Writing a Response to a Prompt on the AP Exam Tips for beginning

Essay Questions Answer all parts of the question- Pay attention to what it asks Highlight or underline the important verbs (what it is telling you to do) and phrases (what it wants you to do it to) Read as many old questions as you can and just plan out an answer

What not to do Don’t need to tell the reader what the task is Don’t need to tell the reader that this is your favorite writer or anything else you “like” Don’t need to tell the reader how good the book is or how it changed you! JUST answer the question

The reader… Doesn’t need an outline of what you will write about Doesn’t need you to just recopy the prompt Use the prompt to write your position

Sample Prompt Mark up this prompt: “In the passage that follows, the speaker presents a picture of leisure in the past and leisure in the present. Write an essay in which you discuss the speaker’s attitude toward both past and contemporary leisure and the stylistic devices used to convey both views.”

What is the prompt asking you to do? Defining the attitudes to the past Defining the attitudes to the present Discussing the style the passage uses to present “old leisure” Discussing the style the passage uses to present contemporary leisure

Structure and organization Use the organization given to you in the prompt What does Elliot think of leisure in her day? What does Elliot think of “old leisure”? Stylistic devices used to describe modern leisure (ie. diction and the contrasts she makes) Other devices of style used to describe old Leisure Personification, irony, allusion, etc. PLAN before you write

Read these two introductions… 1. George Elliot presents “old leisure” in a more relaxed way than on leisure in society of her own time through the uses of tone, syntax, and imagery. 2. In this selection, George Elliot reminisces about “Old Leisure” – “Old Leisure” that was killed with the introduction of the Industrial and Scientific Revolution (represented by the steam engine), “Old Leisure” that incorporated spinning wheels, pack horses, and slow wagons. She describes her longing for this Old Leisure through personification, contrast, diction and gentle sarcasm.

And these two… 3. In this passage, Eliot presents a conception of leisure in which he begins by comparing the absence of leisure to the absence of the Old West. The author has a very pessimistic view towards today’s leisure, or what people consider to be leisurable. The present form of leisure is only discussed in the first thirteen lines of this passage, and the good, old leisure is discussed in the rest. 4. George Eliot longs for a time long gone. She laments the replacement of “old leisure” by the leisure of her own society. Eliot feels that it has lost feeling, lost personality. She feels the leisure has become a representative of the masses rather than the individualistic whims of the few.

2004 Question 1 prompt The following passage comes from Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton (1848), novel about mill workers living in Manchester, England, in the 1840s. In this scene, George Wilson, one of the workers, goes to the house of Mr. Carson, the mill owner, to request care for a fellow worker dying of typhus. Read the passage carefully. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze how Gaskell uses elements such as point of view, selection of detail, dialogue, and characterization to make a social commentary.