The Typical AP Essay (One That Gets a Big Shiny 9 Star) Will Have the Following Qualities

The typical AP essay (one that gets a big shiny 9 star) will have the following qualities:

insightful analysis of the passage (define the effect of the passage and demonstrate how the author conveys the effect (through literary elements)
control of rhetoric (you can argue a point: state a claim, support it and explain it; make specific references to the text)
control of conventions (no comma splices or egregious errors in agreement, etc.)
control of structure (you will be expected to have an introduction and a conclusion)

Does this list sound scary? Why? It's not asking for anything you cannot do. Very few 12th grade AP students have trouble with conventions. Whatever specific problems you have we will try to make right, so cross that one off your list of concerns. You also don't have to trouble yourself too much about structure: think essay, not paragraph, not answer to a question--think essay! That's two down. You have been learning to support your claims for years now, so why would you suddenly forget how to do that? Whenever you state something is true, you must show how or why with textual evidence and you must make your thinking evident to your reader, so you have to explain. Your thoughts are self evident to you (that's why they're self evident), but you MUST explain to your reader. But this is nothing new.

What is new in that list is this: define the effect of the passage and demonstrate how the author conveys the effect. We're back to the beginning now. This is step one: read the passage and figure out the So What. What is it this author has to say to us? This is absolutely the most important thing you must do. Without this there is no reason to write an essay at all. Without this insight, I will give your essay back and say, "So What?" To point out that the author has created an extended metaphor is meaningless unless you can explain the value of that metaphor in his/her overall purpose.

So let's start from here. Think about your writing as the opportunity to voice your ideas about engaging pieces of writing in an intelligent way. If you ever wonder why we read the kind of literature we do, the depressing stuff about human beings in situations that make them think about all the important questions, it is precisely so that you can think about all the important questions and from those great plays, novels, stories and poems and from our discussions, your ideas, your beliefs will further evolve. Then, when you get a little nugget (a prose passage or a poem) on an AP test and have to think about what it means, you will surely have a pretty good idea. Go with that. Write what you think. It is as simple and as difficult as that.