Prompt: 2010, Form B. “You can leave home all you want, but home will never leave you.” —Sonsyrea Tate. Sonsyrea Tate’s statement suggests that “home” may be conceived of as a dwelling, a place, or a state of mind. It may have positive or negative associations, but in either case, it may have a considerable influence on an individual. Choose a novel or play in which a central character leaves home yet finds that home remains significant. Write a well-developed essay in which you analyze the importance of “home” to this character and the reasons for its continuing influence. Explain how the character’s idea of home illuminates the larger meaning of the work. Do not merely summarize the plot.
In The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, Gogol Ganguli spends most of his adult life trying to escape his home, which he associates with his childhood and his Bengali culture. Gogol doesn't like his name because it is neither an American nor an Indian name and tries to reinvent himself by changing his name to Nikhil in an attempt to establish a new identity as he goes off to college and into his career. Every time Gogol tries to escape from the confines of his childhood and culture, however, he finds himself inevitably brought back to his Bengali background and the culture and ideas that he has grown accustomed to. Home, to Gogol, represents a part of his identity that he is still not ready to let go of.
While Gogol does not acknowledge the impact that home has had on his life until the latter part of the novel, he is drawn by his culture in every step of his adulthood journey. When Gogol moves to New York City to work at an architecture firm after college and create his new identity, he meets a girl named Maxine who introduces Gogol to his parents. Upon meeting Maxine's parents, Gogol constantly compares his parents with Maxine's parents. He finds that certain behaviors that the Ratliffs allow in the house during dinner time would never be allowed in his house at Pemberton Way. In an effort to create his own identity, he embraces the guidelines and rules (or lack thereof) that the Ratliff have because they are so different from his parents. He acknowledges their differences and eagerly accepts it when he describes Maxine's parents as offering "a different brand of hospitality from what he is used to" and that their life will appeal to him" (Lahiri 136). But while he accepts this new lifestyle that is presented before him, he is reminded of his culture every time he goes back home for birthday celebrations, holidays, and calls from his parents.
Throughout this novel, we can also see that Gogol still places his intermediate family and home higher than the other people that Gogol meet in his life. For Gogol, home is a safe haven from all the unfortunate events that he encounters while he is away from home trying to establish his new identity. After breaking up with Maxine and returning to his own lonely apartment, he decides to move back in with Ashima, his mother, to comfort her after her husband's passing. But he also comes back because he knows that he is always welcome at home, the base of his identity.
In the final chapter of the novel, Gogol comes back to his house on Pemberton Way one last time to celebrate the holidays and try to get his mind off his recent divorce with Moushumi, his former wife. He is once again immersed into his childhood and the identity that he tried to escape from but approaches it with a different light. Instead of wanting to stray away from the home that has been established by his culture and childhood, he embraces the familiarity of the "artificial seven-foot tree" with "branches color-coded at their base" that he and his sister used to put up as children (Lahiri, 284). Towards the very end of the novel, the reader is left with a picture of Gogol reading "The Overcoat" by Nikolai Gogol. From this final scene, we can see that Gogol finally embraces his identity and the culture and childhood memories associated with it. He learns that no name change, location change, or relationship change can alter his identity that has already been molded by the home he has grown up in.
Reflection
Even after analyzing what we had to do in class for the prompt, I still found myself struggling to organize my thoughts coherently. While I wanted to express home as a representation of the culture and childhood that Gogol and tie that in with how it has shaped his identity, I feel like I kept equating home with identity. Looking at scoring guidelines for this prompt, I would say that this essay would probably be a 5/9 because of how heavily my essay relied on the plot summary and general textual references. The vast majority of my essay seems to be me recounting the story without a lot of deep analysis and recognition of complexities which also lead to a seemingly "simplistic understanding of the home".
For me, the most significant issue was not deepening my analysis or having no analysis at all. Looking through my essay, I can see a few times where I have inserted a quote or a textual reference but I have just merely restated what the quote meant after the quote in a boring and repetitive way without addressing some of the possible complexities that might be involved. As a next step, I need to start recognizing the overall themes that can contribute to how home has been significant to the character and use that in my analysis to show how the character has been influences by this significant influence. In addition, I want to focus on one event in the plot that seems to highlight my point so I can avoid summarizing plot details that are not necessary for the analysis of the textual reference and/or quotes. By doing this, I can also avoid references from the text that may be too general and do not offer specific support to the passage.
