Hi Lauren! Thanks for getting back to me I have one more question concerning poems, I have a little trouble with discerning between ideas and splitting them into mini-contentions for my body paragraphs. For example in the prompt 'How does Donne convey an appreciation of what love can do in his Selected Poems?', my intro would look something like this:
In his collection Selected Poems, John Donne conveys the concept of love with an extraordinary sensitivity that breathes life into it, exploring its "infinite" dimensions. In his world, Donne views love as a transformative and powerful force that overcomes all physical and rational boundaries. He displays love as a liberating force as well as a transcending kind of power. However, he also shows love as a source of pain, restriction and sorrow. But it is in Donne’s world of love, a world so interconnected, that his powerful descriptions of love seem to capture an essence of life, brimming so full of substance, mystery and beauty.
I've come up with some topic sentences but they seem to be like a lit essay and I'm not sure how to recify it :S i.e.
BP1: Through showing love as a transformative force, Donne conveys love's ever-changing state. --> eg. love connects you and therefore liberates
BP2: Donne's vision of love as an anomaly highlights his preoccupation with love's many dimensions and realities. --> eg. love is mysterious; it is fleeting and opens up a world of infinite possibilities.
BP3: Throughout his poems, Donne shows love as a force which brings together many of the facets of life's uncertainties, and propounds an interconnected cosmos brimming with beauty and profound meaning. ---> eg. life is unpredictable and love is unrehearsed -- he paints this with extraordinary vision/imagery.
But they kinda all blend together and it makes it hard for me to split them up without repeating myself. How would you recommend splitting it up so that I would have some straight-forward topic sentences? Sorry if this is a long question, but my school is terrible (cry) and I'm so stressed and have nobody
Thanks in advance. You're the best!
Those topic sentences seem excellent to me - is your concern that you'll end up repeating yourself within your body paragraphs, or that the topic sentences themselves are too repetitious? Because I certainly don't think the latter is the case (-when a prompt is as broad as 'Discuss love,' it can be kind of hard to move away from that central concern-) and the former could easily be avoided by ensuring you're delving into a wide variety of different poems in each para.
In general, so long as each paragraph has a self-contained point, as well as linking together and forming an overarching contention, you should be all good
Hi guys,
I just really need some clarification on Language analysis. i have some teachers telling me to use labels for specific technique in LA and then i have other teacher telling me to avoid them completely and instead use phrases that refer to the technique without explicitly saying it. I'm really confused and i thought the examiner's report said that students who do not rely on labels generally do better.
So for example one teacher says that in the analysis if there is an appeal to a sense of justice i have to say "the writer appeals to readers sense of justice to encourage them to feel...." and another teacher tells me to say "the writer uses readers desire for people to be treated equally and fairly to encourage them to feel...". Which one should i do?
thank you!!!
This is kind of tricky, but I'd say you should endeavour to use those labels
and then explain their meaning/significance e.g. 'the writer's appeal to justice is evident in his use of the phrase "everyone deserves a second chance," suggesting that people should be treated equally and fairly in order to encourage readers to feel...'
The 'don't use labels' rule stems from the fact that so many low/mid-range essays will simply start and end their analysis by pointing out a device (e.g. the author uses a rhetorical question "how can they do this?" He also uses inclusive language like "we" and emotive language to persuade readers of his contention) <-- stuff like that is waaaay too generic. If you can zoom in on particular language features and comment on how they're being used to persuade, then the technique labelling is a secondary concern. If it helps, think of it like a stepping stone for your analysis - it's often a good place to start, but it's only ever a starting point.
But there's also no reason why you'd have to do the exact same things every time. Rather, you could mention three or four official 'techniques' in a paragraph but intersperse these with other points of analysis where you're just unpacking connotations or talking about the general persuasiveness of certain words/phrases
Hi, I hope I'm asking this question in the right place and if I am not sorry in advance and sorry if this question has already been asked. With text response, is it okay to write character based paragraphs, for example, with Medea, one paragraph be on Medea herself then Jason, or does this limit the sophistication of the piece?? Thank you
You're absolutely in the right place!
Character-based paragraphs are
permissible, and it's what I tend to recommend as a last-resort/back-up option for really difficult prompts or if you're short on time and feeling stuck. But yes, imo it does limit sophistication because the whole piece invariably turns into 'here's how the prompt relates to Character X. And Y. And Z. The end.'
Instead, aim for a
thematic breakdownFor example, if your prompt was '
Medea shows the dangers of desire.'
A bad essay would just be like:
- Jason desires power.
- Medea desires revenge
- The chorus desire justice (~debatable, but w/e)
A good essay might look like:
- the characters become blinded by their own desires and lose sight of potential ramifications
- obsessing over desires can obfuscate the intentions of others and open characters up to exploitation
- even desires that are unfulfilled can corrupt characters' minds
^that's by no means the only breakdown here - any kind of separation of core concepts would do!
Hope that helps