You know you're obsessed with LOTR when ... - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Encaitare · 02-04-2005, 03:05 PM

... when you're nearly driven mad out of being denied the chance to write about LotR.

On my English Regents exam, which I just took recently, there are four essays. Some here will not be familiar with what I am about to talk about so I shall explain. On one essay there is this thing called the "critical lens." This is a quote by some famous person, and you are supposed to agree or disagree with the quote and then support it using two books/short stories/plays you read at some point, and literary elements from them (setting, POV, theme, etc.). It's totally bogus. So the "critical lens" (ugh, I feel the need to make little quotation marks with my fingers whenever I say that

) was about how every great story is about a journey of some sort.

Now, I had asked my English teacher previously if the books had to be those we had read in school, and she told me yes. I was absolutely going out of my mind, torn between whether to disregard what she said and write a brilliant, ten page essay about LotR (because it's oh-so applicable), or be a good little student and write about something by Nathaniel Hawthorne that isn't nearly as interesting. In the end I begrudgingly wrote about things we read in school, but still... it's not as though LotR is some sort of obscure work or anything.

Curse you, New York State Regents board!

02-04-2005, 03:05 PM	#11
Encaitare Bittersweet Symphony Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: On the jolly starship Enterprise Posts: 1,814	... when you're nearly driven mad out of being denied the chance to write about LotR. On my English Regents exam, which I just took recently, there are four essays. Some here will not be familiar with what I am about to talk about so I shall explain. On one essay there is this thing called the "critical lens." This is a quote by some famous person, and you are supposed to agree or disagree with the quote and then support it using two books/short stories/plays you read at some point, and literary elements from them (setting, POV, theme, etc.). It's totally bogus. So the "critical lens" (ugh, I feel the need to make little quotation marks with my fingers whenever I say that ) was about how every great story is about a journey of some sort. Now, I had asked my English teacher previously if the books had to be those we had read in school, and she told me yes. I was absolutely going out of my mind, torn between whether to disregard what she said and write a brilliant, ten page essay about LotR (because it's oh-so applicable), or be a good little student and write about something by Nathaniel Hawthorne that isn't nearly as interesting. In the end I begrudgingly wrote about things we read in school, but still... it's not as though LotR is some sort of obscure work or anything. Curse you, New York State Regents board!