AP Language Class Notes
Objectives: APELCers 1) completed a practice timed-writing, and 2) evaluated their own and their peers’ timed-writing performance.
Period 2, today you wrote a practice timed-writing, a synthesis essay, which many of you found easier or at least better than timed-writings 6 and 7. You worked in groups and assessed your and your peers’ performance.
A couple of quick items on the importance of worldview. I hope you’re paying attention to the media coverage of our current presidential campaign, because worldview has taken center stage for two of the hopefuls.
Barack Obama has had to distance himself from Jeremiah Wright , his former pastor, for comments the latter’s made on a recent series of speaking engagements .
Meanwhile, John McCain has had to deal with the heat generated by the endorsement of Christian Zionist and Texas megaminster John Hagee , who himself has made controversial comments about Catholics and God’s supposed retribution on New Orleans .
Developing the skills to sort through these ideas and rheotric is essential for critical particiaption in the agora, students.
English 9 Class Notes
Fourth freshmen, we covered the same material as your third and first peers yesterday. Check their notes for objectives and details. Please bring your required documents next class.
NIAGARA FALLS: As I realted to you, after Marcos mentioned his imminent trip to Niagara Falls this summer, the destination has for over one hundred years attracted thrill-seekers trying to make history by going over the falls in a “barrel”. Here’s how some have tried and failed and how others have tried succeeded: “How Going Over Niagara Works”.
By the way, this is in no way an endorsement of any student attempting the feat. I expect to see you back here next fall Marcos, dry and in one piece.
AP Language Class Notes
Objectives: APELCers 1) researched and revised their syntehsis essays, and 2) began to evaluate their practice timed-writing performance.
Period 5, we met in the liberry for research and revision, where I also talked about proper embedding and citation methods and Works Cited pages. You spent the last half of the class reviewing your rhetorical analysis essays from Monday using the scoring guidelines and our AP rubric.
More exam practice coming soon.
English 9 Class Notes
Objective: Freshmen analyzed literary concepts in a semi-biographical text.
Freshmen 1 and 3, today you covered chapter 24 of our text, paying special attention to Maycomb’s women’s attitudes. Caleb nicely pointed out the irony of Mrs. Merriweather’s praise of J. Grimes Everett and her scorn for Atticus. We discussed Alexandra’s question to Maudie after the news of Tom’s death, “What else do they want from him?” (meaning Atticus) and its realtionship to the question I asked you to consider as you scoured the text for evidence for your essay: “What is Atticus’s role in the community of Maycomb?”
We’ll listen a bit more next class and begin plotting your essays.
Peace out.
AP Language Class Notes
Objective: APELCers completed a practice timed-writing.
Juniors and seniors, today you completed a practice timed-writing, a rhetorical analysis, that you’re to highlight and assess yourselves using our rubric and the scoring guidelines I provided to you in class. Please be ready to discuss your papers with your peers next class. I’ll post an assignment sheet tomorrow with details for this self-evaluation assignment and I’ll also post details for the reflection letter I’ll ask you to submit at before the end of the semester.
Also, remember that your third synthesis drafts are due tomorrow (fifth) and Wednesday (second), and they should be close to being polished and finished by now. I don’t want you to be scrambling for information at the last minute so make sure you’re prepared.
Some of you asked after the Yale “art” controversy we talked about recently, so I looked around and collected some of the ideas floating in the ether.
Immediately following the original story in the Yale Daily News, one blogger at RH Reality Check, ostensibly a repoductive health and rights site, questioned the validity of the project and the maturity of the artist: “Yale Performance Art: Where Are the Grown-Ups?”. However, another blogger at the same site effusively praised the student for creating a “funny hoax”: “A+ for Abortion Art”.
One Yale lecturer admonished his school for banning the student’s work, but a Los Angeles Times columnist took to task the student’s unoriginality, her prententions and those of the sophisticated art community, writing of the student’s jargon-filled justification of her piece “It’s hard to say what causes the worse case of dry heaves, the graphic bodily-function-speak or the gratuitously inaccessible art-speak”, in a cutely titled piece: “It’s period art”.
