College Essay Assignment

APLC
Fall 2011
College Essay Assignment

Pasted below is the essay requirement from the Common Application. Your first writing assignment for this course (and for Ms. Trask and Mr. Clark) is to select one of the topics below and address it in a polished and compelling piece of writing. We will keep to the following timeline:

Wednesday 8/31 - In-class work day

Friday 9/2 - Two copies of first draft due, one to Ms. Trask and one for peer-editing in class.

Wednesday 9/7 - Second drafts due for final peer editing session.

Friday 9/9 - Final drafts due.

Please write an essay of 250 – 500 words on a topic of your choice or on one of the options listed below, and attach it to your application before submission. Please indicate your topic by checking the appropriate box. This personal essay helps us become acquainted with you as a person and student, apart from courses, grades, test scores, and other objective data. It will also demonstrate your ability to organize your thoughts and express yourself. NOTE: Your Common Application essay should be the same for all colleges. Do not customize it in any way for individual colleges. Colleges that want customized essay responses will ask for them on a supplement form.

1 Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.

2 Discuss some issue of personal, local, national, or international concern and its importance to you.

3 Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence.

4 Describe a character in fiction, a historical figure, or a creative work (as in art, music, science, etc.) that has had an influence on you, and explain that influence.

5 A range of academic interests, personal perspectives, and life experiences adds much to the educational mix. Given your personal background, describe an experience that illustrates what you would bring to the diversity in a college community or an encounter that demonstrated the importance of diversity to you.

6 Topic of your choice.

Hamlet

We will spend the next two weeks on Hamlet. You will need to bring your copy of the play to class everyday.

Tuesday 4/19 – Hamlet Essay (9 pts)

Thursday 4/21 – Hamlet Test (20 pts. MC, 50 pts. quote identification, 30 pts. short answer).

Week 25 Itinerary

Reading: Perrine's "The Elements of Drama," Ch 1. pp 1027-1030; Ch. 3 pp. 1209-1216; Oedipus Rex pp 1216-1261.

T 3/29 - Introduction to Greek drama; Begin Oedipus
HW: selections from "The Elements of Drama"

W 3/30 - Oedipus Reading Day
HW: finish the play

Th 3/31 - Oedipus discussion day
HW: review for quiz

F 4/1 - CPS Quiz over Oedipus/"Elements of Drama" (35 pts.)
HW: Score AP-prompt essay on Madame Bovary

Madame Bovary Final Itinerary

Tuesday 3/8 - Passage analysis #1 due (30 pts.)
Work on vocab

Wednesday 3/9 - Vocab (pp 18-146)
HW: Read through Part III, Chapter II ( p. 180)

Thursday 3/10 - Reading day
HW: Read through Part III, Chapter VI (p. 208)

Friday 3/11 - Passage analysis #2 (In-class, 30 pts.)
HW: finish the novel.

M-W 3/14-16 - Work on questions. Pick any 10 from the original list.

Thursday 3/17 - Questions due (100 pts.)
Final vocab/discussion day.

Friday 3/18 - AP Prompt Essay over Madame Bovary (9 pts.)

Madame Bovary Questions

1. Find three passages spread over the first 75 pages that illustrate Flaubert as a master of realistic detail at work. Explain and defend your choices.
2. How does the point of view in the novel work, and how does it affect your impressions of the main characters? Pick a passage in which you find the point of view striking, and analyze why it interests you.
3. How essential is the setting to the story? Could the story have taken place anywhere else?
4. What is the role of women in the text? How are mothers represented? What about single/independent women? Could Emma ever have survived as a single woman?
5. Do you consider this novel a work of feminist literature?
6. What are the conflicts in Madame Bovary? What types of conflict (physical, moral, intellectual, or emotional) are in the novel?
7. What is the central/primary purpose of the story? Is the purpose important or meaningful?
8. What are some symbols in Madame Bovary? How do they relate to the plot and characters?
9. How would you describe the tone of the book? Does it change?
10. Discuss how Emma's fascination with romantic (and Romantic) ideals affects her life.
11. Images of machines reappear at intervals; what ideas do these images call up?
12. Describe how Flaubert portrays basic bourgeois behavior and attitudes. How do these compare with the aristocrats; does either group come out ahead?
13. How does socio-economic class figure in Bovary? How would a Marxist analyze the book?
14. Why begin and end with Charles? How does this place Emma in perspective?
15. Is Emma's fate tragic? Is the novel tragic? Why or why not?

DQs for Wednesday 2/23

1. What is the film about?

2. What are the major symbols in the film and how are they used? What is the overall message of the film?

9 – Compare the parents of Kazuo, Ishmael, Hatuse, and Karl Heine, Jr. How do they shape the values of their children and reflect the prejudices of their community?

24. What is the significance of the climate changes (the rain, the blizzard) throughout the film?

28. Why do you think Ishmael finally decided to help Kabuo Miyamoto in his trial, despite his hatred for the Japanese and his bitterness towards Hatsue for leaving him?

33. Snow Falling on Cedars opens in the middle of Kabuo Miyamoto's trial. What effect does the film create by withholding background information of the trial and introducing it in the form of flashbacks? Where else are critical revelations postponed?

Snow Falling on Cedars DQs

Come up with a minimum of 5 discussion questions over the film and post them to the blog sometime before class on Tuesday.