Here is the last assignment for your journals that will be specific for use on the AP Test. Will we coast through the rest of the semester, kick back, read a little, get the whole AP notion out of our minds? YES. Will there still be a final? YES.

The important mindset to take with you to the test Monday is that you CAN; like the little AP student that could. Your writing skills will amount to more than half of the exam and you should be there. You've spent 16 weeks writing in your journals, writing in class, practicing this. Make the practice pay off by staying level headed. Don't panic, make sure you understand the question and make sure you answer the question.


We have learned a variety of literary terms that you should make use of on the test. Show your knowledge in your writing. Write like you know what you're talking about. Don't just toss around terms willy-nilly (just wanted to toss around a term), but use your knowledge to enhance your writing. If something you've learned and understand seems appropriate, work it into you writing. As an example, your midterm writing assignment was an essay on how media has helped to ruin society as we know it. Your knowledge of aestheticism (see below) could help you to make a point.

Example: Some scholars would have you believe that everything of value must be moral or practical. On the contrary, the idea of "art for art's sake" has done nothing but elevate the standards and quality of our lives. With this in mind, media as an art form has improved, not decreased the quality of our lives.

In this statement, I have been able to utilize my knowledge of aestheticism, despite the fact that the question does not specifically mention aestheticism. Use your knowledge of the terms we've learned. They go along way in making your writing seem intelligent.

The last of the terms:

AESTHETICISM: A literary movement in the nineteenth century of those who believed in "art for art's sake" in opposition to the utilitarian doctrine that everything must be morally or practically useful. Key figures of the aesthetic movement were Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde.

ALLEGORY: A pattern of reference in the work which evokes a parallel action of abstract ideas. Usually allegory uses recognizableble types, symbols and narrative patterns to indicate that the meaning of the text is to be found not in the represented world but in a body of traditional thought.

BLANK VERSE: Verse in iambic pentameter without rhyme scheme, often used in verse drama in the sixteenth century (Marlowe and Shakespeare) and later used for poetry (Milton, Wordsworth's The Prelude, Browning).

CARPE DIEM: A poem advising someone to "Seize the Day". Usually the genre is addressed by a man to a young woman who is urged to stop procrastinating in sexual and emotional matters.

CONCEIT: Literally meaning a "concept", an ingenious comparison between things seemingly unlike. Shakespeare's sonnet which begins "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun" makes fun of standard Renaissance conceits which were modelled on those of Petrarch, the third-century Italian poet. Metaphysical conceits, used in the early seventeenth century by Donne and others, established connections between many aspects of the new sciences, the world of commerce, and human existence.

CONNOTATION: The linguistic term used for the associations which may be usually evoked by the word, or which may be evoked by a specific context, as opposed to the literal sense of a word or its strict dictionary definition which is called its denotation.

CONSONANCE: Repetition of consonantal sounds to make a pattern, usually in verse.

FOOT: The metrical unit of verse comprising a number of stressed and unstressed syllables:
Anapest: u u /
Dactyl: / u u
Iamb: u /
Trochee: / u
Spondee: / /
As an aid to memory, each Greek word actually has the stress pattern it names. Thus Spondee has two stresses, spond-dee.

GENRE: A term used to designate a type of literature according to its subject matter and how the subject is treated.

HYPERBOLE: Overstatement or exaggeration for the sake of emphasis, as when the little boy says "Hey Dad, there's thousands of cats in our yard!" As literary devices, hyperbole, and its opposite understatement, are much used in comedy and satire.

PERSONIFICATION: A figurative use of language which attributes human qualities to ideas or things.

RHETORIC: The language and science of persuasion, in other words, oratory. In the middle ages, rhetoric was one of the important liberal arts and was studied as a separate discipline along with grammar and logic. Rhetoric today comprises all the techniques used to sway a hearer or reader, notably the figures of speech, rhythm, diction or idiolect, temporal and logical structure.

SIMILE: A figure of speech that expresses the resemblance of two different things usually introduced by as or like. For example, "Come. Let's away to prison; we two alone will sing like birds in the cage." King Lear, 5.3.8-9.

VERISIMILITUDE: The quality of seeming true, having the semblance of reality.

OKAY, so I've given you rather technical definitions. You may have to do a little more research to UNDERSTAND. Go to it.

Use your knowledge, use your allusions and illusions, use common sense. Plan ahead. Answer the question. Follow directions. And 200 words means 200 words.