It also seems like I am having trouble with connecting my thoughts and ideas with effective transitions. Even though I use transition words like "while", the ideas that I present are awkwardly dropped into the essay without a connecting thought. As a next step, I am going to start implementing the strategy I learned last year In AP Language and Composition and that is also in the 5 Steps to a 5 book to create smoother transitions. I will start using connector words or ideas found in the last sentence of the previous of paragraph and incorporate in the first sentence of the following paragraph to create a more logical flow of ideas which can lead to smoother transitions throughout the essay.
Monday, November 25, 2013
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Blog Post #2: Assessing My Diagnostic Multiple Choice Exam
Coming into this exam, I kind of knew what to expect. After hearing how hard the first multiple choice exam was from the first trimester AP Literature students, I decided to review some of the "Need to Know" list of literary devices that we were given as a part of our Summer Reading Assignment during the three day weekend following first trimester. While some literary devices were review from AP Language and Composition, others were devices that I didn't even knew existed. But as I took the Diagnostic MC test in 5 Steps to a 5 on Wednesday, I soon discovered that AP Literature was so much more than literary devices and learning how to apply them.
After grading my multiple choice section, I was surprised to see that I had performed at a higher level than my expectations. Although I did think it was pretty challenging, the skills that I had learned last year in AP Language and Composition helped me pinpoint the right answer (for the most part). In addition to my past experience in AP Comp, I was also very lucky when taking this test because I had guessed correctly on 5 of the questions that I was unsure of how to answer. My strengths seemed to be evident in the questions that involved literary devices and questions that had specific line references (Ex. Line 12 is an example of...). However, it was also evident that I was lacking in my ability to pick out the important details in the work of literature and understanding what the author was actually trying to say.
Although I had carried some of the skills that I had learned from AP Language and Composition, I realized that I had started straying away from SOAPStone (which we had to memorize word for word in AP Comp). Instead of circling the adjectives to understand the tone of the author and underlining the subject of the story, I found myself going back to my old habits of just skimming through the passage and not retaining important information. From now on, I am going to make sure I use these SOAPStone strategies that I learned in AP Comp (especially the strategies I listed in the previous sentence) and apply it to these multiple choice practice tests. By doing this, I can hopefully understand the author's tone a little better, pick up on possible sarcasm/irony, and become more aware of the author's purpose in writing the piece.
In addition, I need to become more open to multiple interpretations. Looking through my multiple choice test, I noticed that I like crossing off multiple choice answers that I know are incorrect. However, sometimes one of the answer choices that I cross off happens to be the right answer. In a crunch for time, I tend to only consider the obvious answer which leads me to ignore the hidden correct answer that can be revealed through deeper analysis. In the section of the book Literature and Composition labeled "Thinking about Literature", the authors point out that effective readers have to be "many-minded" because "Literature rarely offers simple answers to simple questions" (Carol 11). I hope that knowing this, I can be more cautious when selecting the seemingly obvious answer and reconsider the other options. To help develop my "many-mindedness" and help myself become a more effective reader, I will utilize the Thanksgiving break and Winter break that we have during second trimester to take three multiple choice exams from previous years that are on CollegeBoard Central. By exposing myself to more works of literature and styles of writing, I hope that I can go beyond the surface level meaning of a particular work of literature and avoid picking the obvious answer choice on future MC tests.
Another one of my goals is to pay more attention to the significant details. In the book Literature and Composition, the authors talk about some of the important things to keep in mind when one is analyzing literature. One of the big take-away themes that I got is that "no detail is unimportant, so notice, notice, notice" (Carol 14). I found this especially true on question #12 on the MC test where it asks about the setting of the passage. Had I overlooked the small but significant detail in line one that said "the sea-reach of the Thames...", I would have missed crucial information that would be needed to answer that question. In addition, staying focused throughout the piece and paying attention to which phrase modified which noun was critical to understanding what "Death's second self" referred to in question #25. In order to help myself focus more on the details of a particular work of literature, I will make a 5 bullet summary of the most significant details in the piece. By doing this, I can not only process what I have read and organize my thoughts on paper but also have a quick summary to the passage to refer to when answering the MC questions.
Hopefully by meeting these goals and doing more and more practice MC tests, I can improve my literary analysis skills and raise my MC test scores.
After grading my multiple choice section, I was surprised to see that I had performed at a higher level than my expectations. Although I did think it was pretty challenging, the skills that I had learned last year in AP Language and Composition helped me pinpoint the right answer (for the most part). In addition to my past experience in AP Comp, I was also very lucky when taking this test because I had guessed correctly on 5 of the questions that I was unsure of how to answer. My strengths seemed to be evident in the questions that involved literary devices and questions that had specific line references (Ex. Line 12 is an example of...). However, it was also evident that I was lacking in my ability to pick out the important details in the work of literature and understanding what the author was actually trying to say.
