Writing the Body of the Essay - Introduction to the Analysis Essay - Develop Strategies for Success - AP English Language

AP English Language

STEP 3
Develop Strategies for Success

CHAPTER 5

Introduction to the Analysis Essay

Writing the Body of the Essay

What Should I Include in the Body of This Analysis Essay?

image

1. Obviously, this is where you present your analysis and the points you want to make that are related to the prompt.

2. Adhere to the question.

3. Use specific references and details from the passage.

• Don’t always paraphrase the original. Refer directly to it.

• Place quotation marks around those words/phrases you extract from the passage.

4. Use “connective tissue” in your essay to establish adherence to the question.

• Use the repetition of key ideas in the prompt and in your opening paragraph.

• Try using “echo words” (that is, synonyms: town/village/hamlet; bland/ordinary/undistinguished).

• Use transitions between paragraphs (see Chapter 8).

To understand the process, carefully read the sample paragraphs below. Each develops one of the elements asked for in the prompt. Notice the specific references and the “connective tissue.” Details that do not apply to the prompt are ignored.

A
This paragraph develops tone.

Throughout the passage, Capote maintains a tone that resembles a detached reporter who is an observer of a scene. Although the impact of the passage is seeing Holcomb in a less than positive light, the author rarely uses judgmental terminology or statements. In describing the town, he uses words such as “float,” “haphazard,” “unnamed,” “unshaded,” “unpaved.” Individuals are painted with an objective brush showing them in “denim,” “Stetsons,” and “cowboy boots.” Capote maintains his panning camera angle when he writes of the buildings and the surrounding farmland. This matter-of-fact approach is slightly altered when he begins to portray the townspeople as a whole when he uses such words as “prosperous people,” “comfortable interiors,” and “have done well.” His objective tone, interestingly enough, does exactly what he says the folks of Holcomb do. He “camouflages” his attitude toward the reality of the place and time.

B
This paragraph develops structure.

Capote organizes his passage spatially. He brings his reader from “great distances” to the periphery of the village with its borders of “main-line tracks” and roads, river and fields, to the heart of the town and its “unnamed, unshaded, unpaved” streets. As the reader journeys through the stark village, he or she is led eventually from the outskirts to the town’s seemingly one bright spot—the prosperous Holcomb school. Capote develops our interest in the school by contrasting it with the bleak and lonely aspects of the first three paragraphs. He shifts our view with the word “unless” and focuses on the positive aspects of the town. Holcomb “has done well” despite its forbidding description. The passage could end now, except that Capote chooses to develop his next paragraph with the words, “until one morning,” thus taking the reader on another journey, one of foreshadowing and implication. Something other than wheat is on the horizon.

C
This paragraph develops selection of detail.

In selecting his details, Capote presents a multilayered Holcomb, Kansas. The town is first presented as stark and ordinary. It is a “lonesome area” with “hard blue skies,” where “the land is flat” and the buildings are an “aimless congregation.” The ordinary qualities of the village are reinforced by his references to the “unnamed” streets, “one-story frame” houses, and the fact that “celebrated expresses never pause there” (i.e., the “Chief, the Super Chief, the El Capitan”). Details portray the citizens of Holcomb in the same light. Ranch hands speak with “barbed” and nasal “twangs.” They wear the stereotypical “cowboy” uniform and so does the “gaunt” postmistress in her “rawhide jacket.” Once this description is established, the author contrasts it with an unexpected view of the town. He now deals with the appearance of Holcomb’s “camouflages,” the “modern” school, the “prosperous people,” the “comfortable interiors,” and the “swollen grain elevators.” If Capote chooses to illuminate this contrast, does it indicate more to come?

image

Study Group: Approach a subject in a joint manner. After you’ve deconstructed the prompt, have each person write a paragraph on a separate area of the question. Come together and discuss. You’ll be amazed how much fun this is, because the work will carry you away. This is a chance to explore very exciting ideas.

We urge you to spend more time developing the body paragraphs rather than worrying about a concluding paragraph, especially one beginning with “In conclusion,” or “In summary.” To be honest, in such a brief essay, the reader can remember what you have already stated. It is not necessary to repeat yourself in a summary final paragraph.

If you want to make a final statement, try to link your ideas to a particularly effective line or image from the passage. (It’s a good thing.)

image

Look at the last line of Sample B on structure.

Something other than wheat is on the horizon.

Or, look at the last line of Sample C on selection of detail.

If Capote chooses to illuminate this contrast, does it indicate more to come?

Each of these two final sentences would be just fine as conclusions to the essay. A conclusion does not have to be a paragraph. It can be the writer’s final remark/observation in a sentence or two.

DO THIS NOW.

Write the body of your essay. Time yourself.

When you write the body of your essay, take only 15–20 minutes.

Find a way to time yourself, and try your best to finish within that time frame.

Because this is practice, don’t panic if you can’t complete your essay within the given 20 minutes. You will become more and more comfortable with the tasks presented to you as you gain more experience with this type of question.

Refer to the Comprehensive Review section of this book on developing the body of an AP Language and Composition essay.

NOTE: Sharing your writing with members of your class or study group will allow you and all of the participants to gain more experience and more of a comfort zone with requirements and possibilities.