You’ve just finished The Handmaid’s Tale... And instead of ending with Offred, Atwood gives us a transcript from an academic conference hundreds of years later. Why?

Before we write a more formal literary analysis essay, we need to figure out what this ending is really doing. Address the 5 parts below in your primary blog response. This does not need to be formal in style. It’s thinking on paper (blog), and you can be as conversational as you like. You do not need to answer each specific question in your response, but you should use them to guide your literary musing.

PART I: First Reaction 

• How did you feel reading the “Historical Notes”?
• Did anything make you uncomfortable? Amused? Angry?
• How is the tone different from Offred’s narration?
• Why might Atwood want us to feel this way at the very end?

PART II: What Do We Notice?
1. How Do the Scholars Talk About Offred?

• What words does Professor Pieixoto use?
• Where does the audience laugh?
• What seems to matter most to him?
• What seems to matter least?

2. What Happens to Offred’s Story?

• Earlier in the novel, what felt important in Offred’s narration?
• What does Pieixoto focus on instead?
• What gets lost in translation?
• Does the meaning of her story change in this setting?

3. Is This Chapter Hopeful or Not?

• On one hand, Gilead has fallen. On the other hand, the scholars’ tone feels… off.
• What does this suggest about whether society has truly progressed?

PART III: The Last Line
The chapter ends with “Are there any questions?” Finish your conversation by exploring at least two possible meanings of this line.
Consider:

• Is it ironic?
• Is it dismissive?
• Is it aimed at the audience in the novel?
• Is it aimed at us, the readers?
• Does it make the ending feel complete... or incomplete?

PART IV: Bridging to the Bigger Idea
Now push your thinking further. Do you think Atwood is only criticizing these fictional academics, or might she also be saying something about:

• How society treats women’s testimony?
• How institutions interpret trauma?
• How history is recorded and remembered?
• Who gets to control narratives?

PART V: Preparing for the Essay (The Big Move)
How does reading Offred’s full story change the way we judge Professor Pieixoto?  In a meta-analysis of this chapter, how does examining Pieixoto's lecture force us to reconsider everything we just read? How does it shift the question from “What happened to Offred?” to “How will her story be handled?” and maybe even to “Who controls meaning?” Finally, ask yourself, "What is Atwood's message to me?"

Primary Blog Expectations (respond to the prompt above): 200-250 words, minimal errors in grammar and usage, thoughtful and thorough writing. Please use the name you were assigned in class as your nom de plume and be sure to add a word count. Due by 11:59 pm Friday night, 3/6/2026. 

Secondary Blog Response Expectations (read everyone's primary responses, select two that interest you, and respond to their ideas): 100-150 words EACH, minimal errors in grammar and usage, thoughtful and thorough writing. Please use the name you were assigned in class as your nom de plume and be sure to add a word count. Due by 11:59 pm Sunday night, 3/8/2026.

Margaret Atwood employs three epigraphs at the beginning of The Handmaid's Tale to establish the novel's tone. Based on the epigraphs provided, analyze how each epigraph contributes to an understanding of:

• The dystopian world of Gilead.
• The central thematic topics of power, control, and survival.
• The author's possible message about society.

Use evidence from the epigraphs to explain how they introduce some of the possible ideas explored in the novel. You should write at least one paragraph (80-100 words-ish) for each epigraph, clearly linking the quotation to your analysis.

Successful responses will cover:

• Interpreation and Understanding:
  • Clearly explain what the epigraph suggests about the themes in the novel.
  • Consider how Atwood might be using epigraphs to set the tone of the story (e.g., dystopian-speculative, satirical, critical).
• Evidence and Explanation:
  • Include specific references or quotes from the epigraphs to support your ideas.
  • Use literary terminology accurately (e.g., anachronistic, imperative, metaphor, satire) to enhance your analysis.
• Relevance to Context:
  • Consider the relevance of each epigraph to a speculative dystopian world and how it might reflect on real-world concerns.

Key Terms:
Anachronistic: Something that seems to belong to a different time period than the one it is portrayed in.
Imperative: A command or instruction given in the form of a sentence that starts with a verb.
Metaphor: A way of describing something by comparing or calling it something else, creating a vivid image or meaning.
Satire: A way of using humor, irony, or exaggeration to criticize or mock societal issues, individuals, or systems.

