My Goals for the Upcoming Period

• I hope to get my grade up to an A.
• I want improve the score on the practice AP tests, and become better at taking them.
• To achieve this I'll just try to do more practice tests and practice the techniques we were given about how to do well on the exam.
• I'm going to work on my writing to improve on things we talked about in class, especially concision.
• Hopefully by practicing analyzing more poetry, I will be able to understand the deeper meaning better and more quickly. 
• I'm going to try and increase my vocabulary.

What I'm Thinking About Reading and Writing in College

       I don't really know too much about reading and writing in college, but I don't really plan to focus very much on reading or writing in college. While I enjoy English, I want to focus on art and graphic design in college. I would be interested though in maybe taking a few literature classes since there are so many options and, I'm sure, interesting classes. I feel pretty prepared, not completely, but I'm used a pretty large workload with all of my classes this year and last year, and I feel like i've learned a lot so far in my literature classes. 

My Areas of Weakness as an AP Lit Student

• Sometimes I don't completely catch on to the real meaning of poems and only understand what's on the surface.
• When we read "Hidden Meanings" I understood everything well after we realized the real meaning of the poem, but I'm not sure that I would have come across that on my own. 
• I need to work on using more direct and precise language in my writing. 
• My Poetry analysis essay wasn't precise enough.
• I don't think my annotations are really thorough enough so I need to work on that.
• I'm kind of a slow reader, which isn't so good for the AP exam.
• I need to work on test-taking skills for the AP test.
• I didn't do fantastic on the practice test we did. 
• My vocabulary is pretty weak so I need to work on learning more vocab and literary terms. 

My Areas of Strength as an AP Lit Student

• I think I'm alright at using textual evidence in my writing. 
• I am pretty good at organization.
• my class notes are very organized
• I usually have good study habits
• I didn't do too badly on the critical approaches test.
• I made a chart to study from about the critical approaches.
• I took notes on all of the summer readings so I had good notes to study for the test (if I had known the test was on the first day and studied).

What I've Learned So Far

Poetry

Language condensed to artistic affect. 

Poetry is a wilderness and you can explore it but can't conquer all of it

-teacher usually takes you on an easy "guided nature walk"

• Ways to develop understanding and appreciation: 

• read it more than once
• keep and use a dictionary (mythology book and Bible also good reference)
• read aloud of lip-read
• pay careful attention to what poem is saying
• read slowly and don't exaggerate rhythmical pattern
• paraphrase poem to understand theme

• denotation- exact definition in dictionary
• connotation- cultural baggage for word

Figurative Language

• Figure of Speech- any way of saying something other than the ordinary way 
• adds extra dimensions
• can say what we want more vividly and forcefully
• saying one thing while meaning another

The Rhetorical Situation- the context of communication

• Evaluate elements of communication to figure out how to respond
• Rhetoric- art of communication
• Elements- 
• Subject: what is your topic? main ideas?
• Purpose: what you want to get out of this.
• Main purposes-
• Entertain- rousing emotion/imagination
• Reflect- reflecting "us" (journals, blogs, etc)
• Inform- convey facts (dictionary, encyclopedia, etc)
• Persuade- change audience's ideas (editorials, political, speeches, etc)
• Audience: who are you writing to? (age, education level, expectations)
• Speaker(Persona): what kind of person do you want to seem like? (yourself/fictional personality, attitude) what would connect you to audience?
• Think ahead to avoid bad communication.

Argument- persuasive communication

• Logical Argument (logos)
• Appeals to Ethnics (ethos)
• Appeals to Emotions (pathos)

Writing Style and Syntax

• Concision
• key to concision:
• build around strong verbs
• choose active voice over passive
• be suspicious of adverbs
• toss out empty words and phrases

How does author use technique to create affect and what does it mean?

The AP Exam

The Open Prompt

2 main categories of questions:

• critical theory questions- make a statement about the function of a literary element and show how this is true of some pieces you've already read.
• content questions- theme focused, have to show how this theme is developed in a piece you've already read.

Have to recall previously read literature to support responses.

• may ask for only pieces in a certain time period, or a certain type of literature (poems, novels, etc.)
• So be efficient: have a poem from one time period, and a novel from another to cover both possibilities.

More Poetry

Tone

• speaker's attitude toward the subject, reader, or himself
• emotional meaning 
• affects interpretation
• tone can vary or shift throughout poem- achieve poet's purpose to create dramatic structure

Rhythm-wavelike recurrence of motion or sound

• natural rise and fall of language in speech
• alternating between accented and unaccented words
• some syllables accented or stressed- more prominence in pronunciation
• toDAY, toMORROW, YESterday
• certain words in a sentence are also given more prominence
• rhetorical stresses- the words that are stressed can completely change the meaning of the sentence