Closed Prompt 2 #3

Both Keats and Longfellow's poems are about unfulfilled desires and the ever-present idea that death is coming. Later on in both poems, their views shift slightly on the matter of life and what needs to come out of it. Longfellow's view on life stays grim and depressing throughout his poem, whereas Keats wants to see all that life has to offer but is daunted by the fear of death and not accomplishing that which wants.

The most similar part of the poems was in the beginnings of them, both start grim and depressing as they express their disdain towards eventual death. Keat's, "I may cease to be," parallels Longfellow's, "Half of my life is gone," by both expressing their common belief that they may stop living at any point. The similarities between the poems extend to Longfellow saying, "gone, and I have let/
The years slip from me and have not fulfilled/ The aspiration of my youth," and Keats' ominous use of the word "before," implying that there is still so much that he has not done that he wishes to do.

The middle part of both of poems is where Longfellow and Keats start to differentiate their points. Keats starts sharing his desire for romance in line 5, "When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,/
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance," to convey his desire for romance before his passing. In contrast, Longfellow says, "But sorrow, and a care that almost killed,/ Kept me from what I may accomplish yet." Longfellow's views are much grimmer and he believes that overwhelming sorrow and dismay is enough to keep him from acting on his desires. Between the two poems, Longfellow is much more depressing and believes that his desires are not able to be pursued because it is all futile, whereas Keats believes that his desire is enough to keep wishing for it and striving for it.

When I Have Fears and Mezzo Cammin both conclude in a scenic way, hence making them similar on the surface, but different once you read a little beneath the surface. "Then on the shore/ Of the wide world I stand alone, and think/ Till love and fame to nothingness do sink," the conclusion of Keats' poem uses imagery to paint this picture of a man standing and looking out onto the world and reflecting his life. Keats shares his view on his past, and how it was filled with more important ideas, other than if you completed a desire or not. In sharp contrast, Longfellow paints a similar image with a man standing and contemplating his life. " A city in the twilight dim and vast, ....The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights," is Longfellows interpretation of a man looking back at his life. The city is a metaphor for his life- vast and dim, filled with missed opportunities and a sorrowful outlook. The real contrast between Keats' and Longfellow's poems is that Longfellow ends his poem with the cry of death, as to say there is no point because all is futile in the end.

Responce to Class Material #2

VOCAB VOCAB VOCAB!!! Over the past couple of weeks, our class has focused very heavily on literary terms that the AP test goes over and uses. Without going into it, here is a list of words that we went over and learned as a class:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qMle5ATnv4AOAEhsidTlwCRCIwukMVXp_yr8_mdbfHI/edit
We also did read and were tested on The American Dream by Edward Albee (See Summary and Analysis of The American Dream).

Those are the two big things we have been focusing on but we have also read a couple of sheets and done a couple practices for the AP exam in May.

Some of the papers that we have read were about different theories of different types of humor and why they are funny, one was on existentialism theory and another on the theater of the absurd. All of the papers helped us to read The American Dream. The main ideas were as simple as what their titles suggest. They were helpful, but their titles say it all. We also read a biography of sorts on Edward Albee and some of his life experiences- abusive parents and what not.

We also had several blog posts that we were to do over the last couple weeks; a couple responses to student responses, a couple mock AP essays and the summary for the American Dream that I mentioned earlier.

From reading student responses along with writing my own essays, I have learned that I need to be careful of summarizing and paraphrasing events and simply focus on making my retelling and referencing more concise when it comes to my explanation and answering of the essay question.

Over the last three days (11-7,8,9) our class also did a tone activity to show how very subtle changes in wording and inflection can change the tone of the phrase. I enjoyed it because several kids in the class made theirs humorous.

