"A Barred Owl" and "The History Teacher" - Prompt, Rubric and Student Examples can be found
in a google search for Collins-Wilbur Poetry Response.pdf
"A Barred Owl"
by Richard Wilbur
The warping night air having brought the boom
Of an owl’s voice into her darkened room,
We tell the wakened child that all she heard
Was an odd question from a forest bird,
Asking of us, if rightly listened to,
“Who cooks for you?” and then “Who cooks for you?”
Words, which can make our terrors bravely clear,
Can also thus domesticate a fear,
And send a small child back to sleep at night
Not listening for the sound of stealthy flight
Or dreaming of some small thing in a claw
Borne up to some dark branch and eaten raw.
The warping night air having brought the boom
Of an owl’s voice into her darkened room,
We tell the wakened child that all she heard
Was an odd question from a forest bird,
Asking of us, if rightly listened to,
“Who cooks for you?” and then “Who cooks for you?”
Words, which can make our terrors bravely clear,
Can also thus domesticate a fear,
And send a small child back to sleep at night
Not listening for the sound of stealthy flight
Or dreaming of some small thing in a claw
Borne up to some dark branch and eaten raw.
"The History Teacher"
by Billy Collins
Trying to protect his students’ innocence
he told them the Ice Age was really just
the Chilly Age, a period of a million years
when everyone had to wear sweaters.
And the Stone Age became the Gravel Age, 5
named after the long driveways of the time.
The Spanish Inquisition was nothing more
than an outbreak of questions such as
“How far is it from here to Madrid?”
“What do you call the matador’s hat?” 10
The War of Roses took place in a garden,
and the Enola Gay dropped on tiny atom
on Japan.
The children would leave his classroom
for the playground to torment the weak 15
and the smart,
messing up their hair and breaking their glasses,
while he gathered up his notes and walked home
past flower beds and white picket fences,
wondering if they would believe that soldiers 20
in the Boer War told long, rambling stories
designed to make the enemy nod off.
Trying to protect his students’ innocence
he told them the Ice Age was really just
the Chilly Age, a period of a million years
when everyone had to wear sweaters.
And the Stone Age became the Gravel Age, 5
named after the long driveways of the time.
The Spanish Inquisition was nothing more
than an outbreak of questions such as
“How far is it from here to Madrid?”
“What do you call the matador’s hat?” 10
The War of Roses took place in a garden,
and the Enola Gay dropped on tiny atom
on Japan.
The children would leave his classroom
for the playground to torment the weak 15
and the smart,
messing up their hair and breaking their glasses,
while he gathered up his notes and walked home
past flower beds and white picket fences,
wondering if they would believe that soldiers 20
in the Boer War told long, rambling stories
designed to make the enemy nod off.
The exemplar essays examining the two poems offer good insight into what level my essay is at now, and how I could improve upon in future timed essays. As of now, I think of my essay as perhaps a six or seven, and is most similar to the third essay I believe. I do think I am capable of a nine, and am simply in the middle of a writing stump where I struggle in writing things I don’t particularly care for. As the year goes on I believe this situation can improve, since I do know how to properly analyze an essay well. Having taken AP Composition, I believe it would be much the same methods, and I did well on my essay.
ReplyDeletePerhaps what I struggle with most in this class that I didn’t have to do quite as often in AP Composition is using quotes within my essay. I have a tendency to over explain and treat the readers as if they are a complete blank slate, when the reality is that they most likely contain a similar understanding of the essay as I. I need to remember this as I go on, explaining the comparisons but not the text itself. The text can speak for itself, and will be much for effective than any explanation I can provide of it.
