Free Response Question 2 presents students with a passage of prose fiction of 600 to 800 words. This question assesses students’ ability to do the following:

Response to the prompt with a thesis that presents a defensible interpretation
Select and use evidence to support the line of reasoning.
Explain how the evidence supports the line of reasoning.
Use appropriate grammar and punctuation in communicating the argument.

Question 3: Literary Argument (6 points)

40 minutes recommended

Free-response question 3 presents students with a literary concept or idea, along with a list of approximately 40 literary works. Students are required to select a work of prose fiction either from their own reading or from the provided list and analyze how the literary concept or idea described in the question contributes to an interpretation of the work as a whole. This question assesses students’ ability to do the following:

Respond to the prompt with a thesis that presents a defensible interpretation.

Provide evidence to support the line of reasoning.

Explain how the evidence supports the line of reasoning.

Use appropriate grammar and punctuation in communicating the argument.

This Exam asses the six big ideas of the course:

Character
Setting
Structure
Narration
Figurative Language
Literary Argumentation

The questions can respond to the prompt with a thesis that presents a defensible interpretation. FRQ 1 and FRQ 2 will ask about two important things: Big Question (meaning) or Little Question (Method).

You need to answer both the little and big questions.

The little question and big question will be in the last sentence of the question.

Little question

Surface features (Imagery)
- Ideas (Freedom, Jealousy)
  - Organizational moves (Comparison, Repetition, Characterization)

Big Question

Annotate

Who, What, When, Where, Why?
Word Choice
- Literary Devices
  - Shifts/Tone
  - Organization Moves

Thesis Formula:

EX: “By Lisette’s experience riding her bicycle from A to B, Nisis Shawl, (despite) statement answering the Big Question.”

Sentence Stem: By/through + level three strategy A to B, author (verb for analysis) that + big question answer

AP Exam - Important Moments Charts

Pay attention to the author's moves that are bigger and more connected to plot/character development and how those relate to thematic development.
We would not pull out specific quotes that show smaller moves such as similes, metaphors, or personification.
- Instead, we focus on elements of plot, symbolism, extended metaphors, motifs, and character development.
Examine important moments in the story that lead toward an interpretation of the work as a whole.
Most of the information that we gleaned from Foster is appropriate for analyzing an entire work of friction.
- Choosing those important moments in which foster could have something to say
- Looking for those nuanced moments that have layers that we can peel back
  - motifs

Pay Attention To:

Characters, Setting, Conflict, Climax, Resolution
Static, dynamic, flat, round
- Physical, Time, Geography, Political - think Foster!
  - Man V. Society, etc...
    - Moment of Greatest Tension in the novel
      - How the conflict is resolved to the final thematic message

Essay Commentary

Commentary: explain the assumption that is in your topic sentence

Micro quotes
- A combination of micro quotes and an explanation

Your first sentence must include the assumption in your topic sentence and the word ‘because’

Explain the micro quotes and how they connect to your assertion.

Templates to Use:

This evidence (choose one: showcases, highlights, suggests, implies, demonstrates, creates, establishes, exposes) (insert claim in the topic sentence) because (explain how your evidence relates to the claim by communicating the assumption and/or connotations associated with the language and/or imagery in the example provided.)
Consequently, (choose one: if/since) (insert an assumption related to the textual evidence or literary observation made in the last sentence), (finish this sentence by explaining the logical judgment you can now make about a character, conflict, or event in the poem story based on your prior observation from the beginning of this sentence).
(Choose one: Therefore/Furthermore), (insert an extended observation about the literary element in discussion) because (communicate the assumption(s) that allow the observation at the beginning of this sentence to make sense.)

FRQ 1 - The Poetry Essay Prompt

You must analyze the author's techniques to create meaning and complexity.

Unlike prose, you need to explicitly discuss poetic techniques the poet uses to enhance what is being said.

Break down the prompt
Identify shifts in the poem
Analyze how literary/poetic elements and techniques contribute to the question posed by the prompt.

