AP timed write #5 AF blog
you should be getting better at these blogs by now… make sure you are not just saying you need to add more details… you should share what specifics from the text were missing and how you plan to remedy problems in your rewrite. did you stick to your thesis? did you always come back to the prompt? did you analyze plot or just summarize? did you come back to the work as a whole? continue to compare to student samples and scoring… DUE 10.08
October 6th, 2009 at 7:07 am
I feel as though I am stuck in a rut, I may know the story very well and I still get a 3 on it because I do not fully understand what the question is asking of me. It gets rather annoying just because I think I did well, then it is returned to me and I realize that I missed the mark. On this timed write I knew I had an issue when it came to literary divices, so I picked two things that i knew were apart of literature. Symbolism and Personification. However, It did not work out so well, which was unfortunate. Compared to the other essays, I feel as though I use a simpler writing style and I do not try to expand what I am trying to say most times. I have issues developing a clear thesis that I can come back to, which I need to spend more time on before actually writing my essays and I tend to summarize. I think i need to learn the difference between an analysis and a thesis, ultimately that would be best. As for coming to the work as a whole, I don’t do that as much as a i should, I find these time writes to be complicated, because I can’t figure out a general guideline to doing them. Its hard starting from scratch and not knowing how to start. I really need to focus more while doing them.
October 6th, 2009 at 7:10 am
When I saw the prompt for timed write number 5, I was fairly confident. I read animal farm pretty late in the summer and actually felt like I comprehended the meaning of the book. Despite my confidence, I recieved a low grade. I think I understood the political message of Animal Farm, but I failed to explain how literary devices contributed to the message in my essay. I think my work was on par with the last essay, what kept me from getting a higher grade was my lack of literary devices. For my rewrite I plan to explain how the author of Animal Farm used literary devices to get across his political message. For future timed write I plan on reading the prompt completley and make sure I answer all parts of the prompt.
October 6th, 2009 at 7:13 am
While I was writing this essay I felt like I was doing an alright job at writing it, though, I felt like I was doing a lot of plot summarizing, which I was. I tried to add in more details and be as detailed as possible, though, I made it overlly detailed and it turned into a plot summary. I need to find the happy medium of adding details. I did stick to my thesis of communism in Animal Farm, though didn’t have any other literary devices or anything to back up my thesis. I tried to come back to the prompt, but, it was mainly just saying the same thing each paragraph with different details to back it up. I mainly just summarized the plot of Animal Farm, instead of providing more insight into the analyzation of the novel. I pretty much summarized the entire novel, so,I guess that would be coming back to the work as a whole; I just did it poorly. My essay compared to the essay on The Great Gastby, which also recieved a four, because they both didn’t analzye much and was more like plot summaries.
October 6th, 2009 at 7:14 am
I actually got my best grade of the year on uhis essay.I thought that I bombed it. The teacher told me that I have to add more iterary devices, so I am going to review some of my past literary devices to complete this essay.
October 6th, 2009 at 7:16 am
I got my highest score yet. I did a good job identifying a literary device that attributed to the theme, though I named it incorrectly (I said metaphor, but meant allegory) I don’t think this is the best essay I’ve written so far, even though it recieved the highest grade. I appreciate the five, but feel a little cheated because this essay had the least amount of CI, and I feel the most simplistic response to the prompt. My other essays were much more indepth, using more CI, better wording, and a more persuasive writing style. I suppose i answered the question “correctly” this time, but I am still confused as to why this essay recieved a higher scor than the earlier one.
October 6th, 2009 at 7:18 am
i thought i had did better than a 3 on this essay. i dont understand how im not getting higher than a 3/4 on my essays. i try to answer the prompt question the best i can and i guess im just not getting it. i feel like i stay on point throughout my essay. i know in this essay i did not comment on literary devices i didnt even know it was in the prompt question i must have just skimmed over it. one problem i have with my essays is not putting in different paragraphs so i have to go back and find a spot where a new paragraph would fit in well. but then it doesnt look like a new paragraph since its just a little paragraph symbol in the middle of my essay. im just gonna have to figure something out to make my essays better
October 6th, 2009 at 7:18 am
UGH! Obviously i am not good at these essays so apparently i need even more practice. In this essay i felt that i understood the book the best, therefore i thought that my overall comprehension of the book was very well. The main thing that i thought i failed on was the fact that the question was asking to use literary elements to explain the novel. I used examples of the characters and the book, but i didn’t use actually motifs, themes, or anything of that sort. Therefore, i think that in my rewrite if i focus more on those few things, i will raise my score tremendously. I aslo felt that i was on the right track of the animals (pigs) creating somewhat of a government, and then having the pigs abuse their own power, but i think that my comparison to the real world was weak.