The third essay is similar in that it has much of the same points that I mention, but also lacks the necessary quotes to make the essay an eight or a nine. Opposingly, the first essay integrates a range of quotes in a flowing manner, with advanced vocabulary and the same points I had in my essay. The second essay, which received an eight, also has the same range of points with very deep analysis, but also lacked the number of quotes hoped for. The first three essays received the higher scores they did since they were able to talk about the deeper meaning of the poem in full, and lost points due to limited quote use. All the other essays didn’t go quite as deep into analysis, even if they used a lot of quotes. Their essays tend to mirror the standard five paragraph essay structure that the college board simply doesn’t want to see. The lowest score of all the essays, a one, received such a score since it lacked quotes, analysis, and structure to the essay. It simply wrote one sentence for an introduction before launching into the body (all in one paragraph), that was more of a summary than an analysis and comparison of two essays.
I think one of the most interesting things I felt when reading these essays is how my immediate opinion of each one was manipulated by the way they looked. Essays with netter hand writing tended to facilitate my understanding of the themes and to be more willing to read it thoroughly, while those that seemed to be messier came across as harder to engage with at first glance.
ReplyDeleteAll essays seemed to attempt to first point out the similarities between the two poems before alluding to their diversion points, which I think makes for an interesting, yet predictable, strategy. It makes for a great example of the importance of individuality and specific stylistic choices when writing these essays, and it points out how when reading works about the same prompt over and over, it is very refreshing to see something different and it pulls you in right away.
I particularly enjoyed essay NNN, for I believe it had good language choice and stylistic elements. It immediately takes care of explaining the main idea of both poems and differentiating them by pointing specific elements in each that make for the diverging narratives of the similar issue, and how it reflects each authors’ goals and ideals. However, I do believe that the conclusion lacked a restating of the thesis, and it focused on the ideas on the poems rather than the authors’ intentions on writing them.
Going over my essay after reading the samples proved enormously productive because I realized what should be the purpose of these types of essays. I realized that because I tried to reach beyond and emphasize the profoundness of these poems in theoretical terms or real-life anecdotes, I missed pointing out some of the critical literary devices. When we are in a time crunch like this, substance must come first, not polish or deep introspection about the ideas explored in the poem, though hopefully these things follow. We are being judged on our ability to point out literary devices, only one extra point can be allocated for an exceptionally well-written essay. I like all my writing to sound poetic, I revise until I have the post fluid style of writing but I need to accept that this may not be possible in 40 minutes. As I improve my writing, I will work towards at achieving both.
ReplyDeleteThe most successful sample essays analyzed one poem then the next. Next time I will try this because ideas get less muddled and the line of thought is clearer. However, there are times when two lines of two poems deserves to be compared side by side so I guess it's a case-by-case thing. I remember that when analyzing a work of literature last year in AP Lang, it was best to just analyze by section instead of my device and I predict the same can be said of comparing two poems.
There is no substitute for practice so I hope to try another one of these so I can try other methods of comparison to analyze what works!
In the example AP essays, the first one which scored a 5 was the most effective in comparing the two essays “A Barred Owl” and “The History Teacher”. The writer is effective in talking about the ideas of the two poems and using literary tools as evidence. The writer cites rhyme scheme and imagery as effects which enhance the idea of a child like atmosphere in “The History Teacher” and the contrast between the lie and the truth in “A Barred Owl”. They also question the right of adults of lying to children even when there are reasons such as protecting innocence and such.
ReplyDeleteMost of the essays talked about the ideas behind why the adults lied and referenced literary devices. However there was variation in how they explained this and how effective their analysis was.
In my essay I managed to talk about some of the literary devices but I didn’t know what an AP essay was supposed to look like or how to reference the literary devices or what to talk about, so reading these essay examples were very helpful in understanding what exactly AP essays were supposed to be like. I had no idea how to analyze poetry in an essay but it looks like I need to review more about literary devices and what they are and how to format an AP essay.