In poetry, the narrative voice is referred to as the speaker
- The prompt will always ask you to analyze the complexity of the poem. ALWAYS

As with the other two essay questions, you should break the prompt into the Big Question (meaning-complexity) and the Little Question (method - poetic techniques & elements).

(FRQ 2) This question assesses your ability to conduct a close read that analyzes the author’s craft and how specific choices create meaning
(FRQ 3) you do have the entire work, so you can get to an interpretation that includes the theme

Thesis Formula:

In the poem,”, (author) conveys the speaker’s (situation of the poem) by (contrasting, shifting, juxtaposing, illuminating, etc.) to say (Big Question Answer with a while, yet, although, despite, etc.)

EX. In the poem, “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae, the voices of the dead soldiers urge the audience to take up their lost fight with the enemy by shifting the tone from peaceful to mournful and finally to urgent ultimately suggesting that a war must be won or those who have died will have done so in vain.

The first essay on the AP exam is about a poem.
- Similar to the prose excerpt (FRQ 2) you will need to analyze the techniques the author uses to create meaning and complexity
Unlike prose, you need to explicitly discuss poetic techniques used by the poet to enhance what is being said
- First, begin by breaking down the prompt then identifying shifts in the poem and finally analyze how literary/poetic elements and techniques contribute to the question posed by the prompt
Remember in poetry the narrative voice is referred to as the speaker
- The prompt will always ask for you to analyze the complexity in the poem ALWAYS

40 minutes of reading, annotating, making a quiet plan, and then composing the essay

Annotating Techniques

The Speaker

Identify
- who/what is the speaker?
- What is the situation that the speaker conveys?
- Who is the intended audience/
- What is the speaker's tone?

Author’s Craft

Analyze the poet’s use of techniques and devices throughout the poem
These annotations will lead to the tone (attitude) of the poem. Keep these annotations on the RIGHT side of the poem.m

Complexity

Determine the shifts in the poem by drawing a line

Analyze what each section of the poem does with the other section

Determine the organizational method:

Shift
Juxtaposition
Characterization
compare/contrast
Illumination

Poetry Thesis Statement Formula:

“ In the poem,’_____,’ the author conveys the speaker’s (situation of the poem) by (contrasting, shifting, juxtaposition, illuminating, etc.) ___ to ___ to say (Big question Answer with a while, yet, although, despite, etc.)

40 Minutes Total

Analyze techniques the author uses to create meaning and complexity

Big Question
Little Question
Mark Rhyme scheme
Type of sonnet
Poetic section
- Octave/sestet

Structuring the Essay: Italian Sonnet

Introduction

Summarize the main action of the poem
Discuss the poem's speaker, situation, and conflict
Thesis Statement:
1. In the poem, “___”, the author conveys the speaker's (situation of the poem) by (contrasting, shifting, juxtaposing, illuminating, etc.) ____ to ___ to say (Big Question Answer with a while, yet, although, despite, etc.)

Body Paragraph 1: The Octave

Assertion: What is the problem/conflict that is laid out in the Octave? What time is developed and for what purpose?
Context” Paraphrase the Octave
1. Evidence: Choose evidence that strongly helps develop the tone
2. Interpretation: name the figurative language or poetic device that the poet is using
Transition: staying with the octave and move to the next part that developed the tone
Context: less than before, paraphrase
1. Evidence: strongly helps the development of tone
2. Interpretation: name figurative language or poetic device
Take it to the next level: discuss the octave's purpose in helping to convey the overall message of the poem

Body Paragraph 2: The sestet, pt - The Volta

Assertion: where is the volta and how does it change the direction and tone of the sonnet?
Context: paraphrase the set stopping short of the resolution. Explain the volta and how it shifts towards the poem's logic.
1. Evidence: Choose evidence that helps develop tone
2. Interpretation: name figurative language or poetic devices
Take It To the Next Level: Discuss the Volta's purpose in helping to resolve the conflict/tension in the poem. So, What?

