Romeo and Juliet, Candide, Death of a Salesman, Hamlet. These are excellent literary works by respected authors throughout the history of the English language, how can I, a 16 year old high school scrub, even attempt to battle this army of literary generals?
I can't.
Literature is an important field of study, I mean I'm sure Bill Gate's hours of high school reading cliff notes or whatever existed back then to translate Shakespeare easily catapulted him into his success in the job market. While this probably isn't true there are people who go to college and pay their hard earned money to study something with no job potential other than teaching that subject, Art History, Philosophy and the like. I have the utmost respect for these people as they are spending their (or their parents') hard earned money to study something they enjoy and that is absolutely fine. What I personally don't like about A.P. Lit is the structure of the test and the reading material itself.
Literature is not a definite science. Teacher and students alike spend many a class period wondering what the man in the yellow hat symbolized. Or what the theme of a novel is. There are in these instances more than one right answer, not always but it is a strong possibility. And don't get me started on poetry. Forty five percent of your score on the AP Lit exam is multiple choice, where you analyze passages and poems to see if you can think the same way the test-maker does. While it isn't an every question epidemic its more common than not that a wrong answer has proper justification based on your analysis of the literary piece, but since you didn't think like the test-maker you got that question wrong. Aw, there goes your 5 on the test, poor you. This type of error shouldn't be on a test where the sole purpose is grasp your understand of the class material as, in those instances, selecting the wrong answer still demonstrates a proper mastery of literary devices and the ability to read closely and analyze.
The essays I have no problems with, as you have a chance to support your justification in answer to these prompts, and while the grading may not be perfect it is on the same par as that of your English class and not subjective enough to cause concern.
I hate serial killers. My feelings toward complex writing and poetry are much worse. Today in my AP Lit class we were taking a diagnostic test and I had just finished the multiple choice (and got a respectable score of 47% right) and had moved onto the essay questions. Number one was some poppy-cock about how an author gives insight to a character. I read the passage. I read it again. Then a third, fourth and fifth time and still didn't get it. I'm not stupid either...well not in terms of school work anyways. I read books by David Baldacci, James, Patterson, Dan Brown, Khaled Hosseini regularly and hell for what its worth I got a 5 on the A.P. Lang test while maintaining an A test average. The style these "classics" were written in is simply an anachronism in today's literary world. The diction is old and outdated but the meaning to be conveyed is not told or shown but left for the reader to infer after reading a seemingly unrelated passage. All I got from the passage was that Gabriel's (the character in the passage) wife is ugly as dog but was attractive before he married her. How I was supposed to write an essay on that I don't know.
Considering my AP Lit teacher hasn't even had the chance to teach us anything I'm sure I'll be better off once I actually get some instruction but my distaste here is writing shouldn't be complex. I blame not Shakespeare for writing in a manner that requires sparknotes to have translation for every page, as that was probably considered normal in the 1500's, but for me to have to sit here and make sense of 500 year old work is ridiculous. The great authors to me have books that are simple to read yet have a subtle complexity that keeps from being boring writers. Vivid images, strong adjectives, intense plots and strong characters are keys to a good story. If the goal is to inform then the information should be easy to understand. Learning a new subject is difficult enough without having to sift through the carnage of metaphors to understand something.
A good piece of writing is one that a common man can read but a sophisticated and educated man can appreciate.
The same thing doesn't apply to poetry though as the objective there is indeed to convey a meaning with a subtlety through various poetic devices I have yet to learn. Poetry is a skill few can master and I respect it tremendously. Shakespeare wrote BOOKS in iambic pentameter. Hundreds of pages, thousands of words all in the same meter takes skill. But I strongly favor my brain's left hemisphere and simply have trouble understand the confusing style poems are written in, and then seeing what that represents. If I want to get meaning from something Ill find something that tells me without all the red-tape in between. I might not get it in such a "Aha!" way but in the end I have the meaning don't I? If poetry's your thing then by all means keep writing and keep reading but I prefer writing that makes me want to turn the page, not crumple it up and practice my jump shot with it
All in all I think I'm going to have a tough time as AP Lit is different in the sense that English 9 and English 10 both prepared me for AP Lang and now I sort of have to adapt of a different style of writing, different from the past 3 years of English classes so this learning curve combined with all these college applications this should be an exciting senior year. As always thanks for reading!
I can't.
