Class Notes: October 4-8

Class Notes (October 4-8)

The AP English Literature and Composition Exam

• 3 hour exam that consists of two parts
• Part One = Multiple Choice Section consisting of passages and questions that follow (one hour; 45% of total AP score)
• Part Two = Essay Section consisting of three prompts (two hours; 55% of total AP Score)

The Multiple Choice Section:

• 4 passages: 2 prose, 2 poetry
• 10-15 questions follow each passage
• Find the passage that seems the easiest and start there
• Quickly read the poem once
• Read the poem a second time, this time in depth: annotate, underline, etc.
• Reading in order to answer questions is not the same as reading to write an essay: don’t overdo it
• Keep a running paraphrase in your head so that if you zone out, you’ll catch it quickly
• Read all the questions quickly and cross out any answers that other questions may eliminate
• Answer the questions: use the process of elimination and keep in mind that some answer options won’t adequately respond to the question

Types of Questions:

• 1-2 Questions: these are basic; similar to the ACT
• 3-4 Questions: more challenging
• 5 Questions: these questions weed out the 5-ers; you will not get all of these right, or even most of them right.  Experts will disagree on these questions; the trick is to narrow the answers down to the expert choices and then guess.  If you can do this every time, statistically you should get about half of them right

The Essay Section

• Three prompts: one closed reading and two open readings
• 9 point scale for each essay: a 7 is considered a respectable score

Closed Readings

• Will be asked about a given passage
• Spend a lot of time analyzing the prompt itself: you HAVE to answer the question or the maximum score you can get is a 3/9
• Skim the passage first, then read a second time in depth.  Let the prompt guide you in your annotations
• In the essay itself, do not summarize the passage
• Don’t forget that you can talk about opposition too

The Open Prompt

• Two main categories: critical theory (make a statement about how a given element of literature sometimes functions and then asks you to show how this true of some piece you’ve already read) and content (present a common thematic element of literature and then ask you to show this theme is developed in some piece you’ve already read)
• Same strategy as closed readings
• You should be able to pull any question from Hamlet or The Invisible Man.  Know these works inside and out!

Details about the exam: http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/sub_englit.html

Past free response questions and scoring guidelines: http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/english_lit/samp.html?englit

Additional free response questions, scoring guidelines, and sample essays: http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/members/exam/exam_questions/2002.html?affiliateId=APSamp&bannerId=enli

List of helpful AP websites: http://www.kn.att.com/wired/fil/pages/listaplitma.html

There are several AP books that are designed to help students crack the AP exam, also.  A few include Princeton Review, Baron's, McGraw Hill, and Cliffs.

http://www.alibris.com/search/books/isbn/9780071621922 

The big day is Thursday, May 5, 2011.

Allusions (Perrine chapter 8)

Allusion: a reference to something in history or previous literature

“For an allusion… is like a richly connotative word or a symbol, a means of suggesting far more than it says” (Perrine 852).

“Allusions are a means of reinforcing the emotion or the ideas of one’s own work with the emotion or ideas of another work or occasion.  Because they may compact so much meaning in so small s space, they are extremely useful to the poet” (Perrine 853).

When a writer uses an allusion, they are risking the ability of the reader to understand it.  Most allusions are to the Bible or mythology, but some writers venture further and use other literature and popular culture as well. 

Definition and examples of allusions: http://www.worsleyschool.net/socialarts/allusion/page

Modern example:

"I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father, Jor-el, to save the Planet Earth." – the then Senator Barack Obama

Meaning and Idea (Perrine chapter 9)

Total Meaning: the experience that something communicates

• Determines the value and worth of a poem

Prose Meaning: the ingredient that can be separated out in the form of a prose paraphrase

• Not necessarily an idea; may be a story, a description, a statement of emotion, a presentation of human character, etc.

 Although this is not a very academically reliable source, I think it does a good job of explaining these two terms.  http://www.blurtit.com/q755270.html 

“But good readers strive for intellectual flexibility and tolerance, and are able to entertain sympathetically ideas other than their own.  They often will like a poem whose idea they disagree with better than one with an idea they accept.  And, above all, they will not confuse the prose meaning of a poem with its total meaning” (Perrine 869).