October 6th, 2009 at 7:19 am
I knew, while I was writing this essay, that my score was going to be inadequate. I knew what the essay was asking, but I did not know how to address it properly. I think I was just trying to say too much, about to many things; in doing so, I did not bring up some points that would have been easier to explicate and more relevent to this topic. I found that I wandered off topic and did not show how some literary devices play into the story. Believe you me, my rewrite will be BALLIN’.
October 6th, 2009 at 7:21 am
At this point of completing the timed writes, I thought I would of been improving. I have only improved by a point or two. It is frustrating that I have not yet gotten an eight or a nine. I was very confident writing this essay, because Animal Farm was the novel that I remembered most. I thought I did well on this essay, but I missed half of the thesis. I did not use literary elements to explore the political issue of Animal Farm. I answered how the political issue contributed to the work as a whole, but I did not include any literary devices. On my rewrite, I need to use literary devices such as tone and allegory to analyze the novel. I need to do less plot summarizing throughout the essay.Compared to the sample essays, I scored right along with the number 4. For my rewrite, I will use more literary devices and hopefully get an eight or a nine.
October 6th, 2009 at 7:22 am
I did a lot better on this essay. I got the highest grade that I have ever gotten on a timed write. I stuck to my thesis very well, but I didnt stick to the whole topic. I got the political aspect but I didnt get the literary devices. In the rewrite, I plan on mentioning the literary devices and coming back to the prompt more.I didnt come back to the prompt enough in this draft. I did analyze the plot but I think i could have gone more in depth into my discussion. For my second paragraph, I need a better example.
October 6th, 2009 at 7:24 am
I could have done a lot better on this essay. The whole thing was focused only on the social and political issues, I did not write about the way the novel was written or any of the literary devices. I could not remember a lot of details from the novel so it was hard for me to support my thesis. I was focusing on it as a story and not a literary work. The biggest problem that I have when I am writing is my lack of organization. I just go right into the essay and do not take a lot of time to brainstorm. What happened this time was I was halfway through the essay when I changed my mind about my thesis. For my next essay I am going to have to plan out what I am going to say better, so that it will make more sense. I need to figure out what the literary devices in the novel are and how they affect the novel.
October 6th, 2009 at 7:25 am
The Animal Farm timed write was not a success, but not a total failure. I could have done a lot worse due to how far I strayed from the prompt. I did not include the literary devices past the first paragraph, setting up my thesis, and then diverting from it in the next paragraphs. The only literary device that I could remember was allegory to the Soviet Union, but an allegory could not sustain my essay. I tried to analyze and not summarize, but there always seems to be a thin line between the two. When I first look at the prompt I write a ton of information from the book, anything that I can remember and then when I have twenty minutes left I begin my essay, that is never enough time. When reading the sample essays I felt like my essays never compare in intelligence and captivation, because re-reading my essay I feel it was rather dry. The first sample essay was on task, and nothing like my essay, I need to work on being wholly on task.
October 6th, 2009 at 11:25 am
My mistake on this essay brought my score down by a lot but i was an obvious stupid mistake. I completely forgot any literary devises used in the book or what that even meant, so i wrote about the themes instead. Now looking back all i need to fix is the weird graph on the themes of the book and focus on how the writer wrote in a third person perspective but not ommnicent and his neutral tone in the book and how it contributed to the reader’s perception. i feel like the corrections are much more specific now and i can narrow my focus to what was good and what was bad about my essay. My grades aren’t really improving but i feel that my rewrites are much more productive.
October 6th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
I thought that I stuck to my thesis,for most of the essay. I focused on the how the struggle for equality led to inequality. After I finished my essay and reread it I realized I had not put enough example’s from the text in the essay. When I rewrite it I will focus on using example’s such as the pigs taking over the farm house or changing the commandments of the farm for their benefit. I will also focus on using more literary elements to describe my thesis in the essay. As for looking at the prompt I probably did so only 2 of 3 times, simply because I thought I understood it. I did not use a whole lot of summarization either because I totally learned my lesson from when I did so, but I looked at my essay and reread it a few times, which I think will help me for the rewrite because I had already picked up what I had forgotten on it.
