Grade 11 Reading Worksheets
Mature literature plays games with truth. The narrator might be lying, to you, or to themselves. Your job: catch them.
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What your child will learn: Critical Analysis: Voice, Irony & Unreliable Narrators
- Verbal irony says one thing, means another; situational irony is when the fire station burns down; dramatic irony is when YOU know what characters don't.
- An unreliable narrator misleads through bias, naivety, or self-deception. Clues: contradictions, other characters' reactions, gaps in the story.
- Voice = the fingerprint of the prose: diction, rhythm, what the narrator notices (and avoids noticing).
- Read against the grain: What would another character say happened? What is this narrator protecting?
Sample worksheet questions
1. Find an example of verbal irony the narrator doesn't intend.
Answer: Examples: 'borrowing is the foundation of trust'; calling dish piles 'sculpture'
2. When does the new roommate arrive?
Answer: Tuesday
3. Why is this narrator unreliable?
Answer: Their claims ('excellent roommate') contradict the evidence they themselves reveal (mess, taking things, roommate fleeing)
4. How would Priya's version of events differ?
Answer: She'd describe a messy roommate who took her belongings without asking until she had to move out
5. Name two things the narrator 'borrowed' from Priya.
Answer: Headphones, laptop, and once her car
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Try it at home
🪞 Unreliable Diary: Write a diary entry from a character who caused a disaster but tells it as if they were the hero. Let the truth leak through the cracks.
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