Body Paragraph 3: The Sestet, pt 2 - The Resolution

Assertion: What is the solution/resolution proposed in the Sestet?
Context: paraphrase the resolution.

Evidence: Choose evidence that helps develop tone
Interpretation: name figurative language or poetic devices

C. Take It To the Next Level: Discuss the overall epiphany that is reached and its implications in resolving the speaker's problem conflict.

Structuring the Essay: English Sonnet

Introduction

Summarize the main action of the poem
Discuss the poem's speaker, situation, and conflict
Thesis Statement:
1. In the poem, “___”, the author conveys the speaker's (situation of the poem) by contrasting, shifting, juxtaposing, illuminating, etc.) ___ to ___ to say (Big Question Answer with a while, yet, although, despite, etc.)

Body Paragraph 1: First Quatrain

Assertion: What is the problem that is laid out in the Quatrain?
Context: Paraphrase the Quatrain
1. Evidence: Choose evidence that develops tone
2. Interpretation: name the figurative language or poetic device
Take It to the Next Level: discuss the first quatrain purpose in helping to convey the overall message

Body Paragraph 2: Second Quatrain

Assertion: What is the problem that is laid out in the Quatrain?
Context: Paraphrase the Quatrain
1. Evidence: Choose evidence that develops tone
2. Interpretation: name the figurative language or poetic device
Take It to the Next Level: discuss the second quatrain purpose in helping to convey the overall message

Body Paragraph 3: Third Quatrain - The Volta

Assertion: What is the problem that is laid out in the Quatrain?
Context: Paraphrase the Quatrain
1. Evidence: Choose evidence that develops tone
2. Interpretation: name the figurative language or poetic device
Take It to the Next Level: discuss the Volta's purpose in helping to convey the overall message

Body Paragraph 4: The Heroic Couplet - The Resolution

Assertion: What is the solution/resolution proposed in the Sestet?
Context: paraphrase the resolution.

Evidence: Choose evidence that helps develop tone
Interpretation: name figurative language or poetic devices

C. Take It To the Next Level: Discuss the overall epiphany that is reached and its implications in resolving the speaker's problem conflict.

FRQ 3 - Thesis Statement

There is a claim of understanding. It is an opinion of an issue, which may be a message or moral but it doesn't have to be.

Themes are not statements about a character in the story or a lesson a specific character learns in a specific story.
- Universal, it can be conveyed through a range of texts and is relevant to most people.
- Often a reflection on an aspect crucial to the human condition
- Conveyed by an author through a range of methods

Example : (In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare conveys the idea that those without power often do anything to find it for themselves inevitably leading to their destruction)

Thesis Formula:

In the (genre) (title), (author) (“depicts”, “characterization’, "relates "," shows ",) (little question: author move or method) to (verb for analysis) that big question: interpretation of the work (despite.)

Example: (In the dystopian novel " The Lottery", Shirley Jackson shapes moral traits through cultural surroundings. The characterization of Tessie highlights how traditions can ultimately be harmful when they are not changed over time.)

Remember NO LITERARY ELEMENTS OR TECHNIQUES in the thesis statement.

General Literature Information

Narrative Perspective

Word Choice (Diction)
Point Of View (1st, 2nd, 3rd Omniscient, 3rd objective)
How does the narrator feel about the topic?
Who is the speaker addressing? (Who is the audience?)

Syntax

The way words and phrases are arranged to form sentences.

Interesting or unusual use of punctuation
Word order
Parallel structure
Short choppy lines, vers, longer compound/complex sentences
Where does the style change?

Structure

Rhyme Scheme? Free Verse?
Use of Stanzas
Length of Stanzas
Use of enjambment
Use of meter

Enjambment means, “a string over,” a poetic term for the continuation of a sentence or phrase from one line of poetry to the next.

