Open Prompt-Question 3 2003
Tragic Figures as Instruments of the Suffering of Others
Student LLLL:
For the limited amount of time provided this student responded pretty, I feel, articulately. Then again, they did receive a 9. He/She seemed well educated in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby enough to be able to piece through the events to consider Jay Gatsby's moments of personal, inner-personal, and societal tragedy. Not only did this student fill this essay with plenty of well chosen details(ex.the fall of Gatsby to the fall of Roaring 20's) to show these forms of tragedy, they also used strong diction to add intelligence to his/her essay.Words, for example being, dichotomy, subsequent, decadence, malicious In addition to the aforementioned, the sentence structuring incorporated a strong use of syntax, especially in the longer sentences where he/she worked with punctuation to add a flow. The use of commas benefited by separating out the details. An example of a long sentence being: "At the very end of the novel, Nick explains how Gatsby 'believed in the green light,' or the happier future mankind strives for , though we are 'boats against the current born back to the past'." And so I'm led think, wow. As the readers comment, "The analysis is provided with insight and stylistic flair."
Student C:
Not as creative. Plain language. Less developed. And really really hard to read. This student wrote about the tragedy of King Lear befallen upon him by pride, sense of duty, and vanity. The student did well in briefly introducing the less than perfect family dynamics between King Lear and his three daughters, done simply by explaining what befell upon King Lear and his daughters because of pride, duty, and vanity. The first body paragraph and the smaller second summarizes the plot but unfortunately remains focused only on how pride and suffering brought destruction to King Lear and other influential characters. The last body paragraph is on King Lear's vanity. To note, the flaw rests in that this student didn't identify how all three work in an event. They are separate from each other in this essay, and although I haven't read about King Lear's tragedy, I'm sure all three must play into the same events. Reading this essay makes me feel like I'm not learning anything new. For example, when this student is analyzing how out of all three of his daughters, Cordelia rejects the opportunity to flatter her dad because of some inheritance, saying that King Lear's pride is broken. Yeah, his pride is wounded. What else is new?
Student FF:
The "thesis" is atrocious. Gosh, I should stop judging, but really, "Ken Kelsey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest portrays Patrick Randal McMurphy's as a tragic hero. But he is not the only one that suffers-his actions result in the suffering of others as well." And thats it folks. That's the introductory paragraph. I guess it's up to the reader to figure out why this McMurphy is a tragic hero. Or one could read on...because the writer believes it's McMurphy's inability to conform. In regards to the analysis, the majority of this essay is spent describing the events that transpired in this novel, all in the effort to show how McMurphy brings upon the suffering of others. I feel like this student should have elaborated on McMurphy's inability to conform instead of escaping with, "McMurphy would not conform to the hospital society that Ratched controlled & in the end he was met w/ destruction." Not so sure about the short hand bit, but do you see what I mean? And then this student brings up "The Combine" all of a sudden, which by the way was like, uhh where did this come from? Instead of explaining what "The Combine" is in the beginning, the writer surprises his readers, indicating that he/she either didn't really understand how to include "The Combine" or just plain didn't t know how to organize his/her essay in that moment. I enjoy the reader's comments about McMurphy's infliction of suffering on others and how this writer, "...neglects to explore the possibility that McMurphy also brought these characters joy." I never thought of that. But, I have to agree. McMurphy must have had fun with these characters too. So then is he really tragic?
Hi Ludia,
ReplyDeleteWow. Impressive responses! I can really tell that you took the time to actually read the student essays and analyze them to your best ability. I also really enjoy your style of writing, it makes reading these blogs that much more entertaining:) So thank you! It seems like you came to a lot of the same conclusions as the AP readers so that is good. I found it cool that you took the time to actually question what the writers were saying instead of just writing generic responses that don't get into much of the details. You have some good quotes from the essays but adding a few more would strengthen your responses even more. Nice job using literary terms in your responses as well! Great analysis!
Ludia,
ReplyDeleteGood work. For the first student, you really helped show me how perfect his/her response was. As you stated, it seemed the student really understood what they were talking about. For the second student, you did a good job of describing what they did wrong, but next time to make this even better, you could provide some examples, and then describe what they could do to fix this:) I don't think you were being absurd for the third student, that thesis seems totally wacko! You did a great job sharing the AP Lit graders idea and then sharing whether you agree or disagree with them. This is something I need to work on. Looks great, keep up the good work!
Ludia,
ReplyDeleteI believe we chose the same essays to critique this round. Thanks for that! You obviously took a lot of time to carefully judge the responses and decide what they did correctly and what could have been improved upon. I would suggest, however, further developing your Student C paragraph. For instance, you could specifically identify all of the things that disappointed you in the essay in one sentence rather than breaking those things up into fragments. That’s just a stylistic suggestion, not a big deal. I made a similar observation to the one in your King Lear paragraph when I did my responses on this set of essays. The student certainly had the right idea with its three points relating to King Lear’s fatal flaws, but simply didn’t properly tie them all together back to the prompt. I totally agree with your Kesey paragraph; that essay was so awful it nearly doesn’t merit our attention. In general, you've done an impressive job with this. Good responses!