The essays that were the most successful all explain how the literary devices of the poems help express its meaning. While analyzing the poems in my essay, I did not consider how each of the devices worked on their own. I talked about the things that happened and that were described in the two poems, but I merely mentioned some of the devices without explaining how they fit in. I think that because we have not explicitly gone over how to analyze them in class, I did not put a lot of effort into doing so.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that the good essays all did was maintain a very clear and concise train of thought. Because we typed our essays, I thought that it would be easier to start with my body paragraphs and go back to the intro and conclusion. Looking back, I think that coming up with what you are going to write about before analyzing is better because it allows for the writer to write with a better knowledge of what the point of their paper is. What I did might work better for a stream of consciousness, but as an essay, it just seems to be all over the place even if I go back and edit it to work with the thesis.
The good essays also connect all of the elements of the poems and analyze how they work together to enhance the meaning. One thing that I noticed in The History Teacher was that the “flower beds and white picket fences” represented the ignorance of the outside world that he was teaching his students, but I did not explain that correlation with much depth. In poems, every little detail has some sort of meaning, and analyzing those details in a way that they all connect is something that I did not do in my essay.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIn this class essay, I spent a lot of time analyzing while lightly touching upon literary devices. I made some claims, but didn't explain them well. I was thinking of the short story comparison format. It didn't click with me at that moment, that this was a poem comparison, and in poems literary devices are key. Going forward, I'd like to improve on comparing poems. While analysis is very important, so are literary devices. I would also like to work to “show as I tell” and think about dramatic situation, tone, mood, speaker, symbol, and metaphor. I made a lot of good points but didn’t go in-depth enough.
ReplyDeleteIn the higher scoring essays, there was a sufficient explanation of the overall themes and literary devices. I think reading these samples was very helpful to me. Seeing what scores higher and what scores lower, showed what my essay covered and what I was missing. I believe this will help me going forward. As this was our first in class essay, I know I can improve from here.
I noticed that all of the essays that I believe should have scored the best not only explained the themes of the poems but also interpreted them in their own way. I feel like I am usually too afraid to interpret in my own way because I am scared of being wrong. But these essays show that unique interpretations lead to more riveting essays. I found that the more basic essays, with the intro, 3 body paragraphs, and a conclusion, are the ones that are boring and seem to drag on. The ones that follow the same structure that we’ve been taught since middle school are the ones that won’t get a better score. It’s the individualization that makes an essay intriguing and will give it a better score. Each person’s unique interpretations are filled with insightful comments about the author’s purpose and theme of the poem while convincing the reader to agree with their point. The first and highest scoring essays are all clearly organized and are very easy for the reader to follow along with their thought process, which makes the reader even more likely to agree with the essay. I think that getting the reader to be able to agree with the writer's argument is very important and so in order to get a better score, you need to be convincing and able to get the reader to see your point of view. Your argument needs to be supported with evidence from the text along with personal interpretations of the text.
ReplyDeleteFrom the sample essays, I think that sample FFF was the most effective because it had a clear message and was well organized. The author organized the essay in a way that was very meaningful, first analyzing the topics and messages of each poem in the first body paragraph, and then analyzing the the literary devices and rhyme scheme of the poems in the second body paragraph. The analysis was very in depth and it was impressive how they were able to pick up on the rhyme schemes and the effect they had on the poem. They were able to recognize that A Barred Owl uses couplets and that it added a childish element to the poem. Some of the weaker essays had less clear arguments, some without introduction paragraphs or thesis statements. Sample FFF’s thesis statement was very well done, providing the reader with a clear understanding of what the author’s argument is. I think that the most successful essays were able to effectively analyze the literary devices.