Literature is an important field of study, I mean I'm sure Bill Gate's hours of high school reading cliff notes or whatever existed back then to translate Shakespeare easily catapulted him into his success in the job market. While this probably isn't true there are people who go to college and pay their hard earned money to study something with no job potential other than teaching that subject, Art History, Philosophy and the like. I have the utmost respect for these people as they are spending their (or their parents') hard earned money to study something they enjoy and that is absolutely fine. What I personally don't like about A.P. Lit is the structure of the test and the reading material itself.
Literature is not a definite science. Teacher and students alike spend many a class period wondering what the man in the yellow hat symbolized. Or what the theme of a novel is. There are in these instances more than one right answer, not always but it is a strong possibility. And don't get me started on poetry. Forty five percent of your score on the AP Lit exam is multiple choice, where you analyze passages and poems to see if you can think the same way the test-maker does. While it isn't an every question epidemic its more common than not that a wrong answer has proper justification based on your analysis of the literary piece, but since you didn't think like the test-maker you got that question wrong. Aw, there goes your 5 on the test, poor you. This type of error shouldn't be on a test where the sole purpose is grasp your understand of the class material as, in those instances, selecting the wrong answer still demonstrates a proper mastery of literary devices and the ability to read closely and analyze.
The essays I have no problems with, as you have a chance to support your justification in answer to these prompts, and while the grading may not be perfect it is on the same par as that of your English class and not subjective enough to cause concern.
I hate serial killers. My feelings toward complex writing and poetry are much worse. Today in my AP Lit class we were taking a diagnostic test and I had just finished the multiple choice (and got a respectable score of 47% right) and had moved onto the essay questions. Number one was some poppy-cock about how an author gives insight to a character. I read the passage. I read it again. Then a third, fourth and fifth time and still didn't get it. I'm not stupid either...well not in terms of school work anyways. I read books by David Baldacci, James, Patterson, Dan Brown, Khaled Hosseini regularly and hell for what its worth I got a 5 on the A.P. Lang test while maintaining an A test average. The style these "classics" were written in is simply an anachronism in today's literary world. The diction is old and outdated but the meaning to be conveyed is not told or shown but left for the reader to infer after reading a seemingly unrelated passage. All I got from the passage was that Gabriel's (the character in the passage) wife is ugly as dog but was attractive before he married her. How I was supposed to write an essay on that I don't know.
Considering my AP Lit teacher hasn't even had the chance to teach us anything I'm sure I'll be better off once I actually get some instruction but my distaste here is writing shouldn't be complex. I blame not Shakespeare for writing in a manner that requires sparknotes to have translation for every page, as that was probably considered normal in the 1500's, but for me to have to sit here and make sense of 500 year old work is ridiculous. The great authors to me have books that are simple to read yet have a subtle complexity that keeps from being boring writers. Vivid images, strong adjectives, intense plots and strong characters are keys to a good story. If the goal is to inform then the information should be easy to understand. Learning a new subject is difficult enough without having to sift through the carnage of metaphors to understand something.
A good piece of writing is one that a common man can read but a sophisticated and educated man can appreciate.
The same thing doesn't apply to poetry though as the objective there is indeed to convey a meaning with a subtlety through various poetic devices I have yet to learn. Poetry is a skill few can master and I respect it tremendously. Shakespeare wrote BOOKS in iambic pentameter. Hundreds of pages, thousands of words all in the same meter takes skill. But I strongly favor my brain's left hemisphere and simply have trouble understand the confusing style poems are written in, and then seeing what that represents. If I want to get meaning from something Ill find something that tells me without all the red-tape in between. I might not get it in such a "Aha!" way but in the end I have the meaning don't I? If poetry's your thing then by all means keep writing and keep reading but I prefer writing that makes me want to turn the page, not crumple it up and practice my jump shot with it
All in all I think I'm going to have a tough time as AP Lit is different in the sense that English 9 and English 10 both prepared me for AP Lang and now I sort of have to adapt of a different style of writing, different from the past 3 years of English classes so this learning curve combined with all these college applications this should be an exciting senior year. As always thanks for reading!
Oh my. I love this post so much! I never felt so strongly about unreadable writing until I complained about John Stuart Mill's On Liberty during a class where that was one of the main readings. My professor gave me an A for an assignment where I basically blasted him for not being straightforward, and since then I've been on a roll.
ReplyDeleteBut anyway, I dig the point about the open-ended questions being the better ones. There is simply no way to correlate yes or no questions with a legitimate education when the literature at question is so open for interpretation!
That is awesome! I'd never have to guts to pull something like that off in class. But great writers think alike!
ReplyDeleteDon't try that in high school. Be a little bit more on the safe side hahaha
ReplyDelete