Timed Writing Debrief

This week in AP literature we were all about Emma, we had a two day seminar were we split into different groups and each group hosted a twenty minute session of where the other students discussed different perspectives of how to read this book. Some of the topics we discussed were: looking at Mr. Woodhouse as the antagonist of the book, the gender roles throughout the novel, Emma’s relationships, and the controversy of the ending. I actually used the stuff that we talked about with Emma’s relationships in my timed writing today, I discussed how her relationships keep her from developing as a strong character, but once she realizes that her relationship with Mr. Knightly is what will lead her to grow into a women, because he knows what is best for Emma were as with the other relationships Emma is vulnerable to conform into something that is destructive to her growth as a person.  So mainly my blog today is a debriefing of our Emma open question timed writing.

                Our timed writing today consisted of three choices, so I decided to write about the option which discusses how awakens within the novel lead the development of the novel and defines the author’s main purpose or idea of this novel. So to tackle this question the most logical thing that I could come up with to support Emma’s growth throughout the novel would be her relationships. The major realization of that Emma has is when she realizes that she needs Mr. Knightly as a companion, which leads her to give up her want to be socially involved into her becoming more engaged with growing herself as a person rather than a social dictator. Throughout the whole novel Emma rebels against Mr. Knightly’s advice and mentoring, by engaging in these inappropriate relationships with Harriet and Mr. Churchill, this is where her downfall starts when she meets Harriet. Emma begins the novel as a naïve young girl who is a blank slate, she is untouched to the outside world, but she is somewhat molded by the influence of her father. Emma has her first interaction with the lower classes when she takes on reforming Harriet, she begins become obsessed with finding some project or relationship to keep her busy, but they are very wrong for her because she is developing other characters  when she needs to grow herself.

                Over all this timed writing I feel like went okay, I feel like because I didn’t have to stay specific to certain quotes I had more freedom to elaborate more on the analysis. This timed writing I wrote more than I have ever written in any of my time writings. After this I feel like the open question timed writings are my strong suit because I have more freedom to discuss a whole lot more of analysis and development of certain pieces of literature. I felt this way after the practice exam as well, one the practice exam I wrote about Grendel and felt I could defend my beliefs with the text.