Distillation: AP English Literature and Composition Free-Response Question

        To deliver the narrator’s intended criticism of brainy people, the narrator of the excerpt utilizes imagery, point of view, and direct characterization. Through the use of various alienating phrases such as “blindfold into some nasty pursuit” or “intellectual sort”, utilizing disturbing pictures of strange people poking and stabbing spiders and frogs, and also speaking directly to the audience is all done in order to further antagonize the subject, which are intellectuals. The narrator himself is in fact blind and is ignoring the benefits of what the intellectual has accomplished for society, in order to further promote his own senseless brand of thinking, which is that one is fortunate to have to do hard manual labor in order to survive, rather than ponder because one is well off enough to. In the passage, the narrator displays the attitude of being both ignorant and hateful of intellectuals to make the idea of a life of hardship sound pleasing.

200 Word Sentence

The clouds, seeming to be as if they were in an alliance, lingered on in the time after the first snowfall well into the late of next week, hanging high in the sky, as if joined into one super gigantic mega cloud that never ends, which never appears to change hue, which never appears to move, and which never appears to disappear, and sometimes, however oh so rarely, if one is lucky, the muffled rays of sunlight will successfully manage to erode the top layers of the cloud, and merely permeate through the bottom, which in all reality is a mockery of the delusion that humans have control, the day never has a blue dot in sight, that would be too much for the average person to handle, it would be far too much joy to see a glimpse to the end of the cloud, it would bring too much chaos to the world, so the cloud stays stagnate for months, encasing the human population in a dome of forlorn, it greets you in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, and is even illuminated enough to greet you at night, and it is unfortunately here and inescapable during the majority of the year.

Tone Letter

Dear Manager,

                I would just like to take a moment to thank you for your thoughtfulness, which I was honored enough to receive from your restaurant only this past week. I must say the service was absolutely phenomenal; I only had to wait an hour before being asked if I was ready to look at the menu.

                It is important to give some context as to why I am so shocked to have such great service. I am a traveling businessman from the great state of New Mexico. Back in New Mexico we have this horrible habit of getting the menu immediately, ordering in five minutes, and then eating another ten minutes later. Now that I think about, I can’t believe that I was able to put up with such disgusting and barbaric behavior back in my home state. I think I will have to go sit in the corner to punish myself for all that I have allowed to happen.

The greatness of your restaurant only shined further after I received my meal. At first I was awfully confused why the waiter gave me a jar of chunky peanut butter, but then he told me how it would better suit my “crummy taste buds”. When I asked him about the fact that it was already half clawed at and eaten, with varying streaks and stains from many human hands, he gave me an answer that set aside any worry I might’ve had: It adds more flavor. His logic was so persuasive I nearly decided to devour the entire jar whole, despite my deathly allergy to peanuts, which as most restaurants require, I informed my server before placing my order.

                I then decided that your restaurant was far too classy for me, so I left. I clearly could not handle the level of sophistication that Louisiana has compared to my lackluster state of New Mexico. In fact I was so ashamed; I didn’t stop driving, not until I was out of the border of your tremendous state.

                Once I was in Texas, I settled in at a cattle ranch and had a savory steak that was nowhere near comparable to that divine jar of chunky peanut butter. While eating the melting onions which were drizzled over the freshly grilled steak, I started crying about missing out on your glorious restaurant’s food. I am not worthy of it, I told myself.

                I again would like to thank you. I hope that your restaurant keeps all of it’s standards the same, and doesn't change them in anyway.  Your restaurant was by far the best one I have been to, ever.

Best Regards,

                P. Wilton

Synecdoche, Metonymy, and Apostrophe Passages

Synecdoche

Goodnight Sweet Winter

             I slammed the frame into its place. The snowstorm was no longer streaming into my room. I started eating the box of popcorn. It was still freezing. I stared out the abysmal window at the craters shining down upon me. I grabbed the tin and spat my popcorn out. I grabbed the salt and dumped it onto all the popcorn. I devoured the popcorn, causing my face to turn inward.

