AP Language Class Notes
Seniors and juniors, second period saw Marie tell us about Zoroastrianism; Sam, Baha’i; Andre, Mormonism; and Elise, Hinduism; fifth period processed the anti-Pride Time rhetoric plastered all over campus today and began watching The Persuaders .
Fifth period meted out the speaker, context, audience, argument, presentation (logos), common grounds and values (ethos), emotional anticipations and manipulations (pathos), call-to-action, and effectiveness of the shellacked handbills, though I reminded everyone that while the non-violent pamphleteering-style resistance was admirable, the flyposting aspect was troubling―the custodians, not the posters, will be responsible for scraping the handbills off the concrete.
But note that while you, students, are taught in school to admire and emulate the spirit of the status-quo-resistant activist-reformer (Paine, Wilberforce, Wollstonecraft, Douglass, Anthony, Gandhi, King), the guerilla act was little admired by the-powers-that-be, one going so far as to call the posters “poison”.
I snapped a couple of photos of part of the scene. I’ll post those and a recreation of the mocking pamphlet itself (along with its original positive counterpart) later, and I’ll further address the frustration at the lack of voice Chloe mentioned and possible solutions for interested students to explore.
Bring food to our last class. (I like the bacon, egg, and cheese burrito from Nico’s.)
MOZART’S BALLS: Yes, the confection bearing the name is real. Popularly known as Mozart’s Balls by travelers and tourists, the Mozartkugeln (Mozart balls) (pistachio, marzipan, nougat, and chocolate) were introduced by an Austrian confectioner in the closing years of the 19th century. They don’t taste very good.
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.
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!
Happy Rodeo!
How best to end the short week of the Fiesta de los Vaqueros? Nothing better, I think, than a quick nod to our favorite cowmonkey (rather than cowboy), Whiplash.
You may be surprised at the cross-cultural appeal of the rodeo as an institution. It certainly isn’t contained to one stereotype of participant or spectator as evidenced by the variety of rodeo networks and organizations. Apart from rodeo’s obvious appeal to simians beacuse of their primate hero, there are the professional associations such as the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, the Cowboy’s Professional Rodeo Association, the Working Ranch Cowboys Association, and the International Professional Rodeo Association, but the rodeo isn’t limited by sex (Women’s Professional Rodeo Association), age (American Junior Rodeo Association, National High School Rodeo Association, National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association, and National Senior Pro Rodeo Association), orientation (International Gay Rodeo Association), race (All Indian Rodeo Cowboys Association and Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo), or nation or continent(Canadian Professional Rodeo Association, Australian Professional Rodeo Association, New Zealand Rodeo Cowboys Association, and European Rodeo Cowboy Association). (Thanks Wikipedia for much of this list.)
Find out more about cowboys and their history at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. Enjoy the rodeo and support the Pride of CDO as they march in Thursday’s parade.
And one more time:
Go Whiplash, go!
Linkjam!
Mostly for APELC students, here’re some links I mentioned to you which are germane to our recent activities.
After reading “On Compassion” by Barbara Ascher, I referenced “A Dollar a Day”, a recent, four-part BBC documentary. Worth listening to and wondering about when you plunk down $4.00 or more for a Starbuck’s macchiato.
Eric Wilson, author of Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy, was interviewed on NPR this week about engaging melancholy. Interesting listen in consideration of our late encounter with John Stuart Mill’s and his thoughts on happiness.
Finally, here’s an article from Newsweek, particularly noteworthy for Blaise and Eliza who’ve recently referenced the “safety” of one of Amsterdam’s most famous attractions for their argumentative papers in favor of legalized, regulated prostitution: “Turn Out the Red Light?” Seems like the fun’s over in that very special and unusually aromatic section of the city.
Linkjam!
Last week I came across a series of photographs by Chris Jordan, Running the Numbers, in which he makes manifest the vast consumption habits of the American people. (His other series include another on American consumption, Intolerable Beauty, and one on the the devastation suffered in the Gulf Coast in 2005, In Katrina’s Wake.) Several APELCers asked me to post the link to the very remarkable images, and, certainly, they’re rhetorically rich and worth looking at in class.
I’ve collected a few links in the past couple of months about consumption, waste, and recycling. The first is a piece about Ari Derfel, who kept his trash for an entire year to see just what one person was capable of generating.
Another is an opinion from The Economist entitled “The truth about recycling”. This is particularly important when one considers the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, continent-sized patches of trash floating in the Pacific Ocean.
