If you are working through Heart of Darkness, you might find some of the material in the notes section useful in your study. If nothing else, you can read about Babar and Curious George as distractions.
I thought I'd offer a few more detailed comments/concerns about the essays than the often cryptic things I write on them. While these are mostly negative, there are a number of positive signs: the quality of the writing is improving, a number of papers offered some very unique insight, and you did well, despite a challenging topic.
Areas of Concern
Focus on Tone
The biggest issue by far was a misplaced focus on character/plot analysis. You need to focus your responses on analysis of the attitude of the author (GGM) towards his subjects in the text. Plot and dialogue almost disappear as concerns, because they don't evaluate tone.
Introductions
Getting better. Avoid the author/title of work construct in the first sentence. You want to distinguish your essay from the opening line from the other 891,000 that will be read at the AP test.
Use of Passages
These need to be incorporated more naturally into the essays. Often, you are just throwing them in without transition or purpose. Passages needs to follow the same syntax and structure rules as the rest of the essay.
Thesis Statements
Need 'em. Because the prompt asks you to evaluate how the use of tone establishes the meaning of the work as a whole, you are making an argument. The thesis needs to be a complete argument–no more of this nonsense about saying things like "it illustrates Marquez's deeper meaning" or any of that generic text: establish to what broad purpose Marquez's use of tone is put to work.
DIDLS
There was a real lack of focus on the elements of tone we discussed, using the DIDLS method. These words: diction, imagery, detail, language, and syntax should be appearing in your response. They are the kind of words Myrna will expect to read and will enhance the academic sound of your paper.
SPECIFICITY
Tone analysis is about specific detail, from a phrase to a simple sound. Many of the papers treated paragraphs holistically, rather than looking at the small details that encompass tone. Focus on a paragraph or two–and use the details within each to build meaning. Specify, Specify! (Thoreau said that, right?)
It's a Christmas miracle for the AP classes. Following some high level discussion, the following changes are going to take place over the next four days.
- Today's quiz and the essay for next week are the test for Love in the Time of Cholera.There is no test next week over Love in the Time of Cholera.
- There will be an optional discussion session Sunday at 2:00 p.m. at the Firetower Coffee for anyone who would like to discuss the end of the book with me. It's a good book to talk about if you have questions/ideas.
- We will begin Heart of Darkness now, in order to make sure that we get it done before the break.
- Please take a copy of Heart of Darkness from the cabinet and read Book I for Tuesday.
3. Early in the novel, a woman who cleans rooms at a brothel describes the remnants of love in vivid detail. In many respects, much of the novel seems to link love to loss. How are the sacrifices that are made by men different from those made by women? Are the losses suffered by men more sentimental? Explore how GGM differentiates the loss associated with love.
4. Select another passage or series of passages and analyze GGM’s tone, and the impact of that tone on the meaning of the work as a whole. Do not use the same passage as the last essay!
5 . (CREATIVE OPTION! GASP!] Find a 1-2 page section of Love in the Time of Cholera and re-write it in the narrative voice used by Leo Tolstoy in Resurrection or find a 1-2 page section of Resurrection and re-write it in the narrative voice used by GGM in Love in the Time of Cholera.
A poem a day is good for you. Reading one a day will, according to many scientific studies, improve your chances of landing an ideal prom date, boost your self-esteem, and dramatically increase the sales of berets in your local community. With that in mind, I offer the following:
Ditty of First Desire by Frederico Garcia Lorca
In the green morning
I wanted to be a heart.
A heart.
And in the ripe evening
I wanted to be a nightingale.
A nightingale.
(Soul,
turn orange-colored.
Soul,
turn the color of love.)
In the vivid morning
I wanted to be myself.
A heart.
And at the evening's end
I wanted to be my voice.
A nightingale.
Soul,
turn orange-colored.
Soul,
turn the color of love.
Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man
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Novel
Resources
“The act of writing requires a constant
The
Invisible
A
Themes
The
The
Quotes
Really
Bildungsroman
Book
“Nobody deserves your tears,
The
"The
Other
“The blues is an art of ambiguity, an
Featured
Nobel
"Shipwrecked" —
Art
An
Information
“There must be possible a fiction
The
Invisible
PBS
Sick
Reader
Introduction
Essay
"Mementos Mon," a
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Historical Resources
“America is woven of many strands. I would
Booker
Dialectical
The
Sick
Reader
Introduction
Essay
"Mementos Mon," a Philosophy
“By and large, the critics and readers
Notes
Voyage
"The Love-Dream of a Prodigious
Sick
Reader
Introduction
Essay
"Mementos Mon," a
Review
“I am not ashamed of my
Spark
Random
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Coming Soon |
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