Today's Woolf Analysys Notes

First here's the link to a copy of Woolf's essay: http://s.spachman.tripod.com/Woolf/professions.htm
Now here's today's notes

AP Language—December 2nd
Bellringer—Please respond on your own paper in several sentences. Include a proper heading.
Why is the Virginia Woolf essay giving you trouble? What, to you, does “Analysis” mean?
Here are some anonymous examples of what not to do:

What’s wrong here??
Through out the speech Woolf speaks of a metaphorical Angel, which illustrates her inner thoughts. She says “the shadow of her wings fell on my page” – which means the angel impaired her ability to write. The angel symbolizes what a woman should be: pure sympathetic, and mindless. These are not good qualities for a critical writer to possess.

How about here??

Woolf’s tone in the “Professions for Women” speech was both humorous and serious. Her humorous tone is demonstrated when she says “all I have to do with my money is buy persian cats .” Then Woolf becomes serious when the Angel in the house whispers in her ear “flatter, deceive, use all the arts of your sex”—essentially lie. Woolf becomes even more serious when she tells us she “caught her by the throat” and killed her. By beginning with a light and humorous tone and transitioning to a serious tone Woolf emphasizes the poignancy of her Angel and its necessary murder.

Outline (AGAIN)
Intro-1 paragraph only
Body paragraphs—each relating to your intro
Conclusion- repeats ideas throughout

Writing Out loud.
How to construct a literary analysis paragraph… (Yes, write this down)
• Start with a topic sentence
• Keep everything in the paragraph relevant to the topic sentence
• Integrate your Quotes
• Every paragraph should be unique
• Paragraphs should build on one another
Do Not
• Flatter
• Blabber
• “Plop” quotes

AND, another thing
• Do not use MY writing verbatim-I’m giving you examples to help you create your writing. You are mistaken if you think I will accept this as “your work”—other than the fill-in-the-blank thesis your writing should be your own

Let’s Practice Together

Topic Sentence.
In “Professions for Women” Woolf depicts a metaphorical “angel” who early in her career threatened her ability to succeed as a writer.
Elaborate—Integrate quotes if you can
The Angel “whispers in her ear” and coaxes her to “flatter, deceive,” in essence lie when she attempts to review a novel written by a man.
Continue to elaborate—try to answer the questions how and why.
Woolf realizes she cannot become a successful writer without killing the angel. She claims to have murdered her out of self-defense—“If I hadn’t have killed her she would have ripped the heart out of my writing.” Woolf uses a sardonic tone to capture her young, admiring audience when she describes grabbing her “by the throat” and killing off the angel.
Start a new paragraph that connects to the previous one
The angel Woolf refers to is for her purposes in this speech an embodiment of the definition of femininity at the dawn of the 20th century. The angel “was intesnesly sympathetic. . . charming. . . unselfish. . . above all she was pure.” The angel was in fact an allusion to a poem by Coventry Patmore her audience would have been familiar with.
Here are some anonymous examples of what not to do:
What’s wrong here??
Through out the speech Woolf speaks of an Angel, which resembled her inner thoughts. The angel was used as a metaphor in her speech. Quoting “the shadow of her wings fell on my page.” The angel was to symbolize what a woman should be. Also, that the angel was to be purity and gracefulness.

How about here??

Woolf’s tone in the “Professions for Womemn” speech was all different tones. There were two of which humorous and serious. Her tone of humorous “all I have to do with my money is buy persiam cats.” Then Woolf turns around and becomes serious when the Angel in the house tried to whisper in her ear. The tone of the speech set the speech off in a whole different way.

Your Task.
Working with a partner or alone try to create one solid analysis paragraph, or edit one of your paragraphs based on this lesson.

Finals preview

Hey AP darlings,

Here's the link to AP central, where you can read all the questions and sample essays with comments. Our final will be question 1 from the 2009 exam. Happy reading!