Point Of View

The position or stance of the work’s narrator or speaker

Refers to the speaker, persona, narrator, or voice

Tell stories

Present arguments

Express attitudes or judgments

Conditions that affect POV

The physical situation of the narrator, or speaker

The speaker's intellectual or emotional position

Acts as a centralizing or guiding intelligence in work by filtering the fictional experience and presenting only the most important details for maximum impact.

POV vs. Perspective

Perspective is how the characters view and process what's happening within the story.

Point Of View focuses on the type of narrator used to tell the story
Perspective focuses on how the narrator perceives what's happening within the story

1st Person: POV

The narrator tells about events they have personally witnessed:

First-hand experience
Firsthand witness
Secondhand testimony
Hearsay
Inferential information
Conjecture
Imaginative
Intuitive information

Many different kinds of 1st person speakers

Anonymous
Variety of characters
Unique identity
- Some 1st person speakers are reliable, others are “unreliable”
  - Having interests or limitations that lead them to mislead the reader

2nd Person: POV

The narrator is speaking to someone else who is addressed as “you”

Least Common POV

Offers the writer 2 major possibilities

A narrator tells a listener what he has done or said at a past time (may be considered 1st person instead of 2nd)
A narrator seems to be addressing you but is mainly referring to herself (the listener is referred to only tangentially)

3rd Person: POV

The speaker emphasizes the actions and speeches of others

Usually describes events in 3rd person
- He, she, it, they
May employ a distinct authorial voice
- Voice or persona used by authors when speaking about themselves
- May use “I” in referring to the author/narrator

Objective Point Of View

Most basic method
Narrator is unidentified
Limited only to what is said or what happens
The narrator does not conclude or make interpretations
- “Fly On The Wall”
The narrator is a detached observer

Allows the reader to interpret the reading in their way without the narrator's interpretations

Omniscient (all-knowing point of view)

The narrator sees all and can disclose all
The speaker presents actions and dialogue as well as thoughts and feelings
Additional information aids in the development of characters

Limited 3rd person point of view

It is also called a limited omniscient 3rd person
The narrator focuses on the thoughts and deeds of major characters
Limits the narrator to focus on 1 person
- Point of view character: the central character on whom the narrator is focused on
- All details in the narrative are there because the narrator sees all.

Mingling Points of View

Sometimes authors mingle points of view to:
- Initiate reality
- Sustain interest
- Create suspense/tension
- Put the burden of response entirely on readers

Try to consider the effects of alternative points of view to build your argument about the author's choices

Consider evaluating the success of the point of view
How does the shift affect the understanding of the characters

Plot & Sequence

The plot is a progression of events in a narrative.

Connected building on each other
- Cause and effect relationship
- Characters face conflicts that put barriers between them and their goals

The Dramatic situation of a narrative includes the setting and action of the plot and the way the narrative develops to place characters in those conflicts

EX. The development of stories often involves the rising and falling fortunes of a main character or set of characters.

Elements of Plot

Events that make up the idea of writing
- Beginning
- Middle
- End

Conflict is necessary to the plot of any story, novel, or script and comes in two types.

internal or external
- Four kinds
  - Person v person
  - Person v circumstances
  - person v society
  - Person v self

The Butterfly Effect: Connected Sequenced Events

Dramatic Situation

Readers are drawn into characters based on descriptions, dialogue, behavior, or journey. Mostly through conflict.

Conflict: at the heart of a story's dramatic situation.

Characters and setting are intertwined in a sequence of cause-and-effect events in the plot that leads to and develops the conflict that will affect the characters' changing fortunes.

Stories are Defined by Conflict (Tropes)

Rags to Riches
The quest
Rebirth
Boy meets Girl
Revenge

English Romanticism is an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century. Emphasizing inspiration, subjectivity, and the primacy of the individual.

Gothic Tradition refers to the Clothes or their extinct East Germanic language or to the style of architecture prevalent in Western Europe in the 12th—16th centuries, characterized by pointed arches, rib vaults, and flying buttresses, together with large windows and elaborate tracery. Belonging to or redolent of the Dark Ages; portentously gloomy or horrifying: 19th-century Gothic Horror.

