AP Language Class Notes
Period 2 juniors and seniors, although your discussion of critical approaches today was less animated than your period 5 peers’, it was no less rich. As many of you from both periods enter your four- or two-year post-secondary careers, you’ll come to have at least a passing knowledge of most of the critical theories you’ve surveyed over the last couple of days; some of you will be expected to tow one of the critical lines to please your instructors, and, in extreme cases, attempts will be made to indoctrinate you into a particular mode of thinking.
The former isn’t so in all cases, but no matter, you’ll be expected to defend your beliefs in the marketplace of ideas in class and on campus. And it’s vital that you be able to understand the foundations, assess the claims, and argue the validity of a variety of worldviews, most importantly your own.
Among the questions our discussion (I hope) might have engendered in your brains include:
- Which of these approaches, if any, are reasonable?
- Which, if any, are accurate reflections of reality?
- Which, if any, contain internal contradictions?
- Which are better than the others? Are any of them good or useful at all?
- What select principles from each can be applied to analysis?
- What consequences does adherence to each carry?
- Which, if any, is true?
Notice the singular on that last question of the non-exhaustive list; recall that they can’t all be true or equal in the same way according to our friend the Law of Non-contradiction. We’ll continue to discuss ideas and worldviews as we begin Things Fall Apart and commence your next major paper. Be sure to check back sometime later in the break for details.
Have a great, safe, relaxing, and productive break, kids. See you for last nine weeks soon.
English 9 Class Notes
Fourth freshmen, you did much the same as first and third did yesterday; check their notes for objectives and details. Many of you (more of you even than your first and third colleagues) completed your homework before the end of the period leaving you free of English worry over your break. The rest of you, and your peers period 1 and 3, please attend your work for Monday. Details are on your class page.
A note for all freshmen, I’ve said it many times before but it’s worth a mention again: If you’re not happy with your grade or your effort or your choices, you can change. As we head into the last nine weeks of your year, you have the ability to ensure your own success and maybe salvage your first year in English. I hope you accept the challenge of making the rest of this year a success.
Have a great break.
AP Language Class Notes
Objective: APELCers examined and assessed various approaches to critical text analysis.
Juniors and seniors, you separated into large “Critical Approach” groups and discussed the text theories you read about for homework. You then broke into smaller expert groups each of which was responsible for analyzing an approach and synthesizing your findings. You applied these variously to texts in the classroom and to texts we’ve studied since the beginning of the year, and you presented your findings and applications to the rest of the class.
English 9 Class Notes
Objectives: English 9 students 1) analyzed literary concepts in non-fiction, and 2) read independently for a sustained period of time and journaled critically.
Periods 1 and 3, you began with a new story today, “The Village Watchman”, and commenced a new text analysis, identifying and explaining all the literary concepts we’ve been studying. Several of you were able to complete the homework before you even left class. Well done.
Have a great break, and those of you that didn’t finish the work, remember that it’s due the day we get back from break.
AP Language Class Notes
Juniors and seniors, a good analysis of the Yeats piece. We’ll begin with it again next class, in an updated context, and then we’ll discuss the critical approaches you’ll have attended by then.
English 9 Class Notes
Fourth freshmen, good “Graduation” discussion today. I like the way you and your first and third period peers are stepping up, at least when it comes to particpating in class. I’d like to see more of it on paper, on the work you’re turning-in. I think you’re coming along; you’ll get there by the end of the semester.
AP Language Class Notes
Objectives: APELCers 1) analyzed critical appreciations, and 2) analyzed rhetorical strategies in a poem.
Period 5, you looked at and discussed some of the statements from the background reading you did for homework; particularly, you pondered the ideas of the demeaning exoticness and “African romance”. We then commmenced a reading of “The Second Coming” by WB Yeats and began to discuss the poem’s possibilities. We’ll finish this next class.
Please begin reading Things Fall Apart, and, of course, attend the homework detailed on your class page. Oh, and don’t forget that you owe me the final drafts of your second argument papers tomorrow by 3:05.
English 9 Class Notes
Objectives: English 9 students 1) analyzed literary concepts in non-fiction, and 2) read independently for a sustained period of time and journaled critically.
Periods 1 and 3, today you began by continuing to review your text analyses of “Graduation”, after which I read some of the story and went over your answers to “After Reading” questions 5 and 6. We discussed tone and symbol, the two newest additions to our bag of literary concepts. There is no homework.
