The Quotation She Cannot Place
A student writing the poetry free-response essay has chosen a poem she understands well and has a strong thesis about how the speaker's view of nature shifts. She wants to support a claim about the poem's final image, but she cannot recall the exact wording of the last two lines. She remembers the sense but not the words. She has three options: (1) quote the lines as best she remembers and hope, (2) paraphrase the image and analyze the paraphrase, or (3) drop the final image and build the paragraph on an earlier image she can quote exactly. She has 15 minutes left.
1. Which option best serves her score, and why?
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Option (2), with a caveat, is generally strongest - but only if she is transparent. Misquoting (1) is risky: if the paraphrase drifts from the actual wording, her analysis may be analyzing a line that does not exist, and graders who know the poem will see the error. Dropping the final image (3) may abandon her best evidence, since the shift she wants to argue often culminates in the last image.
The disciplined move: paraphrase the image accurately ('the speaker describes the light failing across the water') and analyze the effect of that described image, being careful not to put quotation marks around words she is unsure of. Analysis of a correctly characterized image earns credit; a fabricated quotation does not. If she can recall even one or two exact words with confidence (a single striking noun), she may quote only those in isolation, which lowers the risk of a botched full-line quotation.
2. How should she distribute her remaining 15 minutes?
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Rough allocation: ~3 minutes to finish the paragraph on the final image using paraphrase (state sub-claim, describe the image precisely, analyze its effect, tie back to thesis); ~5 minutes to write or tighten a conclusion that does not merely restate but extends the claim (e.g., what the shift implies about the speaker's stance by the end); ~5 minutes to proofread for the errors graders penalize most - vague device-naming, plot summary, unsupported assertions, and any quotation she is unsure of (convert to paraphrase); ~2 minutes buffer. She should not start a new paragraph she cannot finish; an incomplete thought is worse than a tightened existing one. Prioritize: thesis clarity, evidence tied to claim, and commentary that explains how rather than what.