Passage Analysis

Yes, we're working on HofD.  But a key element of this unit is getting a serious start on the passage analysis practice that will be on-going through the AP test in May.

So we've looked at the boiler passage, crafted an opening claim, and either wrote the rest of the analytical paragraph or gathered the data for such a paragraph.  Today we looked at a model from another AP Lit class--an analytical paragraph written on a short passage from Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby.  If you were absent today, be sure to pick up a copy.

IN-CLASS today, students got started on a short analysis of 3 paragraphs from the Outer Station, beginning with "Black shapes crouched. . ." and ending  [3 paragraphs later] with " . . . let his woolly head fall on his breastbone."  Here was the prompt:  Consider such features as diction, detail, imagery, and contrast.  How do the devices in this section enhance our understanding of Marlow's view of Africa? 

If you were in class, you need to type a double-spaced copy of your response and staple whatever you did in class to the back of the completed typed analysis.  If you were absent, then you'll simply do the typed paper.

Consider that if I'd not been hampered by Wednesday, and I didn't want to wait till tomorrow, this would have been a 20 minute or so timed write--the idea would have been to have hit the most essential things, not to have been 100 percent thorough.  Yes, the passage is rich enough that one could surely do a 40-minute, multiple-paragraph timed write.  But use the Dickens piece as sort of a model here--strut your insight, not exhaustive coverage.