Perhaps you’re not aware of just what can be recycled, so you might check here: “21 Things You Didn’t Know You Can Recycle”. And get active and get more information from the National Recycling Coalition.
Linkjam!
The primaries are in full swing. The race for the Democratic nomination is 243 delegate-strong Hillary Clinton or 158 delegate-holder Barack Obama’s for the taking. And it appears as if John McCain has edged out over his Republican competitors for the GOP nomination (with 97 delegates, currently), but Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney (29 and 74 delegates each, respectively) are still fighting. Super Tuesday is just a few days away though, and it’ll mean the end of the road for some, although the imperturbable Ron Paul (6 delegates) and the unflappable Mike Gravel are refusing to concede.
It’s unbelievably important that you’re paying attention to the rhetoric of the day, kids, and how the press is covering it all. For example, consider the analysis of New York mayor Michael Bloomberg’s curious evasions about a possibly running as a third-party candidate: “Nature Abhors a Vacuum, and Politics Abhors Clear Statements”. (For more on third-party possibilities, check out The Economist’s latest “Democracy in America” podcast.)
Evasion, chicanery, and scandal, though, isn’t new in American politics. If you interpreted Bob Roberts as an attack on Republican conservatism, understand that evasion, chicanery, and scandal are not the domain of any one single group or party as Shawn pointed out when he cited the Chappaquiddick incident involving Senator Ted Kennedy. Serendipitously, US News & World Report recently surveyed “Great Moments in Campaign History” that included many other noteworthy political and campaign missteps.
How do media manage, frame, and spin all the information streaming in, not only from all of the United States, but from around the world? Dig the recent BBC Documentary series “Making News”. (Discover more the implications of alternative media such as blogging and the role of the press in democracies in the documentary “Press for Freedom”, and go even deeper with FRONTLINE’s extended series, News War.)
For a break in the midst of all the press and politicking, have a look over at the PBS program NOW’s episode on the tradition of American political satire, and then head over to the The Borowitz Report for a laugh.
All this stumping, reporting, informing, judging, deciding, and fighting may seem a lot to keep track of, boys and girls, but some day soon it’ll all be yours to deal with. Be prepared. You can get a start at DeclareYourself.com or RocktheVote.org.
Philosophizing
In the past several weeks, Nigel Warburton has produced four most excellent podcasts over at Philosophy Bites. Take some time to expand your thinking beyond your immediate familiarities and really examine the struggles we deal with daily. You’re gonna hear these names in college anyway, so why not be prepared? Check’em out:
- Ludwig Wittgenstein on philosophy, language, and logic;
- Plato on war;
- Edmund Burke on politics,
- Richard Norman on Humanism.
And, as a supplement to that last one, dig this recent NPR broadcast of an interview with Steven Pinker on the idea of morality as a ’sixth sense’.
Peace out.
What Would Emerson Think?
In an effort to continue to encourage you students to question your own assumptions and think clearly, objectively about culture and society, let me quote Ralph Waldo Emerson’s words from “Self-reliance” to frame the story that follows:
No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution; the only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition as if every thing were titular and ephemeral but he.
How then would Emerson respond to this: “Saudi Rape Victim Gets 200 Lashes and Jail”? The authorities did offer an explanation, “Saudi: Why we punished rape victim”, in which they even justified more than doubling the victim’s original sentence from 90 lashes to 200 as a result of her appeal, and offered further details to validate the punishment.
If people are laws unto themselves and can determine by consensus what is good for their own communities and what is bad, that is, they readily apply the labels good and bad to this and that according to their preferences, can others’ criticism of the such systems be justified? Should we do anything to stop that with which we don’t agree?
What think you? Leave a comment by clicking the link above?
Linkjam!
“LinkJam!” is a new feature I’ve decided to implement on the site. It’s my own delightful take on “logjam”. A linkjam happens when I get backed up posting links to text or a sties that I think may be relevant to class. Logjam/linkjam. Get it?
Instead of writing a post for every neat link I think may complement something we’ve discussed in class, which can be time-consuming, I’ll post a few links at a time with a little description about each.
Mike A. asked about Stephen Colbert’s recent effort to get on the South Carolina presidential primary ballot. The satirist was unsuccessful in his home state, but found support in Virginia: “Colbert in Three-Way Tie for Water Board Seat”.
On the topic of elections, it seems some of the post-secondary members of your Generation Y cohort are more materially- than politically-minded: “Most at NYU say their vote has a price”. God bless America!
