Composing the AP Style Analysis Essay

A workable strategy to use in 40 minutes:

  • 1 minute reading and working the prompt
  • 5 minutes reading and making annotations regarding the passage

*Isolate two/three references or moments that strike you. These may contribute toopening/closing lines or other key moments in your response

  • 5 minutes preparing to write (Underlining, mapping, charting, key words/quotes)
  • 25-30 minutes writing your essay, based on your preparation
  • 3 minutes proofreading

What’s going to help you analyze an unfamiliar text?

  • SOAPSSS
  • Identifying Tone
  • Style elements (DIDLS) – Diction, Imagery, Details, Language Devices, Syntax
  • Appeals (Rh. Triangle and other appeals – country, higher power, God, liberty, love, truth, etc.)

Rhetorical strategies to look for include:

Comparison/ContrastUse of logic

Cause and effectInductive or Deductive argument

Different types of ironyChoice of Examples

DictionSelection of Detail

SyntaxJuxtaposition

ParallelismAnalogy

AntithesisExtended Metaphor

Concrete, Specific WordsHyperbole

Imagery (Sensory Appeals)Allusion

PersonificationOnomatopoeia

TonePacing

OxymoronAlliteration, Assonance, Consonance

Point of viewOrganization

Appeals to authorityAppeals to credibility

Be able to explain why the speaker selected these strategies for the particular audience, occasion, and purpose. This is the analysis part.

  • Do not summarize the text.

Opening Paragraph:

  • Hook (Maybe). Use brevity.
  • Reference the author and title of the work. Maturely weave in needed SOAPSSS components.
  • Use strong verbs/adjectives.
  • Address the author’s view or attitude of the subject (you may want to identify the tone of the work).
  • Specifically mention the rhetorical elements you will explore in your essay and how they apply to the essay prompt. (Thesis)

In her narrative essay, “Fish Cheeks,” novelist Amy Tan recounts a teenage memory of a particularly embarrassing Christmas Eve dinner. Tan effectively conveys the idea that at 14, she was unable to recognize the loving sacrifices her mother made for her. She adopts a sentimental tone and relies on several metaphors within her colorful diction to appeal to similar feelings and experiences in her adult readers.

Body:

  • Use topic sentences as you work chronologically through the text. Break the text into sections (along with your essay) while you discuss the effectiveness of the author’s style and strategies.
  • Don’t discuss every strategy, do identify and discuss the strongest strategies that are most critical to the meaning of the piece.
  • Use specific references and details from the given passage. This is your evidence.
  • Refer directly to material using short quotes, even if it’s just one or two words. Quote phrases, not sentences. Weave them into your discussion.
  • Show connection throughout your essay by continually reiterating key ideas from the prompt and from your opening paragraph. Stay connected with the prompt and your thesis.
  • Use transitions (begins, opens, shifts to, juxtaposes, contrasts, moves into, closes . . .)

Conclusion:

  • Do not simply summarize
  • Avoid, “In conclusion . . .” or “In summary . . .”
  • Make a final statement to “so what” your analysis
  • Link your ideas to a particularly effective line or image from the passage
  • Be witty and clever. Save one last bit of analysis, one more thoughtful take, that ties together the speaker’s style and their purpose.

The success of your Style Essay in concise form:

OK – Identifying rhetorical tools or stylistic techniques/devices used within the passage.

Good – Offering relevant and meaningful commentary on these stylistic observations.

Good – Clearly identifying the author’s purpose / argument, and tone.

Great – Understanding and showing with examples and explanation how the writer uses rhetorical techniques in creating and delivering the effect and meaning of the passage. These ideas are to be woven together in sophisticated paragraphs of mature analysis.