Open Prompt 2008

Student 3A: This student writes about Lindo and Huang as foils in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club. While a considerable amount of writing is devoted to the summary of the plot, it ultimately serves as effective evidence for the argument. The student does an excellent job using this evidence to both correctly portray the contrast among these two characters and at the same time demonstrate a deep understanding of the novel's meaning, thus deserving an 8. These types of essays have considerably more leeway in how they are allowed to analyze the literature because there is not available text to use as evidence and shape what a "correct" analysis should be. In addition, the analyses tend to be more deeply focused on one aspect or situation in the novel because the students cannot possibly tie together all of the material in the book with such limited time. For example, complete analysis of The Joy Luck Club would require a stance on all of the vignettes while this focuses on only the ones required to answer the prompt when regarding the novel's overarching message

Student 3B: This essay does a fine job of analyzing Celie as a character and how she is influenced by other minor characters, suggesting that the student focused on the part of the prompt that mentioned secondary characters. Unfortunately, the essay falls short when it fails to properly regard one character as a foil. In addition, it fails to mention the author of The Color Purple and in addition has a style that implies the reader is very familiar with the course of the novel. Because I am not, I had a hard time following exactly how some of the major references were intended to forward the argument. No doubt the graders were indeed familiar with it, and thus recognized the merit of the argument regardless of a lack of clarity and focus. Because of this, it earns a respectable 6. Had the student made it clear whether Shug or Celie's father are the foil, it may have been in contention for a higher score.

Student 3C: This student chose to tackle The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, and although had some promising comparisons between Hassan and Baba, they were simply stated and not developed, nor supported with examples from the text. The student also seems to confuse the role of a foil in general by suggesting both characters help to demonstrate the same qualities in each other, even after mentioning how they contrasted in other ways. The essay also lacks organization, which is not surprising since it did not contain great deal available to organize. The "introduction" does little more than confuse the reader, especially with the use of a word that I simply could not recognize due to both the lack of context and poor handwriting. Overall, the essay gives a muddled interpretation of the novel with little overall analysis and little understanding of what a foil actually is, earning it a 4.