Analytical Focus
- The free write question can be a daunting task because you don’t really have any references to guide you. Your only references are the books that you have read and the question itself. In order to comprehend the essay question, you simply need to beak it down and analyze it. The process of breaking it down is quite simple. First, read the entire question thoroughly and make sure you understand it. Then, find the information that you need, preferably underlining ONLY what the question is asking you to analyze. This is important because you need to be able to know exactly what you are looking for so you won’t get confused. Once that is done, raise questions and investigate ideas that your own essay can address. So basically, make more questions out of a single question. These questions are known as subset questions.
- There are different types of questions for this particular essay however, they all generally ask you to analyze a work of literature and explain how the analysis contributes to the work as a whole.
- Theme is important. Sometimes the essay question will ask you how the theme contributes to the work as a whole. Identifying the theme of your selected book solely depends on you. Once you find it, make sure it can be applied to the essay question.
- Imagery can be important when it comes to understanding the free write question. The reason being is because the question itself provides some details as to what book you can use for your response. The details can illustrate a part of a book that you have read, making it easier for one to decide what book to use correctly. All you really have to do is look at the question and carefully read what it says (again, refer back to the 2nd step of the breaking down process). Usually, the book that pops into your head can be used for the essay question.
Thematic Focus
- · Make sure you divide up the essay question into parts and number them. This will help you immensely when organizing your essay. Get the hang of transitioning smoothly from idea to idea and always relate it back to the essay question.
- · Try beginning the introduction of your essay the way most convenient and easiest to you. The essay question always provides a statement similar to a thesis statement. Avoid using the statement they provide because the readers will feel as if you’re beating around the bush. Your thesis statement should get straight to the point.
- · Outlining your free response essay would really help you considering you don’t have the actual book in front of you to analyze or annotate. Start with the name of the book and the author – you’d be surprised at how many students forget the author or the title. From there, shortly summarize the novel. ONLY DO THIS IN YOUR OUTLINE – NEVER SUMMARIZE THE PLOT IN THE ACTUAL ESSAY. [The outline will not be graded.] After shortly summarizing, the ideas, purpose and themes of the book will begin to come to you. Spend no more than 10 minutes outlining.
- · Although the exam gives you a list of novels, you are not limited. You can use other books you’ve read. From my research on essay questions and list of novels, one of the best plays to use for this essay would be Hamlet. It has a variety of themes, in turn being able to make it easier to answer a vast amount of essay questions. With just a couple of themes from the play, such as revenge, madness and loyalty, one already has a better chance of doing well on the free response. :^)
