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AP Open-ended prompts from 1970 to the present

SGAK AP essay lab: Workshop on essay writing based on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

The Chunks of an open-ended prompt

Answer the question

• Simply restating the question is not answering the question.
• The answer to the question may require more than a sentence.
• The answer to the question covers not only the who, what, and when, but also the why and the how.
• The answer needs to be as precise as possible. 

Analyze, don't just describe or summarize

Observation / Description versus Analysis

from a professor at MIT:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-001-foundations-of-western-culture-homer-to-dante-fall-2008/writing-resources/obser_ver_anlsis.pdf

• Summarizing the plot is not an analysis.
• Don't stay on the surface. Looking at an old house from the curb is interesting, but going into the house and exploring the attic and the basement are more fun. Exploring the rooms and speculating about the personalities of their occupants can be fascinating. The same is true of literary texts. The surface-- the plot-- is interesting enough, but what the text implies, what it suggests, is infinitely more interesting. 
• Analyze imagery, events, and characters beyond the literal level. Consider how these elements are metaphors.
• Look for patterns of both similarity and difference. Look for the parallel and the alternate universes. Look for characters that complement each other, that cancel each other out. Ask yourself how these relationships are ironic.
• Always consider how any of the above can be ironic.

Consult the  Levels of Interpretation page for help with literary analysis.

"Significant to the work as a whole"

• What does the work suggest about characters-- their development, their sense of identity? What is ironic about those revelations?
• What does the work suggest about relationships between characters? What is ironic about these relationships?
• What does the work suggest about our relationship with the world, the universe? Irony?
• What does the work suggest about our destiny and purpose? Irony? 

• Consider how a word, an image, a passage can be understood as a microcosm of the work as a whole.
• Consider how a character can be understood as an "everyman." The character's experiences may be applicable to human nature.
• Consider the anagogical level of interpretation.

Problematize the text:

• Literary texts confront the reader with problems or questions about human nature, society, even how language works or how stories "mean" what they mean. The answers the text suggest may be surprising, confrontational, and paradoxical. In other words, the answers may be ironic.
• Let the text surprise you. Instead of looking for the ways the text coheres as a rational whole, look for the places where the text is ambiguous, problematical, or mysterious. 

Literary analysis always involves a discussion of IRONY.