2003 Open Responses
There was no prompt listed, the only thing it said was "Tragic Figures as Instruments of the Suffering of Others" on the AP commentary.
Student #1: The introduction is well structured and gets right to the point. Its obvious that the student understands the three kinds of tragedies. In the first paragraph the student is talking about Gatsby's image, when they say, "contrasting with his public image as an enormously wealthy playboy", this statement does not help the point of the paragraph and is incorrect in that Gatsby was not shown as being a "playboy" in the novel. The first paragraph is well constructed and has evidence to back up what the student claims about the novel, they also explain how Gatsby is a tragic character. The second paragraph is not as well constructed and looks like an extra to the essay, it is talking about Nick Carraway and his influence on Gatsby but could be more elaborated on. The rest of the essay is very well written and explains how Gatsby's tragic flaws lead to his demise. In my opinion the AP commentators were correct in giving the student a nine, I might have given an eight but overall it is a very good essay.
Student #2: The essay is hard to read, not because it is written in cursive but the students handwriting seems to mask the content of the essay. The essay from the beginning is well constructed and it is obvious that the student knows how to analyze a text. The last paragraph wraps up the entire essay nicely and has a strong theme that is presented. There is some repetition of ideas throughout but not too many that it sacrifices the essay. I would also give this essay a six or a seven.
Student #3: The first thing that stood out to me was how short the introduction paragraph was. It was too short that it did not successfully set up the substance for the rest of the essay. The second paragraph is explaining the plot of the novel that the student chose, I don't it is necessary for it to be separated the way that the student made it, it comes across like it is a space filler and does not add to the analysis. The beginning is very choppy while the end of the essay is drawn out and doesn't seem to have one voice of the writer. The essay doesn't show a complex understanding of the text they chose and is very simplistic. There are not very many terms used to explain the novel and does not have concepts added throughout the essay. I also agree the the AP commentators on this essay that it should have gotten a five.
Kate,
ReplyDeleteGreat post! Okay so to be completely honest, these types of post are really not my favorite. I'm not particularly fond of the whole reading over people's work and then writing about what we think they did right or wrong, however I understand that this is such an essential tool to getting better at the AP Lit essay style and understanding mistakes that can be made on the essays, things we should include in our essays, or great writing techniques that we can use. You did a great job of addressing what each of the AP Lit. writers did right and wrong in their essays and I'm sure reading an exam that received a 9 was extremely helpful and should be easy to identify the elements to include in your essay in May.
I liked how you really responded to the writing as well as the commentator's views in this post. Whenever I read the first one, I always feel like I am already kind of swayed by the fact that it got a high score and leave out some criticisms. However, you did a great job of reading deeply into their writing, and I liked reading your critiques. So do you feel like reading the great samples and poorer ones and noticing differences between the two has helped you in preparing? With number 2, I totally understood where you were coming from; it is kind of annoying when they have the beginning and end down, but their content just does not seem to make the cut. Then again, that's probably the case with my own writing... Anyways, good job with this post. You were really able to pick out both the good and bad in each of the three.
ReplyDeleteKate,
ReplyDeleteI love when the writers of these essays get straight to the point, I think it makes judging their writing much easier. I sometimes think that when writing a timed essay I get like the person in essay 1, I start strong then I do not know where to go so my second paragraph seems jumbled, because it is. But then I start off again and by the end of the essay my paragraphs are strong again. Anyways back to your post, you did a great job I think that reading your critiques on the essay and then on the critiques is a nice way to respond to this kind of situation so good job.