            The annoying chirping beak started in my room again, giving me new anguish. I grasped my lead and continued working. My words were quite undistinguishable on the thin sheet of wood. I changed my glare towards the cement above me to see that a strange ravine was forming. The reshaped clay and gravel fell inward onto me. The pile of rocks stood there amongst the newly formed silence of the cold winter’s night, concealed within the confines of isolation at the lodge.

Metonymy

Thanks Jack Black

            If there is anything Hollywood taught me, it’s to stick it to The Man, which is in a way ironic. After watching the film in class I can understand that this is ironic because Hollywood is part of the problem with The Man. Hollywood is the fancy ties and large checks that suppress freedom and what truly matters. The Hollywood glow is displayed, but almost nothing of true value is.

            Even though that’s the truth, many sit there in their lavish homes being fed grapes still on the vine, while many others sit in a poor situation. The status of the yacht, it’s symbol, and what Hollywood calls lifetime achievement, does not fool me. The highflying flag can only do so much to protect the welfare of its people before Hollywood and the gold members of society fight back against it. All things considered, the movie we watched in class was a very eye-opening documentary about the hypocritical and barbaric society we live in today.

Apostrophe

Eris

            Oh emotion! How dare you make me feel the way I do! You can make me feel a trillion of separate feelings all interwoven into one giant state of being. You can’t make me so happy, and then bring me down into a slump, it’s simply not right. What right do you have? Are you a god? Are you some sort of omniscient being that can control everything and everyone with one flip of a switch?!? You control our actions with that ceaseless power of yours. How interesting it must be to be you, the person who both destroys and builds one’s self.

Unorthodox Point of View Short Story

Your Interesting Goop

You had the dream again. You were in an ocean. You watched the scene unfold as if from the position of a god, from a fixed point above the turbulence. The glistening azure waves swept over you, but you managed to stay afloat, afloat above the far rooted trench. The salt stung your eyes. There were vultures circling you, yes vultures, not the common seagull. They were pecking at you. They were biting. They were clawing. They were squawking. Every new scratch was the gift of struggle and pain. The thought of sinking to the bottom of the cavernous trench was nothing you feared, and in fact you were tired of the noise. You wanted solitude. You sank. You fell...all the way to the bottom of the trench. You were in a pit of darkness with faint streams of yellow light coming in. The water dissolved into the air, disappearing without you noticing. You walked along the bottom and opened your bedroom curtains.

You glance at your calendar and recall your relaxed schedule. You’re actually happy that today has finally come, and to get it over with. You hear a muffled buzzing sound coming from your desk. It’s your dad.

“…he knows that it’s that time of the month again! Martha, he likes fishing, otherwise he wouldn’t do it, now would he?”

“Hey! Dad? Hi, I can hear you talking.”

“Oh, Jimmy boy, I’ll be there to pick you up in an hour!”

“Yep. I’ll be ready.”

“Okay, okay, good, yep, I’m packing lots of salad for lunch and vegetables, mmmm, gotta love those veggies Johnny boy.” You could tell that your father was just saying this to please your mother. Your mother chimes in, with her squeaky voice:

“Who the heck brings salad on a fishing trip? That’s ridiculous, if you’re gonna lie to your wife, at least do it with a little respect, thank you very much. I’m not some stupid broad!” Your parents fading thick city accents make you remember your childhood. “Hiya Johnny, sweetie, do you actually care about these fishing trips? Don’t make your father force you to go if you don’t want to.”

“No, ma.” You giggle to yourself. “No, mom, I like these trips. It’s nice to escape from life and have some peace and quiet! I’m tired of you guys yappin’ my ears off!”

“Yeah, well, love you too Johnny boy,” You notice the joking tone in your mothers voice. “See ya when I see ya.”

“See yous when I see yous.”

After sitting on your front steps for a while, you manage to squeeze all your gear into the back of your dad’s compact car. You almost forgot that it was small and made you claustrophobic.

You recall how the lake in which you fish at determines the mood of the trip. The more fish and more clean the lake is, the more truth there is behind the idea of fishing. Sometimes your dad just wants to talk and brings you to the “pond” in town, which in all actuality is a giant drainage ditch filled with nothing but gravel and children’s lost dreams. Both of you know what it is, but once you arrive there, it’s basically an implied contract to act like it’s teeming with life.

