a reflective essay
by Charlie Hopper
When the Zebras Kneel
December 4, 2010.
When the Zebras Kneel is a narrative essay describing a man listening to a song, and the feelings that that song evokes. It's Alan Jackson's country song "Drive," and it's making Hopper cry. He listens to the lyrics and remembers how he felt while learning to drive; he listens to the melody and thinks about how the pitches affect a good song. He spends the rest of the essay trying to determine why he is crying, what makes a good song, and how he tries to evoke such strong emotions in his own songs.
Hopper adopts a very casual tone in this essay. This is evident from many lines, like "But get me: [sob sob]." The way these action words are inserted in his writing would most likely not be used in a formal essay. The casual air of Hopper's paper also allows him to create a very personal feel to it; the reader feels as if he is looking into Hopper's mind. In addition to being written in first person, Hopper also intersperses many rhetorical questions to himself, like "Why am I crying? Really, why?" and "Hey. How did I miss that?" It's as if the reader is reading Hopper's diary as he analyzes his reaction to the song; we are able to follow his ideas and follow his thought process. This definitely kept me more engaged while I was reading this piece.
Near the middle of the essay, Hopper goes from talking about his personal experiences related to the lyrics of Jackson's song to the notes of the song themselves. Usually, analyzing the various melodic leaps and chord progressions of a song would bore me to tears, but Hopper's descriptions of how they brought him to tears actually managed to hold my attention. I think this was through his allusions to pop culture that I knew about. For instance, while describing a particularly moving section of the song, Hopper describes a "'I Wanna Hold Your Hand'-ish melodic leap". I found myself singing that well-known Beatles song in my head, and doing the jump: I wanna hold your (pause) haaand! Hopper's comparison to this part in Jackson's song "Drive" forced me to be a more active reader, and definitely got his point across in a much more memorable and effective way than had he just said "a melodic leap." He also makes reference to the epic part in The Lion King, when the "Circle of Life" song is playing. In my mind, I see the moving picture of the zebras kneeling to Elton John's song,I hear the music in my head, and it truly does help me comprehend the respect and emotion Hopper gains from the music.
Though while I enjoyed the casual tone and fun references,I do not think this tone would be appropriate for an AP essay. The tone is far too nonchalant for the formal essays that the AP board prefers.
This is a very good entry - pass! It's really great how you included what was going through your head as you read the essay, and all of the examples and explanations for that help to explain how you decided what the tone was. The diction you chose to use also helped to make this more interesting to the reader and it seemed to match with the reflective essay that you're writing about. There is not very much that I think should be changed, but if I were to get really picky, you could try to stay a bit more on topic - when you mention what you were thinking about, keep it short.
ReplyDeleteFiona, pass! I love your analysis, but you could’ve focused more on the analysis of rhetoric in your entry because it was barely there. But you did an awesome job analyzing the reflective essay. Your voice shone through in your analysis, making it an interesting read, and I loved your analysis of tone.
ReplyDeletePass. Consider this generous fiona, because I couldn't see any analysis of rhetoric. But it was well written. You employed some interesting techniques.
ReplyDelete