Summary and Analysis of "The American Dream"

Summary (With symbolism and side notes):
The American Dream, by Edward Albee, is a play first performed in 1961 that reflects the values that the American Dream entails. The characters In the play are Mommy, Daddy, Grandma, Mrs. Barker, and the young man. The play starts off in the family room in Mommy and Daddy's apartment, and Mommy is telling complacent Daddy about her trip to the store. She went to buy a new hat and got into an argument with a woman outside of the store over whether the hat was wheat-colored or cream-colored. This was important to show the materialistic nature of the women in the 50s and 60s.  Shortly after that, Grandma enters the scene with her beautifully wrapped boxes. The boxes represent the quantification of material objects that are included in the dream. Throughout the play, Grandma talks about how you need substance to make anything worth anything. Soon thereafter, Mrs. Barker shows up to the scene. There is an abundance of confusion and Daddy can't remember Mrs. Barker's name, and no one knows why she is there or what she has to do. It is here that Mommy and Mrs. Barker start their pleasantries. Mommy asked questions, but they were not as you would expect. They were with the same diction as a normal question, but they were questions such as "would you like to take off your dress, as to be more comfortable?" (Not an actual quote, just a paraphrased example.) This was included to show the shallowness of the interactions and how they are nothing more than an empty ritual. Fast forward a little further the scene is just Grandma and Mrs. Barker, Grandma is trying to hint to Mrs. Barker why she is there. The hint was what happened a while back; This was written is a very specific style of something like this has already happened. The short story of what happened was Mommy and Daddy mangled their first child because he cried and "touched himself." As punishment for his human actions, they cut off his limbs and finally, he died. Mrs. Barker is trying to connect the dots, and it is there that the audience is aware that Mrs. Barker is there supposedly as a representative/ agent for an adoption agency. Then the American dream comes knocking at the door, literally. Grandma welcomed the final character into the scene, the young man. One of the first things she does is comment on his beauty and she calls him "The American Dream." The American Dream aka the young man talks, says that he is empty and hurts in all the places that Mommy and Daddy harmed the other child. This leads the audience to believe that the young man was the twin of Mommy and Daddy's first (failed) child. The play concluded with Grandma leaving the scene with the young man being welcomed into Mommy and Daddy's lives alongside Mrs. Barker who supposedly facilitated the whole thing. The truth of the matter is that Grandma seemed to be the only character who knew what was going on most if not the whole time.

Theme Statement:

Albee’s The American Dream critiques the shifting American values of materialism, social behavior, and individual morals.

Important Quotes:

"What a masculine Daddy! Isn’t he a masculine Daddy?" - Mommy 

This quote shows how Mommy is trying to convince/tell Daddy how masculine he is. In context, Mommy was trying to get him to open the door to let Mrs. Barker in, so she was building him up so he would do as she said. I also have speculations that this effort to enforce a masculine facade regardless of if that is who Daddy really is, or wants to be.

" I no longer have the capacity to feel anything. I have no emotions. I have been drained, torn asunder disemboweled. I have, now, only my person, my body, my face. I use what I have I let people love me I accept the syntax around me, for while I know I cannot relate; I know I must be related to." - the young man
In the summary, I briefly touched upon the meaning of the young man explaining his pain and emptiness to Grandma. The main idea that was discussed as a class was that of the young man and the first child being related because not only did the stories line up, but so did the pains that were felt. This I believe to be symbolic of Albee's childhood and upbringing. He was thought to be a possession of sorts, not a real person who learns and makes mistakes. In the biography the class read on Albee, it was said that his parents were not super loving and parental, but could show him off like no one's business. That is seen in this part of the play, whether it is admitted or not. There are simply too many similarities to situations and emotions that Albee must have felt towards his parents during his upbringing.

"What I'll really have to do is to see if it applies to anything. I mean, after all, I do do volunteer work if an adoption service, but it isn't very much like the Bye-Bye Adoption Service is the Bye-Bye Adoption Service and while I can remember Mommy and Daddy coming to see me, oh, about twenty years ago, about buying a bumble, I can't quite remember anyone very much like Mommy and Daddy coming to see me about buying a bundle."

This quote was important due to the plot of the play because this is the first time someone implores Grandma to share her thoughts and explain things. The compromise as made by Grandma is that she talks about experiences though comparisons versus just stating what she is thinking. I believe this to be a fundamental idea of theater of the absurd, having ideas that are shrouded with a little crazy and confusion. Keeps the audience of their toes and their mind sharp so they do not miss any little details during the seemingly unimportant dialogue between characters. back to the quote- this quote is the climax of the play where the audience finds out that this has all happened before and that Mommy and Daddy were unhappy with their "bumble" so their solution was simply to find a new one (20 years later.)

