Fourth Hour RA & Tips for All Classes

Today's class centered around the rhetorical analysis presentations with Dan & Brennan stealing the show with their interpretation of John Adams' lackluster response to his wife's demands of equal rights and political ideology. Next up, you completed the unit 12 vocab quiz (no, I can't relieve the answer to the extra credit question until all quizzes have been taken) and copied down unit 13 vocab, which we will start tomorrow. Remember, the 48 hour rule is still in effect for any absent quizzes or prompts. You have 48 hours to make up the quiz or schedule the make up time.

As for the presentations...

The best presentations had...

• An original hook that created a mood in the classroom (melancholy, humor, empathy), utilized mature diction ("sentient" comes to mind), and set up the text and its analysis. First hour, you shined the most at hooks, bringing a variety - yep, that's an alarm happening to wake us up to as silent spring day - and a thoroughness to setting up the thesis statement.
• Thesis statements clarified the specific purpose, added a mature verb, and clarified the 3 devices that would be analyzed in the upcoming essay.
• Rhetorical strategies of upper level analysis added to the presentations. Repetition may not be upper level, but anaphora and epistrophe would be. Comparison may not be the strongest device, but juxtaposition would be better. Hypophora, polysyndeton, asyndeton, enumeration, zeugma - these were are all featured in a presentation - and sometimes together!
• Bringing in multiple examples of the strategy to support your analysis. Examples should come from across the text and show how an author selects a strategy that connects to the whole passage. Including citations for all of these examples was also necessary and noted.
• A conclusion that continued the opening hook and left the reader with something memorable about the topic. Ending with a regurgitation of everything you just said is not the most effective way to keep your audience's attention and favor. 
• On a little note, refer to the author by the last name (o.k. the Adams one is a little different to differentiate author and audience) for formal writing. Unless you know the author, the first name is too personal a way to reference him or her. 
• The range for this prompt was 4-8. 
• First hour average = 6.2
• Third hour average = 5.5
• Seventh hour average = 6.1
• Fourth hour average = 6.8

So what's upcoming for AP Lang...

• Vocab Unit 13
• Close Reading: Yes, you have to do it, and yes, it works in your favor
• Rangefinders for the Banneker prompt 
• Banneker prompts return and brief meetings
• Close Team Reading: Yes, you have to still do it
• Syntax - there's more to sentences than that they are short or long
• Diction - it's not just identifying the author uses diction (they all do)