Epigraph #1
 “And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister*; and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die.
And Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel; and he said, Am I in God's stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb?
And she said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her.”  - Genesis 30:1-3

Epigraph #2
But as to myself, having been wearied out for many years with offering vain, idle, visionary thoughts, and at length utterly despairing of success, I fortunately fell upon this proposal....
-Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal
​
Epigraph #3
‘In the desert there is no sign that says, “Thou shalt not eat stones.”’ - Sufi Proverb

Primary Blog Expectations (respond to the prompt above): Minimal errors in grammar and usage, thoughtful and thorough writing. Please use the name you were assigned in class as your nom de plume and be sure to add a word count. Due by 11:59 pm Friday night, 1/30/2026! 

At a critical moment in the novel, Jane proclaims herself Rochester’s equal: “It is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both of us had passed through the grave, and we stood at God’s feet, equal—as we are!” Rochester responds, “As we are!” 

Why is Jane so passionately outspoken? Is her self-valuation exceptional and true? Is she more noble and impressive here than Rochester is? Why is this long scene (Chapter 23) so important for the novel as a whole? 

Please respond to the questions above in your Primary Blog Entry. While you are composing this response, please consider the following questions in your blog entry.


1. React to the differences between Jane and the women who visit Rochester at Thornfield Hall. Comment on all aspects of these women’s lives. 
2. What impact would marriage to Rochester have on the life of Miss Ingram? Jane? What could each of them bring to Rochester in a marriage? 
3. How is marriage a political issue for these women?

In your Primary Blog Entry, you should respond to the two questions above in a single entry. Your Secondary Blog Entry should respond to two of your colleagues' entries that are especially interesting to you.

Part One Expectations (respond to the prompt above): 200-250 words, 2 quotes from the novel, minimal errors in grammar and usage, thoughtful and thorough writing. Please use the assigned "pen name" given to you in class PLEASE FINISH BY FRIDAY NIGHT!

Part Two Expectations (read everyone's first responses, select two that interest you, and respond to their ideas): 100-150 words EACH, minimal errors in grammar and usage, thoughtful and thorough writing. Please use the assigned "pen name" given to you in class. FINISH BY SUNDAY NIGHT!

Now that you have been introduced to Jane, please respond to any or all of the questions below. You need to use textual evidence (quotes) from both Bronte's novel and from the chapters selected from Foster's book. After you have posted your Primary Blog Entry, please take some time to read ALL of your colleague's entries and then compose a thoughtful response (your Secondary Blog Entry) to TWO selected Primary Entries.

1.  If you had to infer (guess) based on these chapters what type of woman society thought of as acceptable, what type of woman would that be?. 
2.  Reread the descriptions of fire in this segment. This is an important image that becomes more important as the novel progresses. What do you think it might mean? 
3. What type of relationships does Jane have with her cousins? Her aunt? The servants at Gateshead? (not just the biological relationship, but also the emotional 
relationship). 
4. What’s with the red room? What was your reaction to this section?

Part One Expectations (respond to the prompt above): 200-250 words, 2 quotes from the short story, minimal errors in grammar and usage, thoughtful and thorough writing. Please use the assigned "pen name" given to you in class

Part Two Expectations (read everyone's first responses, select two that interest you, and respond to their ideas): 100-150 words EACH, minimal errors in grammar and usage, thoughtful and thorough writing. Please use the assigned "pen name" given to you in class.

Below, you will find a selection of AP Literature Essay # 3 Prompts that listed "A Doll's House"  among its suggested titles. 

Part One Expectations (please select one of the prompts and respond to the following):

(1) Why does this prompt attract you in particular?
(2) How does "A Doll's House" answer the question?
(3) Write a single sentence thesis statement that you might use if you were writing to this essay prompt.
200-250 words, 2 quotes from the play, minimal errors in grammar and usage, thoughtful and thorough writing. Please use the assigned "pen name" given to you in class

Part Two Expectations (read everyone's first responses, select two that interest you, and respond to their ideas): 100-150 words EACH, minimal errors in grammar and usage, thoughtful and thorough writing. Please use the assigned "pen name" given to you in class.

