Class Notes : Week 4: October 25th - October 29th

What is the AP exam like?
The Essay:

• The essay almost always asks, how does the author create effects and what does it mean?
• The hidden "so what" question is discuss the meaning or "the effect" of the piece of literature
• Essays ALWAYS talk about the meaning behind the analysis, even when the question isn't explicitly stated.
• There are two types of essays to write: literary analysis and cause & effect
• To analyze is to show how the parts contribute to the functioning of the whole
• "Cause" can be symbols, diction, disjunction, rhetoric, figurative devices, etc. (all the literary devices we've learned about previously in class). "Effect" is the repercussions of these literary devices on the piece of literature
• Be creative in the essay!
• Ex: An example of dramatic irony is seen in M+M music. For example, when one of their lyrics say, "Sometimes I want to take my toaster in the bath", it is not meant literally; M+M is not actually saying that suicide is a good option here.
• As Virginia Woolf once said, "A good essay must have this permanent quality about it; it must draw its curtain round us, but it must be a curtain that shuts us in not out"

Essay-Writing Strategies

• Read the directions, then read it again. This is where the close-reading strategies we've learned come in handy.
• Make sure the directions are followed word for word. The highest score attainable if the directions are not followed is 3/9.
• There are two main ways to format essays: block style and point-by-point
• Block style is used for relative merits (i.e. which teacher is the best?). In block style, you talk about topic #1 in paragraph #1, then topic #2 in paragraph #2. The topics are separated.
• The point-by-point writing style can be used if the points are parallel. For example, paragraph #1 would be comparing and contrasting topics #1 and #2 on a certain point, and paragraph #2 would be comparing and contrasting topics #1 and #2 on a different point.
• A combination of point-by-point and block writing can be used if some parts of the essay can easily be delineated into points and some cannot
• Paragraphs can't be too long (i.e. a full page)
• Bad comparing and contrasting is saying topic A is x, but topic B is not x. Topic B can NOT be a lot of things.
• In my AP U.S. History and AP World History classes, we've had to utilize point-by-point and block essay-writing formats in order to analyze historic events.

Analyzing AP English poems related to Eros

• The two AP English poems about Eros differ in their conception of him. One views him as a "brute", and the other views him as "angelic"
• Some possible starter sentences when comparing and contrasting the two poems are: poem A & poem B share similarities in meaning in that...., BUT poem A really focuses on meaning..., WHILE poem B really focuses on meaning...

AP English Multiple Choice Strategies

• Read the poem, then reread it slower so that a paraphrase of the poem can be heard in the mind
• Read all the questions before answering them
• Vocabulary is very important on the test
• Utilize the MC test-taking strategies we've utilized for any other class, and for standardized tests: pace yourself, trust your instincts, if you can eliminate at least one answer choice, make an educated guess, etc.

Allusions - from Literature, Structure, Sound, and Sense by Perrine

• An allusion is something that references history or previous literature
• They tend to have powerful emotional effects
• Allusions are used to reinforce the emotion of the ideas of one's work with the emotion or ideas of another's work or occasion
• Poets, more than any other type of author, typically assume that their readers share a common foundation of literary experiences, usually of classical mythology, Shakespeare, or the Bible (King James Version)
• Hamilton's Mythology and the parts of the Bible that we've read over the summer are really helpful for this

Meanings in the Poem - from Literature, Structure, Sound, and Sense by Perrine

• The total meaning of a poem is the experience that it communicates (and it can't be communicated in any other way)
• Prose meaning of a poem is the ingredient that can be separated out of the poem in the form of a prose paraphrase. It is NOT the poem itself.
• The idea behind a poem is only a part of the total experience that the poem communicates
• Good readers are receptive to all kinds of experiences.
• The value or worth of a poem is not determined by the truth or nobility of the idea that it conveys. Instead, it is defined by the value of the total experience of the poem
• As readers, we must feel when reading the poem that the idea that the poem conveys is deeply felt by the poet: he's not just moralizing.

Homework

1. Study literary terms!
2. Study for the Critical Approaches test on Monday, October 4th.
3. Critical Approaches wiki due by 8am Sunday, October 3rd.
4. Class Notes and Outside Reading Journals due by 8pm October 10th.

Works Cited:

M+M. "Blink-182." Blink-182. n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2010.

Perrine, Laurence, Thomas R. Arp, and Greg Johnson. Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense. 8th ed. Boston: Heinle & Heinle: Thomson Learning, Inc., 2002. 852-69. Print.