“You, uh, want to go to Bear’s Lake?” Your father asked like it was an actual question, focused on the long road ahead of you both.

“Yeah, I love that place, c’mon pop, let’s go there.”

“Me too, you know, before we moved out to the country, we came here once in the summertime. You remember that Johnny boy?” You wrack your brain.

“No, no I don’t.” You don’t remember a lot of things.

“So much for those childhood memories, huh? They’re like nothin’ now; they’ve dissolved into air. Hey look, they got their house repainted. Ugly color. Some people just don’t use they’re heads…”

“Pops, I know you’re gonna ask eventually, let’s just get it over with now.

“Shall I go down the list?”

“Well, if I say no you still will, so go ahead.”

“How’s work?”

“Fantastic! They hired two more people to help take the workload off of me, I am leaving four hours earlier, everyone is so nice and generous, and they installed a new snow-cone machine.”

                  “Really?!?!?!” Your dad leans his weight forward on his seat to get a good look at you. All the while your dad doesn’t notice he is putting his foot down harder on the gas pedal.

                  “No! Of course not! It’s the same crummy situation as it was last month, and the month before that.” You become heated.

                  “Okay, well, uh, do you need help paying your rent, I know the rates an hour south can be quite difficult for most people.” You shake your head. “How’s your whole ‘music on the side’ thing going?”

                  “Really bad pa, really bad. I am hitting a block, and my mind feels like goop. I don’t get any time anyways to work on it, real musicians gets hours and hours a day. Even then most of them fail. I get one, maybe two a day if I’m lucky.”

                  You both unload from the car and carry the small rowboat from the top of the car to the edge of the lake. There are kids playing in the sand, arguing over the type of castle to build.

                  “You’re not trying hard enough, that whole ‘goop’ thing, yeah I only said that when I was young to get out of stuff.” You see the frustration on your dad’s face.

                  “I’m not like you dad, I actually care about my music.” You become more heated and hostile. You two meander your way off the shore and into the middle of the lake.

                  “What do you mean you’re not like me? You gonna do that Johnny boy?  Why do you always say that, am I so bad to be similar to?”

                  Your phone stings your leg and you answer it.

                  “Boys, boys! Your father forgot his medication he is going to have to come back, or your going to have to pick it up! I can’t, I have an appointment!”  Your mother’s unnecessary haste and panic causes you much anxiety. You hear the children in the background screaming as they kick each other’s sandcastles. There are grandiose shouts followed by horrible sobs. You focus in on every little noise and detail in the entirety of Bear’s Lake. Your father continues going off on a tangent.  You turn to say a snarly comment to your father, yet your foot gets caught on one of the raft’s seats. You enter head first, and the water cools you off. You remember your dream, and you laugh.

The Plot Sickens: Free-write & Reflection

        Free-Write

       “It was Christmas Eve. Fog stuck to the tarmac at Lindbergh field.” as the county sheriff continued describing the sequence of events, each sentence seemed more and more apt to be written for a novel. “We lost all six souls aboard the flight,” while Richard Atkinson spoke, more and more heads began to turn slowly to the father who lost two loved ones.
       He was sitting there in a chair, just feet away from the podium where Atkinson was speaking. He was crying violently, trying to compose himself, but with no success. If a stranger were asked to guess what just happened, the idea that the man’s wife and newborn just died in a plane accident wouldn’t be farfetched.

       “I can’t imagine what he’s feeling right now,” said one lady sitting three rows behind him.

       “I called this press conference because as sheriff of this great county of Louisiana, it is my job to protect the public at large.” he then proceeded to glance at Mr. Asher, sitting there in the chair crying away. “And I wish to serve this county well. Today the designated NTSB crash investigators confirmed that the crash was the result of a deliberate action.”

       The room was filled - or rather emptied by gasps of air. The man crying had stopped. His eyes opened wide. He stormed out of the room.

       “Yup, yup, yup, I told you Frank, this would be too much for that poor Mr. Asher,” whispered Mrs. Ida into the ear of her husband of fifty years.

       He drove home. He went down into his basement. He scraped all the powder into the sink and washed it down the drain. He snatched the wires and cords and waited till night to throw them into the lake.

