Week 5 + 6 Class Notes (10.11-10.15; 10.18-10.22)

Tone

-       can only be applied to the author in reflexive pieces (unless the narrator is the author)

-       refers to speaker/narrator’s attitude

-       shifts

-       discussed in terms of emotion

o   effectively analyze emotions

o   recognize emotional states

-       effect created with technique - syntax, diction, etc.

Voice

-       author’s style

-       speaker’s personality

-       shifts, but not often - only when narrator is dynamic

-       discussed in terms of character

o   character traits - smart, charismatic, etc.

o   ethics - honest/dishonest, etc.

o   “literary” characteristics - reliable/unreliable character

-       effect created with technique

Style

-       authorial persona’s personality

o   not author, per se

o   situation-specific personal

o   changes over time

-       shifts when author’s persona changes

-       discussed in terms of character

Perrine (see book)

- Musical devices (11)

- Sound and meaning (13)

- Pattern (14)

- Evaluating poetry (15-160

Week 4 Class Notes (10.04-10.08)

AP Exam

Two sections:

- Multiple choice: 50-55 questions over 4 passages; 60 minutes.

• tests vocab
• keep a running paraphrase going on as you read
• beware of answers that don’t answer the question completely, are too broad, too narrow, or are not backed by textual evidence.

- Essays: 3 essays; 120 minutes

• two  closed readings  : Deals with a "closed" prompt
• one open prompt: asks about how a literary technique functions and how it is developed in a work of literature (outside knowledge)
   

Literary term flashcards: http://quizlet.com/1526669/literary-terms-ap-english-literature-flash-cards/

Cliffsnotes on the AP Lit Exam: http://www.cliffsnotes.com/Section/AP-English-Language-and-Composition-Exam-Format.id-305363,articleId-31642.html

 

Allusion

- A reference to another work of literature or event in history.

- the connotations that come along with allusions allow a writer to convey a lot of information, while technically saying little (very useful for poets!)

- for a reader to understand an allusion, it is necessary that he knows what the writer is referring to; broad concepts (often biblical ones) are assumed to be generally known, but there is always a chance that the writer will be misunderstood or that a reference will pass unbeknownst to the reader.

 

Meaning and Idea

- meaning is the experience that a piece provides.

- total meaning: the overall experience that the piece provides

- prose meaning:  can be separated out and analyzed; a prose paraphrase may be extracted.

Week 3 Class Notes (9.27-10.01)

Style
Clarity - readers have to be able to understand your writing.
- use short, active verbs
- match subjects with actors
- maintain a sustained flow of sentences from a single POV
The plain style - cut down on unnecessary eloquence
- sometimes elevated language is necessary, but in many cases it isn’t
- using simple language does not necessarily make your work sound unsophisticated
- plain language helps make a piece easier to follow
Concision - don’t use too many words
- using too many words obscures your meaning and often makes a piece difficult to read
- cut down on useless empty words and unnecessary adjectives
Rhetoric - all the different things that make a piece pleasing to read
- incorporate good rhetoric into your work
- see previous week’s notes for the different aspects of rhetoric

Syntax
Most sentences are in SVO/C form - subject verb object/complement
- object - receives action from the subject. ex. She threw the teapot.
- complement - describes/modifies the subject. ex. She is a teapot.

Coordinating conjunction - FANBOYS: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so
Subordinating conjunction - begins dependent clauses; joins with independent clauses; ex. When, while, because, since
Compound sentence - two independent clauses joined with a coordinating conjunction
Complex sentence - an independent clause and a dependent clause joined with a subordinating conjunction
Simple sentence - an independent clause with no conjunctions

Sentence Variety
Effects:
- pace - speed the passage moves at
- tone - emotional feeling/attitude
- emphasis/attention - where is the attention being directed?
Techniques:
- construction - how sentences are put together: how they are joined, word order,  verb tenses, etc.
- Length - pretty self explanatory

Further explaination on Syntax: http://www.ehow.com/about_4777970_what-is-syntax.html
Examples of Syntax: http://www.richgibson.com/writingmanual/chap3.htm

Week 2 Class Notes (9.20-9.24)

Figurative Language

Figure of speech - use of a word of phrase in a way other than its literal meaning

Figurative language - language using figures of speech; ideas expressed in non-literal language

            4 reasons its effective:

-        provides imaginative pleasure

-        brings additional imagery

-        adds emotional intensity

-        helps keep work concise

Simile - comparison expressed by use of a word such as “like,” “as,” “than,” etc.

