Student N
This student's intro is a little longer than I would have liked. However, it works well because Student N is thorough throughout. The writer lays out exactly what they are writing a they hope to answer in their thesis paragraph. I personally think that this writer had a fully developed argument, and that this essay was sufficient to get a 9, but I'm no AP grader.
Student J
The AP graders said that Student J's writing was too reliant on the plot, and I would agree. The entire essay built off of its own plot summary. The essay was more of a summary than anything else. I have not read Huckleberry Finn, but I did not need to to fully understand this essay. All summary aside, the writer made some valid points.
Student U
The first sentence made me not want to read the essay. It was bad. I may not be the best writer, but even I know not to write a lead like that. The thesis paragraph never ends too. If the reader cannot be grabbed by an intro, the writer has ultimately failed. Plot summary is prevalent as well, but not too much, only because there is not much to this essay. This essay seems half formed.
Hi Nick,
ReplyDeleteFor the first writer, what were some things they did well? If their writing was the best of the three, what made it the best? The point of reading and reviewing these essays was to not only show us what not to do, but what to do as well. What sort of things made their argument seem fully developed? Did they use textual evidence from the book? How about their thesis paragraph? Was that complete? Did it answer the question, in that if you were to cut off the rest of the essay, would the prompt be answered? You know what the writer is going to talk about, but does that fit the question asked?
Nick---
ReplyDeleteLike Jeffery, I think you could benefit from being a bit more specific when you analyze these essays. It would help if you gave each one of them a grade. I don't want to be redundant, and Jeffery really wrote out all of the questions I would have, but I can offer one other thing. I've found it really helpful to reference the AP essay rubric while you read these essays. Not only will this make you more familiar with the grading scale come May, but you will end up noting some things that can make your own essays better.
Hi Nick,
ReplyDeleteYou might want to change the title of this because I think this post is suppose to be Open Prompt part 1. You need more meat to these analysis. First talk about the essay as a whole like about organization and then go into specifics. Though you may not be an AP grader don't hesitate to show express your thoughts as a writer because i know that some of these essays need all the help they can get.