AP Prompts:
1971. The significance of a title such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is so easy to discover. However, in other works (for example, Measure for Measure) the full significance of the title becomes apparent to the reader only gradually. Choose two works and show how the significance of their respective titles is developed through the authors' use of devices such as contrast, repetition, allusion, and point of view

1983. From a novel or play of literary merit, select an important character who is a villain. Then, in a well-organized essay, analyze the nature of the character's villainy and show how it enhances meaning in the work. Do not merely summarize the plot.

1987. Some novels and plays seem to advocate changes in social or political attitudes or in traditions. Choose such a novel or play and note briefly the particular attitudes or traditions that the author apparently wishes to modify. Then analyze the techniques the author uses to influence the reader's or audience's views. Avoid plot summary.

1988. Choose a distinguished novel or play in which some of the most significant events are mental or psychological; for example, awakenings, discoveries, changes in consciousness. In a well-organized essay, describe how the author manages to give these internal events the sense of excitement, suspense, and climax usually associated with external action. Do not merely summarize the plot.

1995. Writers often highlight the values of a culture or a society by using characters who are alienated from that culture or society because of gender, race, class, or creed. Choose a novel or a play in which such a character plays a significant role and show how that character's alienation reveals the surrounding society's assumptions or moral values.

2005. In Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899), protagonist Edna Pontellier is said to possess "That outward existence which conforms, the inward life that questions." In a novel or play that you have studied, identify a character who outwardly conforms while questioning inwardly. Then write an essay in which you analyze how this tension between outward conformity and inward questioning contributes to the meaning of the work. Avoid mere plot summary. 

Please listen to the audio recording of Ani DiFranco’s cover of the song, “Wishin’ and Hopin’.” Here is one excerpt of the lyrical content:

Show him that you care, just for him
Do the things that he likes to do.
Wear your hair just for him,‘cause
You won’t get him, thinkin’ and a prayin’
Wishin’ and hopin’.

In your Primary Post, you should:
(1) argue that such gender roles of  dominance and submission still exist in today’s society; OR

(2) argue that today our society no longer desires such gender specific behaviors, and that true love and 
marriage is based on mutual respect. 

Your Secondary Response Post can:
(1) challenge your colleague's points, OR
(2) make connections to your own lives, OR
(3) support and defend a shared view, OR
(4) somehow create a dialogue about the characters' actions and choices


***To add depth to your discussion, you may wish to discuss the irony of Ani DiFranco singing this song.


Part One Expectations (respond to the prompt above): 200-250 words, quotes from Act 2 AND "Wishin' and Hopin,'" minimal errors in grammar and usage, thoughtful and thorough writing. Please use the assigned "pen name" given to you in class

Part Two Expectations (read everyone's first responses, select two that interest you, and respond to their ideas): 100-150 words EACH, minimal errors in grammar and usage, thoughtful and thorough writing. Please use the assigned "pen name" given to you in class.

"You abuse me for objectivity, calling it indifference to good and evil, lack of ideals and ideas, and so on. You would have me, when I describe horse-thieves, say: "Stealing horses is an evil." But that has been known for ages without my saying so. Let the jury judge them; it's my job simply to show what sort of people they are. I write: You are dealing with horse-thieves, so let me tell you that they are not beggars but well-fed people, that they are people of a special cult, and that horse-stealing is not simply theft but a passion. Of course it would be pleasant to combine art with a sermon, but for me personally it is extremely difficult and almost impossible, owing to the condition of the technique. You see, to depict horse-thieves in seven  hundred lines I must all the time speak and think in their tone and feel in their spirit, otherwise, if I introduce subjectivity, the image becomes blurred and the story will not be as compact as all short stories ought to be. When I write, I reckon entirely upon the reader to add for himself the subjective elements that are lacking in the story."
 
From a letter to Alekseys S. Suvorin in Letters on the Short Story, the Drama, and Other Literary Topics by Anton Chekhov

After reading the excerpt above, please respond to the following prompt:

Why does Chekhov reject sermonizing in his fiction? How does his "objectivity" affect your reading of "The Lady with the Little Dog"?

Part One Expectations (respond to the prompt above): 200-250 words, 2 quotes from the short story, minimal errors in grammar and usage, thoughtful and thorough writing. Please use the assigned "pen name" given to you in class

Part Two Expectations (read everyone's first responses, select two that interest you, and respond to their ideas): 100-150 words EACH, minimal errors in grammar and usage, thoughtful and thorough writing. Please use the assigned "pen name" given to you in class.