The opening paragraph of the course description for AP English Language and Composition reads as follows:
The AP Language and Composition course is designed to help students become skilled readers of prose written in a variety of periods, disciplines, and rhetorical contexts and to become skilled writers who can compose for a variety of purposes. By their writing and reading in this course, students should become aware of the interaction among a writer’s purposes, audience expectations, and subject, as well as the way generic conventions and the resources of language contribute to effective writing.
Using the course description statement as a guideline, focus your attention on the first two chapters and the last two chapters of The Mayor of Casterbridge. It is clear that, as critic Ian Gregor puts it, “The last two chapters stand in the same dramatic relationship to the full novel as the first two.” In what ways is this true? Although you may refer to the plot, the focus here should be on the techniques employed by Hardy to convey this relationship. You should be able to explore how these four chapters suggest what the writer’s purposes might be, to evaluate what the expectations of the audience should be, and to demonstrate how the “conventions and the resources of language contribute to effective writing.” This essay should stress stylistic choices by the writer and should not focus exclusively on themes.
The best essays will do the following:
1. Establish a thesis that indicates your goals for discussing the novel in the context of this assignment.
2. Analyze the material rather than repeat it or evaluate it.
3. Focus on HOW the author achieves meaning through his specific choices.
4. Present material intelligently and carefully.
5. Cite the novel frequently and correctly.
