Blog Post #4: "The Known World" Prose Passage Essay & Reflection

Essay:

"The eating of [dirt] tied him to the only thing in his small world that meant almost as much as his own life," author Edward Jones writes of character Moses. Moses is a respectful, appreciative person: he feels a strong bond with the earth he has worked for so long. Yet his view of the world is so narrow. He knows only his master's land. Through incorporating selective details for specific imagery, writing with sharp, deliberate syntax and a subtle irony, and utilizing symbolism, Jones reveals Moses as a man who understands, loves, and seeks comfort through the land he works, but knows little beyond that world.

The excerpt begins with Moses lingering in the fields he has been working for the past fifteen hours. Jones writes of Moses crisply and simply, starting many sentences with a simple he: "He had been in the fields...He paused...He worked the dirt...He was the only man in the realm, slave or free, who ate dirt..." These simple sentences show very clearly that Moses is a slave who appreciates the earth, taking care to even taste the soil on the ground. Moses is also perceptive of what the soil's flavor indicates: he has learned through many years of tasting it that July dirt was sweet, with a "metallic life" that would not fade until harvest-time. Moses' reflection on the taste of dirt is longer, with a lingering, contemplative touch to his thoughts to slow the narration slightly. The detail of Moses' tendency to eat dirt gives this character another dimension that would have been lost had Jones only said that Moses was a hardworking slave who appreciated the fields. Jones elaborates on Moses' intimate knowledge of the land by saying that he could smell the coming of rain - and that this rain made him happy. The fact that Moses kneels down in a classic position of veneration just to be closer to the earth shows the extent of his relationship with the land. Jones's description of this is short and to the point as well to quickly convey just how much he appreciates the earth.

Despite his obvious bondage, Moses does not feel slighted or bitter about his situation. Jones writes that Moses' eating of dirt tied him to the land, but that the land he worked meant almost as much to him as his own life. The land Moses works is special to him, and the thought that he is a slave doesn't seem to bother him in the limited third person narration. It is ironic that the land is what keeps Moses enslaved, yet his love for it has essentially enslaved his heart. His adoration of nature is the focus of this excerpt, and Jones develops it further in the last paragraph, where he introduces water as a symbol. In the Bible, water is something that cleanses. This parallels Moses' literal and figurative cleansing as he undresses and lays in the patch of woods at the edge of his world and "[loses] himself completely" (88). In this part of the woods, which remains empty because it is has never yielded anything of value, Moses is closest to the land. It is interesting to note that when it rains and he has this opportunity, he goes to the woods rather than going home to his wife and his boy, subtly signaling that his relationship with this land runs deeper than his familial ones. The woods, an archetypal setting of chaos and darkness, is ironically a place where Moses turns to to find peace.

Jones crafts Moses as a slave who is naive, yet venerating and loving toward the earth, through his usage of symbolism, specific details and irony, and varied syntax.

Reflection:

(Updated on Wednesday, 8/27, to reflect today's class discussions.)

After reviewing the example essays provided in class today and determining which ones would have gotten higher scores, I've decided that my second essay much better than my first. I'll go for broke and say it's a higher level essay, between 5 and 7. I settled on a 6, since I believe my essay is above the "Sparknotes" essay but not A-/B+ level yet.

I did make a sincere effort to achieve some of the goals I elaborated on. I followed through with my plan to think through the structure of my essay (which I decided to write chronologically rather in clumps) before jumping into the actual writing. My essay presented a more complex analysis than the one I wrote in response to "The Flowers." I felt much more confident with the thesis I crafted and the way my writing flowed. Unfortunately, I was writing until the very end of the bell, and didn't have a chance to proofread like I would have hoped. Typing essays always seems to trick me into thinking I have more time than I really do, so I linger over my thoughts more than I should.

In an effort to keep myself from sinking into despair, I'll focus on the good qualities of my essay that led me to give it a 6 (rather than the poor parts that kept it from a 8-9 essay) in my brief justification as to why I deserve this score. My thesis definitely had some level of complexity. I wrote, "Through incorporating selective details for specific imagery, writing with sharp, deliberate syntax and a subtle irony, and utilizing symbolism, Jones reveals Moses as a man who understands, loves, and seeks comfort through the land he works, but knows little beyond that world." Yes, I could work on getting rid of the rudimentary three-groupings technique in my thesis, but I do think this was a reasonable analysis that definitely emphasized the relationship Moses had with the land.

