Prose Analysis Essay for the AP Language and Composition Exam

1
Prose Analysis Essay for the AP Language and
Composition Exam

• Introduction
• Information
• Advice

2
Just what is IT?

• In the prose analysis essay,
• Students are presented with a prose passage that
  can be drawn from various genres and time periods
  (but mostly from non-fiction).
• Students are asked to analyze the language,
  including rhetorical strategies and stylistic
  elements.

3
What is the Purpose?

• The College Board wants to determine your
  facility with reading, understanding, and
  analyzing challenging texts.
• They also want to asses how well you manipulate
  language to communicate a written analysis of a
  specific topic to a mature audience.
• In short, they want to see that your level of
  writing is a direct reflection of your critical
  thinking skills.

4
Rhetorical Strategies

• Description
• Narration
• Examples
• Comparison/Contrast
• Process
• Analysis
• Classification
• Argument

5
Stylistic Elements

• Diction
• Syntax
• Structure
• Content
• Rhetorical Devices (see Vocabulary)

6
What do they WANT?

• AP is looking for connections between your
  analysis and the passage
• For example, if you find an image in a piece,
  you must
• identify it,
• connect it to the prompt
• AND then
• connect it to the attitude, purpose, or main idea
  of the passage/author.

7
What kinds of questions?

• Analyze an authors view on a specific subject.
• Analyze rhetorical devices used by an author to
  achieve his or her purpose.
• Analyze stylistic elements in a passage and their
  effects.
• Analyze the authors tone and how the author
  conveys his tone.
• Compare and/or contrast two passages with regard
  to style, purpose, or tone.
• Analyze the authors purpose and how he or she
  achieves it.
• Analyze some of the ways an author recreates a
  real or imagined experience.
• Analyze how an author presents him or herself in
  the passage.
• Discuss the intended and/or probable effect of a
  passage.

8
Can you give me examples of actual questions?

• Carefully read the following passage by ___.
  Then, paying particular attention to the changing
  tone within the passage, write an essay in which
  you analyze the techniques the author used to
  express his attitude toward ___.
• The passage below is from ___ by ___. Read the
  entire passage carefully. Then write an essay
  analyzing the rhetorical strategies the author
  employs to convey her attitude toward ___.
• Read the following two passages about ___
  carefully. Then write an essay in which you
  analyze how the distinctive style of each passage
  reveals the purpose of its writer.

9
What to do?

• Be prepared to write an essay based on any of
  these prompts.
• Practice!
• Anticipate questions when you read a work.
• Keep a list/copy of the questions discussed
  and/or written on in class.
• Review handouts.
• Keep in mind that MC and PA are related.

10
One constant

• No matter the length, complexity, time, or or
  author of the passage,
• The task remains consistentRHETORICAL ANALYSIS.
• The source will change.BUT
• THE TOOLS REMAIN THE SAME.
• Therefore,
• Knowledge of the terms and processes is CRUCIAL.

11
The PROCESS -- PROMPT

• READ THE PROMPT TWICE.
• WORK The PROMPT by underlining, highlighting,
  coding, or circling the key words and making
  notes.
• Make sure you know what the prompt is asking you
  do to before you proceed.
• Sometimes the incidental data in the prompt can
  prove helpful to beginning your essay.

12
Read and Annotate the Passage

• 1. Read quickly to get the gist of the passage.
• 2. Reread slowly, highlighting, noting, coding,
  etc.work our your own system.
• 3. Skim the high points to make sure you have
  caught the full impact of the passage.

13
WRITING THE ESSAY

• STUDY AND USE
• SOAPStone, Rhetorical Framework, Reading Journals
• Use Handouts
• Use this PPT.
• Also, use any other handouts available
• Rhetorical Vocabulary
• Tone/Style/Syntax
• Power Verbs
• Etc.

14
GENERAL TIPS

• DO NOT BE OVERCONFIDENT
• But, on the other hand,
• Do not be thrown by the complexity of the
  passage.
• YOU choose the strategies, remember?
• THEREFORE, BE SURE TO
• ADDRESS THE PROMPT and then
• RESPOND TO THE PARTS OF THE PASSAGE YOU DO
  UNDERSTAND!

15
SPECIFIC TIPS

• NOTE THE TIME YOU STARTED IN THE MARGIN AND THE
  TIME YOU MUST FINISH.
• YOU MUST ANNOTATE AND TAKE NOTES before you
  write.
• CHOOSE SPECIFIC strategies to use as soon as you
  can.
• Ignore what you do not understand
• Focus on what you do know.

16
Analysis Organization Thematic

• Introduce the text and author
• Summarize or describe
• Give pertinent context
• Provide pertinent biographical details
• Thesis How the text works what it means

• Analyze the text
• Identify a theme or pattern
• Use examples from the text
• and appropriate contexts as evidence
• Continue with 2-4 points (or more) as needed

Restate the thesis, relating it to larger (world,
text) issues /views HOW THE TEXT / AUTHOR
WORKS WHAT IT MEANS!
17
Analysis Organization Chunking

• Introduce the text and author
• Summarize or describe
• Give pertinent context
• Provide pertinent biographical details
• Thesis How the text works what it means

• Analyze first section of text
• Use examples from the text
• and appropriate contexts as
• evidence

• Analyze next section of text
• Use examples from the text
• and appropriate contexts as
• evidence

• Continue sections as needed.
• Use examples from the text
• and appropriate contexts as
• evidence

Restate the thesis, relating it to larger (world,
text) issues /views HOW THE TEXT / AUTHOR
WORKS WHAT IT MEANS!
18
How is PA related to MC?

• BOTH are Rhetorical Analysis!
• You are looking for the answers to two basic
  questions
• WHO is the writer/speaker?
• WHAT is the meaning of the passage?
• What is the attitude of the writer/speaker?
• HOW does the author convey or reveal it?
• WHAT strategies does he/she use?