I think the first response is a little confusing in the
beginning. Normally, the beginning paragraph is short, sweet, and to the point.
That’s what good essays normally do. I also found this essay to be really
repetitive when they were talking about Wolsey. “it reflects Wolsey’s complex
reaction… Wolsey describes…Wolsey has… when Wolsey uses” all of which are in
the second paragraph. Maybe its just me being picky, but I hate repetition like
this. Another thing that bothers me about this essay is how bad the handwriting
is, words are smooshed together into a confusing heap of letters, and I have a
hard time thinking that this essay got a 9 because I can’t even understand what
they are saying. Obviously I disagree with the score, It was still a good essay,
but I don’t think that it deserves a 9.
The whole essay is confusing, and not just because the handwriting sucks. The
beginning is long and I had to go back and read many sentences over just so
that I could get what they were saying. I think that it deserves a 7 or an 8.
I honestly think that the second essay was the same if not
better than the first, however, I’m not sure that’s a super solid judgment
seeing how I haven’t actually read the play. I liked the use of quotes, the
first essay was short on them, and I think that this one did a great job of
backing up claims with direct quotes from the text. I think that this makes a stronger
argument, and nearly always leaves you with a good essay. I think that this essay deserves a seven, so
the scorers were on par there. I also liked in the beginning when the writer
talked about how Wolsey thought himself an angel, and then at the end of the
essay, they wrote about how he considered himself a fallen angel like Lucifer.
The third essay was just a mess. The beginning paragraph
talks about all of the things that the essay will explore, and gets you all
hyped up to read a super awesome essay, and then the rest just rips those
dreams down. The beginning paragraph is great, it truly deserves some
recognition, but the rest of the essay was struggling. Although it was long,
there was no main point to this essay, and leaves you confused. I agree with
the score of a 4 on this one.
Rachel,
ReplyDeleteNice job analyzing these student essays. I really liked how you formed your own opinions and did not just agree with everything that the grader said. It shows that you really took the time to read and reflect on the essays. Nice job using literary terms, such as repetition while talking about about the first essay. I am always impressed when I see classmates using different terms because it shows how much we are learning. While your analysis was pretty good I would say that it was a little brief; especially for the last essay. Adding a few quotes and a little more analysis would improve this post a lot i think! Overall nice job with coming to your own conclusions about these essays and noting important things about them.
Rachel, good job critiquing each of these student essays. Which test and year was this from? I totally agree that sloppy handwriting is extremely frustrating when trying to analyze these essays. I wish neatness was on the rubric for the AP graders, however since it is not we must still suffer and attempt to read this essays as close as possible. Anyways, I like how much you stated your own opinion of these essays and used specific examples of DIDLS to support your reasoning. I too have read a 9 essay and thought it deserved a lower grade, which is a little frustrating because it makes it harder to tell what a 9 essay is. Overall this was a good post however I would provide maybe a few more specific examples of why you did not like the third essay, giving some more similar to your description of the first essay, would strengthen this post.
ReplyDeleteRachel,
ReplyDeleteI really would like to have seen the prompt to these essays or have a link to them or something, because I honestly have no idea what they're about, and therefore I don't really understand your critiques of them. The lack of specific examples also hinders my ability to understand why you wrote what you wrote. Quotes from the essays themselves would have helped me greatly. In regard to what you wrote about using quotes, I would argue against the usage of many direct quotes when writing an AP essay, for in the clutches of the AP exam there is very little time to remember specific quotes from a text and use them and explain them all. While it is always effective outside of an AP essay context, I would argue that the usage of quotes should be kept to a minimum, and that effective analysis of symbols, theme, plot (but no unnecessary summary!) should be emphasized. Now, if you have it in your ability to use quotes in an AP essay effectively, by all means do so, for they do help an essay along, but my opinions lean towards using as few quotes as possible for sheer practical purposes.