My essay showcased a competent reading (or at least I hope it did.) I provided lines and actions from the text to support my claims, and I analyzed the significance of those actions. There were times where I did have to briefly paraphrase sections to to get to my point more clearly, but I haven't figured out how to get around that yet. I continued to highlight the intimacy of Moses's relationship with the earth, something we discussed in class.

I discussed the paradox of Moses's relationship (though I described it as ironic rather than paradoxical? Not sure if that was the right word), showing that I did analyze the text with some level of complexity. I noted the symbolism in the rain and the woods and briefly elaborated on each.

Overall, the ideas in my essay were presented clearly. I tried to be as unequivocal as possible in my writing (re: habitual flowery writer here) and I hope it came across that way. I think I have a (decent) command of writing technique, but I definitely need to work on applying this to my future analytical essays. I hope to really fine-tune my critical analysis skills and my time management so my essay scores will improve.

Blog Post #3: "The Flowers" Timed Essay & Reflection

Essay:

"It seemed...that the days had never been as beautiful as these." The story starts as innocent and unassuming - a little girl skipping about on a lazy summer day. However, Alice Walker quickly unfolds the story layer by layer to very clearly foreshadow the ending for the reader. The gradual acceleration of her narrative pace through shorter and shorter sentences gives a sense of urgency leading to Myop's discovery of the hanged man, and the darker words used to describe nature changes the mood from a lighthearted and innocent one to something more sinister.

Walker's prose is meandering at first, with long, complex sentences filled with beautiful imagery to prolong the story's beginning. She colors her sentences with a frivolous background on Myop as well - "She was ten, and nothing existed for her but her song...and the tat-de-ta-ta-ta of accompaniment." This sentence is slightly foreboding with the use of the words "nothing existed for her but" to convey Myop's innocence. The syntax becomes more varied after that sentence, with short, simple ones thrown in for emphasis."The air was damp, the silence close on deep," Walker writes just before Myop literally stumbles upon the hanged man - stepping "smack into his eyes." These words are sharp and crisp and grab the attention of the reader. The description of the dead man is just as crisp and to the point; perhaps conveying Myop's acute sense of observation. The short story ends with Myop's long thought process and sudden realization that this man had, in fact, been hanged. And with that, her innocence was gone, "and the summer was over."

Walker more explicitly hints at her ending by completely changing the tone with her word choice. She begins with bright and positively connotated words to describe Myop's innocent summer frolicking. Gradually, darker words are inserted to make the setting less comfortable. "The tiny white bubbles disrupt the thin black scale of soil." Walker also uses words such as "strange" and "gloomy" to make the atmosphere seem more dangerous, unwelcoming. She expertly weaves description of death and decay with the lush beauty of nature. Once Myop discovers the dead man, she tries to make sense of what has happens, and once she realizes that the man was hanged, she lays down her flowers. This action represents her loss of innocence, as a ten year old girl unlucky enough to find a dead man.

With well-controlled narration and a wide range of word choice, author Alice Walker creates a eerily realistic scene of a young girl losing her sense of naivete in a deadly world.

Reflection:

Something I've learned throughout the years is that adequacy at creative writing does not equate adequacy with analytical writing. Of course, this doesn’t hold true for all analytical writing (there have been times where I’ve scored 100%s on my papers), but I’m pretty sure my prose passage essay would not merit a 9. Not even close.

                I guess there were some things I did well. I laughed when I began reading the high ranking sample student essay because I used the same quote to start my own. Like the writer of the good student essay, I did grasp that this was a “loss of innocence” short story, and I mentioned diction and imagery as tools Walker used to hint at the ending.

