AP Essay #1 Guide

The main point of this essay is to see if the student can properly analyze a poem and write an organized paper based on the information. Before writing the essay, you need to UNDERSTAND WHAT THE QUESTION IS ASKING (I can't stress this enough) as well as what the poet/poets are trying to tell you in their poems.

• Start with analyzing the title, because the poet usually hints towards the main point of the poem in the title.
• Often, the poems are written with methods and words that are initially confusing for some people. Paraphrasing the lines & stanzas of the poems can make them easier to understand.
• Certain words can provide a different tone in the story, and lead people to different conclusions and helps you understand the poet's attitude.
• Looking for the shifts in the poem help you come to the conclusion that the author wants you to reach.
• If you have the information, you may also want to consider the time period that the poem was written in, to better understand how the poet would be thinking at the time of writing the poem.

It is also very important to look at the literary elements while going through the poem. The literary elements discovered can be included within the essay. Some literary elements which could be included in the AP English Exam poetry essay if contained in the poem are:

• Alliteration: the initial sounds of a word, beginning either with a consonant or a vowel, being repeated, such as “Athena and Apollo.”
• Assonance: the repetition of vowel sounds such as "time out of mind."
• Consonance: The repetition of final consonant sounds such as "first and last."
• Imagery: the representation through language of sense experience, such as picturing what is being read.
• Metaphor and Simile: comparing things that are essentially unlike.
• Personification: consists in giving the attributes of a human being to an animal, an object, or a concept.
• Symbol: something that means more than what it is
• Tone: the writer's or speaker's attitude toward the subject, the audience, or toward herself/himself.
• Rhythm: any wave like recurrence of motion or sound.
• Rhyme Scheme: the pattern of rhyme between lines of a poem
• Syntax: the patterns of formation of sentences and phrases from words.

After understanding the poem, outlining exactly what you want to write will make it easier to organize your thoughts and write your essay (hopefully). However, keep in mind that you only have about 40 minutes in total to write your essay, so it isn't necessary to make an extremely fancy essay. Just be sure to clearly get your point across with the evidence to support it.