A few years back, NPR broadcast a series of critical and historical insights into and about American cultural icons called “Present at the Creation”, and “Lift Every Voice and Sing” was one of the featured pieces. I encourage you to investigate it. Then maybe give a listen to and take a look at versions of the Black National Anthem by the Soul Children of Chicago and famed Marvin Gaye duetist Kim Weston’s (read along with the songs).
Why not also take a few minutes to watch and hear Maya Angelou’s Clinton inaugural poem, “On the Pulse of Morning” (read the text)?
AP Language Class Notes
No real objectives today except, before and after turning-in registration and schedule forms for next year, we discussed several of the difficulties and the successes all of you are facing with the second argument paper. To put it in persepctive I asked you to read and consider a satire piece from The Onion, “You Know What’s Stupid? Everything I Don’t Understand”, and I threw in “Idiom Shortage Leaves Nation All Sewed Up In Horse Pies” for an extra laugh.
Please be aware of your due dates: fifth period papers are due Wednesday, March 12, while second period papers are due Thursday, March 13. “But wait”, you may be thinking depending on your particular period, “we don’t meet on that day.”
…
English 9 Class Notes
No real objectives today; rather prepared students turned-in their registration forms for next year. You had an opportunity to fill-in some of the gaps you may have had in your text anaysis while I ranted again about the amount of work students are turning in.
AP Language Class Notes
Period 2, see yesterday’s notes for details. Recall also that the final draft of your second argument paper is due Thursday, March 13, by 3:05.
English 9 Class Notes
Period 4, same as before. Thanks David and Kelcey for sharing their observations during the initial analysis of the Angelou piece. That’s the kind of participation and understanding I appreciate.
For those interested in hearing Maya Angelou speak (recall I mentioned to several of you the great character of her voice), here’s a link to her remarks at the funeral of Coretta Scott King. Take a few minutes to listen; it’s not long, and it is quite beautiful.
Other than that, check your peers’ notes for details and objectives, and see your class page for homework details.
AP Language Class Notes
Objective: APELCers revised their peers’ argument drafts.
After the sweet counselors’ presentation, juniors proceeded to the liberry where you joined the seniors to revise your drafts of argument 2, which is now due on Wednesday, March 12, by 3:05.
English 9 Class Notes
Objectives: English 9 students 1) analyzed literary concepts in non-fiction, and 2) read independently for a sustained period of time and journaled critically.
Periods 1 and 3, we began with analysis again, as we did the other day, instead of independent reading, which I think worked well and which I think we’ll continue to do for the remainder of the year. Anyway, the analysis involved Maya Angelou’s “Graduation”, which we began in class and which you’ll finish for Monday. Check your class page for details.
Have a great weekend, kids.
Campaign Art
Well, Tuesday’s poltical action in Rhode Island, Ohio, Texas, and Vermont turned out better for some than others. Hillary Clinton survived, and Mike Huckabee didn’t, the former (arguably) less expected than the latter. Maybe it all came down to campaign art.
Campaign graphics and logos are important, more important, perhaps, than many of us realize. Indeed, I was suprised to learn about the intricate rhetorical subtleties of the various campaign logos while I listened to a recent interview with Wired magazine’s Scott Dadich on campaign art at the The Economist’s “Democracy in America” blog. Salon.com also recently posted a piece on the same: “May the Best Logo Win”.
William F. Buckley
Guardian of American Conservatism and founder of the National Review, William F. Buckley, Jr. died last week at the age of 82. (He’s the author of the most recent piece you just read.) Buckely was an unusually keen observer, agile debater, prolific writer, and imaginative intellectual, but it’d be useless for me to write much else since others who knew the man and his work far more intimately than I have been offering their thoughts since the news of his passing.
National Review has begun an archive of appreciations on its founder, and other media have produced their own, NPR’s “Remembering William F. Buckley”, New York Times’ “The Mighty Political Legacy of William F. Buckley Jr.”, and Charlie Rose’s retrospective (below), among them.
Here’s a portion (check out all the segments) of the 1968 debate between Buckley and famed MIT linguist Noam Chomsky (whom he notoriously threatened, as he had once Gore Vidal, to sock in the face) over American intervention in Vietnam:
The videos are interesting, but it may lead you to wonder more about what I mentioned to you in class: “Why Did William F. Buckley Jr. Talk Like That?”