Although I had carried some of the skills that I had learned from AP Language and Composition, I realized that I had started straying away from SOAPStone (which we had to memorize word for word in AP Comp). Instead of circling the adjectives to understand the tone of the author and underlining the subject of the story, I found myself going back to my old habits of just skimming through the passage and not retaining important information. From now on, I am going to make sure I use these SOAPStone strategies that I learned in AP Comp (especially the strategies I listed in the previous sentence) and apply it to these multiple choice practice tests. By doing this, I can hopefully understand the author's tone a little better, pick up on possible sarcasm/irony, and become more aware of the author's purpose in writing the piece.
In addition, I need to become more open to multiple interpretations. Looking through my multiple choice test, I noticed that I like crossing off multiple choice answers that I know are incorrect. However, sometimes one of the answer choices that I cross off happens to be the right answer. In a crunch for time, I tend to only consider the obvious answer which leads me to ignore the hidden correct answer that can be revealed through deeper analysis. In the section of the book Literature and Composition labeled "Thinking about Literature", the authors point out that effective readers have to be "many-minded" because "Literature rarely offers simple answers to simple questions" (Carol 11). I hope that knowing this, I can be more cautious when selecting the seemingly obvious answer and reconsider the other options. To help develop my "many-mindedness" and help myself become a more effective reader, I will utilize the Thanksgiving break and Winter break that we have during second trimester to take three multiple choice exams from previous years that are on CollegeBoard Central. By exposing myself to more works of literature and styles of writing, I hope that I can go beyond the surface level meaning of a particular work of literature and avoid picking the obvious answer choice on future MC tests.
Another one of my goals is to pay more attention to the significant details. In the book Literature and Composition, the authors talk about some of the important things to keep in mind when one is analyzing literature. One of the big take-away themes that I got is that "no detail is unimportant, so notice, notice, notice" (Carol 14). I found this especially true on question #12 on the MC test where it asks about the setting of the passage. Had I overlooked the small but significant detail in line one that said "the sea-reach of the Thames...", I would have missed crucial information that would be needed to answer that question. In addition, staying focused throughout the piece and paying attention to which phrase modified which noun was critical to understanding what "Death's second self" referred to in question #25. In order to help myself focus more on the details of a particular work of literature, I will make a 5 bullet summary of the most significant details in the piece. By doing this, I can not only process what I have read and organize my thoughts on paper but also have a quick summary to the passage to refer to when answering the MC questions.
Hopefully by meeting these goals and doing more and more practice MC tests, I can improve my literary analysis skills and raise my MC test scores.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Blog Post #1: Design Choices
Looking at my blog, I would hope that readers would feel at ease and calm since the vast majority of this template is blue (Cherry). I used one of the templates from "Picture Window" to design this blog because the highway in the background, the blue skies, fluffy clouds, and green grass portray a journey that I hope to embark on in AP Literature. Throughout this journey, I hope that I can learn techniques and skills that I didn't have before and understand how to truly interpret literature. I also chose this theme because it describes me. I'm an adventurous person and I like trying new things. This is also one of the reasons why I love traveling (which is symbolized by the faded highway in the background) because I get to meet new people, learn about new cultures, and try new and exotic food!
For my blog title text, I tried to pick a font that was flamboyant and energetic (just like me). The font "Chewy" appealed to me because of the childish nature of the font and the curvy letters. The quirky edges and the unique arrangement of the curves on each letter gives this font an artistic (and somewhat literary) touch. Even though this blog is dedicated to presenting my work in a formal way, I have made the text somewhat informal because I want to portray a hopefully enjoyable learning experience that I will have in this class.
Sources:
http://psychology.about.com/od/sensationandperception/a/colorpsych.htm
For my blog title text, I tried to pick a font that was flamboyant and energetic (just like me). The font "Chewy" appealed to me because of the childish nature of the font and the curvy letters. The quirky edges and the unique arrangement of the curves on each letter gives this font an artistic (and somewhat literary) touch. Even though this blog is dedicated to presenting my work in a formal way, I have made the text somewhat informal because I want to portray a hopefully enjoyable learning experience that I will have in this class.
Sources:
http://psychology.about.com/od/sensationandperception/a/colorpsych.htm
Monday, November 18, 2013
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