Finally, for APELC students, as we prepare to read The Autobiography of Malcolm X, take a minute to read over this article about a recent investigation by the Pew Research Center: “Study: Black pessimism worst since 1980s”. Consider this reality as we begin to see the world through the lens of Malcolm X’s worldview.
Language in Flux
Here’s an ignorant statement I heard on a recent episode of Grammar Girl from the podcaster herself regarding nominative and objective pronouns:
I hate it when language is in flux [. . .] because it’s easy to get confused. But a lot of people have asked me these questions, and in the end, I believe it’s best to know the traditional rules and then if you decide to break them you can do so knowingly and with conviction.
All languages are always in flux. All languages change over time. So called “traditional grammar” rules are merely one set (and not standardized set, mind you) of prescriptive usage strictures that, according to context and taste, can be applied to certain politcal, social, academic, and cultural situations.
Don’t be fooled by the usage-mavens, kids. Language is powerul, infinitely creative, and not confined easily to monlithic rules of “correct” and “incorrect”. Don’t allow others who think they maintain some special standard of language perfection make you feel ashamed about your English use.
Cussin’ and Spittin’
You might hear me drop an expletive or two if you were listening to me and my friends shootin’ the breeze around the grill on a Saturday afternoon or if I stubbed my toe in the middle of the night heading to the kitchen for a glass of water. But would I lace my conversation with choice taboo words if I were meeting with Dr. Gemma? Or swear up and down to punctuate my points in front of your folks during parents’ night? Probably not in those situations.
I swear, many of you swear, lots of people swear. Some might tell you that swearing is never appropriate. I’d argue that it would depend upon the context you find yourself in. Here’s some comforting news on the taboo language front from the BBC: “Swearing at work can ‘cut stress’”
Got a thought? Leave it by clicking the link above.
“Cool” Will Never Go Out of Style
Why don’t I hear people use “bitchin’” to describe something that’s bitchin’ anymore? The first time I remember hearing the word used publicly―I’d heard it many time at school in California―was during a 1985 episode of Friday Night Videos by Michael J. Fox the evening he and Justine Batemen, riding the wave of popularity generated by their joint work on Family Ties and his star-turns in Teen Wolf and Back to the Future, guest hosted the program. The next time I heard it boldly in public was on an episode of The Simpsons, “Brush with Greatness”, when Bart hollers it as he goes down the H2WHOA! at Mt. Splashmore. It’s never completely been ameliorated, and remains slightly taboo (but I’m on a quest, as you know).
Scientific American, recently published a piece on rates of change in language: “Use It or Lose It”. It seems the more a construct enjoys popular use the more it tends to become embedded in the standard and less subject to change and loss. So, it’s up to us on the cutting edge of language to keep words like “jaunty” and “puissant” in vogue lest we lose them to history.
CUL8R!
The Myth of Che
Human beings love icons, indexes, and symbols. Wedding rings, sunglasses, dwellings, statues, flags, banners, cars, posters, money―all of these are in some way iconic, indexical, or symbolic in nature. Don’t think you have your own appreciations? Look at the way you style yourself for public consumption, think of the words that come out of your mouth, think of the fetishes you enjoy. Maybe it’s collecting troll dolls, or maybe it’s the new rims you just got for your ride, or maybe it’s the books you read in public spaces with the covers showing ever so slightly so that others can wonder at the genius who’d read such great works―each of these, and almost everything we do is somehow metaphorical or tropic (see number 2).
What happens when symbols are turned on their heads? (Witness the irreversible change in conventional meaning of the swastika from its roots.) What happens when a symbol of Marxist social and economic revolution becomes a meaningless icon for commercial consumption? Read about it at The Economist, “A modern saint and sinner”.
Leave a comment by clicking the link above.
Tucson Meet Yourself (Updated)
The time is here for representatives of the Old Pueblo’s various ethnic communities to share their crafts, their arts, and (most importantly) their food with their neighbors. Tucson Meet Yourself begins tomorrow, October 12, and lasts through Sunday, October 14.
If you’ve never been, I recommend you come on down to mix and mingle and enjoys the sights, sounds, and smells of what Tucson and her citizens have to offer. As I explained, I’ll be attending sometime between the opening of the fun on Friday and the closing on Sunday. If you see me accost me and I’ll buy you something to eat. Really.
What time will I be there? Well, I can’t give that away. The point isn’t to go to get free food from me, but to go and meet your neighbors in the Tucson community. Meeting me would be a bonus.
See you there. Maybe.
UPDATE: I changed the logo at the top of the post because that hideous orange was making me ill. But more importantly, here’s a sampling of treats that four Star reviewers tried at today’s events: “Eat ’til you’re stuffed at downtown’s Tucson Meet Yourself”.
