APELC Class Notes
Periods 2 and 4 juniors and seniors, you did as your peers did yesterday with the Katy Perry text. You saw, as your colleagues did, the observational, analytical, and evaluative potential of even the most (apparently) superficial texts.
For those absent these last two days and those who didn’t get all of the information at the time in class, write down these classifications of phrases and clauses. You’ll be responsible for knowing and analyzing their organization in written text we come across. (We’ll also creatively apply these to visual rhetoric.) Phrases are groups of related words centered around a head, and have four different functions (Van Gelderen, 2002):
- Subjects are noun phrases, eg., Rob, The team, Clouds
- Predicates are verb phrases, eg., teaches the class, won the game, are on the horizon.
- Complements can be direct and indirect objects, usually noun phrases, or subject and object predicates, usually adjective phrases.
- Adverbials are adverb and prepositional phrases that describe when, where, why, and how in a predicate.
Clauses must contain a verb and come in two varieties (Van Gelderen, 2002).
- A main or independent clause is minimally composed of a subject and a predicate and can stand alone, ie., it’s not embedded in another clause.
- A subordinate or dependent clause is a clause embedded in another by means of a complementizer (that, which, since, because, et cetera).
I also want to share something Leah, in third period, bringed to my attention regarding the question and our discussion of human culture and animal behavior, New York Times article from 2006 “An Elephant Crackup?”. As you can probably tell by the way I introduced the piece, I consider the difference one of conscious, reflective culture, versus mere patterned behavior. But of course, you don’t need to agree with me; if you wanna fight, let’s. (And yes, my use of “bringed” and “wanna” was deliberate. We can talk about that, too. Let’s see who’s paying attention and they’ll do with it.)
Finally, regarding our discussion of the assumptions we have about methods that violently deprive persons of life, Brigette, also in third, bringed two definitions to class, one for “manslaughter” and the other for “murder”. (I’ve linked both to Dictionary.com, a great online resource). I did my own search for murder, and found the following text by Paul Cezanne titled, simply, The Murder. What can you discover by applying the rhetorical triangle to it?
No homework other than a suggestion that you practice the review protocol for the notes you’ve taken these last two weeks. Remember, in the future when you come to me to discuss difficulties with class material, the first thing I’ll ask you is “Have you review your notes according to the protocol?”
Have a good weekend all.