Finally, Newsweek offered some insight in to the history of provocative art: “Art Aimed to Shock”.
Get ready for the new world of ideas you’re about to enter, kids. I hope you’re ready evaluate the best way to to navigate the straits of academia. I hope my best will have served you.
See you soon.
English 9 Class Notes
Objective: Freshmen analyzed literary concepts in a semi-biographical text.
Period 1, 3, and 4, you listened and read chapter 20 of our text today, and discussed Atticus’s closing arguments in his defense of Tom Robinson. You then compared the novel text to the dramatization by Gregory Peck in the film version of the book.
For next class, please answer the questions that I asked you to copy from class today, and know that there’s a lot of evidence throughout the text to support your answers so be as detailed as you can be in your responses. The evidence you provide will be the backbone of your imminent essay.
AP Language Class Notes
You were a slim body today, period 2, as plenty of your comrades were off taking care of business. We quickly addressed the Gawande piece, as your colleagues in fifth period did Thursday, but since we had some time I mentioned and showed you on the expensive screen some images of naturally occuring patterns of the Fibonacci sequence and the Golden Ratio (phi). (The Thinkquest site I linked to is a neat summary of these mathematical phenomena, but the sequence was actually in use by north African and Indian mathematicians before it was introduced to Europe by Leonardo Fibonacci. For an in-depth discussion try this audio of a the BBC’s In Our Time on the topic.)
We also discussed the the demanding nature of humans to know causes which brought up conspriacy theories, particularly about the myths surrounding the September 11 attacks. Such wildly popular myths, as I mentioned, championed by such intellectuals as Rosie O’Donnell and Charlie Sheen have been addressed in a series by Popular Mechanics.
Finally, just for kicks, we took a look at some outrageous commerical rhetoric from decades past.
English 9 Class Notes
Fourth period, you examined the same material as your colleagues in first and third. Please check their notes for details and objectives and check your class page for homework details.
AP Language Class Notes
Ojectives: APELCers 1) analyzed an author’s rhetorical strategies, and 2) reviewed synthesis paper requirements.
Fifth juniors and seniors, we reviewed the Gawande piece, paying particular attention to his use of sources to frame his argument. We then discussed your worldview papers and covered the same issues that concerned your peers the day before. As usual, check your peers’ notes for objectives and details.
See you Monday.
English 9 Class Notes
Objective: Freshmen analyzed literary concepts in a semi-biographical text.
You continued today, first and third freshmen, with chapter 18 in which you examined the testimony of Mayella Ewell. You considered her in contrast with her father, her pitiable ignorance and innocence. We’ll address Atticus’s closing arguments on Monday.
Please attend your homework and have a great weekend.
AP Language Class Notes
Second period, you read from the Bedford text like your colleagues did Tuesday, and I tried to answer some of your questions about your worldview papers. Remember that you need to use the questions on the assignment sheet as your guide to research. Don’t be hesitant to evaluate others’ ideas, just don’t be derisive.
English 9 Class Notes
Period 4, you reviewed chapter 15 of our text today as did your peers yesterday. please check their notes for details. And make sure you check your class page for homework details.
AP Language Class Notes
Objecitves: APELCers 1) analyzed an author’s rhetorical strategies, and 2) mimicked an author’s style.
Fifth juniors and seniors, you began today by reading the Kolata piece from the Bedford text and answering some questions in your notebooks. I asked that you pay particular attention to the way the author used the sources in her piece. After discussion, we talked over the progress of the next few weeks and then you mimicked a sentence by Tommy Edison.
Check your class page for homework details.
English 9 Class Notes
Objective: Freshmen analyzed literary concepts in a semi-biographical text.
First and third freshmen, your read and listened to chapter 15 of our book today, and came to the conclusion that although Attitcus never puts himself above any man makes him far and above better than most men. The patient humility and quiet strength he displayed at the jailhouse, many of you decided, showed his deep integrity.
