<p>The exam is hours away, so I just spent a ton of time writing this guide on what I’ll be doing to make sure I got top grades on those Free Response Questions. If you’ve got 15-30 minutes to spare (I don’t know how long it’ll take to read this), try this little student-made guide (I made it) out. If you want a bit of credibility from me, consider the essay that I used as an example in this guide. My English AP class is a fairly tough one, and my teacher isn’t exactly an easy grader. I got a 96 on that paper, which I believe was easily the highest grade in my grade (two classes taking the AP English Language and Composition Class). I’m going to explain in detail the writing strategies I’ve had drilled into my head from my teacher. As I said, I have my 96 essay at the bottom to use as an example, and I described what I did well on that essay.</p>
<p>As for the essay itself, it touches on some racial issues. I’m not sure what moderators will think of it, but it was based on a book called Huck Finn, which I’m expecting that many other AP English classes probably read. There aren’t any opinions taken on racism, it’s an essay that analyzes how Twain tells a story. So, the only racial opinion involved comes when I make the conclusion that Twain was opposed racism… that’s it. I’m simply speculating on what he was trying to say with his story, so I shouldn’t be touching any nerves (but, if I am, then I apologize and feel free to do what you must with this post). Keep in mind that you’re going to have to answer different kinds of questions such as the DBQ’s and use of rhetorical strategies on the test, but the basic concepts of how to write the essay effectively remain the same.</p>
<p>So, if you want something that is much more specific than the typical generic “Write an outline” and “Use three examples” stuff you get from Princeton Review, and a really good example of an essay that displays what my little strategies explain, read on. If you think this’ll be a bunch of bull coming from the head of a 17-year-old, you can stop right now.</p>
<p>Before I start, I would like to take note that if you guys want to know where to find a bunch of examples of 8-essays, look [url=<a href=“Supporting Students from Day One to Exam Day – AP Central | College Board”>Supporting Students from Day One to Exam Day – AP Central | College Board]here[/url</a>]. It shows all the free-response questions from both the main tests and the form B tests from 2007-2003 (10 AP english exams worth of Free-Response questions, in other words). Each question has a sample essay (click the links saying “sample responses Q1, Q2,” etc.) from people who took the exam, and below the essays (at the very bottom of all the sample response pages), are the scores and explanations for those scores.</p>
<p>Each of 30 essays should have an example of an essay receiving an 8/9 and one receiving a 6/9 (along with some lower scored ones, but I didn’t pay attention to those) in the sample response section. Just read the 8 closely, make sure you understand what the person did well to get that 8, and read the 6 as well, if you want, and see what the difference was between the 6 essay and the 8 essay. Try to do write the same way the 8 essay does.</p>
<p>If you’re in AP English Language and you’ve paid attention at all this year, you’ll know that the importance of writing a good essay is answering the question with as much clarity, effectiveness, coherence, and sophistication of language as possible. That’s a very broad statement. The first four things are what I think you can improve on right now both with this little guide and the examples from previous exams. Sophistication of writing is something that takes longer to develop. You can only get that from reading material more sophisticated than what you are capable of writing (which, for a high school student, shouldn’t be hard to find), and then learning from that and trying to write with that extra pizzazz. It’s a process of seeing and practicing that takes a while, much longer than the few hours spent cramming before an exam. Fortunately, the fact that you’ve made it anywhere in an AP English class and the fact that you care enough about your score to actually be studying and looking here for tips (not one of those kids who doesn’t give a **** about the exam and is choosing to “wing it”) should mean that you at least know how to write with enough sophistication to get an 8. According to the AP guys, the difference between an 8 and a 9 can be the sophistication of language use, though. My English teacher didn’t put much stock into sophistication of language during my AP English course, and I can’t say that I built much of it either because I wasn’t very good with the reading. In fact, the strengths of my writing style are, in my opinion, based a bit more on trying to put a bit of emotion into my writing, and trying to evoke a bit of inspiration at times through my words, even. Spending a lot of time on online forums can help even, if you pay attention to making what you write sound intelligent and conversational (borderline witty, I guess), and you pay attention to the other witty posters you find- noth the oneos who type olike thsi all the tim.</p>
<p>The clarity comes in making sure not to throw in anything that isn’t intended to support the point you’re trying to make. Each sentence should be written with the specific paragraph it is in in mind. If you can look back at your essay, and every single sentence is essential to the purpose of its specific paragraph, you’re golden. Then, there’s effectiveness. Effectiveness starts with a very clear and specific thesis (not much is possible without one, because it’ll be too hard to support a vague thesis). You need to support your points well, both in what things you choose to support them with and how well you explain those things. On the level of individual paragraphs, that means choosing examples that support the main point of that idea best (after all, the only way you can prove something to your reader is by choosing facts that clearly agree with what you’re trying to say) and making sure that you EXPLAIN how that evidence supports each paragraph’s topic sentence (similar to how the effectiveness of the paper as a whole starts with a good thesis, effectiveness of each paragraph starts with a good topic sentence). On the level of the whole, effectiveness is how well you chose the points you used in each paragraph to support, and how effective those paragraphs were in explaining those points. To sum this up, effectiveness is about how well you use facts/quotes/specific references/whatever your specific examples may be to support your assertions (notice how I don’t say “opinion” here</p>