ReplyDeleteMy essay focused mostly on the broad concepts of the poems and less on the specifics of things like rhyming schemes, tone, speaker, etc. With this focus on the overarching topics, I “told” much of what I wanted to communicate with the reader rather than “showing” it. I would give the first essay a 6 or 7 on the college board scoring guidelines. Like my essay, there were clear connections between the concepts presented in the poems but it lacked further explanation of things like tone, mood, etc. Though, there was an excellent connection between the structure of “A Barred Owl” and the message the author is sending. I feel this essay is largely well written but definitely has some lapses in diction which is to be expected with a timed essay. The second essay has more frequently lapses in diction and completely misses any mention of poem structure, focusing on only concepts. Unlike my essay and the first essay, this author takes a stance on each poem’s commentary saying things like, “his explanations, though sometimes very comical, are not the proper way to deal with the ignorance of a child.” These stances reflect the authors liking to “A Barred Owl” and disliking of “The History Teacher.” While I admire the author’s explanation of their opinions, I don’t think this way the place to express them seeing that the question had no connection to that. I would score this essay a 5. Reading the second essay gave me more appreciation for the overall effectiveness of the first. The essay does a great job of weaving in quotes to strengthen their evidence and provides clear explanation of the points made. Overall, I think this essay does the more effective job at answering the prompt while providing new perspectives to the poems.
ReplyDeleteEssays used: https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/apc/ap07_englit_operational_q1.pdf
I found essay FFF and NNN to be the most effective essays in comparing the two poems, "A Barred Owl" and "The History Teacher." They provided in depth analyses of both poems as well as the poetic devices the poets used. Even though FFF scored higher than NNN I still prefer NNN only because I can understand it better and FFF was a bit challenging to read. NNN did a great job in developing their introductory paragraph and connecting their argument as a whole back to their thesis. I also liked how the person used quotes as evidence to back up their argument. My essay compared to NNN and FFF was a bit similar. I have realized now that I have analyzed the meaning of the poems more than I have described the literary devices that were used. I should have also showed the rhyme scheme and separated them into different stanzas to portray how they differ and affect the meaning of the poem. Including the mood and tone of the speaker would have also been a good way to explain the message. I now understand how to improve my essay and what to include or not include when we analyze the poems and write about them next time.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteWhen reading through all of the AP student examples for the Collins-Wilbur essays, I definitely believed that FFF and NNN were the most effective out of all of them. I don’t believe I’m the best at analyzing pieces of literature, especially poetry, so reading these two essays gave me the opportunity to see how I could have broken down both of these pieces better when writing my own in-class essay. However, my essay and these essays all went into similar ideas when using literary devices as examples when comparing the two poems. Although, unlike FFF, I did not point out the “AABBCC” pattern within one of the poems, which I could have - making this essay even more effective. FFF and NNN both analyzed each part of the poems in depth, specifically using quotes to emphasize specific ideas they had. In fact, both essays used numerous quotes which continued to show me that these were the most effective because the quotes showed that the writer of these essays put lots of thought into what they were writing as well as could draw connections between what was inside the poem and what it truly meant.
Although some of the other essays analyzed the poems effectively, they did not go into the depth that FFF and NNN went into, by using quotes as well as analyzing literary devices throughout each poem. They directed each example back to how the innocence of the child was being preserved, which was what these poems were all about. FFF and NNN did a really nice job of including the tones and themes each poem brought out which also helped me see what I could have improved on.
By reading these essays and rereading mine, I found it very helpful to see what others included that I should have as well. I now have an understanding of what sort of things I should be writing about when comparing and contrasting two pieces of literature, specifically poetry, and hope to be able to correct my mistakes and write a successful essay like these were.
ReplyDeleteThe essays that received the most points were essays that really focused on the connection of the literary devices to the why and hows regarding the author's purpose for each poem. I described the usage of literary devices and how they were used but i didn't really connect them to how their usage helped the author truly convey their message. I think if we go through a poem in class and breakdown the literary devices used and how it helps create a theme from the author i could apply it to more poems critically - because right now i'm kinda just winging the connection part a little.
