CARLOS ESCOBAR: Hello, everyone.
And welcome again to an AP Daily practice session.
I'm Mr. Carlos Escobar coming to you from Miami, Florida.
You've already seen all kinds of AP Daily videos
for different FRQ questions.
But, today, we're going to be tackling
one that we haven't discussed before,
which is the literary argument FRQ
or what some people term the question 3 of the exam.
We are going to find the PDF for this question
and the description for the video.
So please go ahead and download the PDF so you can follow along
with me.
We are going to look for this particular question
and the different components that it
has because it looks completely different
from the other questions.
We have the traditional prompt portion,
then the bulleted points that we have talked about in the past,
and then we have a list of texts, which
we're going to discuss soon.
First, though, let's look at the bulleted questions.
This is the part of the question that looks like the other two
questions on the exam.
We're still going to require a thesis statement, evidence
and line of reasoning, and you still
have to use appropriate grammar and punctuation.
And like always, I encourage students to go the AP Classroom
and look at the AP Daily videos for each of these components
because we just won't have time to cover them today.
Today is about actually trying to write or respond
to this prompt.
A lot of students want to talk about the texts,
but I actually want you to forget these texts for right
now.
This is not where we're going to start.
This is not where I start when I'm going
to respond to this question.
I actually start thinking about what have I read in class?
What are the texts that my teacher
has assigned that I read?
And I'm being very, very careful here with what I say.
It's not about what texts were assigned period or for which
texts that I watch a movie.
But what have I actually read?
Let's say that this year you read Hamlet, The Awakening,
Death of a Salesman, A Raisin in the Sun, and Passing.
There's no magic number.
Perhaps you read two works.
That's OK.
Perhaps there's one work that you know perfectly well.
That too is OK.
This is just a sample of what a student may
have read this year.
So you're going to jot this down.
And you're going to set this aside
because we're going to think about these titles
after we understand our prompt a bit better.
And we're to go to the prompt itself.
Like always, the prompt is going to guide us.
It's giving us very key features that our essay will
have to center on, focus on in order for us
to write a successful essay and be able to score
points on that rubric.
So let's read it first.
And then we're going to see what the main features are.
It says here, in many works of fiction,
houses take on symbolic importance.
Such houses may be literal houses or unconventional ones,
such as hotels, hospitals, monasteries, or boats.
Either from your own reading or from the list
below, choose a work of fiction in which
a literal or unconventional house
serves as a significant symbol.
Then in a well-written essay, analyze
how this house contributes to an interpretation
of the work as a whole.
And we're always reminded that we should not, must not merely
summarize the plot.
So what's important here?
What do I want to focus on?
And I think this notion of the symbolic importance of houses
seems to be the main feature, the main topic
of this literary argument question.
We are reminded that the house may be a literal house
or an unconventional one.
So as you start thinking about the works that you have read,
if you don't have a literal house,
maybe there is another dwelling that functions
in a similar way.
But the key is that it must have that symbolic importance.
It must serve as a significant symbol.
So if you have a story where a house is just a house,
that's probably not the best text to select.
We have to select a text where the house
functions as something more than just a dwelling, more than just
a building.
And we have to be able to connect
that symbolic significance of that house
to an interpretation of the work as a whole.
So this is not an essay where we're just
going to talk about the importance of that house.
But we're going to try to make a connection
between the importance of that house and the way
that house was created and discussed
by that writer to a more broad, a more
overarching thematic concern throughout the text.
So now is the moment when you go back to the text
that we've read.
And you've got to start thinking about each of these texts.
And I'm thinking of Hamlet.
We have that castle at Elsinore.
Do I want to write an essay on that?
I'm sure someone can.
But maybe you just don't remember enough
about the castle itself or you can't create an argument
for that castle being symbolic.
So we skip Hamlet.
Go to The Awakening.
You're like, yeah, I think I like The Awakening.
I think I can use Death of a Salesman.
I think I can use A Raisin in the Sun.
Each of these texts has a house that I think I can argue
has a symbolic importance beyond it just being a building.
And let's say you don't have that same thought for Passing.
Well, then we won't think about Passing.
We're going to take these three.
And we're going to start brainstorming.
Don't be nervous that I'm not writing the essay yet.
Remember, technically, you have the same 40 minutes.
If you spread your time evenly and equally as you should.
But this time, we don't have to read text.
You're not reading a poem.
You're not reading a prose excerpt.
