DIDLS, Prompts, and Other Concepts of the Like

So these past weeks have all been about DIDLS, or Diction, Imagery, Details, Language, and Syntax. I had always known that there were specific ways to analyze literature, but I had never heard of this nemonic device before! Definitely quite interesting. However useful DIDLS is,there are still of it that irk me, mainly the language and syntax. I understand that there are differences between language and syntax, and I do understand what the differences are, but I don't quite think that the differences are enough to classify them as two techniques. Wouldn't it be much easier to combine them into one larger group? Nonetheless, I find DIDLS to be extremely useful when trying to write an essay for this class. It's a great way to organize essays, and I find it to be extremely analytical. However, the free response for each AP class is different, and it will definitely take some time for me to adjust to using DIDLS on a free response.
Close and open prompts. The concept isn't hard to understand; for close prompts, we write about literature that is given, and for open prompts, we write about well known works. Personally, the open prompts seem more terrifying than the close prompts, mainly because we have such a wide range of literature to choose from, and it's difficult to decide on which one to use! Close prompts seem to be easier because there are specific works of literature that we are supposed to write about, although I am a bit worried about it. What if I do not understand these works of literature at all? How would I right about them at that point? That really would be a problem. I guess practice is the only way to ensure that does not happen. In fact, we also wrote our first essay on Friday. Oh, how fun. In all seriousness, I felt that it wasn't too difficult, but time management and writing speed are some aspects I need to work on. I felt that it took me too long to start writing, and once I did, I wrote slowly. It's not exactly a bad thing that I took my time to think things out, but it might have taken me a bit too long... The prompt itself wasn't too difficult, even though I felt like I may have left out some important aspects of the essay.

Just a final note... I've got to say, I quite enjoyed reading "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazurus. I visited the Statue of Liberty near the end of the summer, so I actually got to see it. I even bought a plaque with part of the poem engraved on it! It's always fun when you recognize something in a different context, isn't it?