Reflection

      In "The Plot Sickens" by Fanny Howe, the author uses the culmination of her twenty-one year teaching career to explain a common trend among young writers today. When Howe gave her college students a similar prompt to the one Mr. Kefor gave his E block Creative Writing class, she found that the stories were usually violent and random. In fact, in the article she states, "“Of the 20 stories generated by this assignment, only 5 had endings that could qualify as “happy” – endings, that is, in which a problem was resolved. All the others concluded with extraordinary violence. Sometimes it was a psychological sort of violence, difficult to make out, a matter of alienation or bewilderment.”" I  feel as though my story deviates from the authors claim, in my story there are conflicts - a man has lost his wife and child and also that there was someone who deliberately acted upon the plane to make it crash. The conflict is somewhat resolved by the end of the short story where it is revealed that the man himself was the saboteur, however in no way is it a happy story. I do however agree that my story is violent, as there is a plane crash, and the ending is a sort of psychological violence, both inflicted on the reader and characters who believe the man's innocence, as stated by Howe. Another one of Howe's claims is that, “…it is the fact that violence enters the story without benefit of plot…”, on this point I feel again that my story deviates from these claims. Unlike arbitrarily adding violence, the violence in my story drives the plot to progress and give information to the reader without plainly saying it. The big point of the article is that in the stories of her students, "Randomness rules." and there is extreme senseless violence. While my story does have violence it isn't used all over the place - there are no ninjas that burst in while the press conference is happening. Another difference between Howe's classroom and Mr. Kefor's classroom was there was no mention of a word limit restraint in the article. If given the opportunity to expand upon our work then it wouldn't seem so nonsensical. Yet another claim by Howe is that it is the students subconscious making their stories the way they are - at first it was the "Establishment" which she explains is powerful affluent white men. She now claims it is the "Economy" - stressed with a capital letter e in order to realize that people can be made rich or poor in an instant on no grounds with no explanation. She claims that this use of arbitrary violence is attributed to the idea that what the "Economy" stands for, and is drilled into young students brains from an early age and influences their actions and decisions. While this is a very interesting idea, I'm not entirely sure if it's true. Either way, the ideas of the "Economy" cannot be found in my short story. All things considered, "The Plot Sickens" by Fanny Howe is a very interesting article, however I feel that my free-write product deviates from the claims made by the author.

Self Deprecation Essay

I’ll Think of a Title Later…

One of the most ridiculous things is that the underlying truth didn’t cement itself inside my head. Even now as I am typing I am procrastinating. Well, okay, definitely not to the horrible extent I did previously, but I am working on homework that isn’t due for another day or two while I have a big math test looming over me…

TUESDAY

“Welcome back class, I hope you had a good weekend! Today we are going to get introduced to your new project. It has two parts – a poster, presentation, and a writing section all on photosynthesis. It will be due…” as the teacher continues I think about my strategy for getting all this accomplished in the time given.

                "Oh. Okay.", I think to myself. I understand photosynthesis somewhat so I should be able to do this pretty well!

SATURDAY

It’s been a couple of days. I think about getting ahead, and how I should get started on the biology project, but I don’t really feel like it. Today was a long day, I’m tired.

SUNDAY

I should probably start that biology project I have to do. I take out all of my school things. I grab my poster. I turn on the computer. It’s been a long day and I don’t feel like working on this project right now either. I plug my headphones in and listen to music. Oh, I’ll only listen to a few songs, it shouldn’t hurt. I should probably check to see what happened today in the world. I go to the CNN homepage. I read a few stories. I go to the NPR homepage to see a different viewpoint on the stories. Next I check out USA Today.

                “Time for dinner!”

                I unplug my headphones, and go eat dinner…then I watch television…then I decide to stop working on homework for now.

MONDAY

“Okay class, you get half the period to work on your projects! Remember, it is due Thursday!”

Finally, I get time to work on this assignment! What should I start working on first? I have to make a diagram about the overall process and then another diagram about the two separate parts of the process. Next I have to write a lengthy paragraph for each diagram explaining how they connect and what they do. I open the biology textbook to the chapter on photosynthesis. How much space should I put for each part? I find a ruler. I space everything.