I felt as though im conving factor or argument i was trying to convey in my essay was lacking. I felt almost changed a bit to find supporting evidence for what I was trying to say or even confused myself and the question why I was even trying to say what i'm trying to say. I feel as though this uncertainty and not solid claim i was adhering too made my piece not as strong as it could've been. All the other essays that received high scores had essays that were easy to follow and points that were well defended and clearly defined.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAs I reread my essay, I found that I seemed to almost get off-topic. At times, I began to delve into the lessons of the poems a little too in-depth for the prompt. Although, some of that was necessary to explain the reasoning behind the various literary choices, but not all of it. That became even more clear when I read the other essays, the best of which were clearer in places than my own essay was. Those essays were strong in their abilities to weed out specific literary devices and then follow them up with strong quote evidence. I, on the other hand, did not use many quotes. I find that I often, in school papers, summarize what is being said instead of adding specific quotes. I don't know why I do this, I guess sometimes I just don't want to bother finding the specific thing if I already know what it is and can describe it in less time. But, having the quotes is important to the essay so that we can see exactly what the author is saying and therefore we are able to break it down and analyze it piece by piece.
ReplyDeleteMy other concern is that my hand writing is awful, which always make an essay not as clean and easy to read. I'll have to work on that before the test comes so that I can potentially improve my score
The essay that I found most effective was the first one. From the beginning, I knew that whoever wrote this essay had a clear understanding of the themes in both poems. On top of this, within the first paragraph itself, the writer emphasized the proper names of the poetic devices used in each poem, and how they differed from one another. As I moved down the list of sample responses, one common thread that I noticed was that for each essay there was less analysis and less emphasis on the poetic devices. Also, as I progressed through the essay, I noticed that the structure was leaving. Especially towards the end, the format of the essays became longer paragraphs, broken down in a formulaic manner, rather than broken down by idea.
ReplyDeleteMy essay got to the point that in both poems, the adults were censoring children and protecting their innocence. But, as I read essays at the top and the comments, two main aspects my essay lacked were poetic devices and analysis of the actual history teacher. In my essay, I did not refer specifically to any poetic device, I just gave a description. Also, in my essay, I never talked about how the history teacher’s method of preserving innocence is flawed, and how the parent’s method was practical and done with the right mindset.
After rereading my essay, I have come to the conclusion that I wrote more of a history style essay than a literature essay. In APUSH last year, we wrote many essays but the style choices never mattered an incredible amount, and so long as the sources were correctly cited, their integration mattered far less than the evidence that could be drawn from them. This worked well with history essays simply because I was trying to prove a point, no matter how bluntly. This is not the case in this type of essay, and I need to put more focus into my writing style, such that I can show the reader of my essay exactly what I mean with evidence from the text, rather than tell them with my own words.
ReplyDeleteThe example essays provide interesting contrast: the former is well written and effectively proves its point (despite the complete change in handwriting!) while the latter is short (did the writer save it for last and run out of time?) and written in a style more comparable to my approach, although with less detail. The first essay provides many examples from the poems about the differences between them, then expands on the example, and why it is significant. I believe this to be something I have done in my essay, and that it is important to do this in order to effectively make a point clear. The second essay provides limited examples and does not delve into each work’s deeper meaning. The writer read both poems, saw one similarity, and thought no further into them, resulting in an essay claiming that the poems have the same point of view, when in reality, they do not. There is something than can be learned from both of these examples: it is important to ensure all evidence is well integrated and easy to understand, and also, it is important to read the poems many times over to grasp the meaning of them entirely.
When reading through the different essays, I was intrigued by the different possible interpretations. In the one with “UUU” at the top, it described the poem “The History Teacher” to be nothing but funny, whereas I had thought it to be awful. I found some of the things being mentioned to be too gruesome of a topic to be made fun of, especially because it was so applicable to how we really are taught some things.
ReplyDeleteI also found that the essays that seemed good had very good explanations of their thoughts and the literary devices used. For example, when comparing the writings titled “UUU” and “U”, the former had better structure and a longer essay, while I believe the latter scored higher as it more thoroughly explained their thoughts on the literary devices, as it was straight to the point. It was, however, lacking in its introductory paragraph, that was just one sentence, and failed to lay out what they would be discussing in the essay. What neither of these essays did was contain multiple quotes from the poems. The better responses, like “NNN”, include several quotes from the poems, as well as a thorough explanation and good organization of their thoughts. I think that my essay was good in that it contained all of this criteria, yet it could be improved by adding more literary devices and going deeper into my explanations.