October 6th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Going into the timed write for Animal Farm I was pretty confident because I thought I knew the book pretty well, unfortunately I relied mostly on plot summary than on analysis. I didn’t do horrible, but I didn’t do Awesome. I did establish and somewhat analyze some symbols and themes of the novel, but I left out the literary devices part of the prompt. I basically stuck to mostly just describing the political issue which the novel focused on, and didn’t even really read the rest of the prompt, which is probably not a good thing to do. I think to make the essay better I just need to kind of relearn some of the literary devices and actually explain how the author used them to contribute to the meaning of the novel. I need to go further into my analysis and not just rely on the plot.
October 6th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
I should have mentioned literary devices such as symbols. I need to clarify my examples. I have good examples but i do not go in depth because i think it is off topic to do so, but whatever will get me the full points i’ll do it. Other than that, i stayed on topic and answered half the prompt about the social issues.
October 6th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
On this essay I though I did much better with sticking to the topic and having support for the thesis, however I lacked literary divices or explanation in my essay. Next time i need to adress how the author used literary divices and relate them to the question of the topic being asked; and how it worked with the novel as a whole.
October 6th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
My major problem on this essay was the fact that I didn’t adresses the entire promt. Although in the last paragraphs I did mention imagery, I did not include it throughout the essay and I did not mention any other literary devices. After researching a little more about Animal Farm as an allegory, I feel that I am now much more prepared to write an 8 or 9 quality essay. When reading through the sample essay that was scored an 8, I saw that they throughly explained why the author used the literary device, which I plan to do in my rewrite. I am also going to include Orwell’s use of irony and how it effects the work as a whole. I also need to learn the difference between expanding on the question in the promt and just retelling the plot. In some of my essays, I have a tendancy to start babbling about the plot and go a little off topic. In this rewrite and in the future I will be wary of this mistake and correct it.
October 6th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
I was very worried in receiving this Timed Write back because i thought i was going to get a 0 at the most. Surprisingly i received a 5. I think this was because i answered the prompt. I used the literary device analogy, when really it was allegory. I think the main problem was i wrote about the plot too much and did not analyze it well. At the end of the essay “Rushed” was written. I think it seemed rushed because i felt i did not know the novel well enough, therefore i did not analyze it effectively. I need to refresh my memory of the political issues Animal Farm focused on. I think i should add another literary device like the neutral tone of the novel.
October 6th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
After doing the fifth timed write, I thought that I would have done better but I am still getting the low points. I am upset that I still haven’t gotten a eight or nine the first time. I was pretty sure that I knew how to write this essay well because Animal Farm was one of the novels that I liked best. I know for a fact I could have done better on this essay, but I did not put enough effort or focus into it. I did not use literary elements that we were supposed to. I wrote about how the political issue contributed to the work as a whole, but I did not write about any literary devices. For my rewrite, I need to include the literary devices such as tone and allegory. I also need to stop plotting the novel. I am hoping my rewrite will give me a better grade, but I also had one other problem that I would like to discuss with you in private.
October 6th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
I fogot to mention that i think my essay was like sample 3C the most because I did not write or analyze it well.
October 6th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
The biggest problem I had in this essay was that I did not do all that the prompt asked of me. I did explain what social issue the novel was about, but I did not support it with literary devices like I was asked to. I find that I stick to my thesis and always tie it to the end of each paragraph, but I have been summarizing the plot more so than analyzing. I think that my essay could be of 8 or 9 quality like the sample essays had I used more specific examples and referred to the literary devices. In my rewrite I plan to discuss the use of allegory and symbolism to make light of the Russian social issue in Animal Farm. Sometime I have a difficult time relating to the work as a whole which is necessary for me to get a better grade on my essay.
October 7th, 2009 at 7:13 am
I was quite confident with this book, until I saw the topic. It seems like the books I am most confident with have the hardest question topics. Like most people in the class, I did not mention the use of literary devices. I need to learn to read the question more carefully, because it is the second time I have done something like this.
