AP Poetry Essay Exam Lesson 1 part 3
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Finishing the timed essay. -
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AP Lit Poetry Essay lesson Part 1: Reading and analyzing
AP Essay Exam Lesson Part 2: Writing the Essay
I'm not entirely sure if it helped. Honestly, I don't think it "helped" much for us a writers because our own thinking should come organically from within ourselves, and I don't think watching a video helps our thoughts simply flow out. It could help us obtain ideas about how to make notes on our paper, but it doesn't really help us suck out the ideas of the poem to write the notes themselves, which I think is more important in this case. My main problem is that I can't "think" under the pressure and often times I'm simply sitting there, stuck. I just don't understand how such word choice can be put together so quickly. But I do think it was cool though! I didn't know that you could do that on the computer! And it does made me feel a lot better knowing that it's normal for the "WTF?" light to blink in your head as you read these poems.
2. Any questions or suggestions?
I personally think the very first video clip was somewhat helpful and that we didn't really have to watch the rest of the videos. It does help us understand and get a feel for truly organic writing, but I think that idea can be understood simply by reading your essay. Your final essay was entirely different from what I'm used to and I could tell it was organically written. It was free and "un-constipated." The beginning truly lays out your thoughts about the poem and the ideas that you have drawn out from it. Although there are some parts throughout the course of writing that you were able to develop further, it seems like for the most of the time, we're basically watching you type. The time it takes for you to write seems to overwhelm the time you stop to mention something important and make side notes. I think it would be more efficient to watch you make annotations in the beginning ten minutes or so, then read the final essay together in class.
3. Any disagreements or debates you want to start? I'd love it!
In fact, I do have a few things to say. I do agree that the main idea of the poem is about a godless power, but that power is not nature; it is TIME. Time can be a part of nature (Father Time and Mother Nature are a couple), and time can be nature itself when you really think about it, but I think the main idea here is TIME, and the power of TIME, not nature.
The beginning scene is of a sunset, "the last tumultuous avalanche"; showing us that the end is nearing. I agree with Mr.Burell that the constant repeat of geometrical words are to portray orderliness, but I believe that these words were chosen to describe the nature of time. Time is orderly, symmetrical, steady. It's mathematical and and consistent, which is why it is so frightening and powerful.
Mr. Burell doesn't really mention what the hawk really represents, but in my opinion, the hawk represents time. Warren introduces the hawk at the end of the first stanza with a short, concise, and quite frightening phrase: "The hawk comes." This terse tone adds suspension to the mood and to a feeling of terror and tension.
Then, the hawk is described to "scythed down another day," portraying the consistent and terrifying flow of time. Also, Father Time, the personification of time, is often shown in pictures holding a scythe or is sometimes considered the Grim Reaper himself. Once time passes, the past cannot be undone for time is completely "unforgiving."
The poem then moves on to mention the history of time. Because time is "unforgiving," history is remembered. The passage of time allows for history, and there have been bad as well as good moments throughout history. The world has developed more and more through the passage of time, just as the suspense of the poem has been developing. But the final question is, when will the hawk strike?
The poem ends with a creepy and horrifying reminder that the clock is constantly ticking; the earth continues to "grind on its axis" and history continues to "drip in darkness like a leaking pipe in the cellar."
Joon, I disagree. The Old Testament Yahweh ("God"), the New Testament Jesus/God, and Allah have three very different personalities. And Buddha is so far removed from them in his teaching that to equate them is just factually wrong. And to equate the God of Eden with Nature, critically speaking, is so far off. God curses Nature in Gen. 1 and 2. Nature doesn't curse itself. Naturalists aren't ashamed of Nature.
Also, Joon, you're right. I'll start filming these. It'll be easier for me too.
This was a great experience for me. Although, I did have a hard time both listening to your voice and reading the notes on the black popup screen that summarized your videos, the video helped me what necessary steps I need to take when analyzing a literature work. When I analyze a poem or some other literature work, I really get stuck. I don't know what to do. But your video was basically like a set of guidelines that I could actually implement and follow through when I have to analyze a literature work.
