Katie Tevebaugh
AP English 4
Mr. Jennings
August 2, 2013
College Essay
Question: If you could invite anyone, living or dead, to The Mad Hatter’s tea party who would it
be? Why?
To invite someone to the Mad Hatter’s tea party could be the first step to making them go
mad! Few people could handle conversing and dining with the Mad Hatter, but I believe Mary
Calkins could. To most this name is unknown; however this very name has paved the way for
women in the world of psychology. Although Mary attended all the psychology classes she
could at Harvard, she was never truly acknowledged as a student because of her gender. Through
all of this she became the first woman president of the American Psychological Association in
1905. Coming from a girl who had wanted to study psychology since 8th grade, Mary not only
had an impact on my life but has been a beacon of light to show me that if I continue to work
hard my dreams can be met. To have Mary Calkins attends a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party and to hear
her ideas in contrast to the Mad Hatter’s would be an unforgettable experience that would always
stay with me as I venture into my future.
Literary Merit
Literary merit. Sounds like an award. In a way it is. It’s our society coming together as a
whole to say “hey you should probably read this”. This does not mean that this title is handled
loosely, many professors; teachers; and students argue about who and what is of literary merit. A
book of literary merit must, by the AP literary and composition standards, “invite and reward
rereading and do not, like ephemeral works in such popular genres as detective or romance
fiction, yield all (or nearly all) of their pleasures of thought and feeling the first time through”. I
chose two texts that are both well known; one the author is more known and the other story is
known throughout the world. I chose the book Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll and
William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29.
I choose these two texts because they are, in a way, seen in an opposite light when it
comes to how society views them. On one hand we have a poet/play writer that is idolized by
many people in the English Background and on the other hand we have a child’s tail that is very
well known as well. Both are well known or “popular genres”, but are either or literary merit?
Between these two texts one is considered by the AP course of literary merit, however the other
is not. William Shakespeare has been dubbed of the literary merit status, whereas Lewis Carroll
is not. I find this very shocking seeing that these two texts have so many features in common.
They both make you think twice about what you are reading. For example all throughout Alice in
Wonderland you think you are reading nonsense but in reality it has deeper meaning. A lot of
Alice’s experiences also express how children feel when growing up. Also in William
Shakespeare’s sonnet 29 you first read it and think it is a pretty depressing poem. It is not until
you read and analyze it that you realize that he is saying this girl makes all the depressing things
better. Both have deeper meanings and can be seen in two ways. So what makes what William
Shakespeare writes more important or more worth reading than what Lewis Carroll writes? It
might just be because Shakespeare has been here longer and has published more works. But
honestly a lot of those works are very distasteful and a lot of people over look that due to the
difference of dialect. But that might just have something to say about what has literary merit.
After all what is a book that doesn’t need discussion? To say the least I can understand, to a
point, why some pieces of literature are prized over others. However I do not believe that one
should only read works of merit because it would have the same effect as reading bed time
stories all your life; you’ll lack a view that you never read. I think to put the label of literary
merit on a work of text should be disregarded due to the fact that only reading those texts
wouldn’t give your mind the imagination and breathing room it needs.