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For Wednesday, read Suburban Nation, Chs. 8 and 9. If your CliffNotes AP Lang book is at home, bring it to school; we will go over closely one passage in the book. 

For Friday, write the two practice essays posted to the right (Suburban Nation FRQ I and Suburban Nation FRQ II). Try to do them in one sitting, giving yourself no more than eighty minutes to complete both. If you can't do them in one sitting, be sure to give yourself no more than forty minutes for each essay. 

We are having a review session on Saturday, May 9, from 1:00 to 3:00 in my classroom.  If you have it at home, bring the CliffNotes AP book with you to this review. 

Homework for 4/22, Day 4

For Wednesday, 22 April, read Suburban Nation, ch. 2. 

Homework for Monday, April 6

Read the introduction to and first chapter of Suburban Nation. If you have a chance, check out this site; we'll use it pretty heavily while reading Suburban Nation. Keep in mind your profile is due on Wednesday, April 8. 

Homage to Catalonia Essay

In his introduction to Homage to Catalonia, Lionel Trilling describes Orwell's capacity for honesty--for reporting just what he sees. Write an essay that analyzes how Orwell rhetorically accomplishes that honesty with three examples from the book--one from chapters I-V, another from chapters VI-X, and a third from chapters XI-XIV. Supplement your analysis with at least one illustration from both The Visual Front: Posters of the Spanish Civil War and the UK History Channel's web site on the Spanish Civil War (click on "Gallery"), and explain their relationship to Orwell's honesty. (You should print out the illustration and include it with your essay.) This essay is due on Wednesday, March 25.

For Juniors, for Friday, 3/6/09

In addition to reading pp. 72-120 in Homage to Catalonia, remember to bring a revision of the paragraph you wrote in class on Monday. Focus on sharpening the language, making it more concise, using more specific words, and conveying your subject's relationship to something larger than himself or herself. Also, as I mentioned in class on Wednesday, I would like you to bring in something that you read recently that you enjoyed. It shouldn't be more than a few pages long; an excerpt of a book is fine.

Links for the Spanish Civil War

Here are links to the pages I showed in class today:

Posters for the Spanish Civil War (click on "Chronology of the War," too, for clarifications and additional information).

UK History Channel site on the Spanish Civil War (click on "Gallery").

As I mentioned, you will need to use one illustration from each of these sites to supplement the essay you will write about Homage to Catalonia. You will receive the essay topics on Monday; the essay will be due Tuesday, March 17.

Assignments

Note that your assignments for the third quarter are posted to the right under "AP Lang Assignments." For Thursday, in addition to reading and annotating Lionel Trilling's introduction to Homage to Catalonia, read Emerson's "Self-Reliance," which was handed out today in class. If you were absent from class, you can find the PDF of Emerson's essay here, and see me for a copy of your book.

Assignments for Wednesday, 2/11, and Friday, 2/13

Clarification: Complete the writing component of these assignments within forty minutes. This means you should write a full response within this allotted time. Do not "do as much as you can" within that time; strive to complete it within that time. 

For Wednesday, read Alice Walker, "Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self," in 50 Essays, pp. 441-449.  Write a coherent and cohesive response to question 4.

For Friday, read Sarah Vowell, "Shooting Dad," in 50 Essays, pp. 433-440. Write a response to question 4. With this response, you do not need to compose an essay; you may list the humorous moments and explain them, and then include your hypothesis at the end. 

Assignment for Monday, 2/9

Read Mike Rose, "I Just Wanna Be Average," in 50 Essays, pp. 350-363. As you read the essay, keep in mind our discussion of ethos as a rhetorical appeal. Also, give yourself forty minutes to write a coherent essay in response to the following topic:

In paragraphs 26-31 (pp. 359-361), Rose describes an influential high school teacher. Write an essay in which you analyze the rhetorical strategies, including stylistic choices, that he uses to convey the powerful impact of this experience on him.

Assignment for Thursday, 2/5 (Day 6)

For Thursday, read Advanced Composition Skills (the orange book) pp. 88-91. Complete the writing assignment on p. 90, but be sure to read the guidelines for writing it on pp. 90-91. Be sure to give yourself only forty minutes to complete it. You may write it by hand or type it.

9/11 Essay Topics

Select one of the topics below for a two- to four-page essay due Tuesday, Feb. 3 (Day 2).

1. How do The 9/11 Commission Report and Loose Change speak to each other? What do you think is the truth of the events of September 11, 2001? That is, what do you think is clear? What do you think is ambiguous? What questions remain to be answered? 

2. In light of The 9/11 Commission Report and Loose Change, has the federal government offered an appropriate or even adequate response to the events of September 11, 2001? If so, what has worked, and why? If not, what did not work, and what remains to be done?

3. Compare and contrast the rhetorical strategies of The 9/11 Commission Report and Loose Change. You may wish to consider the rhetorical strengths and limitations of their respective media as you consider the strategies they employ. 

Assignment for Monday, 1/26

Read to p. 138 in The 9/11 Commission Report.

Also, prepare your report (1-2 pages) on Loose Change. Below are the group assignments, but you should each prepare an individual report.

Rhetorical fallacies and appeals: Mike, Jake, and Mitch.

Evidence: Anna, Brigid, Kate, and Katie.