                However, I failed to thoroughly explore contrasts and present unique insights into the underlying theme. My essay was straightforward, methodical, and predictable. The sad thing is, while annotating the essay, I wrote “archetypal downfall?” and “racial prejudice?” in the margins (showing that I did notice these more complex ideas in the text), but did not incorporate (or even mention!) either in my final essay. Also, in general, I found that my essay made some factual statements, but failed to analyze further. For example, I wrote, “She begins with bright and positively connotated words to describe Myop's innocent summer frolicking. Gradually, darker words are inserted to make the setting less comfortable. ‘The tiny white bubbles disrupt the thin black scale of soil.’” Then I abruptly moved on. My writing was choppy, at times too verbose, and weakly pieced together. I will definitely have to make significant changes to improve the quality of later essays.

                Here’s my game plan. First, I aim to allot time before I write to map out my essay and after I write to proofread and edit. I’ll admit – I was a bit confused in class when Ms. Wilson just let us loose. I thought we were only annotating, so I kind of fidgeted in my seat for a few minutes before realizing that we were actually supposed to write the essay too. In a moment of panic, I just put pencil to paper and let the (flowery) words flow. My rushing probably led to my talking in circles. In the future, I will follow5 Steps’ advice and spend 10 or fewer minutes to plan my essay. Also, to limit repeating myself, I will leave 2-3 minutes at the end of 40 minutes to review my writing. I hope to cut all extraneous words and make my essay more concise. I will work on this by very strictly timing myself while writing, either with my watch or the classroom clock.

                Second, I hope to focus more on the deeper meaning and subtler themes of passages (and actually mention them in my essay.) This will require more active reading during the first and second read-throughs of the passage, and a sharp mind to catch all of the hints an author may give. This may be difficult to concretely measure improvement on, but hopefully the increased quality in future essays that do mention complexities will be obvious.

                Lastly, I will make a conscious effort to do more than just state facts. Basically, I will make my essay more analytical and argumentative, so it is AP Literature (and not seventh grade Language Arts) quality. Like my second goal, this might be hard to accurately measure improvement on, but I will rely on my intuition and the critiques of my peers on future essays.

                I will implement all of these strategies starting on the next prose passage essay I write. Hopefully I’ll become a fabulous essayist by the end of first semester.

Blog Post #2: Reflections

                After taking the pretest, the only words of encouragement I have for myself are “It can only get better from here!” (At least, I seriously hope it does, because otherwise I’m going to be a very bad AP Literature student.)

A little on my performance before I list my weaknesses and plans to improve: I finished 38 questions in class and did surprisingly well on the questions regarding the first poem, The Writer, somehow not missing any. The fiction passages were a different story – I stumbled dazedly over the Bleak House and Jane Eyre questions. At home, I finished the test and missed three questions regarding The Pulley, with an overall score of 37/51. I’m not sure if this merits a pat on the back for getting a nice shiny C. In general, I’m surprised that I did much better than I expected on poetry and much worse than I expected on prose; if anything, I expected the opposite to happen.

                After reviewing the questions I missed, I’ve realized that I’m currently terrible at picking out extended metaphors and inference questions in prose texts. Almost all of the questions I missed involved “in the context of the passage…” or “all of the following can be inferred except…”  save for some questions I missed because I clearly just wasn’t thinking. I figure improving at my analytical and inferential skills in prose fiction will require one thing: practice. My three goals manifested themselves as more detailed forms of practice (since, after all, practice is a pretty vague term.)

                First, I will aim to widen my literary exposure by reading widely. The prospect of reading regularly on top of assignments sounds extremely ambitious to my own ears (First semester senior year courseload plus college apps is a deadly combination, or so I hear), but I think a reasonable goal is actively reading 1-2 prose and/or drama pieces every week. Carol Jago’s Literature and Composition textbook has a plethora of excerpts to choose from, so I will likely pick the pieces with the most interesting titles. The textbook also has handy reading questions I can skim and (hopefully) answer. I can also reread my classic favorites (Pride and Prejudice and The Beautiful and Damned) with a more scholarly mindset to draw more from the text. I adore reading – so the reading itself won’t be painful – just the inevitable sleep deprivation that may result from avoiding other homework assignments. I will measure improvements through future AP exams we take in the classroom. Hopefully I will also be able to feel myself becoming more comfortable with thinking analytically and drawing my own conclusions as I integrate the extra reading into my weekly routine.