I’d encourage any student to sample his work from the National Review archive of his opinion and analysis. Observe closely his broad, deep, and lucid understanding and command of social, political, and cultural issues.
AP Language Class Notes
Period 2 juniors and seniors, thank you for letting me walk around with stuff in my teeth for most of the period. Please check your fifth peers’ notes for objectives and details.
All juniors proceed directly to the Lecture Hall next class; seniors proceed to the liberry to begin your revisions, and we’ll meet you later.
English 9 Class Notes
Period 4, we completed much the same as your first and third period peers did yesterday, and you had a little more time to read independently than normal. Please check notes from yesterday for objectives and details.
National Grammar Day
Students, imagine I was teaching you astronomy and I instructed you that our sun and planets revolve around the Earth. Or consider I was teaching you history and I advocated the oppression of the lower class because I believed its constituents socially and economically incapable of functioning autonomously in society. Or imagine even that I was teaching you biology, and instructed you that certain races of people were inherently physically and intellectually superior to others. At best, you’d think me ignorant and bigoted, at worst, stupid and racist.
Unfortunately, many pop-grammarians and even educators happily perpetuate the unscientific, incorrect, and prejudiced belief (as unscientific as the Ptolemaic conception of the relationship of heavenly bodies, as incorrect as a class of people’s ability based upon its economic disadvantage, and as prejudiced as the idea of inherent racial superiority) that certain grammars are better, purer, more acceptable and palatable than others. Ideas like these that give rise to such inanities as National Gammar Day, sponsored by the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar.
Nathan Bierma, at the Chicago Tribune, weighs in on the dubious festivities and admits his ambivalence: “Don’t get carried away on National Grammar Day”. Arnold Zwicky, linguist at Stanford, is a bit more pointed, though: “National (OMIGOD) Grammar Day”.
So what’s the controversy? Well, it has to do with the distinction between grammar and usage and the surrounding language myths. These myths began many centuries ago and persist to this day and vex the uniformed usage-police (who curiously give Shakespeare a pass) and hurt the usage-violators who suffer under the scornful red pens of the former.
Well, what’s grammar? And what’s usage? Objectively, grammar is the machine that makes capable, drives, and accounts for human speech. Usage is a list of prescribed rules of written English and has to do with mere matters of taste and preference, for example, that one should not split infinitives. In her book Ancient Rhetorics for Modern Students, ASU rhetoric professor Sharon Crowley argues that “usage rules are the conventions [. . .] Americans use to discriminate against one another” (282).
For the real story about how language and how it works, PBS’s site Do You Speak American?, born from Robert MacNeil’s documentary of the same name, and inspired by his previous work on The Story of English, is a rich resource for earnest, curious, amateur linguists and for ill-informed, pretentious, pietistic pop-grammarians alike. A good place to start is with Edward Finegan who describes the differences between prescriptivism and descriptivism in “What is Correct Language?”.
Other contributions to the site include John Algeo’s chapter from the book Language Myths (I have a copy in my room) in which he tackles the idea of language decay, “Americans are Ruining English”, and Walt Wolfram’s article in which he describes processes of linguistic evolution, “The Truth About Change”. And if you don’t believe these linguists, who can doubt trustworthy NPR contributor Geoff Nunberg who discusses the “the decline of grammar” in “Language Diplomacy”.
I encourage you to begin to really examine your own assumptions about the relationship between language and society by further investigating language prestige and prejudice at the PBS site. Then check out Peter Patrick’s Linguistic Human Rights page, particularly his Ten Linguistic Axioms (and see also his page on African American English).
Happy National Grammar Day!
AP Language Class Notes
Objectives: APELCers 1) analyze an author’s rehtorical strategies, and 2) wrote a story about grammar.
Period 5, National Grammar Day began with a tortuous discusson of Buckley, after which you wrote a story about grammar. Before we were able to share our mimics, Mr. Enright graced us with his presence to discuss immiment AP testing.
For those who might need some material for their second argument papers, give a listen to the most recent Philosophy Bites podcast on Cosmopolitanism. You may find it insightful.
Remember to have an electronic copy of your working argument draft available for next class; we’ll be heading to the liberry after our meeting with the counselors.