<p>(New Paragraph if anyone’s eyes are hurting)Development comes through how well your essay is logically organized. Your intro pararaph should start from making a very broad statement of the topic at hand, and then gradually grow more specific until you hit your thesis statement. It’s like a funnel (lame metaphor my school uses to describe a good intro). In the body, you need to make sure that you logically order everything as best you can- the specific examples in the paragraphs and the order of the paragraphs. This is tricky to describe, because you can take different approaches, but the most basic one is to simply go from the least significant paragraph to the most significant one last in the body. The same goes for the individual examples in the paragraph, the basic approach is to go from least significant to most significant. There are different ways to do organize your essay, obviously. The AP Scorers apparently like a bit of creativity in how you doing things, but you have to be very careful. The idea is that after you write the introduction (which, by the way, I think you should always use the funnel approach for, I never experiment with that… general>>>specific can do no wrong), the body should always be building off itself. As you progress through each paragraph, you’ll know that you’re organizing it correctly if each example builds off the one preceding it (I’m not talking about topic and concluding sentences here, because those always go in the same place) and each body paragraph should build off the one preceding it somehow. As for the concluding paragraph, it should be an upside down funnel, unlike the regular funnel in the intro paragraph. It starts with the restatement of the thesis (more on the importance of that later), and grows more and more general, finalizing it with a statement about the general situation. The concluding paragraph should be a bit more specific than the intro, because it is written after you have made a conclusion, unlike the intro paragraph which is holding back, simple leading into the discussion without telling too much.</p>
<p>Now comes the most important thing (in my opinion), coherence. Coherence is all about how well you can tie in the support to reach conclusions. The coherence of your paper is only as good as it’s concluding statements and concluding paragraph, and it is centered on your restatement of your thesis. On the level of individual paragraphs, your paragraph is coherent if you can find a way to take all the evidence to reach a concluding statement that ties it all in together. I tend to not find topic sentences as important as concluding sentences. In fact, I try just as hard not to say too MUCH in the topic sentences as I do to say enough. Say enough to lead the reader into the point of the paragraph, but leave enough to keep them reading so you can ultimately write a satisfying concluding statement. The problem with putting too much in the topic sentence is that the concluding sentence won’t have as much effect if it is a mere restatement. You need to create a pattern with your examples, and the concluding sentence should restate the topic sentence and add the pattern to it to form the complete idea of the paragraph. It can be hard to explain, but you’ll know that you’ve concluded the paragraph well if it is a real “Aha!” moment. Your reader has to look at it and that statement should really hit them, making them think “So THAT is what all this build-up with his examples meant!” If a reader were to skim over your paper and only look at one sentence in each paragraph, the concluding sentence is the one you want them to look at. The coherence is how well every example fits that pattern leading to the conclusion. The restatement of the thesis at the beginning of the concluding paragraph is, in my opinion, the most important “Aha!” moment in the entire essay. It takes the bigger pattern formed by the ideas in your body paragraphs and ties them together with the one restatement of the thesis. That restatement should take the thesis and add the pattern formed by your body paragraphs to it to form the ultimate idea of the whole essay. It is the one sentence you’ve been waiting to say all along, and if your paper is truly coherent, everything should lead into the pattern represented by that one sentence.</p>
<p>Now, here’s my paper:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is a novel telling the story of Huckleberry Finns journey down the Mississippi River on a raft with a runaway slave, Jim. While some consider the story to be one of the greatest pieces of American literature in history, others question its greatness and call it hogwash. The result of this differing in opinion has been a debate as to whether or not The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn succeeds as a story. In the article Say It Aint So, Huck, Jane Smiley takes a position against Mark Twains book, denying that this is a great novel, that this is even a serious novel. In the article Selling Huck Finn Down the River, Justin Kaplan counters Janes argument by saying that the secret of Hucks story is revealed through stylistic innovation, humor, and imaginative literature down the river. Justin Kaplan understands Mark Twain and what was conveyed when this story was written, but Jane Smiley does not. Everything about The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, even its perceived problems and lack of seriousness, leads to what it ultimately succeeds in doing: ridiculing the vices of Southern society.
