AP Exam Debrief
After taking the exam, I felt a feeling of accomplishment rather than dread. That is when I realized just how prepared I was for taking this exam and how much the class actually helped me in the end. One of the most useful in-class activities (in terms of preparing for the AP exam) was when we would analyze sonnets or prose as a class and practice writing a thesis for each passage. I learned that the thesis is the backbone of the essay and that the "so what" should be introduced in the thesis paragraph so that my essay can have a clear focus to it. I also learned the importance of analysis in an essay and how deadly summary can be (which really did help me in the end!). I also found the weekly MC practice useful because it is fairly painless compared to taking full length MC exams during a class period. I also think that the works charts we did were really helpful in preparing for the open question because they refreshed me on the overall meaning of each novel and gave me ideas on what I should talk about for each topic. As far as lit works go, there weren't any that I particularly disliked. I thought Ibsen's A Dolls House was a very good choice for us to read because it is so easy to incorporate into different types of open questions. I found Winesburg, Ohio a bit more difficult to talk about so I would have to put that one at the bottom of my list of most liked... [it definitely has merit but I found it overwhelming with all of the different plot lines so I couldn't do an open question outline on it :( ] Overall, there isn't much that I would change about the course or the curriculum. I feel that a great majority of the stuff we did was necessary for our preparation and that there isn't much I would add to it. Thank you for being a great teacher this year and encouraging me to grow in my writing and analysis skills! They will definitely help me out in college!
Monday, May 13, 2013
AP Lit Blog - Anastasia Kishiniovski (Earnest Comments)
Response to The Importance of Being Earnest
I realized that I forgot to make this blog with all of the chaos going on last week involving AP exams. So I will do my response to the play now. I can say that I was rather surprised with the ending since the main character had a pleasant conclusion. This type of ending comes off as atypical for one of Oscar Wilde's works but I think the fact that Jack's lineage popped up out of nowhere and that he is suddenly able to marry Gwendolen is part of Wilde's social commentary on the lives of the elite upper class and how everything falls into place for them. This ties back to the theme of the serious being trivial and the trivial being serious. Both Jack and Algernon play around with their identities and names because these are things that the two consider to be unimportant, yet they stress so much importance on who is eating all of the muffins. I think Wilde is trying to reveal just how convoluted the minds of the super rich are. He also does this to point out how ridiculous it is to be shallow with a person's family name when so much importance is stressed on the minor details, like Jack's address in London. I also find it interesting that Jack and Algernon turned out to be brothers and that Algernon is a brought to life version of the imaginary "Earnest Worthing" who is notable for his troublesome behavior. I also noticed that the gender roles are slightly tangled up in this play. It was brought up that a man's place is in the home, which would normally be a woman's place. This totally conflicts with the "separate spheres" that were established in the late 19th century. All of the women in the play also have a very dominant role over the men and their actions. Cecily and Gwendolen for example both stand up for themselves and tell off Jack and Algernon. This interaction puts the men in the victim role as they are afraid of upsetting the women and they retreat into the house. Jack's fear of Lady Bracknell also empowers women in this play. Lady Bracknell plays a confident and dominant role and causes Jack strife in his efforts to marry Gwendolen. With Lady Bracknell as a blocking force, Jack is again victimized and put into a corner by the force of a woman. The reversals of gender roles here and the reversal of the trivial vs. serious also contributed to the chiasmus of the play. One of my favorite lines in the play that generated this chiasmus was "I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy"(Act I). Hypocrisy is usually when a person pretends to be good but is, in reality, very bad. This is an implication of chiasmus, as the whole play seems to be. I enjoyed this aspect of the play very much because the wit had meaning to it and was not funny for the sake of being funny.
I realized that I forgot to make this blog with all of the chaos going on last week involving AP exams. So I will do my response to the play now. I can say that I was rather surprised with the ending since the main character had a pleasant conclusion. This type of ending comes off as atypical for one of Oscar Wilde's works but I think the fact that Jack's lineage popped up out of nowhere and that he is suddenly able to marry Gwendolen is part of Wilde's social commentary on the lives of the elite upper class and how everything falls into place for them. This ties back to the theme of the serious being trivial and the trivial being serious. Both Jack and Algernon play around with their identities and names because these are things that the two consider to be unimportant, yet they stress so much importance on who is eating all of the muffins. I think Wilde is trying to reveal just how convoluted the minds of the super rich are. He also does this to point out how ridiculous it is to be shallow with a person's family name when so much importance is stressed on the minor details, like Jack's address in London. I also find it interesting that Jack and Algernon turned out to be brothers and that Algernon is a brought to life version of the imaginary "Earnest Worthing" who is notable for his troublesome behavior. I also noticed that the gender roles are slightly tangled up in this play. It was brought up that a man's place is in the home, which would normally be a woman's place. This totally conflicts with the "separate spheres" that were established in the late 19th century. All of the women in the play also have a very dominant role over the men and their actions. Cecily and Gwendolen for example both stand up for themselves and tell off Jack and Algernon. This interaction puts the men in the victim role as they are afraid of upsetting the women and they retreat into the house. Jack's fear of Lady Bracknell also empowers women in this play. Lady Bracknell plays a confident and dominant role and causes Jack strife in his efforts to marry Gwendolen. With Lady Bracknell as a blocking force, Jack is again victimized and put into a corner by the force of a woman. The reversals of gender roles here and the reversal of the trivial vs. serious also contributed to the chiasmus of the play. One of my favorite lines in the play that generated this chiasmus was "I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy"(Act I). Hypocrisy is usually when a person pretends to be good but is, in reality, very bad. This is an implication of chiasmus, as the whole play seems to be. I enjoyed this aspect of the play very much because the wit had meaning to it and was not funny for the sake of being funny.
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