The AP Test’s
Analytical Essay
What Every Bright Kid
Should Know
The Analytical Essay
• This essay asks you examine how an
author uses language to make a point
or achieve a purpose.
• You will read a passage and respond
to a prompt that asks you to analyze
the passage in some way.
Your 2 Jobs in the Essay
Analysis prompts always ask students to
do two things. The first requirement is to
“convey the author’s purpose,” although it
is important to realize that this exact phrase
is not always used. Occasionally a prompt
will even give a subtle hint of what purpose
the students should look for and analyze.
Your 2 Jobs in the Essay
The second task is to explain how the
author achieves his or her purpose.
Students will spend the bulk of their
essay explaining the how, but without a
clear understanding of the what
(author’s purpose), the analysis will
frequently amount to little more than a
listing of rhetorical strategies and
devices and will, therefore, not be
successful. —Kevin McDonald, AP guru
LET’S RECAP
• JOB 1: What’s the author’s purpose?
• JOB 2: How is it achieved?
• If you aren’t doing these things, you
will get a BAD score on the essay.
• You should give your answer to Job 1,
and possibly Job 2, by the end of the
first paragraph.
A Bad Thesis
• A bad thesis will omit Job 1 or Job 2 or
will address them in a simplistic way.
– BAD: “Capote expresses his view of
Holcomb through diction, syntax, and
imagery.” That says NOTHING.
• No Job 1—What IS his view of Holcomb??
• Poor Job 2—What type of diction? What’s he
doing with syntax, and via which syntactical
elements? What kind of imagery, and how
does it serve the purpose that was (not)
identified above?
A Good Thesis
• A good thesis will accomplish Job 1
and Job 2 in a thorough and complex
way.
– Through his use of stylistic elements
such as selection of detail, imagery, and
figurative language, Capote reveals his
own solemn and mysterious view of
Holcomb, Kansas, while setting the stage
for an imminent change.
– Try to open your thesis with Job 2, so as to avoid
a misplaced modifying phrase/clause.
A Better Thesis
• An even stronger thesis will identify strategies
specific to the context of the text in question.
– JUST GOOD: Kelley communicates her outrage over
child labor by means of angry diction, vivid details,
and emotional appeals.
– BETTER: Throughout Florence Kelley’s speech, she
emphasizes the need to alter working conditions for
young people. Repeating key concepts, introducing
numerous examples of horrendous conditions and
state policies, and extolling the virtues of laws
curtailing the work day, Kelley develops a highly
effective argument that pulls her audience into the
issue and invites them to join her efforts.
(P.S. A real student wrote that!)
Context-Specific Strategies
• To prevent your essay from devolving
into a list of rhetorical terms with no
larger purpose, try to identify strategies
specific to the context and rhetorical
situation of the text in question.
– Context-specific strategies are so tailored
that they could not be used in any essay
other than the one you’re writing right now.
• not just “using emotional appeals,” but “making
Gertrude feel guilty for her hasty re-marriage”
• not just “selecting details,” but “emphasizing
Holcomb’s dilapidated appearance through
detailed diction and selection of concrete traits”
“Sub-Purposes”
• One way to link the small-scale
rhetorical devices you find in a text to
the rhetor’s overall purpose (Job 1) is
to think of the “sub-purposes” the
rhetor needs to achieve in order to
achieve the larger purpose.
• It is often easier to see rhetorical
devices as contributing to a “subpurpose” than the overall purpose
“Sub-Purposes”
• For example, a leader trying to rally
his nation to support war against
another nation (Job 1) might:
– Demonize the other nation with violent
diction or pathos appeals to fear
– Instill in his audience a sense of pride in
their nation with logos appeals to the
facts of their nation’s accomplishments
or high diction that describes the nation
as doing important work, etc.
Organizing Your Essay
• But you can’t just do Job 1 and Job 2; you
have to be organized & deliberate, producing
an effective analytical text
• A 5- (6-, 7-…) ¶ essay structure is fine, but stay
away from formulaic statements.
• “These are the ways Capote uses diction to achieve his
purpose.”
– Concluding sentences in paragraphs should add
insight to what came before or preview what comes
next, or they shouldn’t exist.
• Logically order your analysis of strategies
– e.g. if a rhetor is criticizing government policy, but
also takes great pains to establish his patriotism,
explain how he achieves the patriotic persona first
before analyzing the criticism.
Organizing Your Essay
• Instead of simply structuring your essay as
a random 1,2,3 of rhetorical techniques,
consider using a pattern of development as
the overarching organizing principle.
– e.g. Go through the essay chronologically and
narrate the rhetorical process
• Just don’t devolve into summary; it’s about what the
author does, not what he says
– Or, build your essay around some central point
of comparison and contrast
• “She doesn’t do THIS obvious thing; she does THAT
unexpected thing!”
– Or, define the author’s particular approach in
the thesis, and go on to explain your definition
Labeling Devices and Building Connections
• Rhetorical Strategy: anything the author does to
achieve a purpose—strategies specific to a given
text, PODs, all of the categories below
– Rhetorical Device: particular terms we’ve studied—
appeals, juxtaposition, tropes/schemes
• Stylistic Device: surface features of the text
– Trope: artful diction—hyperbole, metaphor, paradox, etc.
– Scheme: artful syntax w/ Greek names—anaphora, antithesis...
• The lower a term is, the less it belongs in thesis
– Don’t build a whole ¶ around anaphora or periodic
sentences; you’ll run out of meaningful analysis
– Try instead to build connections between devices,
keeping the rhetor’s purpose in mind.
• Don’t just examine the emphatic diction; instead look at how the
emphatic diction contributes to a zealous tone and why that tone is
useful. Don’t just analyze the use of anaphora; instead look at how
the anaphora functions to emphasize patriotism, thereby appealing
to emotions (pathos).
Compare/Contrast Analysis Essays
• Some analytical prompts present two
passages on a related topic and ask you to
compare them with respect to purpose,
approach, style, etc.
• 2 options for organization:
– Point-by-point: Proceed from one category of
comparison to another, comparing the two texts
side by side with respect to each category.
– Subject-by-subject: Thoroughly explore one text
in your essay before moving on to thoroughly
explore the other. Use the same categories of
comparison for each passage, ideally in the same
order.
Compare/Contrast: The Approach
• The essay may not always say “compare
and contrast,” but if there are two passages,
that is probably the goal.
• Point of the question: to test your ability to
distinguish between purposes, styles,
tones, etc.
– You will likely spend most of your time analyzing
differences
• Don’t forget about purpose!
– Unless the 2 purposes are identical, discerning and
mentioning the difference—subtle though it may
be—will improve your essay and raise your score.
Analytical Hazards
• “_____ uses diction/syntax” (what kind? how?)
• “this emphasizes the details/his point”
– Emphasis is meaningless w/o purpose
• “this makes it flow”
– Everyone wants their words to “flow”
• “evokes emotion” or “uses pathos”
– What specific emotion and why?
• Beware of syntax!
– Only refers to structure and arrangement of sentences
– will likely involve grammatical terms
• If you can’t swim, don’t get in the pool
• Everything you find must serve purpose!
• Don’t just list devices. Analyze them! Give
specific (quoted) examples of them!
Timing
• 40 minutes
• 5 minutes to read and annotate the
passage
• 10 minutes to plan:
– What is the purpose? What strategies will you
focus on? What will your thesis say? What
context will you open with? How will you
organize your essay?
• 25 minutes to write