2009 Open Prompt Student Responses

Student 3A Response: This response demonstrates a highly sophisticated understanding of the prompt and successfully uses the essay to discuss the depth with which the actual wild duck in Henrik Ibsen's play, The Wild Duck, serves as a symbol. The student starts by explaining the purpose of a symbol in literature from a general perspective and then provides enough plot explanation to give the reader enough of an understanding of the symbol to continue with more specific examples. Although the explanation does take the reader through the plot, every point ultimately contributes to an effective and detailed discussion of the role of the symbol. While the handwriting was not the clearest, it did not impede the clarity of the writing. Because of the overall sophistication and treatment of the prompt, this was clearly one of the strongest essays the College Board received and thus is certainly deserving of a 9/9.

Student 3B Response: This essay lacks the sophistication of the first one, but still manages to form an in-depth analysis of Tennessee Williams’ play, A Street Car Named Desire, by explaining the role of lampshades in revealing the character traits of Blanche. Overall, this essay could have benefitted from more structure, especially at the beginning. It seems that the student was not sure what angle he/she wanted to take on the play but became increasingly sure of the direction as it went on, causing what I guessed to be the thesis statement to occur later and without a formal introduction. I was only able to figure out what the key points were by following the focus of the paragraphs and reading the conclusion. In addition, the student only seems to focus on the lampshade’s importance to Blanche and perhaps could have used its relationship to other characters to help strengthen the argument. Despite these issues it still earned a respectable 6/9.

Student 3C Response: While this student seems to understand the plot of Things Fall Apart, by an author that he/she neglected to mention, the essay severely lacks depth and gives a very poor overall representation of how the symbol (a machete) is important in forwarding the plot and development of the main characters. The essay uses first person, including the dreaded “in my opinion,” to start what should have been a critical point, completely eliminating any kind of authority from the tone of the piece. The sentences in general are far too casual and short, imitating normal speech more than a grammatically precise analysis. Aside from issues with sentence structure and convention, the response also fails to convince the reader that the student knows exactly what his/her textual references really mean. If he/she does, they are covered briefly and imprecisely, with little to no structure. Because of these serious shortcomings, the essay earned a mediocre 4/9.