                More than just reading and answering general questions, I hope to write my own AP-style multiple choice questions to excerpts from the prose I choose to read. This is a suggestion I stole from 5 Steps to a 5, and I think it will be very effective, since writing your own questions forces you to see from not just the eyes of the test taker but also the test maker. I hope to do this once a week throughout the entire year leading up to the AP exam, and maybe even find a fellow Lit comrade who plans on doing the same thing so we can swap questions every week.

                Even though I’m making prose analysis my primary focus, I can’t totally throw poetry to the side, because it would be pretty depressing if I did worse on later tests than this initial baseline. I already receive the Poetry Foundation’s Poem of the Day, so I figure, why not do more than just read that poem? In turn, I hope to challenge myself by reading each (applicable, quality) Poem of the Day, analyzing tone, structure, imagery, and possible extended metaphors. A necessary prerequisite of this will include becoming more familiar with different poetic structures (ex. figuring out what an iambic trimeter is), so I will get on that by this weekend as well. I will measure my understanding of poetry by self-monitoring the ease of my analysis and my performance on poetry-based multiple choice questions in class over the course of the first semester.

                Let’s see if my plans actually work. My grades are on a roller coaster that only goes up, my friends. 

Blog Post #1: On My Aesthetic Choices

I'm a bubbly person. That much will become very evident if you get to know me even in the slightest. I'm always laughing and smiling and talking and poking fun of myself. I try to stay happy, because I'm a firm believer that how you feel is one of the only things you can control. That said, I tried to convey simplicity and brightness in my blog (though I am far from a simple girl, I think I am a very bright girl. As in happy. I suppose you can be the judge regarding my intelligence.) I like blogs to be  easy on the eyes, so I chose a simple gray and white patterned background. I personally love the scalloped pattern: it's simple enough not to detract from the actual contents of my blog yet interesting enough to be noticeable. As for color, I decided to stick with ones that were less in-your-face (eg the light grays and blues), save for the pop of orange in my title. The gray background is meant to convey practicality and neutrality, while the orange, although a more subdued shade of it, adds a little energy and sparkle (Art Therapy).

"A Dependable Ally" is what I decided to name my blog, and it is written neatly in all-lowercase Sue Ellen Francisco across the top. I've always loved handwriting fonts for blog titles (see this blog I used for AP US G&P last year). I was debating between the Sue Ellen and a more scripty font, like Homemade Apple, but ultimately decided on the former because it conveys a feeling of innocence and sweetness. It complements the upbeat yet relaxed atmosphere I hope to make for my blog as well: the reminiscent-of-third-grade Sue Ellen is more appropriate for that purpose than a lush and hurried cursive. I chose Cambria, a neat serif font designed for "on-screen reading...excellent legibility, and readability," for my page text (Typedia). The letters, to me, have personality - though crisp, there are perfectly placed accents (the curve at the bottom of the y, and the detail of the g) that make them more appealing to the reader. I've always loved Cambria, and I think it is a  professional font that will allow the reader to focus on the content of my writing rather than the complexity of my font choice.

Of course, the blog wouldn't be complete with this lovely quote I stumbled upon a few months ago. After I found it (on Goodreads, of all places), I did some Googling on James Michener and discovered that he was a fabulous author who passed away only 14 days before I was born. Many of his novels are now on my admittedly long to-read list, and I hope to read them all eventually. I chose this quote to remind me that, no matter how difficult or frustrating an AP essay might be, I love writing and I always have. In moments of writer's block (which I hope will rarely happen), I will always try to channel that part of me who remains lost in a world of fantasy, the girl who was (and is) determined to become an acclaimed writer.

Works Cited

"Color Psychology: The Psychological Effects of Colors." Art Therapy. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Aug. 2014. <http://www.arttherapyblog.com/online/color-psychology-psychologica-effects-of-colors/#.U_IJ98tOXIU>.

"Cambria." Typedia, n.d. Web. 16 Aug. 2014. <http://typedia.com/explore/typeface/cambria/>.