So it's OK to spend some time with some deliberation,
some graphic organizer, some plotting and planning
before we start putting our essay together.
So I'm going to start with the literal
because I think this is a good launching pad.
I don't want my essay to be about the literal house.
But I got to think about this house
and its actual physical existence
before I can connect it to something greater in the text.
So for The Awakening, even though there's many houses
that we can think of-- we can think of Mademoiselle Reisz's
apartment.
We can think of the cottage where
they stay at in Grand Isle.
But I'm going to think about the Pigeon House.
That definitely had symbolic importance.
It was interesting because Edna is seeking freedom.
And yet the house is called the Pigeon House, which connects it
back to the cage and all of the bird imagery
that we find throughout the novel.
Then there's Death of a Salesman, Willy's New York
house.
It was a literal house.
But even at the beginning of that play and the scene
description, that house has importance
in how Willy sees himself and how Willy feels and defines
his worth.
I can make a connection to something more important
than just the house I think.
And for A Raisin in the Sun, you can
talk about the Youngers' apartment or even the new home
that they're trying to buy and what
these houses or these homes or this apartment
represents to Mama or the family in general.
I can definitely use these three.
But I'm going to select the work that I remember best.
I'm going to select the work that I think I can create
the strongest arguments for.
And just to pick one of the three,
I'm going to select Death of a Salesman
to think about that figurative aspect of it a little more.
I remember that the house was a little rundown.
Willy was always frustrated with it.
And why is it that Willy becomes frustrated with this?
Well, I started thinking now in terms
of symbolic interpretation, figurative interpretation
of the importance of that house.
And I remember that Willy perceives
the condition of his home as a manifestation of his failures.
The refrigerator breaks down not because refrigerators sometimes
break down but because Willy couldn't afford to buy the best
refrigerator, because Willy cannot stay ahead
of the breakdown in the appliances of the home.
But the house didn't just include the dwelling itself
and the physical objects within it.
I remember that part of the house
included a backyard, which was very significant for Willy
because he wanted to grow something.
And towards the end of the play, he
becomes obsessed with this idea of planting the seeds.
He wants to grow something.
He wants his work to pay off.
The lack of rich, fertile soil in the backyard
symbolizes Willy's inability to reap the rewards of a plentiful
harvest after a lifetime of hard work.
Think about how hard Willy Loman worked throughout his life.
But there's no harvest.
Or the way he perceives it because he's not
thinking of the fact that he has a wife
and he has children-- the way that he perceives his life is
there's been no reaping of this harvest
tantamount to the amount of work that he's put in.
That literal house has symbolic meaning in the play.
We can start developing a thesis statement at this point.
We can say that Willy Loman's house in Death of a Salesman
represents his failures as a husband, father,
and businessman.
Regardless of his efforts throughout the play,
Willy is never able to turn his house into an ideal home.
I can write that essay.
But perhaps you didn't read Death of a Salesman.
Perhaps this isn't going to be your thesis statement,
and that's OK.
If you blank out, if you don't remember which works you read,
now we go to the list.
And remember we're looking for a representation
of the symbolic importance of that house.
And we want to connect it to something that ties it
to the rest of the play.
So for Willy here, we said, the conditions of the house
represents how he feels about his life in general
and about how much he has produced
and about the sense of self-worth that he has.
But if you didn't read that and if you
can't come up with a work, now we go to the list.
And you read through this list.
And you say, what have I read?
What do I remember?
And perhaps you write A Streetcar Named Desire.
Perhaps you've read The Turn of the Screw
or Where the Crawdads Sing.
And if these are your three, then you follow the process
that I followed.
What is the literal home?
And what does that literal home represent
not just to the protagonist, not just to the family,
but how does the writer use that home as a launchpad,
as a vehicle to discuss a greater thematic concern?
But we start literal.
We go figurative.
And then we're able to answer this question.
Let's keep a few things in mind.
We're going to select the work containing a significant house.
That's step 1.
We have to make sure that this house represents
something greater than itself and it's not just a dwelling.
We got that.
And we have to consider how the symbolic associations tie
to a greater thematic concern within the work.
If we accomplish these three things,
it doesn't matter what work you select because you have hit
every aspect of this prompt.
If we focus on the prompt and we let
it guide our thinking and our essay,
there is no way that we will not be successful on the AP exam.
Thank you so much for joining me.
Please keep watching these videos.
We wish you the best of luck.
See you next time.