1. Writing the AP Open-Ended Essay!
(A gift from The Master)

2. Advanced Placement Exam Open-Ended Prompt Basic Task
The open-ended prompt is a prompt designed to test the student’s ability to apply a broad theme or technique to a major work (novel or play of LITERARY MERIT) that the student has studied and about which the student has a solid working knowledge.

3. A Typical AP Open-Ended Prompt
Some novels and plays seem to advocate changes in social or political attitudes or in traditions. Choose such a novel or play and note briefly the particular attitudes or traditions that the author apparently wishes to modify. Then analyze the techniques the author uses to influence the reader’s or audience’s views. Avoid plot summary.

4. Identify the key elements of the task before beginning the essay.
Some novels and plays seem to advocate changes in social or political attitudes or in traditions. Choose such a novel or play and note briefly the particular attitudes or traditions that the author apparently wishes to modify. Then analyze the techniques the author uses to influence the reader’s or audience’s views. Avoid plot summary.

5. Sample Thesis based on typical prompt from above.
Leo Tolstoy in his novel The Death of Ivan Illych uses the protagonist’s recognition of his own failed life of conformity to critique the shallow materialism and amoral values of 19th century Russian society, in the process delivering a hopeful message of spiritual salvation.

6. And again…another typical AP Open-ended prompt.
In a novel or play, a confidant (male) or a confidante (female) is a character, often a friend or relative of the hero or heroine, whose role is to be present when the hero or heroine needs a sympathetic listener to confide in. Frequently the result is, as Henry James remarked, that the confidant or confidante can be as much “the reader’s friend as the protagonist’s.” However, the author sometimes uses this character for other purposes as well. Choose a confidant or confidante from a novel or play of recognized literary merit and write an essay in which you discuss the various ways this character functions in the work. You may write your essay on one of the following novels or plays or on another of comparable quality. Do not write on a poem or short story.

7. Identify the key elements of task.
In a novel or play, a confidant (male) or a confidante (female) is a character, often a friend or relative of the hero or heroine, whose role is to be present when the hero or heroine needs a sympathetic listener to confide in. Frequently the result is, as Henry James remarked, that the confidant or confidante can be as much “the reader’s friend as the protagonist’s.” However, the author sometimes uses this character for other purposes as well. Choose a confidant or confidante from a novel or play of recognized literary merit and write an essay in which you discuss the various ways this character functions in the work. You may write your essay on one of the following novels or plays or on another of comparable quality. Do not write on a poem or short story.

8. Sample Thesis
In the novel The Death of Ivan Illych by Leo Tolstoy, the servant Gerasim serves as confidant to the protagonist Ivan Ilych, providing Ivan with the compassion he so desperately needs as a dying man as well as proving to be a moral model for Ivan as he confronts the torment required for his own spiritual awakening.

9. What do the two prompts share?
Both focus on a novel or play (major work).
Both provide a focusing idea.
Both require analysis based upon the focusing idea.
Both require student to assess how author uses a technique.
Both require student to explain how the device, idea functions in the work to create meaning.

10. ATTE Method! (THE WAY!)
Every AP Prompt requires the student to attend to four components of analysis.
ARCHITECT– the who!
TEXT—the what!
TECHNIQUES—the how!
EFFECTS—the why!
(notice the cute mnemonic sound device?)

11. THE ARCHITECT (THE WHO!)
The architect is the writer who created, carefully crafted, the written piece.
The writer had intentions when creating the piece, effects that he/she wanted to convey to the reader.
The architect’s intentions are revealed in the text by his use of technique.

12. THE TEXT (THE WHAT!)
The text is all we have to discern the meaning of the piece, the author’s intentions and the effects of the writing we are studying.
We approach the text as detectives, searching for the deeper meanings in it by paying close attention to it.
All our theories regarding the effects of the writing must be found in the textual evidence.

13. TECHNIQUES (THE HOW!)
Techniques are the writer’s tools for creating the effects in the text he/she constructs. As an architect creates a building, so a writer constructs a text.
Techniques include accepted methods and language tools that convey meaning.
Common examples are figurative language techniques, rhetorical techniques, structural techniques.
The techniques are the how of the writer’s craft.

14. EFFECTS (THE WHY!)
The Effects are the author’s intended impacts on the reader.
Effects include thematic (ideas), sensual, emotional, physical, moral, even spiritual impacts that are focused and intentional.
The effects are the ways in which the text MOVES us, stirs us, makes us think and feel.
You may say the Effects are the reason, the deeper meaning that the author aims for, they are the SIGNIFICANCE of the piece.

