For being in AP Lit for only 4 days, we have actually covered a lot of material. From the terms test to three different PowerPoints, it is becoming clear that this class is connected in all sorts of ways. In the first week, I have noticed how everything seems to tie together. For instance, the three slideshows on Spruz that we looked at, The Rhetorical Situation, Argument, and the AP Lit Magic Question, between these presentations it was clear that they are all intertwined. To write a good essay for the AP Lit exam you must combine the ideas found in all of the presentations. First you must focus on your rhetorical situation, or how/what you want to say and determining who the audience is that you are writing for. This becomes the "roadmap" for the essay, after this you apply the concepts found in the argument slideshow. Here is where you decide your claims, warrants, evidence, and how you will convince your reader to believe what you are saying. And lastly, to tie together everything you must answer that AP Lit magic question. This question is what you want to argue and you must decide how you want to get these ideas across in your essay. By combining all three of these ideas, it will lead to a great AP essay. Along with these ideas, the vocabulary used in the essay is very important. After spending all summer reviewing our terms, we took the test. Although I knew the terms, I didn't actually know them. If you asked me the definition of anaphora, I could spit it out just perfectly, but when it came to finding the terms inside of a passage, I struggled. This was very frustrating to me and and made me feel as if I had studied for nothing. But I then realized, it's not about the grade that I got on this test, it's about how I need to find a new way to study to do better. And hopefully that will happen quickly =).
I really like your summary of the three presentations; it was helpful to see it in a succinct manner. You do a good job of connecting them and I can tell from your summary that you are reprocessing the material. However, when you talk about the Rhetorical Situation I would mention that it not only says to focus on how/what you want to say, but also that you as the writer need to be aware of who your audience is. Although the presentations are important to write a good essay for the AP exam, I would also talk about Foster's book. His book plays a key role in our understanding of finding a deeper meaning in a text, and I think it would be beneficial to talk about it and possibly connect it to the presentations. I definitely agree with your statement regarding the terms! I too noticed that knowing the definition and applying the terms have very different meanings. I would suggest, to help you truly know the terms, that you find passages and look for literary devises within them.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Caroline that your explanation of the presentations and how they fit into each other shows that you are reprocessing the information and also looking to the future of why this is important to fully understand these concepts and be able to utilize them. I like how you found out from the terms test that you need to change your study habits but I think you could make your point stronger by tying to something that you learned from the presentations. I don't agree with Caroline that you absolutely need to include Foster because you already could have a strong argument with what you have included and it sounds like you're trying to focus on what we did in class. Overall, I think definitely reprocessed what you learned to come to new conclusions about the material.
ReplyDeleteYou could have written more about the summer work. Or not. It's your response, not mine. I think everyone's with you on the terms test part, haha. I got slammed. Couldn't spot the terms to save my life.
ReplyDeleteUhh, good job relating the presentations to each other.
I've got nothing left to say.