Along with The American Dream and Death of a Salesman, we have explored how to tackle the multiple choice section in general and with poetry. The key to looking at the passages is to get a sense of the piece and then do a closer reading. For poetry, you get a sense of the speaker, tone, images, figurative language, and situation. Then look further into each and find specific examples.
This process reminds me of how I do word searches. I always start by looking at the block of words and letting my mind notice words. Once I have hit a point where I cannot find nything else, I start to look at the block line by line and eventually, letter by letter. The clear break down of steps stops me from being overwhelmed, just as the steps for the passages are meant to do.
I have found through our practice that the only thing that hinders me from answering the multiple questions correctly is the use of vocabulcary that I am not used to. I understand the passage, but vocabulary in the stem or the alternatives confuses me, so I cannot answer the question with certainty. I have been using context of the stem and the other alternatives to help, but sometimes I cannot decide the answer. I need to look to other sources, like litereary articles, to help me extend my vocabulary.
When making a thesis statement for The American Dream, the hardest part was including all the aspects of the play. In the past, I have written papers on one motif, or one aspect of the theme. For instance I may write a paper for The American Dream on Albee's comment on dysfunctional gender roles, but I would not include every other aspect we had to work into our theme statement. Because I have never done this, I found it difficult to include everything in one statement. I am glad the entire class contributed so we could work it out, but by the time the AP exam comes around, I need to be able to do this on my own.
Excellent work synthesizing and making connections! You skipped discussion of tragedy, but otherwise this is just great.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Ms. Holmes, you do a great job with synthesis. I like how you connect the process of finding theme and motifs to word searches. I definitely feel that I go through the same process. I will try to find as many motifs as possible just in my first read, but after I feel like I have done as much as I can I will try to read the piece more in depth. Or Ms. Holmes might hand out one of those articles that give some pretty good insight on what the overall theme might be. And I agree that making a thesis statement for The American Dream was pretty hard. There was just so much we had to capture in just one or two sentences. I had never really thought about it, but I guess you’re right about only writing about one aspect of a theme in previous lit classes – I have definitely never been in a lit class where theme has been discussed in such depth.
ReplyDeleteLindsay,
ReplyDeleteI love your comparison to the word search! That's such a cool way to think about it. I often find myself getting caught up in the close reading process before I have just read it through to get a general idea. I kind of panic when I am put under time constraints and forget to go through that process. I agree that the vocabulary in the questions and stems is one of the hardest parts of the multiple choice, because it's harder to get context. I would have liked to hear some more of your thoughts on the way we studied D.O.S. and your thoughts on watching the movie as our first read through. Other than that and Ms. Holmes's comment about leaving out our discussion on tragedy, this is a great analysis of our material. Like I said in my response to your first response to course material, I admire your ability to not just summarize what we did in class.