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.   

The New SAT?

For this week's blog, you need to do a little research.  Find articles on the new SAT that the college board is getting ready to launch.  Is it a good idea?  What are the reasons for changing the test?  Are the reasons valid?  Do you think the change will be successful?  Make sure you cite at least two articles in your blog.  Good luck.

NO LOGOS PATHOS OR ETHOS

Professions for Women

Read this essay by Virginia Woolf.  In your blog,  analyze the rhetorical strategies Woolf uses in this speech to reach her specific audience.  Pay attention to the way she uses the tools of the novelist, such as characterization, scene setting, highly textured and specific descriptive detail, and figurative language.

DO NOT list logos, pathos or ethos as rhetorical strategies.  Logos, pathos and ethos are APPEALS.  The question is, how does the author employ rhetorical strategies in terms of organization, structure and form to accomplish or establish those appeals (logos, pathos and ethos)  within the piece?

Gender in the Oval Portrait

http://poestories.com/read/ovalportrait



What role does gender play in Poe's short story. 

The New Normal?

How many ways are there to learn?  We live in a traditional community with traditional schools.  However, there are some very creative, different approaches to education being tested all over the world.  Your job this weekend is to find a non-traditional school, provide a link, and explain in the blog what makes this school unique.  What methods are they using, how is their approach different, and what is it that makes the school successful? 
Here is an example.  Good Luck!
http://academy.interlochen.org/motion-picture-arts-major?utm_campaign=iaa_mpa&utm_medium=cpc&gclid=CO_FrdPe37wCFacDOgod2XQALQ


You may not repeat a school and/or a type of school.  So far, I found a film school and Jessica has an alternative education school listed.  Go for different!  There are some really interesting schools out there.

Pick a Controvesey, any Controversey!

Choose one of the topics from the list.  You may NOT choose your own literary specialist topic.  Once you have chosen a topic, speak to the controversy surrounding that topic.  Argue at least one point about the subject and back it up with evidence. Include a work cited at the bottom of the entry. Here are your choices:

Child Abuse
Space Travel and Exploration
Gene Therapy
Poverty
Homeschooling
The Overuse and or Abuse of Social Media
Parenting Strategies
The Holocaust
The Rwandan Genocide
Drug Trafficking
Concussions in Sports
Excessive or Obsessive Running
The Afghan War
Foster Care

Only one person can choose the topic.  That  way, all of them will be discussed.  Log on early to get the topic of your choice!

Two Kinds of Catholics?

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/a-catholic-showdown-worth-watching/

This is a difficult article so you will have to employ your skills in close reading. You may also need to do some digging to ensure your understanding of the piece.  Look up any people or words with which you are not familiar.  Once you feel you grasp the meaning  behind the article, write about the two "different sides" of Catholicism.  Do you agree with the author's assessment of American Catholics?  With which side to you most associate yourself and or your family?  Perhaps you are still following blindly, but this offers a lot of room for thought and lively debate!  Do not be afraid to give your fellow students a challenging comment, and do not shy away from refuting any comments you believe deserve refuting!
Good Luck! 
FYI Mr. MacDonald will be joining our conversation on this one.  Do not be surprised if you see a comment from him.

"Superman and Me"

Read the following essay, "Superman and Me" by Sherman Alexie.
http://www.qcounty.com/SCC/Spring10/Eng305_10035/Readings/ShermanAlexie--Superman.pdf

It is both an eye-opening account of what life was like for an intelligent child on an Indian reservation and a skillful rendering of the moments surrounding language acquisition, the spark for reading and writing, and the influence on a child of a well-loved parent.  Use any or all of these avenues for discussion of the essay.

 Also comment on what rhetorical devices Alexie uses in the essay.  For example, by using the analogy of a paragraph to a fence, Alexie is providing a visual connection that all readers can understand in order to express his moment of epiphany that opened him to the world of reading: an understanding that words "worked together for a common purpose".  The use of this visual analogy between a paragraph and a fence lends meaning to the extension of his analogy in the remainder of paragraph 3.  As Alexie explains his understanding of the reservation as a paragraph within the country, his home and neighborhood as paragraphs on the reservation, and each member of his family as a separate paragraph yet part of a larger "essay of seven paragraphs," the reader grasps Alexie's inherent desire to write and his identity as a writer.  This is just one example.  You should find and cite at least two. Do your best not to repeat the devices used by other students.

Allegory of the Cave

Allegory of the Cave

So, here is the written and narrated version of Plato's Allegory of the Cave.  Since you are all young, energetic, intelligent and future college grads, how does this theory apply to you?  Figure out what it means and apply it to yourself as a future leader of society.

(Under the title on the link you can click on the blue subtitle and watch a version while you read along.)

Using Logic in Writing

Craft a logical sequence into a written argument.  Begin with a logical syllogism.  Expand the argument with concrete evidence and then draw a conclusion.  This does not need to be research based.  It can be  a topic about which you are well versed.  It should not be long and involved.  See examples of this exercise on the Purdue OWL under Logic in Writing.  You can access the document through the link I provided in the email sent Friday.

When you are viewing the arguments of your classmates, be sure to be on the lookout for any logical fallacies.  If you see one, call them out on it by naming the logical fallacy you found in the comments under his or her post.  If there are no logical fallacies in his or her argument, comment on what you consider the strongest piece of evidence in his or her argument.  Good Luck!

The Great Equalizer

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/367460/great-equalizers-rich-lowry



Read this article and give me, and your classmates, your reaction.  How does this article apply to you, your family and your generation?