Student 1 wrote of the contrast of the foils within the Joy Luck Club. Having read the book before reading their response really helped me understand what it was that they were contributing to their thesis. Student 1 did a great job of using an appropriate amount of retelling the story and highlighting what the different aspects meant. That is something that I know that I will have to work on because I have the habit of just reciting and then explaining the meaning, not explaining as I go. I would give this response a 9 on the AP grading scale due to their eloquent phrasing and due to their ability to say what they mean. I honestly cannot think of anything that they could have done better in their essay. The penmanship was nice, the wording was deliberate, and the thesis answered the prompt perfectly.
Student 2’s essay was also about the foils within a story - which correctly follows the prompt (points for that.) This time it was about the book The Color Purple, which I have been able to read as well outside of class and attempted to do understand all its layers of complexity. Through this essay response student 2 was able to convey their thoughts on the foiling of the characters between the main character and her father who beat her down to the point of understanding herself and what she stands for. Although this essay was not as smoothly worded as the first one, I still believe that it answered the prompt pretty well. I would give this essay a 6 or 7 on the AP grading scale due to their lack of eloquence when explaining their arguments. I believe that roughness translates to a slightly less mature writing style, which is not bad, but it is not ideal for the AP exam.
Student 3 wrote their essay on The Kite Runner, which we have studied in class this year so I am pretty fresh on the content and what it should look like. With that being said I feel that student 3 did a subpar job explaining why it is that Baba was a foil to Hassan. My first criticism of the essay would have to be that out of all the foils that are present in the story, why student 3 picked a small and what I could call weird comparison. The reason I feel this way is that they are both foils to Amir, the main character, but to each other, I am not sure that they highlight much a difference between each other. As far as the actual essay goes, student 3’s explanation(s) were severely underdeveloped and lacked the full circle of thought. Although their argument was not very strong, they did technically answer the prompt and they sort of explained why they answered that way. I would give this essay a 3 or 4 on the AP grading scale.
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