Metaphor - comparison created when a figurative term is substituted for the literal term

            4 forms:

-        literal named; figurative named

-        literal named; figurative implied

-        literal implied; figurative named

-        literal implied; figurative implied

Personification - giving human attributes to nonhuman objects

Apostrophe - addressing an absent being or nonhuman object as if they were human

Synecdoche - using part of something to represent the whole

Metonymy - using something closely related to what is actually meant

Symbol - something that means more than what it is

Allegory - description or narrative that has multiple meanings

Paradox - a statement that is true yet seems contradictory

Overstatement - exaggeration to emphasize truth

Understatement - saying less than what one means

Irony - http://grammar.about.com/od/il/g/ironyterm.htm

            3 kinds:

-        verbal - saying the opposite of what one means

-        dramatic - discrepancy between what the speaker says and what the work is saying

-        situational - discrepancy between what is expected to happen and what actually happens

Rhetoric

Rhetoric - art of communication

Subject - what is the topic?

Purpose - what do you want to communicate?

-        entertain

-        reflect

-        inform

-        persuade

- can be any combination of the above elements

Audience - who is the work intended for?

-        age groups

-        education/background - vocab, knowledge, etc.; goes with age groups

-        personal bias

-        expectations

Speaker/Persona - what should the audience think of you

-        fictional vs. real personality

-        connection to audience

-        attitude toward subject

-        personal characteristics

Lots of terms relating to rhetoric: http://www.uky.edu/AS/Classics/rhetoric.html

Argument

Purpose - to persuade

Argument - series of ideas; chain of claims

-        logical (logos) - appeals to reason/intellect

-        ethical (ethos) - appeals to morality; ethics differ from person to person

-        emotional (pathos) - appeals to feelings

Thesis - main point

Claim - assertion

Evidence - facts that support claim

Warrant - ties evidence to claims

Premise - leads to conclusion

Conclusion - acceptance of final outcome of argument

Warrant has to be present - evidence must be connected to claims

Necessary support - things that can’t be ignored

Sufficient support - enough to make a point

Week 1 Class Notes (9.13-9.17)

Poetry: “language condensed to artistic effect” with particular emphasis on condensed and artistic.
A poem has to be concise - if it takes longer to explain a piece that it does to read it, then it is not poetry.
A poem also has to be artistic - language use has to be clever, for the lack of a better word. More often than not, there are multiple meanings embedded in poetry.
Connotation v. denotation:
- connotation: feelings/emotions evoked by certain words
- denotation: literal “dictionary definition” of a word
For example, the two words “fat” and “plump” mean very similar things, but “fat” is far more negative than “plump.”
This leads us to the two types of connotation:
- honorific - words with a positive effect
- perjorative - words with a negative effect


Here is another way to look at connotation and denotation that we didn’t touch on in class:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96o5Sw6yEYo&feature=player_embedded

Concreteness v. abstraction:
This one is pretty self-explanatory. Concreteness is how specific language is while abstractness is how… not specific it is. Sometimes, vagueness adds to a piece of literature. The example we used in class was the string of words “clothes, pants, jeans, Levi’s.” These words go from very abstract to very concrete.


Precision:

How “full” a word is. A author can deliberately use ambiguous words to hide or delay information.

Words like “great” or “cool” are empty - they hold little true meaning.

Elevative v. colloquialism:

How elevative a word is cannot be precisely defined. Instead, it can be represented as a continuum ranging from slang to epic diction. Most literary work falls in the middle of this spectrum.

Dialect, jargon, etc:

There isn’t too much to be said about this.

Dialect is the specific word usage of a particular region

Jargon is technical or specialized language

Diction is the choice of words in a piece; see previous day.
Imagery is, well, imagery.
Imagery appeals to the senses.




Analysis of poem "Hidden Meanings"
At first, we beat around the bush and talked about the superficial meanings in the poem - the fairy tales, the imagery, etc. It wasn’t until about halfway through class that all the inappropriate aspects of the poem started surfacing. I found it interesting that Dabney portrayed men being subjugated by women in his poem, reversing the long-established gender stereotype. However, we never really got into why Dabney chose to portray these fairy tales in the way he did. Was he perhaps traumatized as a child, or is he just a dirty, dirty man?