AP English Language and Composition

AP English Language and Composition • Wednesday, May 11 • Be at the church on time! 7:45-12ish • I’ll fill you in about what to bring • Make-ups?? Not really • National/International examination times • Score reporting • What should you be doing to prepare? • What will we do to prepare?

Weeds and Roses Birds & Magnasoles

Weed #1—Careful of the Time SUCK • Time spent on intro/conclusion • Which is ultimately more important? • At what score does voice come into play? • Start with the basics: • Purpose • How • Why

Check out this great intro: “I walk back home from a long day of work and follow my usual routine by powering up the tube. Just as I’m about to make myself a quick carbonated beverage, I hear it! ‘Are you a stressed and sore-footed American?’ says a sagely and concerned voice. ‘Does walking like a normal human being seem like too much work?’ Again I nod in agreement with the hypnotic, sultry voice. ‘Then doe we have what you NEED!!!’ Yes, I need it! Whatever it is, I need it. Just don’t stop talking, intelligent and worldly-sexy-man voice! By the end of he commercial the sexy-man voice has assured me of the great value I’ll be receiving from the product, and all I have to pay is $60 in shipping and handling—what a deal! I pick up the phone and purchase my very own pair of ‘Magna-Soles’ shoe inserts.” This intro took up ½ the first page of a 1 ½ page essay. It also had a three sentence conclusion. How much of the essay was analysis? (Factor in CD, transitions, etc.) What’s the problem?

Weed #2-Flyswat! How does a flyswatter work?

Whack the crap out of the fly! Make your analysis specific and meaningful (have something interesting to say). BLANKET statements (generic, simplified, duh) vs. FLY SWATTER analysis (on-the-nose-specific- that’s-exactly-what-it-is!)

Examples of non-flyswatting: • “A picture is painted in the reader’s mind, and they are able to see the birds flying overhead.” • “Although the writers used some similar ways to describe the birds they also used different ways.” • “Both ways are effective ways of writing, but it is how the author describes them that helps the reader feel as if they are there.” Remember, the analysis is not the effect on the reader, rather why the author chose the strategy he/she did. If you are constantly discussing “the reader,” you are not discussing the author. Of course, if the prompt asks about the reader, spend time there.

BLANKET: “A picture is painted in the reader’s mind, and they are able to see the birds flying overhead.” • BETTER: The simile allows the characteristics of a bird to be compared to that of the wind—powerful, silent, moving. • FLY-SWATTER: Dillard digs a connection between birds and the weather in which they fly: both the starlings and wind are powerful, silent and moving. Both have the capacity to turn heads and whip up hair, and even to permeate under one’s skin with a simple humming noise. Interestingly, Dillard’s simile utilizes the same vehicle for her analogy as the birds do for their flight, illustrating her complete rapture with nature.

Now you try to fly-swat: Explain D’s use of a rhetorical question at the end of her passage: “Could tiny birds be sifting through me right now, birds winging through the gaps between my cells, touching nothing, but quickening in my tissues, fleet?”

Weed #3:Use your 90/90 terms! • For “Birds,” there were a heap of devices and organizational ideas that were never discussed! • Anecdote • Rhetorical question • Syntactical structure Use the jargon you know—we spent eons on it for a reason. You don’t want another round of 90/90 quizzes, do you? Help me to understand…and I’m not saying you have to get them all, I’m saying: pay attention. Use the ones you know!

These two scholars went beyond the obvious (because how many people do you think discussed simile???) • “Although her comparisons are similes like Audubon's, they differ in respect to the sense each one appeals to. Dillard’s appeal to the ear, since she compared they sound other flying birds to two very noisy events. Because of these auditory similes, Dillard was probably more awestruck by the sound of the flocks whereas Audubon focused more on the visual spectacle.”

“The organization of the two pieces are also very different. Dillard’s writing goes from microcosm to macrocosm. Starting with “out of the dimming sky a speck appeared,” she goes on to tell of the largeness of the flock and how “another and another” bird appeared until the flock stretched “as far as [she] could see.” Audubon, on the other hand, seems to be telling a story chronologically. He first tells of “leaving [his] house at Henderson,” and ends his story with his utter disbelief of the occurrence.” What would give this astute observation a punch? What would have guaranteed a 9 analysis?

Let’s do it…Flyswat! “The organization of the two pieces are also very different. Dillard’s writing goes from microcosm to macrocosm. Starting with “out of the dimming sky a speck appeared,” she goes on to tell of the largeness of the flock and how “another and another” bird appeared until the flock stretched “as far as [she] could see.” Audubon, on the other hand, seems to be telling a story chronologically. He first tells of “leaving [his] house at Henderson,” and ends his story with his utter disbelief of the occurrence.”

Weed #4—Answer the Prompt • In “Magnasoles,” some of you ranted • In “Birds,” some of you failed to address the second part of the prompt. • Score for DNAP?

Roses! • Great use of : to set up quotes, when appropriate: • “…he explains where he was and how he came to see the birds. While describing how many birds there were in the sky, he became struck with shock: “birds poured in in countless multitudes,” and “…” • “Dr. Bluni states the difference between Magnasoles and regular insoles: “it harnesses the power…”

Roses! • Great use of combining CD to analyze more at once: • “She says the flocks “sifted like smoke,” they “curved like a loosened skein,” they “extended like a fluttering banner…” and were “intricate…like wind.” • You are able to say/analyze so much more when you do this! Good work!

Roses! • Well done mimicking author’s tone (remember, this may not work for you, given the style of the piece.) • Developing voice: “…and the author is conceived as a humble audience member of an impossible show.” • Including allusions: “James Audubon and Annie Dillard describe their once in a blue moon experience…”

Scores! Magnasoles/Birds Wow! Check out the movement here, compared to the Lincoln scores! Lincoln

AP English Language and Composition