15. Sample Thesis Revisited with ATTE
In the novel The Death of Ivan Illych by Leo Tolstoy, the servant Gerasim serves as confidant to the protagonist Ivan Ilych, providing Ivan with the compassion he so desperately needs as a dying man as well as proving to be a moral model for Ivan as he confronts the torment required for his own spiritual awakening.
Green=text blue=architect orange=technique purple=effect (significant meaning)

16. ATTE Sample: Use Leo Tolstoy’s Ivan Illych to fill in the blanks below
Architect (Who): Leo Tolstoy
Text (What): The Death of Ivan Illych
Technique (How): Gerasim as confidant
Effect (Why): provides compassion, moral model, leading him to spiritual awakening

17. AP Open-Ended Prompt 1 Practice
Choose a character from a novel or play of recognized literary merit and write an essay in which you (a) briefly describe the standards of the fictional society in which the character exists and (b) show how the character is affected by and responds to those standards. In your essay do not merely summarize the plot.

18. Prompt 1: Use Leo Tolstoy’s Ivan Illych to fill in the blanks below.
Architect (Who): ____________________
Text (What): ________________________
Technique (How): ____________________
Effect (Why): _______________________________________________________________________________________________________

19. AP Open-Ended Prompt 2 Practice
. Choose a work of literature written before Write an essay in which you present arguments for the work’s relevance for a society and/or person today. Avoid plot summary.

20. Prompt 2: Use Leo Tolstoy’s Ivan Illych to fill in the blanks below.
Architect (Who): ___________________
Text (What):_______________________
Technique (How): __________________
Effect (Why):________________________
Thesis: (include all of above elements) _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

21. AP Open-Ended Prompt 3 Practice
The significance of a title such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is so easy to discover. However, in other works (for example, Measure for Measure) the full significance of the title becomes apparent to the reader only gradually. Choose a work and show how the significance of its title is developed through the authors’ use of devices such as contrast, repetition, allusion, and point of view.

22. Prompt 3: Use Leo Tolstoy’s Ivan Illych to fill in the blanks below.
Arthitect (Who): ___________________
Text (What):_______________________
Technique (How): __________________
Effect (Why):________________________
Thesis (include all of the above)
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

23. Ultimate Major Work of American Fiction

24. Ultimate ATTE Challenge
Many major works of fiction use the motif of a journey in a particularly meaningful fashion, often to convey broad themes or strong messages. Choose a work from the list below (there is no work of comparable literary merit) and discuss how the journey portrayed in the work contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole. Avoid plot summary.
"Convoy" by C.W. McCall

25. “Mercy Sakes, Fer Shure, Fer Shure”
Architect:__________________
Text:________________
Technique:_______________
Effect: ___________________
Thesis:__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

26. Thesis Paragraph for “Convoy”
The American can-do, independent spirit is captured in the C.W. McCall masterpiece "Convoy."  Its powerful and affecting lyrics capture all of the majesty and grandeur of a convoy of independent truckers who unite their free spirits to confront injustice and oppression.  More than a mere journey of American truckers across this great U.S. of A., it is the portrayal of humanity banded together in common cause to raise the power of the common man against tyrannical governance.  In the end, they drive to take down the Goliath of unjust law, with a rallying cry for all of the working people, asserting , "We ain't 'a gonna pay no toll!"

27. Another “Convoy” Thesis (just because they are so fun)
In his song "Convoy," C. W. McCall depicts a journey emblematic of the path to true American manhood. The narrative, concerning a scrappy group of 'Murican truckers (united in a ragtag spontaneous protest against the tyranny of oppressive policing and over-regulation), elevates the journey of a trucker convoy speeding across the U.S.A. to an epic portrayal of ordinary men reaching toward legendary status. Truly the sweaty, unwashed, muscular band of t-shirt clad drivers, bravely clutching their steering wheels, is the ultimate image of American manhood's freedom and tenacity. As they "crash the gates doing 98" following the intrepid Rubber Duck, they embody the "American Spirit" for the ages.

28. Open-Ended Essay Success!
Introduction: Covers the 4 ATTE components.
Thesis: Specific, focused on prompt and expands on significant meaning (Effect)
Body: Plenty of specific, lively textual detail that provides support for the thesis claim.
Topic sentences: Point back to thesis with words and phrases, focus on Effect to explain the thesis claim.
Conclusion: Reinforces the big idea (effect), keeps focus on the work’s overall impact in relation to the prompt focus and the particular significant meaning.

29. Another AP Prompt Example With Highlighted Key Elements
1996. The British novelist Fay Weldon offers this observation about happy endings. “The writers, I do believe, who get the best and most lasting response from their readers are the writers who offer a happy ending through moral development. By a happy ending, I do not mean mere fortunate events -- a marriage or a last minute rescue from death -- but some kind of spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation, even with the self, even at death.” Choose a novel or play that has the kind of ending Weldon describes. In a well-written essay, identify the “spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation” evident in the ending and explain its significance in the work as a whole.

