ADVANCED PLACEMENT ENGLISH LITERATURE AND

COMPOSITION

WRITING THE AP ESSAY

The Century Quilt

Take the first 5-7 minutes: Read the century quilt and the

prompt Determine what the prompt is

asking you to write about Write a thesis for this prompt

One Prompt

Is there a single, essential question that you are being asked each time you write your essay in class?

What do you think you are asked to write each time?

One Prompt (the uni-prompt)

All three AP Lit questions are versions of a single question:

How do writers use literary techniques in order to communicate (or explore) specific, complex meanings?

One prompt

What implications does this have? The uni-prompt is, in a nutshell, what

you have been studying in literature classes since elementary school.

In an AP Lit class, the focus on this master-task narrows and intensifies.

Raising the level of student work

Essays scored 4 or lower most often result from students “simplifying” the task.

A series of lower-scoring sample essay opening paragraphs will be projected in the next few slides.

What instructions would you give these students in order to get them to engage the task more fully?

The Prompt and the Problem

The following prompt can be found on Question 1 of the 2010 AP English Lit/Comp Exam:

Read carefully the following poem by Marilyn Nelson Waniek. Then write an essay analyzing how Waniek employs literary techniques to develop the complex meanings that the speaker attributes to The Century Quilt. You may wish to consider such elements as structure, imagery, and tone.

The Problem…

2010 Q1 Sample B; score: 4

…and the Problem again…

2010 Sample A; score: 3

…and the Problem again…

2010 Q1 Sample XX; score: 2

…and the Problem again

2010 Q1 Sample R – Score 4

What important tasks are these essay writers failing to take on?

These writers don’t discuss specific “complex meanings” that the speaker attributes to The Century Quilt.

They introduce specific literary techniques without stating how these are used by the poet “to develop the complex meanings that the speaker attributes to The Century Quilt.”

The Pitfalls of Personalizing and Quantifying meaning.

All of these ineffective essays commit one or more of these errors:

they respond as if the prompt is asking how the speaker feels about the quilt,

or they respond as if the prompt is asking HOW MUCH the quilt means,

or they respond as if the prompt is asking HOW MANY literary devices are used by the author.

The fallacies of Personalizing and Quantifying meaning.

1. The prompt will NEVER ask you to write about HOW MUCH something means to someone.

2. Literary Techniques are not added to a work of literature. They are the work of literature in exactly the same way that a painting is composed of brush strokes.

Review the Prompt for 2010 Q1

Read carefully the following poem by Marilyn Nelson Waniek. Then write an essay analyzing how Waniek employs literary techniques to develop the complex meanings that the speaker attributes to The Century Quilt. You may wish to consider such elements as structure, imagery, and tone.

What an adequate response might look like:

Sample YYY; score: 9

What strategies does this highly successful student-writer use?

The first paragraph has a thesis which defines the complex meanings attributed to the quilt.

The description of the quilt’s theme or meanings respects that fact that the poem’s meaning is not static but “develops” as we read and as we deepen our understanding of the work.

What is this highly successful student-writer NOT doing?

The student does not repeat the prompt. There is no laundry list of technical terms

for literary techniques. There is not much of a distracting

“grabber”-type introduction. Nearly all of this first paragraph is about the poem; there is a brief “grabber” sentence, but it is seamlessly related to the statement of the poem’s theme (i.e.“complex meanings”).

How does the successful writer introduce the “literary techniques”?

The one “technique” mentioned in ¶ 1, “symbol”, is not from the list of suggested techniques in the prompt; moreover, it is embedded in a meaningful statement about a specific idea:

A different way to succeed:

2010 Q1 Sample VVV – Score 8

A different way to succeedVVV remains vague in the first paragraph and does not provide a specific interpretation of the complex meanings attributed by the speaker to the quilt. However, the student does not dumb down the task and, eventually, produces a specific statement connecting the structure of the poem with a specific description of the quilt’s meaning.

The Always-Never List

Always spend as much time as possible writing; never begin writing until you have a thesis.

Always respond directly to the prompt; never repeat the prompt.

Always begin with an interesting and clear thesis; never begin with a paragraph-long “grabber”-type introduction.

Always focus on how the writer’s use of literary techniques communicates the meaning of the text; never discuss one literary device per body paragraph.

Always use many short quotations to support your analysis; never use a quotation from the poem/passage/work unless it is first introduced and then fully explained in relation to the prompt and thesis.

What is the AP English Literature Exam asking student-writers to master?Every single essay prompt that ever was

or will be asked on the AP English Literature exam is a version of the universal prompt, or, “uni-prompt”:

How do writers use literary techniques to

communicate or explore (complex) meanings.

Question 2 and The Uni-PromptThe similarity between Q1 and Q2 is easy

to see:

2010 Question 2 (Prose): Read the passage carefully. Then write an essay in which you analyze Clarence Hervey’s complex character as Edgeworth develops it through such literary techniques as tone, point of view, and language.

Question 3 and The Uni-PromptHowever, Q3 seems different, and in some

ways it is. Q3 does not provide students with a text,

but requires that students come to the exam having already thoroughly studied how literary techniques function in a specific work of literature.

Q3 and The Uni-Prompt

2010 Question 3 (Open):Select a novel, play, or epic in which a character experiences such a rift and becomes cut off from “home,” whether that home is the character’s birthplace, family, homeland, or other special place. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the character’s experience with exile is both alienating and enriching, and how this experience illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole. You may choose a work from the list below or one of comparable literary merit. Do not merely summarize the plot.

Q3 and The Uni-Prompt

Nevertheless, if you look closely, you will find that Q3 is also a version of the uni-prompt. The literary technique the student must discuss is referred to in these phrases:“a character experiences such a rift and becomes cut off from

‘home,’” “analyze how the character’s experience with exile…”

The “complex truth” being communicated is in this phrase:“…is both alienating and enriching, and how this experience

illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole.”

In other words, in 2010/Q3 the student is being asked to discuss a work in which a writer uses the literary device of a character who experiences exile in order to communicate a complex truth about the alienation and richness of exile.

Reviewing the prompt

1. Read the prompt at least twice out loud2. Take some time alone to notice things

that stand out and mark it up3. In small groups, compare and discuss

what you noticed and marked on the prompt

Essential Pre-Writing Skills

Analyzing the prompt and understanding how it relates to the “uni-prompt”

Identifying significant discrete elements in a text, and the relations between them

Identifying patterns and repeated identical or similar elements, then comparing and contrasting them and placing them all within a single narrative.

Reviewing the text to see what important elements may have been left out after the first two steps above

Formulating a “reading” of the text that responds fully and clearly to the prompt

Essential Composition Skills

Writing Analytic Paraphrase Using embedded quotations Appealing to the intelligent reader with

plausible interpretation and carefully presented evidence

Now its your turn…

Using the timed write “The Pupil” Review the prompt Write a well written sophisticated thesis

statement. Share your thesis statement with the

members of your table Give each other feedback and comments

to improve the thesis statement Now complete a rewrite of the essay on

“The Pupil”