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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