“Don’t taze me, bro!”
English language aesthete Grammar Girl addressed word creation in her most recent podcast, “Verbification of a Noun”, apropos of our class discussion last week in which we discussed the transformation of a noun to a verb. “Can it be done?” asked one of Grammar Girl’s listeners. “Yes, it can”, she answered, but in cautious, warning tones. Of course, Grammar Girl would never let out that language really isn’t the ”pure” monolith she and other grammar mavens preach and want the genral public to believe.
What Grammar Girl was talking about is a morphological process of derving new words by affixing bound and even free morphemes (words and parts of words like prefixes and suffixes) to existing words, thereby changing their category (part of speech). She discussed the “verbification” of the noun ”TASER” (itself and acronym for Thomas A. Swift’s Electric Rifle) to the verb “taze”. We derive new words in this manner. And you know what? It’s okay to do, and you’d do well to remember it the next time you get Eiffel Towered.
And there’s even more action on the morphology front: The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary is now less 16,000 hyphenated words, that is the hyphens have been dropped from many compounds. The story, “A Farewell to Hyphens”, suggests that this change indicates a move toward American spelling standards. How will usage purists react to this?
Wanna comment? Ain’t no problem. Click the link above.
England’s Rose? C’mon!
During a recent conversation with a student, the topic of the anniversary of Princess Diana’s death came up. Diana Windsor’s (certainly untimely) death became a media feeding-frenzy ten years ago, and the commercial rush to cover the story was of course crass and opportunistic, too easy for rhetorical analysis. The media found itself shamed and scrambling when, less than a week after the “Queen of Heart’s” passing, Mother Teresa of Calcutta’s shuffled off her mortal coil at the end of a long life of service. (Then, I ran across an interview with a ridiculous vblogger who compared the event that is Britney Spears to the events of September 11. Vile.)
So, all of this made me remember an opinion piece I heard a couple of weeks ago on an Economist podcast about Diana’s death’s anniversary: “Carnival Queen”.
Anyone care to frame the opinion? Anyone care to comment? Do either by clicking the above link.
Something for the Freshmens
I’ve been posting a lot of stuff for the AP juniors and seniors lately, so I thought I’d try to even things up a bit by posting something that might help the freshmens visualize where we’re at in our current story by Amy Tan, “Rules of the Game”.
So, here’s a slideshow of San Francisco Chinatown’s alley ways, places most probably won’t see on a visit the Bay City, and another slideshow from educational publisher Harcourt that has some internal links in addition to the images in the show itself. If you’ve got the patience to listen and imagination, check out National Public Radio’s 2003 piece on Chinatown’s Funeral Band. And of course, there’s always Wikipedia’s entry on the concept of “Chinatown” in various locations around the globe.
It’s impossible to get a good feel for Chinatown without ever having been there―I’m writing here only about San Francisco’s Chinatown; personally I’ve not been to any other. If, when you are older and have an opportunity to travel to San Franciso, take some time to walk up and down the streets of Chinatown. It’s something your eyes, ears, and nose will never forget.
By the by, I have, remarkably, been the head of a dragon chasing the pearl in a Chinese New Year parade, of sorts. Maybe I’ll post a photo here on the site. Maybe. If everyone brings 8 ½ × 11, college ruled, loose-leaf paper to class. Maybe.
The Creative Best?
The American Society of Magazine Editors has released its list of the forty greatest magazine covers from the past forty years, and Smashing Magazine, which promises to “smash you with the information that will make your life easier offers creativty sparks from masters of graphic design.
The covers serve a different purpose than the images, but they’re all visual text and speak to particular audiences. They all argue something, too; that is, their creators all intended some message to come across to their audiences. Some of the messages are obvious, others aren’t.
Care to comment on specific covers or images? The covers offer some valuable cultural insight (context). Perhaps you’d like to offer some quick observations on their rhetoricity? Maybe even analyze and evaluate the editors’ choices? Click the link above to let us know your thoughts.
Just Say “No” to Drawers
“Anyone caught wearing sagging pants who exposes his or her underwear will be subject to a fine of up to $150 plus court costs, or face up to 15 days in jail,” so reports the Shreveport Times of a law set to take effect in Mansfield, Louisiana on September 15. Mansfield is in the state’s De Soto Parish; read about the penalties in the town of Delcambres and the Lafourche Parish: “Louisiana’s Saggy Pants Crackdown”.
What think you? Leave a comment.