After correcting your AP Language responses on Renaissance poetry, I've produce the standard "Sentences Outlawed in Every English Class" worksheet illustrating some common (and major) areas of concern. Areas of concern include excesses of clutter, cliche phrases, poor or inappropriate word choice, misuse of rhetorical devices and strategies, unnecessary repetition, structural issues, etc. Upon close examination, these same errors appeared in several papers AND in your last AP responses (Jamaica Kincaid's "Girl" article). And therein lies the rub...
I'd like each of you to consider a question or two...or three...you may have that warrants class clarification. We are far from being finished practicing AP responses, and I want to make sure, despite our limited class time, your questions are answered. This is your forum and it's your class. That being said, what do you think you need to most extra help with on your language responses?
my maid of honor speech for my sisters wedding!
13 years ago
14 comments:
I remember in 8th grade when teachers made a big deal out of using transition words. I always thought that they make my papers flow better but would they be considered clutter? It makes sense to just say what you want to say but at the same time, wouldn't transition words make the essay sound better by introducing a point?
This AP Language and Composition book that I have has this section on transitions with a list of different transition words we can use in different cases. This was kind of confusing. Are we, or are we not supposed to use transition words?
In inclusion to transitions, I know that I always have problems with my conclusion. IDK, it just always seems like it's rushed and I feel like it's difficult to sum up the main body paragraphs into just a couple sentences. Plus I always feel like I'm just listing things. So I'm not exactly sure what exactly I'm supposed to say here, but I know these are areas I need to work in. So yeah, that's what I think I need the most help with I guess.....
I had a lengthy intro, but I'll just cut the crap and ask my question.
What I wanted to know is how I can become more specific in my writing? I know it starts with vocab, but sometimes I feel like maybe my ideas are not specific enough, or should be broader.
I've always felt as if I clutter my writing. Despite the fact that we've gone over clutter multiple times and even read an article on why and how not to clutter, I feel as if i habitually include unnecessary things. I think it's mostly because I try to make my writing sound "nice" and when I write my essay I have a tendency to re-state what I've already mentioned using different words, which unfortunately enough, i realize is pointless?
In speaking for myself here, I think the main reason that I have a tendency to clutter is because for the longest time, I've been taught that more is better. I understand now though that simple, straightforward writing is much more effective, although it may take me some time to get there.
The biggest problem that I encountered was identifying the boundary between diction and tone. I felt that at some parts, content included in my diction paragraph could very well be placed in my tone paragraph. It took me quite an amount of time to distinguish between the two. When I wrote my AP Language essay on Donne's "The Flea" I had to be careful not to be repetitive. However, I know that the real AP exam only gives you a limited amount of time. Thus, while I am extracting content and information from the piece, what would be a good method to use in order to be more efficient? The essay usually takes me around two hours if I'm working HARD (meaning not slacking, procrastinating, taking "breaks"). I guess my main concern is time. I would also like to go over more about diction, syntax, and tone - seeing that this was the first year I've ever been taught these concepts in depth - I'd like to be more clear about them.
Another huge problem I face is "fluidly incorporating" quotes into my piece. I find it so hard to include a quote and use up an entire other sentence to explain it, because this essay has a 2-page limit. I want to learn more methods of efficiently working in my quotes to the piece so that it flows better and is solid.
Wow! Thanks for submitting comments already, ladies! I am planning to take all your questions and comments into consideration for discussion on Friday.
I feel like clutter is still a constant challenge in writing my papers. I manage to cut it down to the required 2 pages. Would it be better to initially just not write a lot instead of having to cut it after, or is it just as effective to overwrite slightly and then cut it after... i think i always do the latter. also i think i do tend to be a little repetitive. I know that in this essay, I restated the message when I brought it up because in the "Girl" essay i mentioned "the message" and i got a comment to restate that...
so where is the line drawn on repetition (of the message?) ?
Okay, I think that these are my two most persistent writing issues, amid about a million other smaller ones: I frequently have trouble writing a strong introduction that makes an essay appealing. I think it would be a great idea if we could discuss writing introductions and conclusions in class on Friday, as they have such a major impact on the reader’s opinion of the piece. Also, my essays always feel kind of lackluster and unoriginal even when I think they’re creative. How do we make our writing stand out?
I have trouble writing a strong introduction (similarly like Isabel) and a conclusion. Sometimes I don’t know how to make my intro creative enough. And when I start to write my conclusion I sometimes feel like I am listing things and like I’m repeating the same stuff. I need to restate them in a different way.
Clutter is an issue because we all know we can cut things out of our papers..but we're encouraged to make our AP papers interesting and stand-outish. without "cluttery" things, thats very difficult to do since the facts are almost always the same in ever paper if the facts are all you have with no interesting sentences that can show off a little voice. also, we just need way more practice..becuase we'll get our papers back graded and the only things we learn are what we could have or should not have done specifically to that paper. we're not really being helped to improve our next papers so much if that makes sense...
Just to be clear:
The techniques and strategies you utilized in your AP poetry responses should be the same techniques and strategies you utilized in your Kincaid "Girl" essays. These two essays were both AP Language essays; your Beowulf essay was a literary analysis essay that employs different techniques and has different requirements. Every AP Language essay is the same -- diction, syntax, tone and figurative language -- with a strong intro and conclusion. It's essential that you review your last AP Language essay prior to writing the next AP Language essay to avoid repeating the same errors. I realize through independent conversations that there is still some confusion about what classification the assignments fall under, but AP Language essays will always have the same prompt and will ask you to solely focus on language, not interpretation. We'll discuss this idea further tomorrow in class.
So...even though we had a class discussion about this today, I'll still leave my thoughts...I think that syntax might be the hardest concept to "get" or write about - or at least it was before, as some issues got cleared up today. I think the biggest thing, at least for me, is to make it less of an analysis - which I'm always doing, in my head or on paper, in school and out of school, and something that is just purely language based. I also found it helpful that we discussed other possible topics (figurative language, hyperbole, humour, etc.) so that we are not always "stuck" with the standard diction, syntax, and tone body paragraphs
Personally, I believe that I have a hard time with avoiding analyzation. Are you looking for a clean cut and to the point response with 2 to 3 examples from the text? You don't want us to make new suggestions of the text like, the meaning of a certain word in the poem(diction) or explaining the extended metaphor? You just want us to state the rhetorical strategy and how it is done, no hardcore explanations, right?
I'm still not sure how you want the conclusion. Should it be the same as the intro but written in a different way?
When you have been taught to write with flowy, descriptive language and including transitions and the famous "in conclusion," I guess it's difficult to transition out if it. Usually when I write my essays, I write them out and then cut out what I think is clutter, then I get my paper back and it says to remove more clutter.
Also, another difficult concept for me is syntax. I don't really know how to apply it as an argument to convey the author's message that well.
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