I mentioned that I’d link to the American Film Institute’s 100 Heroes and Villains, on which Atticus places first on the former side (beating out other such adventurous, suave, and determined heroes as Indiana Jones, James Bond, Rick Blaine). Take a look at the list.
AP Language Class Notes
Objective: APELCers completed a timed-writing.
Junior and seniors, I’ll try to have your papers back Tuesday afternoon (really) with a conference sign-up sheet available then too. I’ll also try to have your second drafts returned as well; we’ll talk about them class.
Shawn asked citing podcasts, and although there’s currently no uniform format (I’m sure it’s on its way from the MLA), our superheroine Grammar Girl recently offered a suitable suggestion (scroll to the middle of the page) that’ll suffice for now. How can we ever thank you, Grammar Girl?
English 9 Class Notes
Objective: Freshmen summarized the action of a text.
Periods, 1, 3, and 4, many of you were well-prepared for today’s writing, others not so. I’ll return your papers on Thursday and Friday as we approach that part of Lee’s novel which you wrote about. We’ll spend next class backgrounding the court proceedings with the the events immediately preceding. Keep reading and reviewing.
AP Language Class Notes
Second juniors and seniors, you discussed and analyzed the same campaign rhetoric as your fifth period colleagues on Thursday; check their notes for details.
We did talk over the abortion-art issue that was revealed yesterday at Yale, and which was revealed to be hoax today. (Only one person, at least, knows the real story.) Many of you were as disgusted as your peers. Marie made an additional, very astute comment on the claim that the project is merely performance art. An audience should not be forced to participate in performance art, she argued; rather, an audience must have the option to participate instead of having what many may not be prepared for or what many find incredibly disturbing thrust upon them in a self-serving act. Indeed.
English 9 Class Notes
Period 4, you read and listened to the same material as your peers the day before; please check their class notes for details.
AP Language Class Notes
Objectives: APELCers 1) analyzed graphich campaign rhetoric, and 2) revised their peers’ synthesis papers.
Fifth period, we had a brief discussion on the limits of art, taste, speech, and morality at the beginning of class with news from Yale: “For senior, abortion a medium for art, political discourse”. Plenty of you were disturbed and, in most cases, disgusted by what some of your classmates assessed as the callousness of the “artist” in question. I encourage you to talk about this with your friends and family. Some of you will be entering the hallowed halls of learning next and the following year, and you’ll be confronted with very foreign ideas. It’ll be your duty then to analyze and evaluate how those ideas correspond and to reality and offer coherent truth, inform us about ourselves, and help us know.
You then did a great job processing the three campaign banners of the two remaining Democratic and sole presumptive Republican presidential nominees, finding out that the smallest details make all the difference in the graphic rhetoric. You can find the banners at Salon.com’s recent piece “May the best logo win”.
Finally, you finished the day revising and editing your peers’ synthesis papers. Remember, that your third draft is due only a week and half from now. You should be nailing down your sources and your interview. If you’ve not had any luck finding someone to speak with about your worldview topic, please let me know as soon as possible, even by email, so I can offer some suggestions.
Be ready to write on Monday, and have a great weekend.
English 9 Class Notes
Objectives: Freshmen 1) analyzed literary concepts in a semi-biographical text, and 2) read independently for a sustained period of time and journaled critically.
Period 1 and period 3, we reviewed chapters 10 and 11 of To Kill a Mockingbird today and talked about Atticus’s closing words to part one of the novel as he explains the nature of real courage and perseverance to Jem after the death of Mrs. Dubose:
I wanted you to see something about [Mrs. Dubose]—I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.
As several of you observed, we can see a change in Jem and Scout as the first part of the novel closes.
Continue reading; remember, that you should be through chatper 20, at least, by Monday. I encrouage you to use the questions I’m not assigning for homework as a guide to your reading. I guarantee you’ll benefit from it.
Have a good weekend.