2009 Prompt: A symbol is an object, action, or event that represents something or that creates a range of associations beyond itself. In literary works a symbol can express an idea, clarify meaning, or enlarge literal meaning. Select a novel or play and, focusing on one symbol, write an essay analyzing how that symbol functions in the work and what it reveals about the characters or themes of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.
Essay 3A
The first student wrote a very strong, well thought-out
essay. The essay has a bit of a rough beginning with a rather ambiguous thesis
statement, but redeems it self later on with in-depth analysis. An elevated (but not pompous) and
controlled vocabulary is used, along with many claims supported by evidence.
The student brings up many examples and even quotes the play, The Wild Duck, but refrains from ever
summarizing the story. The student breaks down the symbolism, explaining what
each symbol is, how it represents something else, and the effect the symbol has
on the story and the reader. Later, the student goes on to analyze various
relationships within the characters of the play. The essay explains how these
relationships add to the story and describes the “double meaning” each
connection creates. The final paragraph explains the importance of the symbol
of the wild duck, but lacks additional analysis and doesn’t conclude the rest
of the essay very well. Overall though, this was a very good essay that closely
examined The Wild Duck.
Essay 3B
I would say this second essay is average. It is not a
horrible essay, but seems to lack depth. On top of this, the essay seems very
repetitive. The student even ends a paragraph with the following phrase:
“Her desire to appear young at first seems to be just a woman who wants to
appear prettier than she is.” The whole essay discusses just the one symbol of the
lampshade in A Streetcar Named Desire.
The covering of the light bulb with the lampshade is supposed to represent the
lack of honesty of the one of the characters, Blanche. The student explains why
the symbol came about and why Blanche never wants to share the truth anymore,
and even explains Blanche’s “unreal and fantastical view of things.” This
student could have gone a step further with the essay, developing this symbol
even more and explaining the impact of it. The student could have stated how
Blanche’s lack of honesty affects her and her relationships with others. The
student seems to continuously restate the fact that Blanche is covering up her
flaws or her lies, but if the student had analyzed this symbol a bit more, this
essay would have definitely received a score higher than a six.
Essay 3C
This third essay was not very well written at all. It wasn’t
well structured; there seemed to be a paragraph for each the intro and
conclusion, but there didn’t seem to be any apparent reason for the separation
of body paragraphs. The essay is about how Okonkwo carried a machete around to
make him more intimidating, and it symbolized his pride. In the essay, the
first body paragraph summarizes when he used his machete, the second mentions
that he never gave his machete to a woman, the third states that it “is used
for defense purposes”. These three paragraphs do not seem to add analysis to the
student’s argument, because each paragraph essentially says the same thing:
that he carries the machete around for defense and pride. The conclusion of
this essay is very poor as well. The last two sentences are: “So it symbolizes
pride. Most of all.” This essay could have been made much better with more
analysis and superior structure, regarding both the sentences and the paragraphs.
First of all... you were able to see their prompt?? The ones I read did not come with the prompt! I mean after reading three I could figure out what it must have been, but it would've been significantly better with one there... And hey. You know how some essays contain quoted bits? How are they doing that? They can't have the books there with them when they take the exam... Haha the third essay you read does sound very bad. I think writing an outline helps prevent that nonsensical idea flow. In fact I've read that for your three body paragraphs, your worst argument should go first, then your very best, then your middle quality one last. I'm not sure how true that is... It sounds like that student tried to put their best argument last, that's why I bring that up. Because by then the reader has lost confidence in the student, and even one good ending point won't save their score.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the prompts were in the same folder as the student responses. For each year there are four files. The first is labeled "Scoring Guidelines", the next three files are the student responses for each question.
DeleteAlso, I think the students just memorized versatile quotes for the piece of literature they wanted to discuss and hope that they're able to actually apply the quote to the essay.
Jackie,
ReplyDeleteI really liked your analysis of the student responses. I have now realized that I did the assignment wrong and used responses that were all on the same poem. I like how you included the prompt in the post so we could see it as well, that was very thoughtful and helpful. It was very wise to note that the student did not wrap the essay up very well in the first response, I as well think that is important for the AP test. In the third response I agree that the paragraphs do not really have a reason to be separated, that is a very basic skill that the student apparently lacks and though may not be easy for everyone I think the student should know how to construct an essay for the AP test. I think it would be helpful if you talked about the DIDLS the student used to create there analysis but other than that well done.
First of all, thank you so much for that tip about where to find the prompts! When I wrote mine the best I could manage was a guess based off what the essays were about. I think that, for the first essay, a few rough patches are alright. It's hard to write an essay that's on point 100% of the time, especially in a testing situation. I liked what you had to say about the second essay being average. When I wrote my response, I had a hard time finding the right words to describe the second essay, but average seems to sum it up pretty well. The third essay seems like reading it would probably make me cringe. I know reading the low-scoring essay of the set I responded to gave me mixed feelings. On the one hand, I'm kind of worried that any essay I write could unintentionally end up looking like that. On the other hand, it's nice to know that even an essay that bad could get at least a three. What do you think about some of the worse essays?
ReplyDelete