At one point in the story, Huck finds himself amongst a bloody feud between two families, the Shepherdsons and the Grangerfords. Smiley says It is with the feud that the novel begins to fail, because from here on the episodes are mere distractions from the true subject of the work: Hucks affection for and responsibility to Jim. Smiley is wrong, because the true subject of the work is Twains satire of the South, not Hucks companionship with Jim. Two new characters, the Duke and the Dauphin, are introduced, and Twains ridicule of the South begins. The Duke, the Dauphin, and Huck proceed to go on exploits which reveal the follies of the southerners whom they meet. On one occasion, the Duke and the Dauphin make a large sum of money by duping many men to watch a supposedly tragic drama consisting of the Dauphin prancing around the stage naked. On another occasion, the Duke and the Dauphin manage to convince a whole town that they are the English brothers of Mr. Peter Wilks, trying to get a large of sum of money through Wilkss will. Both of these instances along with the rest of the second third of the story paint the southerners as a group of naïve people. Though Smiley seems to think this section of the story as a deviation, it is actually where Twain finds an opportunity to begin his portrayal of the South. The novel does not fail when it reaches the feud, it in fact begins.
Jim, Hucks runaway black companion, represents slavery in this story. Smiley thinks that Twain has little respect for the race of slaves, saying at the beginning of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, neither Huck nor Twain takes Jims desire for freedom at all seriously, that is, they do not accord it the respect that a mans passion deserves.
Smiley does not realize that Twains portrayal of Huck and everyone elses indifference and disrespect is his satirical depiction of the Souths demeaning attitude towards African-Americans. When Huck loses an argument to Jim about French accents, he resorts to saying you cant learn an n-word to argue (92) instead of admitting defeat. After playing a cruel prank on Jim, Huck says It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to an n-word
(98). The Duke and the Dauphin never show Jim any respect, often leaving him behind at the raft during their ventures and eventually turning him in as a runaway slave. Every character in the story, even its protagonist, shows a condescending and unfair attitude towards slaves, and Twain is making fun of them for that. Though he is superstitious, Jim actually comes off as the noblest character in the story, being protective of Huck on many occasions and ultimately risking his freedom to help save Tom. The southerners, not Twain, are the ones disrespecting the slaves, and they are meant to be the ones disrespected for that. Twain in fact shows Jim, the slave, as the most heroic character in the story.
The last twelve chapters are the most criticized part of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Smiley calls the ending a failure, and quotes Leo Marx saying most of those traits which made Huck so appealing a hero now disappear
It should be added at once that Jim doesnt mind too much. When Huck finds out that Jim has been captured, he decides to try and save him instead of turning him in, saying All right, then, Ill go to hell (228). Huck seems to have reached the pinnacle of his moral development in this journey, but the next twelve chapters destroy that growth. Tom Sawyer enters the story and takes it over as Huck follows Toms pointlessly outrageous plans to rescue Jim instead of showing his newfound resolve to stop them. Huck reverts back to his old self at the beginning of the story when he was nothing more than a member of Toms gang. This disappointing transformation completes Twains satire of the South. Huck was once a leader and Jim was once bold enough to be defiant, but they both change their roles and defer to Tom, an upper-class boy. The reliance on the class system was one of the main follies of nineteenth-century Southern society, and it also ruins Hucks story. Tom shows very little concern in the freeing of Jim, instead using it as an excuse to go on adventures and have fun. He comes up with excessively risky plans to free Jim and even wants Jim to keep a journal, just to make the whole situation seem dramatic. Toms antics result in him receiving a bullet to the leg and Jim ending up tied up back in a shack. Jim ultimately ends up free, but the events preceding that make Twains message clear. The ending of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is no failure, it succeeds in showing just how dominating the class structure of southern society is and how little respect southerners have for slaves. Twain manages to get across the severity of these Southern follies by showing how they can actually ruin the story of a hero like Huck.
