Exploring Types of Literature

1. Read the following sample and answer the question.

A diner, once dining at Crewe,
Found quite a large mouse in his stew.
Said the waiter, "Don't shout
And wave it about,
Or the rest will be wanting one too!"


This sample is an example of __________.
Realistic Fiction
Poetry
Historical Fiction


2. Read the following sample and answer the question.

She was a big part of my childhood. My parents and I visited
her at least once a month. I remember many visits to Aunt
Cindy's tiny, dark apartment. It was very quiet in that
building maybe because the tenants were not allowed to have
children or pets. In spite of that, Aunt Cind found a way to
express her love for animals: she spent her days working at
animal shelter near her home, and scouting out alleyways for
stray cats and puppies and then finding homes for them. Aunt
Cindy was so earnest and enthusiastic about saving animals that she got all her family and most of her friends involved in her
project. Together we found good homes for at least 500
animals. Aunt Cindy was old and frail, but she showed us that
through love and determination, one can accomplish a great deal.

This sample is an example of __________.
Biography
Poetry
Autobiography


3. Read the following sample and answer the question.

January 17, 1841 The winters seem as long as a whole year. Sometimes to amuse ourselves we take pennies
(for we have nothing to spend them on)
and make round holes in the thick frost on panes of glass by
breathing on the coins until they are warm. Peeping out, we
watch the boats scudding by. Sometimes we can even see the
round head of a seal moving among the kelp-covered rocks.

This sample is an example of __________.
Modern Fantasy
Realistic Fiction
Autobiography


4. Read the following sample and answer the question.

The waiting was particularly har on April because, without
the Egypt Game to think about, it was more difficult to keep
from thinking about other things. At first it was the empty
mailbox to try not to think about-not a single letter from
Dorothea for over a month. And then at last there was a
letter-and even more to worry about. Dorothea was back in
Hollywood. She must have gotten all of April's letters,
but she didn't even mention the question that April asked
in every one. Dorothea wrote about her tour, and about her
new job in a nightclub, and about Nick; but she said
nothing at all about April's coming home.

This sample is an example of __________.
Mystery
Science Fiction
Realistic Fiction


5. Read the following sample and answer the question.

"The boy Edward?" Alyce asked the kitchen maid
skinning a pig in the manor yard, the laundress boiling
great kettles of goose fat for soap, the carpenters
fashioning a coffin for Old Ned, who had died that
morning. None answered. "Corpus Bones!" said Alyce
"I might as well be asking the fence."

This sample is an example of __________.
Realistic Fiction
Modern Fantasy
Historical Fiction


6. Read the following sample and answer the question.

7. Read the following sample and answer the question.

8. Read the following sample and answer the questions in complete sentences using the blanks provided.

After a May as gray and cold as December, June came
in that year of 1294, sunny and warm and full of birds and
blossoms and all the other happy things the songs praise
May for. Adam Quartermayne who had been looking for his
father ever since Easter, thought that now he would
surely come. Every morning when he rolled out of bed in
the long dormitory where the school boys slept, he said
to himself, "Today he's coming! I know it!"

What seems especially unfamiliar to you about the setting?

In what way does Adam remind you of modern-day kids?

9. Read the following sample and answer the questions in complete sentences using the blanks provided.

A bat is born
Naked and blind and pale.
His mother makes a pocket of her tail
And catches him. He clings to her long fur
by his thumbs and toes and teeth.
And then the mother dances through the night
Doubling and looping, soaring, somersaulting-
Her baby hangs on underneath.
All night, in happiness, she hunts and flies.
Her high sharp cries
Like shining needlepoints of sound
Go out into the night and, echoing back,
Tell her what they have touched.
She hears how far it is, how big it is,
Which way it's going:
She lives by hearing.
The mother eats the moths and gnats she catches
In full flight; in full flight
The mother drinks the water of the pond
She skims across. Her baby hangs on tight.
Her baby drinks the water of the pond
In moonlight or starlight, in mid-air.
Their signle shadow, printed on the moon
Or fluttering across the stars,
Whirls on all night; at daybreak
The tired mother flaps home to her rafter.
The others all are there.
They hang themselves up by their toes,
They wrap themselves in their brown wings.
Bunched upside down, they sleep in air.
Their sharp ears, their sharp teeth, their quick sharp faces
Are dull and slow and mild.
All the bright day, as the mother sleeps,
She folds her wings about her sleeping child.

In your own word, tell what is going on in the poem.

Describe your favorite part of the poem and explain why.

Although this poem is about a bat, it also can be related to other things. What does this poem remind you of in your life? Explain.