When re reading my own work, I realized that I did a good job of establishing an opinion and outlining what I saw in the poems, but I was not able to provide anecdotal evidence to support and further my writing. After reading some of the other essays students have written, I understand more where my work should be attempting to reach. I totally neglected to include anything about the style of the poem or the rhyme scheme, which would have benefitted me to include because the way the poem reads does impact its meaning. Another thing I noticed in the other essays was their ability to more show the reader than tell them what’s going on. I feel like I kind of made some claims and points within my writing that could have been more effective had I elaborated on my thinking. As far as the two poems, I really enjoy them after having delved deeper into their meaning. However I am biased because I enjoy poetry. What I would be interested to test would be if a more poetic response and analysis to pieces of poetry would serve as a more effective response. I think this because it might keep the reader within the mindset of a poet and better help them to see what I feel like I am seeing in the poem I’m writing about. Over all, I am going to work to make the points in my writing more significant by elaborating on them and describing them; showing not telling. I also am going to try and more consider the technical aspects of poetry in my responses. This should help me to write a better piece.
ReplyDelete-Jackson Drake
I found the first essay to be the most effective (FFF). It was the most clearly written, despite being hard to read due to handwriting, and provided the most eloquent and in depth analysis of the differences between the two poems, and the effect of these differences. It also supported each of its points well with evidence and quotes directly from the poems. The most effective essays out of all of these were those that looked at the relationship between the rhyme scheme, the tone, and specific word usage, and other specific poetic devices. The difference between the top essays and the bottom essays in terms of analysis of these concepts is quite large.
ReplyDeleteIn my essay, while I attempted to get into this same area of analysis, I was not altogether successful. I needed to get into more specific examples, supporting my arguments with details directly from the text. I feel that while I was on the right track, I did not go far enough. Next time, I should be sure to keep the same essence, but with greater attention to detail and supporting of my argument.
My essay focused more on the deeper meaning of the poem rather than the specific literary devices. I should have spent more time developing my ideas about the author’s rhetorical choices and how the poem was actually made. I think I did a good job paraphrasing and describing the details of the poems, but I should have left it there instead of diving into the meaning and takeaways. Next time, I will dedicate my essay towards describing the author’s specific choices and do this by showing not telling. I do deserve some credit though, I think I have a strong writer’s voice and mature and developed ideas, I just need to practice directing them correctly. From the sample essays, I thought FFF was the best. They had a good understanding of the different literary devices and rhyme schemes. The lower essays felt choppier and made less cohesive sense.
ReplyDeleteIn my essay I focused more on the use of literary devices to define the meaning of the two poems in order to define each poem and support my essay. Throughout my essay I feel I brought together my ideas and thoroughly used the literary devices to support my claims. On the other hand I should have also focused on the structure of the poems and look at the rhyme schemes and stanza length as a way to add to my essay. Next time when I write about poetry I will show as I tell, and provided structural evidence to my interpretations in the poems. Though altogether I feel my essay was well structured and convey smoothly the points I was making. After reading the samples, I found essay NNN1 the best overall. I felt the set up of ideas and organization aided and completing a well thought essay. The writer also effectively discussed the rhyme schemes of each poems and evaluates the literary devices used. I felt that the writer had a thorough understanding of the poems, and had the best analysis of the poems.
ReplyDeleteI have found in essays that rhetorical/literary devices are incredibly important. The essays that scored the highest had analysis of these items. But as someone who never really learned much beyond simile and metaphor, using and analyzing other harder to identify devices is much more difficult. I also just found it hard to write about these poems since I myself did not like them very much. Personally, I didn't connect with them which made them even harder to read and write about. And I saw that the less better the essay was, the less the writer seemed to connect to the source material. That does not bode well for writing. I hope to write more like FFF since they seemed overall steady and really worked with the devices.
ReplyDelete