
• Language objectives: identify how students will learn and or demonstrate their mastery of materials by reading, writing, speaking or listening. Must meet several criteria
o Formed using tasks of the content area lesson
o Emphasize the communicative skills of speaking and writing without neglecting listening/reading
o Use active verbs to name targeted functions
o Specify the target language that students will need to complete the task
o Focus on language that is suitable for students’ use in other subjects.
Ex: “Students will be able to make predictions about the events in the short story using future tense and conditional verbs.”
Promoting the Mental Development of Students
• Cognitive strategies: help students remember and organize both content and language learning information.
o Comprehension strategies: help students understand and remember content.
Summarizing, elaborating, and explaining
o Writing strategies: help students complete unstructured tasks, importance of planning in order to conceive and organize ideas
o Problem-solving strategies: help students to see ways in which they can achieve a specific goal
o Reasoning strategies: help students determine what they believe to be true or false
o Self-regulation strategies: help students monitor their behaviors.
• Metacognitive strategies: those that focus on thinking about thinking
o Identify what is known and what is not
o Plan
o Keep a thought journal
o Talk about thinking
o Self-evaluate
o Debrief
• Activiating prior-knowledge can help make connections between what students already know and what they are going to learn. Here are several strategies:
o Introduce vocabulary before content
o Use graphic organizers, outlines and diagrams
o Brainstorm ideas about the topic or content
o Ask questions about the content or topic and things related to it.
Writing, Speaking and Listening
Purpose Audience and Task
• Author’s purpose:
o Persuade
o Inform
o Entertain
• Narrative: writing tells a story
• Informative: the writer provides the reader with information on a given topic most common purpose
• Argumentative: intended to convince the reader to agree with a certain perspective
• Audience: most important factor for a writer
• Tone
• Task: the specific form that the project will take
• Journals: take different forms depending on their audience
• Professional journals: comprised of articles on a given subject, in which professionals provide colleagues with research-based conclusions.
• Essay: short piece of writing that like a professional journal addresses a scholarly audience
• Speech: oral piece of writing
• Blog: an online outlet for expression of personal ideas, experiences, and opinions
Unity, Coherence and Development
• Writing process: the following steps
o Planning
o Drafting
o Revising
o Editing
o Proof-reading
• Unity: demands that the details included in a sentence, paragraph or text share a main idea.
• RENNS: reasons, examples, names numbers & senses
• Coherence: refers to the logical progression of words, sentences and paragraphs
• Conclusion: leaves the reader with a sense of closure by reiterating the author’s thesis
• Chronological order: obvious
• Spatial sequence: employed when a writer organizes information to its position in space
• Compare and contrast: organization starts by highlighting the similarities between two things and then addresses their differences
• Cause and effect: organization begins by discussing the causes or reasons for a given phenomenon and ends with the revelation of the effect
• Problem and solution: organization stats by introducing a problem and concludes by exploring solutions to that problem
• Outline: is an overall map of the content of a text
• Graphic organizers: useful tools for helping students understand text organization visually
Effective Research
• Print resources: may be more credible because they go through numerous reviews before arriving in the hands of the researcher.
• Digital and online resources: the Internet provides little to no oversight regarding who can post information or its reliability.
• Ethical research practices: exist to ensure that fairness and truth are employed in the pursuit of knowledge
• Citations: proper citations have two parts, the original source must be credited within the document itself then the source must be credited at the end of the document using a reference page, a bibliography page or a works cited page.
• Paraphrase: changing both the wording and syntax used to express an idea
• Summaries: summaries cover much more material than a paraphrase.
Oral Communication
• Speech: tests formal public speaking abilities
• Discussion: informal speaking and listening abilities as well as verbal reasoning skills
• One-on-one: less complex topics
o Think-pair-share: students have the opportunity to first share briefly with a partner before sharing their response with the whole class.
• Small group: students are asked to share on a smaller, more intimate scale, thus helpful in classes where a student may be unwilling to participate in a larger group
• Whole class discussions: useful for taking on broad and complex ideas that require many perspectives
o Socratic seminar: the leader prompts discussion solely by asking questions and allowing the class to share and respond to build upon on another’s ideas.
Teaching and Assessing Communication
• Writing workshop: an approach that integrates instruction, practice and assessment in a consistent daily schedule
• Models: exemplary examples of writing which the teacher uses to highlight certain qualities or characteristics
o Teachers may also model a particular skill by practicing the skill along with the thought process aloud in front of students
• Collaborative writing: occurs when partners or small groups of students work together to complete segments of a writing process.
o Useful for allowing students to share ideas and build confidence but also for providing an avenue for feedback
• Process writing: instructing students in the use of a clear process for writing and in the use of techniques and strategies for completing each part of the process.
Purpose and Methods of Assessment
• Summative assessments: assignments (tests and exams) that are most commonly thought of assessments – tasks that are intended to assess a student’s overall mastery of a long-term objective
• Formative assessment: daily work, homework, quizzes. Given leading up to summative assessments which teacher uses to evaluate student progress and adjust instruction
• Rubrics: assessment tools used to objectively assign scores to projects or assignments
o Holistic rubrics: provide a grade based on overall effectiveness of the product
o Analytic rubric: on the other hand break the product down so that points are assigned by component part.
Score separately the thesis, evidence etc. [Show Less]