October 7th, 2009 at 7:14 am
I thought I did a good job of related back to my thesis in this essay, however, I missed an important part of the essay, the literary devices. I based my essay merely on the idea of communism, and barely touched on symbolism in my thesis. After reading the sample essays, I have a good idea of what the prompt is asking for with literary devices. Also, I thought that I did not rely on plot summary in my essay, however, when I got the essay back, I did not incorporate enough anaysis in my essay, causing me to get a lower score. To improve my essay score, I must focus on the idea of communism but also explain the use of literary devices such as allegory and tone to get my desired score.
October 7th, 2009 at 7:20 am
I am beginning to feel more confident and comfortable writing these essays. I recieved my highest score on this essay so far. The prompt for this essay I felt was very direct and simple to anwser, seeing as how the entire book of Animal Farm was basically comparing the way the farm animals were treated to the way Stalin treated his people. Im am very glad I looked up the background information on Animal Farm. Otherwise, I would of though that the book was just about farm animals. I think if I would have used a little more literary devices then my essay could deffinently be at an 8 or 9 level. But, im happy with what I got, and im glad that rewriting it won’t take very long.
October 7th, 2009 at 7:22 am
I am starting to see my writing come together as we write more and more essays. For this particular Timed Write, I was able to stick to my thesis, but unlike usual, I gave text support and was able to analyze it, rather than using mere plot summary as I have on my other essays. I also was able to connect everything back to the thesis as a whole, but I was missing a few key things that would have made my essay an 8 or 9. In order to propel myself to the 8 or 9 category for this essay, I need to discuss the author’s tone of false neutrality and I need to discuss the allegorys that are found throughout the story. As long as I continue to improve upon the things that I have been doing thus far, I will continue to be happy with my essays, because I know the process is coming along, slowly, but surely.
In comparison to the sample essays, my essay was closest to 3C in terms of scoring. I scored at that level and I want to get up into the next scoring bracket for my next essay, if not higher than that.
October 7th, 2009 at 7:23 am
TW #5 I felt like I knew what I was writing about, but I completely disregarded one specific point that was in the prompt. It ended up being a major point, which was the use of literary elements. All I did was vaguely use parts of the plot to explain how it was similar to Fascist times in Russia. When I rewrite this essay I will definately tie in the use of literary elements and how they contribute to the work as a whole. And now that Mrs. Eb gave us some info on that, it shouldnt be a problem. I was even talking about how it ties to Facsist times, which is an allegory, i just didnt know the term. The First sample essay was awesome. The author really sounded educated and he knew what he was talking about. He even pulled simple quotes out of his memory. I should be able to do that too. I think another one of my problems was my thesis was sort of vague, so I had a hard time coming back to it to tie in the whole essay to it.
October 7th, 2009 at 7:26 am
I stuck more to my thesis and the prompt in this essay. Though my actual thesis statement was weak. I couldn’t remember the other ruler’s name besides Stalin and I accidently kept writing 1950’s instead of 1930’s. I need to refresh on the historical background. I think that would help me address literary devices better and give clearer examples.
I need to focus on actual literary elements rather than discussing parallelism in teh events that took place with teh Communist party and the symbolism in teh animals to exemplify the flaws of this power structure.
These things I think, along with disccusing the author’s seemingly neutral tone, would help me better focus on relating the work as whole – a point I have issues with.
October 7th, 2009 at 11:59 am
I thought I did well on this essay because I liked the book and it was easy to analyze for. I only recieved a four, though, so I was pretty disappointed. I did stick to my thesis and came back to the prompt. I even added an extra paragraph to show how the issues related to the work as a whole. My one downfall, which was something big to miss, was not putting in actual literary devices. I summarized what it meant and how they related, but I didn’t say the actual terms, which will be changed in my rewrite.
October 8th, 2009 at 7:00 am
I am stuck in a rut. I recieved a 4 on this essay, and after I was given the reason for this, it seemed appropriate. I do not think my biggest problem is my writing skills or understanding the books that we have read, it is understanding the questions. I am just not answering them correctly and clearly. I remembered much more of the text this time and the characters. I used more CI than on my other essays, but it was my lack of literary devices that brought my grade down. I just need to completely comprehend the prompt, which apparently I am not doing, to get a better score.