LAST BLOG OF THE YEAR!

This is it!  Your final blog for the year.  In this blog, I would like for you to give the incoming class of AP Lang students a some helpful advice.  Now that you have been through it, what approaches or attitudes do you think will help them be successful in the class?  I will be compiling a list of suggestions to send to the incoming students this summer. 
PS. Don't scare them off.  (Just kidding)

A Speech Worth Hearing

For this week's blog, I would like for you to argue why your classmates should take the time to listen to or to read the speech that you analyzed this week.  Make sure your argument is convincing.  Avoid logical fallacies.  Good Luck!  After everyone has completed the blog, you should choose two speeches that you think you would like to experience.  Be prepared to share that information in class on Monday. 

Schools for Sale?

For years corporations have sponsored high school sports. Their ads are found on the outfield fence at baseball parks or on the walls of the gymnasium, the football stadium, or even the locker room. Corporate logos are even found on players‟ uniforms. But some schools have moved beyond corporate sponsorship of sports to allowing "corporate partners" to place their names and ads on all kinds of school facilities-libraries, music rooms, cafeterias. Some schools accept money to require students to watch Channel One, a news program that includes advertising. And schools often negotiate exclusive contracts with soft drink or clothing companies. Some people argue that corporate partnerships are a necessity for cash-strapped schools. Others argue that schools should provide an environment free from ads and corporate influence. Using appropriate evidence, write an essay in which you evaluate the pros and cons of corporate sponsorship for schools and indicate why you find one positions more persuasive that the other.

Home at Last

Dinaw Mengestu wrote a collection of essays about living in Brooklyn, New York.  Read the essay titled "Home at Last" which is on page 337 in your text book.  You might also be able to find the essay on line.  After reading the piece, discuss in your blog its tone and purpose.  If you are struggling with the assignment, you may want to use SOAPStones to get through it.  Good luck.

Testing 1,2,3

Write your reaction to the AP practice exam.  What was hard, what was easy?  How did you feel about taking it?  Was it what you expected?  If you had to make a plan for the actual exam, what things, what skills do you think you would improve upon.  Make an estimated guess as to what you scored on the exam. 

Rhetorical Devices Anyone!

The passage below is from Last Child in the Woods (2008) by Richard Louv. Read the passage carefully. Then, in

a well-developed essay, analyze the rhetorical strategies Louv uses to develop his argument about the separation between people and nature. Support your analysis with specific references to the text.  DO NOT list logos, pathos or ethos as rhetorical devices.  Talk about how rhetorical devices are used to appeal to logos, pathos and ethos.  Here is a link to a list of rhetorical devices.  You need to know some of these for the success on the exam.  Study.  We have 6 weeks.  Learn 5 to 10 a week and you will be golden.  http://teachers.sduhsd.net/ppennock/ap%20resource%20packet.pdf

 

Researchers at the State University of New York at

Buffalo are experimenting with a genetic technology

through which they can choose the colors that appear

on butterfly wings. The announcement of this in

5 2002 led writer Matt Richtel to conjure a brave new

advertising medium: “There are countless possibilities

for moving ads out of the virtual world and into the

real one. Sponsorship-wise, it’s time for nature to

carry its weight.” Advertisers already stamp their

10 messages into the wet sands of public beaches. Cashstrapped

municipalities hope corporations agree to

affix their company logo on parks in exchange for

dollars to keep the public spaces maintained. “The

sheer popularity” of simulating nature or using nature

15 as ad space “demands that we acknowledge, even

respect, their cultural importance,” suggests Richtel.

Culturally important, yes. But the logical extension of

synthetic nature is the irrelevance of “true” nature—

the certainty that it’s not even worth looking at.

20 True, our experience of natural landscape

“often occurs within an automobile looking out,”

as Elaine Brooks said. But now even that visual

connection is optional. A friend of mine was shopping

for a new luxury car to celebrate her half-century of

25 survival in the material world. She settled on a

Mercedes SUV, with a Global Positioning System:

just tap in your destination and the vehicle not only

provides a map on the dashboard screen, but talks you

there. But she knew where to draw the line. “The

30 salesman’s jaw dropped when I said I didn’t want a

backseat television monitor for my daughter,” she told

me. “He almost refused to let me leave the dealership

until he could understand why.” Rear-seat and in-dash

“multimedia entertainment products,” as they are

35 called, are quickly becoming the hottest add-on since

rearview mirror fuzzy dice. The target market: parents

who will pay a premium for a little backseat peace.

Sales are brisk; the prices are falling. Some systems

include wireless, infrared-connected headsets. The

40 children can watch Sesame Street or play Grand Theft

Auto on their PlayStation without bothering the

driver.

Why do so many Americans say they want their

children to watch less TV, yet continue to expand the

45 opportunities for them to watch it? More important,

why do so many people no longer consider the

physical world worth watching? The highway’s edges

may not be postcard perfect. But for a century,

children’s early understanding of how cities and

50 nature fit together was gained from the backseat: the

empty farmhouse at the edge of the subdivision; the

variety of architecture, here and there; the woods and

fields and water beyond the seamy edges—all that

was and is still available to the eye. This was the

55 landscape that we watched as children. It was our

drive-by movie.

Perhaps we’ll someday tell our grandchildren

stories about our version of the nineteenth-century

Conestoga wagon.

60 “You did what?” they’ll ask.

“Yes,” we’ll say, “it’s true. We actually looked

out the car window.” In our useful boredom, we used

our fingers to draw pictures on fogged glass as we

watched telephone poles tick by. We saw birds on the

65 wires and combines in the fields. We were fascinated

with roadkill, and we counted cows and horses and

coyotes and shaving-cream signs. We stared with a

kind of reverence at the horizon, as thunderheads and

dancing rain moved with us. We held our little plastic

70 cars against the glass and pretended that they, too,

were racing toward some unknown destination. We

considered the past and dreamed of the future, and

watched it all go by in the blink of an eye.

What "She" Said

So, we heard some very interesting presentations this week.  I want all of you to choose one of the topics that were presented and pose 3 global questions total.  After posing three questions, respond to one of the questions in your blog.  Your comments to your classmates blogs should address one of the global questions they did NOT address.

Do not repeat a global question already posed by a classmate on the blog.  Make sure you read all the blogs before you post.