Huckleberry Finns moral development and relationship with Jim is merely used as a tease by Mark Twain. It is set up to be brought down by the trappings of the South, and that is how Twain represents his satire of Southern vices. Before the story starts, Twain says Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. Jane Smiley and the rest of the critics of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn all have one thing in common: they tried to do all of the things Mark Twain told them not to. This is not a story about a characters moral development or relationship with another man, it is a story that makes fun of a group of people and treats them in a condescending way, the same way they condescended on people with darker skin than theirs.</p>
<p>Read through it once to see what the topic is, I don’t want to spend any more time describing it. Now, I’m going to describe the strengths and a couple weaknesses of my paper paragraph by paragraph. Remember, this paper got a 96 from my English teacher, and that was by the standards a proof-read out-of-class essay. Obviously, I won’t be able to write this quality in the limited testing time period, but it’s pretty much what I strive for if I want to get a 9 on my essays.</p>
<p>In my intro paragraph, I told the reader exactly what to expect. My paper was based on citing a source that opposed my opinion as my first example in each body paragraph, and then using examples to bring it down, so I did something similar in my intro paragraph. I chose very effective quotes- one perfectly summarized the opinion of the opposers I was refuting, the other perfectly summarized the point I was going to make. I then gave a thesis statement saying exactly what to expect in the coming paragraphs (Now that I think of it, the thesis statement/topic sentences can be considered the “what” of the whole essay/individual paragraphs, while the thesis restatement/concluding statements can be thought of as the “what” with the “how” included). I also succeeded with the development of that first paragraph. It started at the very general, simply stating the book being discussed and giving the eency bit of background on it that I would focus on throughout the story. I then got more specific, introducing the idea of the issue at hand. Then… more specific, I used a quote to introduce the side that I would be refuting. I got even more specific, introducing with another quote the side that I would be taking. I then stated which side I agreed with, and finished off the intro with its most specific statement, the thesis.</p>
<p>I’m not going to go into too much depth with my body paragraphs. My first two topic sentences weren’t very good, and the third was just decent. The first two simply merely set the scene and nothing else, and only the very first sentence of the paper should be that general. For example, a better topic sentence for my first paragraph would’ve been “The whole novel up until a point when Huck finds himself amongst a bloody feud between between two families, the Shepherdsons and the Grangerfords, is merely set up.” That sets the reader up for the point I’m going to make, that this point in the story is where the book begins.</p>
<p>Remember how I said you can be creative with the development of your evidence? I did that here. Instead of merely just using examples from the book all supporting my point, my first example in each paragraph was a quote from Smiley’s article. Each quote showed her making some kind of assertion about how some specific in the book ruined it, and then I built my entire paragraph around that quote. I agreed with each of Smiley’s quotes in saying that the story did in fact do the things she said it did, but I disagreed with each one saying that those things that Twain did actually helped the story send the message it was trying to send. I argued that she was missing the message, illustrating it with each quote, and the rest of my body paragraphs built beautifully off of that as I used examples confirming what Smiley said was happening, but I then did a complete 180 on each one, using the examples to support my point of view, not hers. I used examples that illustrated everything exactly the way I wanted to, and I was able to explain their significance very well, which led to much effectiveness. The development was very good as each example in the paragraph built off the last one and built around each quote by smiley. The paragraphs also built off of each other. The first body paragraph established the presence of Southern Satire in the book. Because of that being established, I could talk in the second paragraph about how the main characters were satirized, as well, which brought me closer to my point. The final body paragraph built off the fact that the main characters were susceptible to the traits being satirized, and then showed how the development of one of those main characters was complete ruined as a result of a steroetypically southern mindset- thus completing the satire and finally developing the point at the end of that paragraph.</p>
<p>Now… coherence. I thought that my paper was very coherent in the sense that all of the examples in the paragraph were focused on their paragraph’s main points, and the conclusions reached in the main paragraphs all mixed perfectly to form the conclusion. </p>
<p>As for clarity. Well, I don’t have much to say about that. My paper was pretty clear, I didn’t really waste much time anywhere. I stayed very true-to-the-point, for the most part. I thought that the fact that all of my conclusions to body paragraphs and the restatement of the thesis were two sentences was a tiny problem, while I could’ve been more direct with just one for each.</p>
<p>So, there you go. Whatever authority I may have, I’m using it to say that this quality of my paper would be good to strive for. With all the extra time I had to spend on it and how carefully I was able to work on it, it was definitely a 5. My English definitely thought so, and he is no joke. Obviously, it’s a bit different when you’ve got to write something in 40-55 minutes, but the basic rules are the same: Clarity, Development, Effectiveness, and Coherence. Clarity is how well you stick to the topic without wasting words or deviating, development is how well you organize the evidence for your ideas, effectiveness is how strong your ideas are and how strong your evidence supports those ideas, and coherence is how well all your evidence and ideas can be tied together to reach the ultimate answer you are trying to convey. Sophisticated language is the X-factor here. I can’t help you guys much with it.</p>