The Last Allusions

In all classes today, we copied down our next unit of vocab, number 18, which will start off our next class. Then, we worked on our second set of tone words via speed learning, circle, and review. And, the last mutuality was our last round of allusion posters, which means I will be decorating the room over the upcoming week and a half!

7: In addition, seventh hour continued with exemplification work. All groups returned to their shared document, constructed a thesis statement, selected 4-5 relevant examples, sorted the examples into a range, and assigned each member of the group one of the examples to compose a paragraph showing how this person/group/idea exhibits vision. All students, absent or not, should prepare your assigned paragraph on the shared document for Friday's class. Be aware that you want to start with a more general topic sentence clarifying the connection to the thesis and how vision will be addressed in the paragraph before you jump into specific examples.

4: In addition, fourth hour had feedback for their "vision" paragraphs with the instruction to revise for strong topic sentences, specificity of detail, improvement of diction, and editing concerns. By the start of class tomorrow, all students - absent or present - will need to have their paragraph complete.

Tones of Exemplification

All hours completed the vocab 17/tone 1 quiz to start of the hour, which means absentees have 48 hours to complete this task or schedule a time to do so.

1 & 3: You have your new tone topics (1st = relationships; 3rd = fears), and you completed a paragraph with your selected tone. Mia, your tone word is reticent; Grace, your tone word is empathetic. We will continue learning these words - in a speedily fashion - during tomorrow's block day. 

4: We focused the remainder of the hour on our exemplification work: brainstorming, thesis-making, relevant example selecting, ranging, and assigning you to write one paragraph on your group document. Each of you have either picked or been assigned (sorry absentees) a topic to support the idea of vision and what it means. This paragraph needs to be completed prior to class starting, so make sure that all of you have this ready to go for evaluative purposes.

7: We transitioned into reviewing our second round of tone words and then looked into exemplification and its focus on relevancy, range, and specificity. To do so, we read "The History Teacher" by Billy Collins to look at a text flushed with examples. After detailing the steps in creating in exemplification, you broke into group, created a shared Google doc (all absent students were included), and began a massive brainstorm on the term "vision." The mass brainstorm must be ready to go by the start of class tomorrow. 

Modestly Moving into the Tone Round 2

1 & 3: Due to time constraints, we finished only two items on the agenda today: the Modest Proposal MC and the vote for multiple choice passage topics in the upcoming week. In either class, if you missed this assignment, you have 48 hours to take it or schedule a time.

4: After our last person standing vocab review, we gathered round and took part in speed learning our second batch of tone words. How happy for all of us that several words are repeats from the last bath or our vocabulary studies! After this circle craziness, we moved into exemplification by reading "The History Teacher" by Billy Collins to identify the purpose of the poem, the relevant examples, and the range. Following that reading, we looked at the 5 steps to constructing an exemplification, which we will put into practice during tomorrow's class. To round out the hour, our 3 exemplification groups created a shared Google doc for this week's activities.

7: We reviewed for the vocab and tone quiz tomorrow and then spent the rest of class writing tone paragraphs on Netflix, reading these for samples, and speed learning our second set of tone words. Charlee, you have gothic as your tone & Sam, you have cautionary. If any time was leftover, we may have overviewed exemplification, which will be our next mode of discourse for the next week or so.

Last Chance

AP Langers, there are still about 50 extra allusion posters up for grabs. If you want to do one, I will need to have an e-mail by 2:40 p.m. on Monday (tomorrow). Check out the blog from January 15 for the instructions to complete the assignment - if you choose to do so. If you create an extra poster without the go-ahead, you will not receive extra credit for it. I'm looking forward to our last week of allusions and my soon-to-be new wallpaper for the rest of the semester!

Bad Dates & Cults

I really thought I had seen it all in bad date land and then comes a girl chewing her food in order to spit it into her cat's mouth! Thanks to all of our bad date participants this week. I hope that some of these examples do not come from real life!

1: And our worst date for first hour happens to be Bobby and his "laziness" towards bathrooms, cleaning, and hygiene! From his display to badgering younger siblings spilling family secrets, we had a crash course or what not to do on a date and how to recognize a process analysis if it should come up in a MC passage or prompt. For the remainder of the hour, we reviewed vocab and tone words for the quiz on Monday.