2. Any questions or suggestions?
Are you going to create more videos like this and are you going to do this in class? (I noticed that a lot of my classmates already wrote the second one)
3. Any disagreements or debates you want to start? I'd love it!
Hmmm. Not really. I was watching your video more as a learner and an audience rather a critic, so I don't really have any arguments or debates at this time.
* Your essay definitely deserves a perfect score.
When I saw the first clip, I thought that the processes that you went through hel
ped a lot. It seemed like you were having a little trouble too at the beginning and I learned that writing down whateveryou can think of helps. The second and third clips were different though because like Christina said, it
seemd really easy. Like for you it just flowed. You did not seem to hesitate a lot and it looked really easy for you. I think that even if I had the same amount of ideas as you did, I would probably not write as fast as you did. I wouldn't be able to.
2. Any questions or suggestions?
How do you write your essay so fast without hesitation?
3. Any disagreements or debates you want to start? I'd love it
This isn't a disagreement but I think it would have been better if we could pause the clips while we are watching them. I wanted to write some notes during the clip but I didn't want to miss any of the clip so ihad to keep writing.
3. Any disagreements or debates you want to start? I'd love it!
I guess writing comes easy to you, and I really am awed at the way you just whipped up an essay like that! It looks easy when you do it, but we all know that it's actually harder than that, but the demonstration you made gave me a direction I should take when I'm left alone with a poem.
2. Any questions or suggestions?
Well just out of curiosity, I'm not really sure when or when not to use those dashes, you know the --'s. You seem to use them a lot, and they help you sound flowy, and I want to learn how to do that. I guess most of it comes from your voice, but the way you write adds to that smoothness.
3. Any disagreements or debates you want to start? I'd love it!
Not much that I have to disagree or debate about the video clips!
Actually it did haha I'm surprised. You know, when you're doing the essay, you have this unconscious desire to just screen the poem and quickly deciphering it to leave lots of time to do the essay. You practically took up an entire 15 minutes just to twist and turn the poem before writing anything down. I've never realized that 45 minutes really is quite enough time for us to do a very well structured essay that answers the question fully (although you didn't finish it =]). I like how instead of the typical, "Nature has had enough of us humans and is going to come down to kill us all" idea to this essay, it was more like you brought out the religious asspect of it, relating it to the Naturalistic belief.
2. <b>Any questions or suggestions?</b>
I agree with Joon. I think if you filmed yourself writing it down with pen and paper would make the scenery more realistic. My brain just happens to move faster than my hands and a computer enables me to write down a whole lot more than if I penned the essay.
3. Any disagreements or debates you want to start? I'd love it!
I can't really think of an agreement right now, but more like a comment on how humans are always depicted as the scum of the earth, mere fledglings bent on destroying the very womb from where they spawned. I mean, yes on a large scale we do pollute the earth and rob ourselves of our own future, but has there been anything man-made that has helped the earth at all? Just a thought.
I agree with Nature being the epitome of God himself, because scientifically, we came out of the earth, and back down we decompose. Nature created us, like God created Us. God provides for us food, shelter; everything that we literally need to survive is provided for, by Nature as well. Maybe Warren was a Naturalist. Or maybe he wanted a write a poem that was rich with religiousness but not technically specifying a certain religion with which it implies to.
It was definitely interesting to see how a more experienced person set about analyzing and deciphering the meaning of the poem. Personally, I thought it would have been better if you had filmed using pen and paper, rather directly off the pdf file, because it would it would have made fore more realistic testing conditions.
2. Any questions or suggestions?
I noticed some of your paragraphs are quite short (some just one sentence). Is it ok to write like that? (I guess it is…) But I always thought a paragraph should be a complete thought, like a mini essay in itself.
3. Any disagreements or debates you want to start? I'd love it!
You say that the poem is godless and that it is actually Nature that reigns over the universe. I would say that Nature is God; Mother Nature, God (Christian), Allah, Buddha—they’re all one and the same. Merely, they are just differing representations of the notion of a higher power and it doesn’t really matter which one you believe in. I’d say the poem argues that humans must eventually succumb to a higher power and that we are not the omnipotent species we like to think we are. Warren just happens to worship (?) Nature so he chose Nature over some other god.