Closed Prompt 1 #2

2009
1A: I believe that this student deserved an 8 on the AP grading scale. It was an extremely well-written essay that I hope that I will be able to emulate when it comes time for me to take the AP exam. Student A did a wonderful job delving deeper than the surface of the speech. As written by Shakespear, it pretty hard to understand and so the fact that student A was able to both comprehend and interpret the work was pretty amazing in and of itself. Specifically, I appreciated the fact that the handwriting was legible and grammatically correct. My one nit-picking detail was I would have appreciated a couple more examples, but that is pretty objective considering I am not an AP reader and have not read a thousand other essays.

1B: Student B, in my opinion, deserves a 6 on the AP grading scale.  Just like Student A student B did a great job on their essay and did a pretty good job tapping into the depth of the piece. Granted, I think that A did a little bit better than B but that is simply because A was a lot more thorough in their points regarding the play. One of my critiques of student B  is the fact that they fell victim to the paraphrasing bug when writing their essay. This is something that I will have to be very careful about when it comes to my own AP essay when it comes time to write it. Besides that, I feel that student B did a good job with their introduction and conclusion introducing and finishing their ideas.

1C: Although student C had the nicest handwriting, their essay only deserves a 4 or 5 on the AP essay scale. Just as B did, C used a lot of paraphrasing to cover the fact that the content was pretty shallow. Student C's intro was super promising but fell apart when it came to application. As the essay progressed student C lost a lot of the focus that the initial points needed to execute. C did a great job with their introduction paragraph, they laid their ideas and thoughts out very well. On the other hand, their conclusion was not as great. I believe it was due to the lack of focus that was demonstrated in the body paragraphs. My other critique would be, I would have appreciated more concise examples throughout the essay versus paraphrased sections that had to do with the subtopic.

Closed Promt 2 #2

In the introduction to Ann Petry's novel, The Street, she uses personification, imagery, and figurative language to show Lutie Johnson's relationship to the weather and urban setting. Perty's use of musical devices throughout her introduction gives the reader a sense of if they were reading lyrics to a song or lines of a poem. The beautiful language juxtaposes the ugly weather and bleak city setting, by emphasizing how unpleasant it is outside on the street.

Throughout the introduction, Perty uses an abundance of personification to give the scene movement and life. A couple of the many examples are phrases such as: "Fingering its way along the curb, the
wind set the bits of paper to dancing high in the air", "stuck its fingers inside their coat collars", and "It found every scrap of paper along the street". All of these examples are discussing the biting wind on the street, and by calling the wind "it," Petry gives a sort of life to the wind as it plays with the passers-by on the street. Personification is an important tool that allows the author to turn the wing into something more than just that: something meaningful, and alive.

Secondly, Ann Petry uses imagery to paint concise pictures of the screen on the street and the weather affecting the passers-by on the street. As the reader reads, "A few hurried pedestrians who bent double in an effort to offer the least possible exposed surface to its violent assault" they gain a feeling as if a memory of having to cover all their body so the biting wind outside will not be able to rip the warmth off of their skin. "Her eyeballs were bathed in a rush of coldness and she had to blink in order to read the words on the sign swaying back and forth over her head," is another example of Perty using distinct feelings such as being cold to paint such a vivid picture of the screen. The most vivid of all sentences in this excerpt would have to be, "because its original coat of white paint was streaked with rust where years of rain and snow had finally eaten the paint off down to the metal and the metal 55 had slowly rusted, making a dark red stain like blood," due to the scenes graphic description of the slowly receding pain and the stains that were left in the original paints place.

Finally, Petry used an abundance of figurative language in this excerpt of The Street, by doing so it makes the scene feel like that of one that would be in a song or poetry. The abundance of figurative language can be seen in sentences like, "It even took time to rush into doorways and areaways and find chicken bones and 20 pork-chop bones and pushed them along the curb." The wind did not literally rush into doorways and find chicken bones and exactly 20 pork-chop bones, Petry simply wrote this to explain how strong the wind was, in that it could have picked up and taken away the bones. Another example is, "It found all the dirt and dust and grime on the sidewalk," because yet again the wind did not literally lift up all of the dirt. Although the wind pay of scooped up plenty of dirt and make it swirl throughout the air, the figurative language allows the reader to imagine a scene of chaos and whether attacking the streets of this city.

