Some students stick in big words just to sound scholarly. You can expect to see five excerpts of prose and poetry. … (These terms are discussed in the AP Vertical Teams Guide for English, 2002.) I hope you’ll find my observations helpful as you think about encouraging your students to do their best on the writing section of the AP English Literature Exam. Planning helps them stay focused. Mere parroting of the prompt often leads to floundering around instead of developing a clear direction. AP Computer Science A Teacher and Student Resources, AP English Language and Composition Teacher and Student Resources, AP Microeconomics Teacher and Student Resources, AP Studio Art: 2-D Design Teacher and Student Resources, AP Computer Science Female Diversity Award, Learning Opportunities for AP Coordinators, Accessing and Using AP Registration and Ordering, Access and Initial Setup in AP Registration and Ordering, Homeschooled, Independent Study, and Virtual School Students and Students from Other Schools, Schools That Administer AP Exams but Don’t Offer AP Courses, Transfer Students To or Out of Your School, Teacher Webinars and Other Online Sessions, Implementing AP Mentoring in Your School or District. Such generalities often signal a writer’s inability to respond in a thoughtful manner, suggesting that the rest of the paper also may be incoherent or rambling. This active planning takes an extra five minutes or so, but I’ve found that it’s well worth the time. Short, choppy sentences without variety indicate a student who has little background in grammar and style, perhaps someone who has read and written minimally. I advise my students to use the active voice as much as possible as one remedy for repetition and other superfluous wording. After having students collect examples of several strong openings, you may want to ask them to develop their own rubric for introductory paragraphs. Likewise, both writers and readers get bored when everything is formulaic, lacking some individual pizzazz! Students who fail to read closely frequently wind up paraphrasing rather than analyzing the passages. What should be accomplished before a student moves on to the body paragraphs? You can check out past essay prompts at https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-english-language-and-composition/exam. Encourage them to use specific quotations to back up their assertions. Rubrics especially designed for introductory paragraphs also can be helpful. Students should not begin writing until they fully comprehend the prompt and/or the passage. I know of so many people who have been embarrassed by parents that will wave at you from across a room. I ask my students to imagine children making the same tower or castle each time they played with blocks. Ironically, some of their papers score only a 2 because they lack clarity and sometimes say nothing of relevance to the prompt. When answering the free-response part of the AP English Exams, writers should answer the question quickly and avoid beginning with ideas that do not relate directly to the prompt. It counts for 45% of your overall exam grade. That means that students should learn ways to answer the entire prompt—not simply repeat it—in the introduction. To score at least a 3, students would be wise to make use of pertinent references from the text. I have a friend who told me that her parents did this very same thing.”. An excellent way of how to write a literature essay is by focusing on the elements that are fundamental to the topic of the essay. HOW TO WRITE A LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAY The purpose of a literary analysis essay is to carefully examine and sometimes evaluate a work of literature or an aspect of a work of literature. Underline when an example essay uses evidence to support a claim, and identify how often a writer uses transition words. The Reader might begin to suspect that the student is just trying to bluff his or her way through the question. However, remind them that they must explain their quotes clearly and demonstrate how they are relevant to the question. I often suggest that my own students not only mark up the passage, but also use the margins to fill in some of the acronym steps. can work wonders. I recommend that you advise your students to write directly on the passage and make quick notes and outlines in the margins. poetry or prose essay? Paragraphs create the fundamental structure of the essay, and without them good ideas can get muddled. Karla Hillard says it best: “Establish voice; make a claim.” Questions from the prompt should be answered with a clear claim thus providing the reader a sense of direction for the essay. What is the purpose of an introduction in an AP Lit. (Sample papers are available on the Exam homepage for the course.) The multiple-choice section, or Section I of the AP Literature exam, is 60 minutes long and has 55 questions. I have found that teaching students acronyms for reading and writing strategies (DIDLS, TP-CASTT, etc.) Most essays I’ve seen that do not use paragraphs tend to be full of confused and rambling thoughts. I recommend that teachers tell students to create an introduction strong enough to earn a grade of 3 all by itself. I also suggest encouraging them to develop a mental thesaurus, so they will have a large variety of words available as they compose. Although AP Readers are instructed to read the entire essay and not to be prejudiced by a weak introduction, a strong opening paragraph can be a real asset to a student’s paper. There are various types of literature essays. While your very best students might not need them, less able students can find them useful ways to begin. This indicates to the Reader that the paper could be heading into the upper-half zone. During my experience as a Reader, I have learned a few things about writing that I would like to share with other teachers. Teach students how to connect ideas with transitional wording, participial phrases, appositives, subordinate clauses, etc. A paper without indentation or with unclear indentation often confuses a Reader. Many writers find topic sentences a useful tool both for organizing paragraphs and also for helping Readers navigate through the essay. Try some practice essays. I suggest asking them to experiment with different sorts of syntactical devices to help them develop a sense of style. It is important for young writers to realize that offering long quotes without explanation bogs down the essay and can give the undesirable impression that the student is trying to fill up space rather than answer the prompt! When answering the free-response part of the AP English Exams, writers should answer the question quickly and avoid beginning with ideas that do not relate directly to the prompt. They include: Novel essay: this kind of genre deals with the analysis of novels. One-sentence perfunctory introductions—especially ones that repeat the wording of the prompt—also work poorly, suggesting to the Reader that the student isn’t particularly interested or doesn’t care. Literature essay writing also needs to be unique so as to stand out. The following hypothetical introduction for Question 1 on the 2002 AP English Literature Exam provides an example of what not to do: “All people at some point in time have encountered a great deal of trouble in their lives. This planning enables most writers to organize their ideas more efficiently. Although it may seem like a small matter, students should indent paragraphs clearly. An arsenal of appropriate vocabulary and analytical wording reveals a brilliant mind at work, but writers should make certain that the words fit. Although AP Readers are instructed to read the entire essay and not to be prejudiced by a weak introduction, a strong opening paragraph can be a real asset to a student’s paper. You will always get at least two prose passages (fiction or drama) and two poetry passages. As we approach AP® exam time, you’ll want to explore how to best prepare yourself for the AP® English Literature free-response section of the exam. They soon would become bored. As with any analysis, this requires you to break the subject down into its component parts. One way to help students improve their beginning is by providing them with several introductory paragraphs from papers that have earned a wide range of scores and asking them to identify stronger and weaker openings. In this section, you will write three essays regarding prompts from poetry, a selected passage, and a work of literary fiction you select. Practice writing this essay before the exam by looking over past essay prompts and examples that students have written. Free-response makes up 55% of your test score. Literary analysis has certain expectations, and there is one simple rule students must understand: Insight into the theme of a literary text is at the heart of every literary analysis paper. for an AP Lit course, so when students write about literary texts, they need to understand that genre of writing.
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