                “What did you say for question number twelve on the lab?” asks one of my group-members.

                “I talked about how the phenol red indicator’s lack of color change indicated that the carbon dioxide had left the solution, and how this meant that photosynthesis occurred.” I respond.

                “How come that means photosynthesis is occurring?”

                “Because the second stage of the process – light dependent reactions – the first part of which is carbon fixation where carbon is taken in by the plant and attached to RuBP to make 3-PGA.”

                “Oh! Okay! I think I understand. Thanks.”

                I begin outlining my first title: “Light Dependent Reactions”. My letters are inconsistent. I rewrite. I begin delving into the book to better understand the subject, which is essential to make a good diagram. The bell rings.

TUESDAY

     “How’s that biology project going Tristan?” asks my mother.

     “Oh, uh, not so good. I have a half a day tomorrow, I’ll have plenty of time to work on that project!”

     “You should try to work on it today too.”

     “Yeah I probably should.”

     I end up not having any time, and don’t even open my biology binder.

WEDNESDAY INTO THURSDAY

I arrive home at 11:30 am, and decide to watch some TV and eat lunch. I begin mulling over my options.

                “BARK!” an impatient command from my dog to walk him outside. I know that he is tired of being in the house so I walk him all along the perimeter of the property line. Even though I am on the edge of where we can go, he pushes further. He whimpers.

                “Sorry Sam!” I say.

                I settle down inside and it’s already 12:00 pm. I make myself a pizza.

                “ARE YOU READY TO PLAY MILLIONAIRE?!?!?!?” the booming voice of Cedric the Entertainer fills the room.

“Yup!” I respond.

                It’s already 1:00 pm, but I decide to finish watching a good movie that just started on TV! Why not? I still have like 8 hours till I have to go to swim practice. That’ll leave me with plenty of time!

                By the time I finish the movie, even the bad side of me which is allowing me to further procrastinate feels guilty. I start my homework at 2:00 pm.

                I plug my headphones in and start listening to music, because it has been so helpful to me before right? NOT. I continue with my usual news check.

                I work on all my other subjects of homework –algebra 2, world history, English, and the like. Putting all else before the dreaded biology project.

                Eventually my mother comes home. Then my father comes home. I decide to start the biology project.

                “Dinner time!”

                “Ok. I will probably not get this done,” I say out loud.

    “What? I couldn’t hear you!”

    “Nothing!”

 When I resume, I finish only one part of three. It is 7:00 pm and I have to get ready to go to swim practice.

                When I leave the Wheaton athletic center, I feel a huge gust of cold winter wind splash me in the face like a wave. It motivates me. I go home and it is 10:00 pm.

                I work quick and methodically. No, I actually don’t. I agonize over every letter, every line in my drawings. I want to do well on this project; it’s a big part of my grade. I erase and I rewrite. I erase and I rewrite.     

                I read the textbook. I write an explanation. I sketch a complimentary diagram. I read the book. I write. I sketch. I read my notes. I write. I sketch. Repeat, repeat, oh…and repeat.

I look at the clock. 11:30 pm is stamped in bright text on the computer. It’s ridiculous to think I have been home for twelve hours.

I work even more furious, but get bogged down as time passes. I had to get up early this morning, just like I will have to tomorrow for school.

“You shouldn’t stress over every little detail, go to sleep at a reasonable hour!” my mother says.

“Okay, but I want to do well!” I respond. I resume the long trek to finish the assignment.

“The left over G3P becomes sugars, and the electron carriers go back to the light dependent reactions to start the whole process over.” I write, finally finishing my biology project.

I stare at the clock: 1:06 am. Good morning world. I fall asleep, and cringe just a bit harder than normal when I hear that lovely noise.

“ERRHH ERRRRH ERRHHH”, this alarm is music to my ears.

I wake up five hours later and get ready for school. When I go into biology class I present my project and all goes well.

“Good job class! I was very impressed by your stellar work! Now that that is over, we are going to get started on our next project. This is exactly like your last one you did, except it is on cellular respiration, so it is more involved. It is due…”

"Oh. Okay.", I think to myself. As the teacher continues I think about my strategy for getting all this accomplished in the time given.