1. Making up for the First Seven Weeks!
AP English Literature 101
Making up for the First Seven Weeks!

2. Format of the Exam Multiple Choice 45% of your overall score
4-5 passages (combination of poetry, prose, and drama)
10-15 questions per passage
55 questions, 60 minutes

3. Format of the Exam Essays 55% of your overall score
3 essays, 120 minutes (approximately 40 minutes each)
Prose
Poetry
Open

4. Sample AP Essays
2015 Prose: The following excerpt is from the opening of The Beet Queen, a 1986 novel by Louise Erdrich. Read the passage carefully. Then write a well-developed essay in which you analyze how Erdrich depicts the impact of the environment on the two children. You may wish to consider such literary devices as tone, imagery, selection of detail, and point of view.

5. Sample AP Essays
2015 Poetry: In the following poem by Caribbean writer Derek Walcott, the speaker recalls a childhood experience of visiting an elderly woman storyteller. Read the poem carefully. Then, in a well-developed essay, discuss the speaker’s recollection and analyze how Walcott uses poetic devices to convey the significance of the experience.

6. Sample AP Essays
2014 Prose: The following passage is from the novel The Known World by Edward P. Jones. Read the passage carefully. Then, in a well-organized essay, analyze how the author reveals the character of Moses. In your analysis, you may wish to consider such literary elements as point of view, selection of detail, and imagery.

7. Sample AP Essays
2014 Poetry: The following poem is by the sixteenth-century English poet George Gascoigne. Read the poem carefully. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the complex attitude of the speaker is developed through such devices as form, diction, and imagery.

8. The first step . . . Is determining what the prompt wants you to do!
Change the prompt to TWO QUESTIONS.
What question: What is the speaker doing?
How question: How does the speaker do it?
Try writing what/how questions for each of the prompts.

9. Write the questions for:
2015 Prose: The following excerpt is from the opening of The Beet Queen, a 1986 novel by Louise Erdrich. Read the passage carefully. Then write a well-developed essay in which you analyze how Erdrich depicts the impact of the environment on the two children. You may wish to consider such literary devices as tone, imagery, selection of detail, and point of view.

10. Essay Questions What is the impact of the environment on the children?
How does the speaker use literary devices, such as tone, imagery, selection of detail, and point of view to depict the environment?

11. Write the questions for:
2015 Poetry: In the following poem by Caribbean writer Derek Walcott, the speaker recalls a childhood experience of visiting an elderly woman storyteller. Read the poem carefully. Then, in a well-developed essay, discuss the speaker’s recollection and analyze how Walcott uses poetic devices to convey the significance of the experience.

12. Essay Questions
What is significant about the childhood recollection of visiting an elderly woman story teller?
How does the speaker use literary devices to convey the significance?

13. Write the questions for:
2014 Prose: The following passage is from the novel The Known World by Edward P. Jones. Read the passage carefully. Then, in a well-organized essay, analyze how the author reveals the character of Moses. In your analysis, you may wish to consider such literary elements as point of view, selection of detail, and imagery.

14. Essay Questions What is Moses like?
How does the speaker use literary elements such as point of view, selection of detail, and imagery to character to reveal Moses’ character?

15. Write the questions for:
2014 Poetry: The following poem is by the sixteenth-century English poet George Gascoigne. Read the poem carefully. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the complex attitude of the speaker is developed through such devices as form, diction, and imagery.

16. Essay Questions What is the complex attitude of the speaker?
How does the speaker use devices, such as form, diction, and imagery to convey the attitude?

17. AP English Lit Mantra FORM follows FUNCTION. Form—literary devices
Function—the purpose the literary devices achieve
Function is MOST important.

18. Close Reading Close Reading can be completed on ANY text.
Close reading is reading with a purpose.
Close reading means reading and re- reading.
Close reading is slow.
Close reading means thinking about what you’re reading.

19. Ms. Barnett’s Steps for Close Reading
1. Narrative: Who is speaking to whom?
Talk about the speaker, not the author.
What is going on? What is the situation? Is there a “back story”?
Can you imagine what happened before this?
Point of View: first person, second person, third person limited, third person omniscient

20. Ms. Barnett’s Steps for Close Reading
2. DIDLS=Tone
Diction: author’s word choice, connotation and associations with the words chosen
Which words stand out to you?
Are there strong connotations on any words?
Does the speaker use mainly one specific part of speech?
Does the speaker use formal, informal, colloquial, or slang diction?

21. Ms. Barnett’s Steps for Close Reading
2. DIDLS=Tone
Imagery: the images the author presents
What does the author want you to see, smell, taste, touch, hear?
Details: What details are included or omitted?
Why does the speaker think it important to include or not include these specific details?

22. Ms. Barnett’s Steps for Close Reading
2. DIDLS=Tone
Language (all those literary devices your teachers made you learn!)
Figurative Language: Allegory, Apostrophe, Allusion, Hyperbole, Metaphor, Onomatopoeia, Personification, Simile, symbolism
Repetition: Alliteration, Anaphora, Assonance, Consonance, Euphony, Cacophony, Rhyme
Juxtaposition: Irony, Inversion, Paradox, Oxymoron, Pun, Satire

23. Ms. Barnett’s Steps for Close Reading
2. DIDLS=Tone
Structure: How is the passage organized?
Form
Sentence structure/syntax
Shift

24. Ms. Barnett’s Steps for Close Reading
3. Tone: The speaker’s attitude
Should be based on the analysis conducted
Use the tonal scale to help determine the speaker’s attitude

25. Ms. Barnett’s Steps for Close Reading
4. Theme: the author’s “message”
Follow this template:
Title, a genre by author is about abstract concept and reveals that theme.
Punctuate titles correctly!!