1. In-Class AP Essay Prep Let’s read the tips together…
Take 8 minutes to practice organizing an essay in response to the practice prompt.
Formulate a thesis
Organize structure of essay and main points…

2. Inspecting and Responding to a Prompt
What is this prompt asking?
How do we begin to formulate a response?
Let’s brainstorm and organize together…

3. Student Sample Essay – 2006 AP Literature and Composition Free-Response Exam Essay
Question: Many writers use a natural setting to establish values within a work of literature. For example, the country may be a place of virtue and peace or one of primitivism and ignorance. Choose a novel or play in which such a setting plays a significant role. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the country setting functions in the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.
Jason Ralston block 6, 2008

4. Sample 1
The country and forests of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein are introduced in contrast to the town and city setting of the piece. They are portrayed as places of good nature and solitude, whereas the cities are where Victor Frankenstein and his creation suffer most. This is the prevailing view of Mary Shelley and the Romantics, that as mankind becomes more industrially focused, it is losing the purity that nature brings.
The most happy scenes in Frankenstein occur when a character is in the country. This can be seen very visibly in the case of Victor. After creating the monster, Victor flees and succumbs to an immense feeling of shock, where he is rendered unfit to care for himself, Henry Clerval, Victor’s best friend, must do this and bring Victor back to his previous good health.

5. Sample 1
His return to sanity can be most strongly evidenced when he takes a walk, touring Ingostaldt’s country, and observes nature in all of its beauty. The reader perceives a calming effect that the country and good weather have on Victor, for he himself comments upon its healing effects.
Another character that finds his benevolence while in the country is Victor’s creation, the monster. Before the monster even intervenes in any human matters, he describes himself being the most pleasured while situated in nature. He enjoys the singing of the birds and the food that nature provides for him. Later, when the creature stumbles upon the cottage of the De Laceys, one would most likely agree that it is during this period of time that the monster is at his pinnacle of piety. The

6. Sample 1
Monster watches the cottagers and notices that when he steals from the family's food, they go unnourished and become saddened. Though he could certainly eat better at their expense, the monster instead decides to quit this habit and instead find his own sustenance, leaving the family to profit by his good-will. The monster also notes that Felix, the melancholy son of DeLacey Sr., spends most of his time chopping wood, and thus resolves that he, the monster, shall relive Felix of this task by replenishing the wood stores by night. Not only does the monster help in this environment but also learns the most while residing in the country. Felix inadvertently teaches the monster to speak and to read.
Thus it is so that the monster is the most joyful and helpful while in the realm of nature. This is a stark

7. Sample 1
contrast to when both of them enter into the cities. Both are treated with hate and scorn. For example, Victor is treated as a insane murderer when he arrives in Ireland, and the monster is obviously chased or beaten when he encounters a sizeable group of people. How does this contribute to the tone and theme of the piece as a whole? It shows the view that nature is pristine and innocent, and that where people congregate, such as town, this innocence has been spoiled by man’s knowledge and ideas which has created prejudice and viciousness.
The Romantics idealized nature for its unbroken peacefulness and innocence. Mary Shelley shows this by setting her characters in the country and having them act according to her views. Victor heals and becomes peaceful, and the monster is born free from bias in the purity of nature, so to speak.
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8. William Wordsworth Poems
Textbooks… Let’s read some more Wordsworth Poetry ( )

9. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Textbooks… Let’s read about the life of Sam T.C. and then some of his poetry.

10. Next Class!
IN CLASS AP ESSAY (Wednesday 4/12)