AP Lit: Practice Essay Test: Debrief
REFLECT What were the biggest challenges for you? Time? One of the prompts in particular? Organizing your time? Did one essay take longer than the others to write?
KEEP IN MIND 1. For the poetry and prose essay, you may take up to 10 minutes to read, annotate, plan, and outline your essay. You should be taking at LEAST six minutes to do this. 1. Remember: 1-3 minutes working the prompt to determine the heart of the prompt 2. Then, up to 7 minutes reading / annotating the text and planning your writing. 3. This leaves you 30 minutes to write and proofread. 4. You should DEFINITELY be using all the time allowed. 5. Aim for at LEAST two full pages of writing, 2.5 3 if you can.
FOR THE POETRY PROMPT: 1. What was the heart of the prompt? 2. Right. The speaker s recollection and why the experience was significant. 3. How would you desribe the recollection and why it was important? 4. -The speaker remembers it fondly, in sensory detail; spooky, surreal, positive experience 5. Significance? -brought the two brothers closer together, magical childhood experience, memorable 6. Which devices could you use? 7. Ones that jumped out for me were: figurative language and imagery. (especially metaphor, personification, olefactory imagery)
HERE S THE SCORING GUIDE 9-8 These essays offer a persuasive discussion of the speaker s recollection and a persuasive analysis of Walcott s use of poetric devices to convey the significance of the experience. These essays offer a range of interpretations; they provide a convincing discussion of the recollection and a convincing analysis of Walcott s use of poetic devices to convey the signicance of the experience. They demonstrate consistent and effective control over the elements of composition in language appropriate to the analysis of poetry. Their textual references are apt and specific. Though they may not be error-free, these essays are perceptive in their analysis and demonstrate writing that is clear and sophicated, and the case of a 9 essay, especially persuasive.
HERE S THE SCORING GUIDE 7-6 These essay offer a reasonable discussion of the speaker s recollection and a reasonable analysis of Walcott s use of poetic devices to convey the significance of the experience. They are less thorough or less precise in their discussion of the recollection and Walcott s use of poetic devices. Their analysis of the relationship among the recollection, the devices, and the significance of the experience is less convincing. These essays demonstrate the student s ability to express ideas clearly, making references to the text, although they don t exhibit the same level of effective writing as the 9-8 papers. Essays scored a 7 present better developed analysis and more consistent command of the elements of effective composition than do essays scored a 6.
HERE S THE SCORING GUIDE 5 These essays respond to the assigned task with a plausible discussion of the speaker s recollection and a plausible analysis of Walcott s use of poetic devices to convey the significance of the experience, but they tend to be superficial in their discussion and analysis. They often rely on paraphrase, which may contain some analysis, implicit or explicit. Their discussion of the speaker s recollection or the analysis of Walcott s use of poetic devices may be vague, formulatic, or minimally supported by references to the text. There may be minor misinterpretations of the poem. These essays demonstrate some control of language, but they may be marred by surface errors. These essay are not as well conceived, organized, or developed as 7-6 essays.
THESIS Share your thesis at your table. MUST cover the heart of the prompt Something like: In his poem XIV, Derek Walcott immerses his reader into the mysterious, enticing, and memorable childhood journey he and his brother once embarked upon to visit an elderly woman storyteller; Walcott s use of vivid imagery and striking figurative language aids the reader in understanding how impactful this experience was for the boys.
THESIS Let s look at a 9, a 6, and a 3.
Prose Prompt HEART OF THE PROMPT? 1. Characterize the relationship between the young man and his father. How would you describe that relationship? 1. Seems like a positive one each summer they came to this place, They had been coming to this place ever since he was seven. Now he was fifteen. 2. Changing Tomorrow for the first time in all their trips together he wanted to go fishing with someone other than his father. he also knew that it was the end of something. It was an ending and a beginning. 3. Mutual love and respect his father makes the sacrifice but the boy also recognizes the sacrifice and appreciates it.
Prose Prompt HEART OF THE PROMPT? 1. Characterize the relationship between the young man and his father. Which devices did you pick to discuss? The prompt suggests point of view, selection of detail, and syntax. You aren t required to use those devices. 1. Selection of detail sights, sounds, and feelings associated with the easyness of the trip each year, its comfort, its peace. 2. Boys syntax when telling his dad
Share your thesis At your tables, share out what each person wrote for their thesis. Remember: it must contain something that gets to the heart of the prompt. THE ONE I WROTE: In the passage from Johnny Got His Gun, Dalton Trumbo describes a transformational experience between he and his father: the inevitable coming of age where friends begin to become more important than family; Trumbo is able to capture both the significance of this moment and the positive, close, and respectful nature of the father and son s relationship through his careful use of point of view, selection of detail, and syntax.
Samples Here s the scoring guide. And some sample essays an 8, a 6, and a 4.
PROSE PROMPT: 1. Remember: for the prose prompt, you don t need to address theme unless it asked you specifically to do so in the prompt, which it won t. 2. However, make sure you do specifically discuss the HEART of the prompt. If you can find some way that the heart of the prompt makes a BIGGER statement about life in general, do so! 3. For today s prompt, this means you right away (in your intro or thesis) discuss the relationship between the boy and his father and the sad, but natural, change that happens once kids become teenagers. You would then go into specific detail about HOW Trumbo develops this. (Both the father and the son are saddened by the change but respect one another enough to let it happen.)
OPEN-ENDED ESSAY KEY TASKS: 1. Identify a character who conforms outwardly while questioning inwardly. 2. Analyze HOW this tension between outward conformity and inward questioning contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.
Whichnovel did you choose? If I d been writing, I think I would have chosen The Scarlett Letter, Brave New World or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Here s a possible thesis: In his novel Brave New World, Aldous Huxley give the reader the character of Bernard Marx who inwardly cringes at the idea of conforming to the cold and mechanical norms of Huxley s futuristic world; through Bernard s continual inward questioning, Huxley is able to portray the natural human tendencies to resist a society where blind conformity is the norm and instead fight for an existence that embraces the importance of individuality and free thought.
HEART OF THE PROMPT? Identify a character who conforms outwardly while questioning inwardly then connect HOW that tension contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole. Share your thesis statements.
HERE ARE SOME SAMPLE ESSAYS Sample essays click for samples The Scarlet Letter essay that we read as a sample was scored a 9. Note how artfully the writer blends Hawthorne s theme with the heart of the prompt: outward conformity / inward questioning.