Visual and sound elements: David, Mark, Morgan, and Steve.

Narrative elements: Arthur, Kendra, and Zach.

Interviews: Chris, Elena, and Maya.

Assignment for Tuesday, 1/20

Read and annotate to p. 104 in the 9/11 Commission Report. As usual, pay close attention to the authors' rhetorical strategies.

Remember, too, that I will show the rest of the 9/11 documentary about the firefighters inside the World Trade Center on Monday night at 7:00 in my classroom. If you can't get in, just knock on my classroom window and someone will come around to let you in.

Slideshow Essay

See the Monday, December 15, post for the slideshow essay's complete instructions.

9/11 Commission Report

Here is a link for the 9/11 Commission web site, where you can find the Commission's full report:

http://9-11commission.gov

Here is the web site for Loose Change:

http://www.loosechange911.com/finalcut

Assignment for Thursday, 12/18 (Day 4)

For Thursday, you should come to class with at least five images that you will use in your essay, and at least one written paragraph.  You may either e-mail the images to yourself (we will have the laptop cart), post them on your blog, or print them out and bring them to class. By Thursday, you should also have your blog set up to start posting your essay as it develops. 

In class, we will split into groups to look at examples of slideshows and see what works and what doesn't work in them.

Slideshow Essay Assignment

The slideshow essay should be well under way. Here are some firmer guidelines for this assignment:

1. Your slideshow essay can address virtually any topic.
   
2. Your slideshow essay must consist of at least ten images and ten accompanying (and substantive) paragraphs that address the topic.
   
3. Your commentary must address more than the images; your commentary must address the subject under consideration. The illustrations only supplement the written commentary. 
   
4. Your accompanying commentary must include outside sources that enlarge your perspective on the images.
   
5. You must set up a blog at blogspot.com or wordpress.com to post your slideshow essay. It's format will look something like this slideshow essay, except yours should alternate between text and image. 
   
6. You may use video in your essay, but it will not count toward your minimum of ten illustrations. 
   

One way to approach choosing a topic for this assignment is to answer this question: What would you write about if you could write about anything? Choose that, and find ten interesting and relevant images to accompany your text.

The essay component of this assignment should draw on outside sources, which must be listed at the end of the essay in MLA format. Your outside sources should not be limited to internet-based sources. The MPH library has a wonderful selection of books, and you should browse its catalog or shelves to find some that are relevant for your essay.

Click here for an example of a slideshow essay without, well, the slideshow. At the copyright holder's request, the images were only allowed for a restricted period of time. Nonetheless, this essay might help you see how the accompanying text functions independently of the images. You can read this without knowing which pictures are supposed to "go with" the writing. 

Click here for an example of the kind of slideshow essay you should not write. While this particular slideshow is valuable in itself (it is essentially a tour of the concentration camp at Auschwitz), it does not feature the kind of writing that I want you to produce for this assignment.  

Your slideshow essay is due on Thursday, January 15 (Day 2). That day, we will begin presenting them in class.  

Assignments for Tuesday, 12/2, and Monday, 12/8

Open the "Baldwin Essay" link to your right and read the directions for that essay. For Tuesday, you must either write two pages of that essay or prepare an outline for it. Click here to see the Rob Frenay essay, "Notes of a Ghetto Superstar," that I read in class. (The link opens a PDF of The Windmill, and his essay begins on p. 17 of The Windmill, p. 19 of the file.)

Essay for Monday, 11/17

In his essay "Shooting an Elephant," George Orwell writes, "As soon as I saw the elephant I knew with perfect certainty that  I ought not to shoot him" (p. 305, par. 6). Think of a time when you felt yourself pressured to do something you "knew with perfect certainty" that you should not do. Write an essay modeled on Orwell's in which your speaker confesses to having "shot an elephant," so to speak. If you faced social pressure to "shoot" your "elephant," than you should describe its effects on your behavior. If the social and political contexts influenced your thoughts and actions, then you should describe them. This paper should be about three pages in length, but feel free to write more than that if you like. 

We will do a gallery critique of this essay, so bring two printed copies of this essay with you to class. Also, bring with you Advanced Composition Skills. 

Election Links

Here are links for the election sites and videos we looked at in class today, and a few we didn't get to:

Video of McCain's concession speech: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/video-john-mccains-concession-speech-993412.html

Text of McCain's concession speech: http://www.johnmccain.com/

Video of McCain's speech at the Al Smith Dinner: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/27231593#27231593

Video and Text of Obama's victory speech: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/convention2008/barackobamavictoryspeech.htm

Obama's speech at the Al Smith Dinner: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/27231593#27231610

2008 Electoral College results: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/president/

2008-1992 Voting by County: http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/map.html (We didn't do this in class, but click the "Voting Shifts" box on the left to see how much these results differ from 2000 and 2004. It's misleading when you click on 1992 and 1996 because the shifts are based on total votes cast, so a greater percentage of people voted for McCain than they did for George Bush in 1992 and Bob Dole in 1996, who lost those elections in years with smaller turnouts. A smaller percentage of people voted for Obama than they did for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996 because, like Obama, Clinton won.)

Election Results, 1789-2008: http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/

2008 Voting Returns, Appalachia (an interesting blog post we didn't have time for in class): http://blow.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/without-appalachia/