30. Full Sample Essay from my Best Student Ever! Introduction!
The Death of Ivan Illych by Leo Tolstoy, an unrelentingly realistic, even depressing portrait of a man’s confrontation with his own mortality, ending in Ivan Illych’s death, is the epitome of the “happy ending” of which Fay Weldon speaks. The protagonist’s pain, both physical and emotional, builds throughout the book, ending in a crescendo of hellish suffering. Yet Ivan’s suffering and his horrifying death serve to help him realize his moral and spiritual shortcomings, eventually leading him to a transcendent spiritual awakening.
Green= text blue=architect Italics=text specifics Red=significant meaning Bold black=prompt reference

31. 1st Developmental Paragraph
Ivan’s final spiritual epiphany, a mere hour before his death, is the result of an agonizing and misguided fight to rescue himself from inevitable death. He has cancer, yet he denies its power to kill him, asserting that he is Ivan Illych and he cannot possibly die, as Caius in the old syllogism must. All men die, yet Ivan is convinced he will not because he is an important man--a respected judge in the Russian courts, a man who makes a 5000 ruble salary, a man who lives with propriety and the approval of society. He is convinced he is exceptional, as his entire life he has won at the game of social climbing, becoming a glowing success with high status and many material possessions.

32. 2nd Develomental Paragraph
Indeed, Ivan uses his social success to obscure the truth about his moral deficiencies and his spiritual bankruptcy. He is the quintessential Everyman, the middle-class citizen who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. He has become a mindless bureaucrat, buried in the easy life of the Russian legal machine, a success in terms of money, power and prestige, who plays at his career and life as if both were a game. His work allows him to don the officious mask, to lord it over clients, avoiding powerful feelings and the truth about himself. His profession is his shield against his wife’s carping dissatisfaction, the deaths of two of their children, the demands of being an accessible and caring father. Beyond work, Ivan escapes in social life, enjoying cards with the boys to almost every other pursuit. The card game allows him a comfortable pastime with set rules and decorum. A life of ease is his goal in work and in play, leaving him unable to confront real emotions, real relationships, and real loss.

33. 3rd Developmental Paragraph
Buried in pleasant conformity, Ivan essentially loses his own identity, his own soul. So many years of conformity, of hiding behind his profession, his meticulously stylish apartment, his social prestige as a prominent judge—in short all the illusions he once felt gave his life meaning and provided him with immense satisfaction fail him when cancer arrives to wrack his body and challenge his self-satisfied self image. He must now confront “it,” the “it” of death, the “it” of his life’s lies, the “it” of truth.

34. 4th Developmental Paragraph
As death draws nearer and nearer, Ivan has to let go of the lies, to see the truth, and accept death. The key to this transformation are the models others present him. Gerasim, Ivan’s servant, displays Christian love and charity, holding Ivan’s legs upon his peasant shoulders for hours, comforting Ivan, telling him he is no trouble, that he hopes someone will do the same for him one day, as “we all must die.” Ivan’s son also helps the dying man through his simple compassion. The son expresses true grief for his father’s plight, causing Ivan to connect to real humanity. It is, in fact, Volodya’s final act of tenderness as Ivan rests on his deathbed (kissing his father’s hand) which proves a catalyst for Ivan’s spiritual epiphany. The boy’s compassion breaks through Ivan’s self-pity and pain, causing him to realize he must stop thinking of himself and comfort his family. This spiritual breakthrough of “doing unto others as we would have done unto us” is the crowning achievement of Ivan’s spiritual awakening.

35. Conclusion
In the end, Tolstoy’s ugly portrayal of a vain man’s journey to spiritual reassessment is beautiful and satisfying, even “happy,” as in Weldon’s view. In his last moments of consciousness, Ivan reassesses his life, recognizing the waste of his years while simultaneously discovering the truth that redeems him from his sins. This one moment of redemption makes Ivan’s life worthwhile in spite of the pain he endured in life and in death. Ivan Illych dies a truly happy man.

36. Overall Thoughts on Essay Success
FOCUS ON THE PROMPT’S FOCUS.
The student is not expected to be able to quote the work directly, although having a memorized key quotation or two can sometimes come in handy.
The student must be able to cite relevant, preferably specific details about characters, action, plot or other germane aspects of the work in the essay.

37. A Few More Overall Thoughts
The response must not retell (narrate) the story.
Providing situational context related to analysis is not narration.
The focus of the response is on analyzing the meaning of the work in relation to the prompt’s focus.

38. A Final Overall Thought
The better essay will incorporate a significant meaning related to the prompt focus, not merely apply the prompt focus to the major work. It will also discuss why the author did what he/she did.