The Street, by Ann Petry is a beautiful literary work that shows an abundance of musical devices such as, personification, imagery, and figurative language to paint the picture of a cold and windy day in the city. With that being said, Petry did a wonderful job of showing the reader exactly what she wanted them to see on that unpleasant November day in the city.

Responce to Class Material

In the last month of school in AP Lit we have covered how to analyize readings. We have done this by learned about DIDLS and ways to read literature productivly. In class we read "A Grocery Store in California", "I, Too", and "America Singing", and in each poem we were to analyse the writing and the deeper meanings behind the words. "A Grocery Store in California" talked about the American dream and questioned what it was, and how the capitalism of the 50s affects life. In "I, Too" and "America Singing" it is discussed what America is made up of,  and who contributes to America. As a class we also read "A Jury of Her Peers" and It was about how women have to stick together and how women were ignored, if you will, by the men of the time. That story produced a great class discussion about if the murder of her husband was justified if he was abusing her.

As a class we also read "How to Read Literature Like an English Professor" and That really hellped with the in class readings that we did, becuase the book covered what certian things are supposed to/ commonly mean. This book also helped alot with out closed promt responce for oour pracitce AP essay that we posted on our blogs.

In "The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing" we learrned/ reviewed the basics of writing for colleges- hence the name of the book. I will definatly keep this in mind as I am writing my common app essay.

Finally, as a class we worked on our textbook asignments, which really cemented the concepts that we learned in class. The homework went over how to form a thesis, how to form a theme sentance, and got us to look deeper into the syntax and diction of the pieces that we were reading.

Closed Prompt 2

This excerpt from, Fasting, Feasting by Anita Desai, the author uses literary devices such as language, point of view, and several actions to show the reader how uncomfortable Arun is in his surroundings. By doing so, it forces the reader to sympathize with Arun and his new surroundings, hence making it more clear to the reader what Arun is experiencing.

Language is a strong literary device used throughout the whole excerpt to illustrate the emotional setting. In the first paragraph, Desai describes Arun as despondent- in low spirits due to loss of courage. This sets up the excerpt with a sad and lethargic setting. later on in the excerpt when Arun is outside he sees " these grasses stirring with insidious life, and bushes with poisonous berries." This description of nature is written in such a way that you can feel how uncomfortable Arun is with being outside. The language that Desai uses throughout the excerpt paints a picture of an uncomfortable boy in a foreign environment. By using more of a more dark and unhappy vocabulary, the writer shows us exactly how her words should illustrate how uncomfortable Arun is.

The excerpt, written in third person, allows the reader to witness Arun and his surroundings in an unbiased manner. This excerpt is primarily showing Arun's experience and how he sees and thinks. If the story had been told in a first person view than the reader would only be able to feel and think as Arun does, but by writing in third person it allows the reader to perceive situation in their own way- and allows them to draw their own conclusions. A good example of a situation that would of changed if written in first person is, "Melanie and Arun follow silently. they try to find a way to walk that will not compel them to stand side by side or in any way close together. Who follows whom? Is is an awkward problem." The reason this is a good example is because it allows the reader to contemplate why they can't stand side by side? why do they feel awkward with each other? If this had been written in first person then it would of only explained one view leaving the rest of the picture neglected.

Lastly, Desai uses the actions of her characters to highlight Arun's discomfort. the interactions between Melanie and Arun show the awkward and forced nature of their relationship, "Melanie comes to the door, dressed in her bathing suit with a big shirt drawn across her shoulders, and she stares at him challengingly, he starts wildly to find an  excuse." Here Melanie is trying to get Arun to go sailing with herself and the rest of his host family, and Arun is trying desperately to find a way out of doing so. Even an exchange as simple as that shows the readers how Arun feels and how he views the common activities of his host family.

At first glace the except of fasting, feasting, seems lighthearted and like a family trying to go sailing on a nice day. After looking a little deeper it is made clear that Arun, the main character, is uncomfortable with his family and going outside. Desai uses actions of characters, point of view, and language to contribute to the emotional profile of Arun.