(The dark side)
Edgar Allen Poe

Introduction to Sonnet

Sonnet: Consists of fourteen lines, usually written in iambic pentameter
- Iambic pentameter: a rhythmic pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables used in poetry and verse drama
  - William Shakespeare uses Iambic Pentameter in every one of his Plays, Poems, and Sonnets
- Italian Sonnet: divides into two parts
  - The first eight lines (the octave) typically rhyme abbaabba
  - The final six lines (the sestet) may vary; common patterns are cdecde, cdcdcd, and cdccdc

Volta: ‘The turn” change in thought, direction, and emotion (a shift)

In between the octave and the sestet

Structure Components of Italian Sonnet

The Octave introduces a situation, poses a question, or presents a problem
The Volta presents a change in tone
The Sestet comments on the situation, answers the question, or presents a solution.

Originator

Francesca Petrarch
- Born in 1304 just south of Florence, Italy
Studies Latin Literature and writing
Perfected the sonnet form invented by Guillotine of Arezzo came to be known as the Italian Sonnet and later as the Petrarch in his honor
- The epitome of an aching heart, a longing for love, but an everlasting pursuit of it, for his muse and object of desire, is unattainable.
  - Composed 366 poems for Laura

Shakespeare wrote poems for everyone (all different lovers)

Themes and Recurrent Ideas in Petrarch

The beloved is ideally beautiful, unattainable, and cruel in rejecting the poet's love.
Love is a torment, the lover forms extreme feeling
The god of love is harsh/love is a religion, the eyes are the window to the soul
The poem will immortalize the beloved

Characteristics of All Sonnets

A lyrical meditation
- The sonnet should sing
Usually composed with themes of love, spirituality, nature, sorrow, or celebration
- A quatrain
  - A poem in 14 lines
Metric
- Primarily written in iambic pentameter
- Rhymes
  - The rhyme scheme is one of the features that identify the individual sonnets.
- Written with question-answer or conflict-resolution structure
  - Composed with a turn or change in tone
  - It is the positioning of this pivot or Volta that is also a defining feature of a sonnet
- Ask yourself if you need to know if its important to the plot

What's the Function of Setting in Literature?

As the writer Eudora Welty once said, "Every story would be another story, and unrecognizable as art, if it took up its characters and plot and happened somewhere else… Fiction depends for its life on place. Place is the crossroads of circumstance, the proving ground of, What happened? Who’s here? Who’s coming?" Accordingly, writers take great care in deciding on and describing the settings of their works, in order to:

Reflect or emphasize certain character traits belonging to people who inhabit certain settings. For example, in the Pride and Prejudice quotation above, Austen's descriptions of Mr. Darcy's graciousness and of his estate's natural beauty mirror one another.
Give physical form to a theme that runs throughout the narrative. For example, the fire escape in The Glass Menagerie quotation above becomes a physical symbol of Tom Wingfield's desire to escape his surroundings.
Indicate the social and economic statuses of their characters, as well as how those characters do or do not conform to those statuses. In the Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man quotation, Joyce's description of Stephen's neighborhood emphasizes his family's poverty. However, Joyce's description of Stephens's thoughts as he passes through the neighborhood shows that Stephen uses his love for literature to insulate himself from poverty.
Create a source of pressure or stress that causes characters to act in a certain way. For instance, in 10.04, the storm brings out the narrator's suppressed attraction to his friend and gives him an excuse to act on it. Similarly, the tenement house in The Glass Menagerie creates an environment of desperation that drives the main characters' behavior.

Suggested Novels For FRQ 3

Classic Novels:
- "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen
- "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens
- "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë
- "A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens
- "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad
- "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare
- “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley
Modern/Contemporary Novels:
- "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger
- "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- "Beloved" by Toni Morrison
- "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood
- "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker
- "The House of the Seven Gables" by Nathaniel Hawthorne
- "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
- "The Stranger" by Albert Camus
- "Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison
- “Lord Of The Flies” by William Golding