The WordSmith Prompts
The WordSmith Prompts
ISBN 978-0-9756709-4-1
'These prompts are a terrific tool for generating class discussions, creating short answer exams, or longer essay assignments. I have purchased a number of them and am impressed with each one.'
From our Commendations section
SAMPLE MATERIAL: Use the link at the foot of the page
We have selected a variety of literature texts commonly studied in Grades 10 upwards, and produced for them a series of Prompts based in the main on actual classroom work.
The Prompts are not book-length study commentaries like The WordSmith Guides. Rather, they are question-driven outline resources, consisting of a range of study tasks (predominantly short pieces of writing) designed to take students into the heart of each chapter of a novel (or each scene of a play, or each poem in a collection) as they have finished reading it. Together they help build up an overview of each of the five SCASI aspects of the whole piece of writing (Setting, Character, Action, Style and Ideas - the fundamental structure of The WordSmith Guides themselves).
They also include a range of more formal essay questions, varying in style and difficulty and easily adaptable to meet the demands of all major literature examinations (in particular International Baccalaureate, Advanced Placement, GCE Advanced Level) for the 15-18 age range.
Taken together, the two sets of guiding questions encourage AP students to think about texts in ways that will help them prepare for the Free-Response section of the final examination. Many of the full essay questions, in fact, are derived from past Advanced Placement Free-Response exam prompts, carefully selected (and modified as necessary) to match particular texts.
IB students and teachers will find that the Prompts offer an insightful approach to the texts, helping students to respond thoughtfully within all components of the Language A1 Assessment process - the Part 1 (World Literature) Assignment, the Part 2 (Detailed Study) Oral Commentary, the Part 3 (Groups of Works) final examination essay, and the Part 4 (School's Free Choices) Oral Presentation. The Prompts make use of past IB examination questions, re-focused as appropriate, to ensure the usefulness of the resource for IB purposes.
The Prompts also provide a framework within which GCE A Level students can develop a detailed understanding of texts set by their Examining Board.
Throughout, there is a focus not only on what has been written (the finished text) but also on why it has been written in that way, and how it functions as a piece of working literature.
If you would like to examine a typical set of study tasks, click on the link below:
Chinua Achebe Things Fall Apart
The price for a selection of any three Prompts is US$8.95. They can not be purchased individually (transaction costs make that non-viable). If you wish to access a second set of three Prompts please go through the purchasing process again.
Please note that the Shakespeare Prompts are derived largely from our much fuller and more detailed resources, The WordSmith Guides (see the right-hand panel).

Please select 3 texts and press the 'Add to Basket' button to include the matching Prompts in your purchase
| Title | |
|---|---|
| 1984 | |
| A Doll's House | |
| A Farewell to Arms | |
| A Raisin in the Sun | |
| A Separate Peace | |
| Across the River and into the Trees | |
| Angela's Ashes | |
| As I Lay Dying | |
| Beloved | |
| Chaucer's General Prologue | |
| Death of a Salesman | |
| Dubliners | |
| Emma | |
| Fiela's Child | |
| Frankenstein | |
| Hamlet | |
| Hard Times | |
| Heart of Darkness | |
| Heat and Dust | |
| His Illegal Self | |
| I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | |
| In Cold Blood | |
| Jane Eyre | |
| King Lear | |
| Like Water for Chocolate | |
| Lord of the Flies | |
| Macbeth | |
| Master Harold and the Boys | |
| Metamorphosis | |
| Native Son | |
| Northanger Abbey | |
| Of Mice and Men | |
| One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich | |
| Othello | |
| Persuasion | |
| Poems of Wilfred Owen | |
| Pride and Prejudice | |
| Remembering Babylon | |
| Robert Frost Selected Poems | |
| Robinson Crusoe | |
| Silas Marner | |
| Snow Falling on Cedars | |
| So Long a Letter | |
| Some Monday for Sure | |
| The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn | |
| The Awakening | |
| The Bell Jar | |
| The Book Thief | |
| The English Patient | |
| The Grass is Singing | |
| The Great Gatsby | |
| The Handmaid's Tale | |
| The Kite Runner | |
| The Mayor of Casterbridge | |
| The Mosquito Coast | |
| The Old Man and the Sea | |
| The Quiet American | |
| The Remains of the Day | |
| The Return of the Native | |
| The Road | |
| The Scarlet Letter | |
| The Sun Also Rises | |
| The Thief and the Dogs | |
| The Things They Carried | |
| The Turn of the Screw | |
| The Wide Sargasso Sea | |
| The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale | |
| Things Fall Apart | |
| To Have and Have Not | |
| To Kill a Mockingbird | |
| Waiting for Godot | |
| Water for Elephants | |
| Wuthering Heights |
Price for the 3 Prompts : US$8.95
We’d be pleased to have your comments on any of the material: wordsmith@clix.pt. If you yourself have developed resources in a similar style for other texts, and would like to have them considered for inclusion under the WordSmith Prompts banner (with an authorship acknowledgment), please do get in touch. Contributors will be given free access to the whole range of Prompts.
SAMPLE MATERIAL: See below
Click on Sample Section if you wish to view an extract from the study guide.
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