3: Cicely stopped by to view 6 horrendously horrible - and entertaining - dates that ran the gamut from hot sauce packets to poorly applied makeup tutorials to stepping in dirt to "show how down to earth you are" to singing - loudly in both instances - to music to ingesting a bit too much at the table to throwing a purse around to creating an awkward love call that causes men to punch each other. With such a show, all 6 could be considered crownable for worst date, but that honor goes to Mia and her own methods to "Lose a Guy in 20 Minutes." We ran out of time in class for review of vocab and tone words, so make sure you prep for Monday's quiz.

4: After finishing up the 15 words of vocab, we graded your MP MC texts and then selected the next topic for tone paragraph 2: cults. We made it through the reading portion of the paragraphs, and will work on speed learning these new tone words on Monday. Kennedy, your tone word is obsequious.

7: I think this is how it shall go: finish up the 15 vocab words and review tone words, complete the Modest Proposal MC test, brought to you by first hour, and start our next round of tone paragraphs by choosing the topic. If absent, you will need to schedule a 30 minute time for making up the MC.

Dates

This blog will cover Wednesday and Thursday's AP Lang classes, which all involved the process of directing a bad date or the performance of those memorable excursions.

1: We began by sharing our descriptive paragraphs for the cafeteria/hallway to have a sense of the details, images, and figurative language that sculpts the perception and mood of a place. Following this, we finished up our 15 vocab words and reviewed tone words for the upcoming quiz. Then, you shared allusion poster #3 and heard more about mythological people, places, an things - all of which are related to the hubris of Zeus in some way, shape, or form. For the remainder of the hour, you worked on your minimum 20 step process analysis, which is to direct the reader on how to be a bad date. If you were absent, you will have 2 options for the process analysis assignment points. You may either jump into a skit for an absent person during Friday's class or you can write your own process analysis.

3: We started off with vocabulary and tone words in preparation for the upcoming quiz. At this point, you should be feeling much more confident about both sets of vernacular. Afterwards, we continued with your third allusion poster and then jumped into the process analysis directions for how to be a bad date, which we will perform on Friday.

4: Congratulations - not sure if that is the correct word here - on Sydney for winning worst date of fourth hour! Her fondness of "Single Ladies," her manic search for a missing earring, and her out of touch questions and thoughts make her the epitome of a bad date. After the entertaining spectacle of Axe cologne and Brad, we moved onto vocab, tone word review, and sharing your allusion posters. To round out the hour, you completed the Modest Proposal MC test from the minds of third hour. If absent, you will need to schedule a 40 minute makeup time within the next 48 hours.

7: After a plethora of bad dates, our winner, the most in need or rebuke, was Maddie with her forward pick-up lines for her date, her waitress, and a police officer. Congratulations on your new title of worst date? After we finished up the entertainment, we moved onto vocab, tone review, and sharing our allusion posters.

Holding Pattern

Due to guidance meetings today, we did not add anything new to our docket, but we continued with our current focus on vocab, tone, and modes of discourse. And as you may have noticed, we are starting off with some low maintenance activities like our modes of discourse, our tone work, and our allusion posters to help with your knowledge bank for the AP exam. In the near future, we will be back to MC passages, prompts, argumentation, and writing. Hence, if you are neglecting to complete these assignments, it will impact not only your grade in the short-term, it will also impact your preparedness for the more challenging work to come.

1 & 3: We are at 12 words for this vocab unit, and we are becoming much more consistent with recognizing tone words. If you are still "passing" a great deal, I recommend spending quality time with your class's tone words in the upcoming days. At the end of class, we highlighted your descriptive paragraph for the 5 senses. Tomorrow will be more vocab, more tone, more process analysis, and more allusions.

4: We never made it to vocab or tone today, which means you should look over your tone words for review over the next couple days! Meanwhile, you had the remainder of the hour to prep for your process analysis "skits" with the encouragement to bring in any props or costumes appropriate for you directions and for school.

Tone Words Round 1

Before we go over today's agenda, here are all the tone words for the hours. As you may have surmised or heard, you will be quizzed on this set of vocab words and this will occur in the near future prior to our next round of tone paragraphs.

First Hour:

·         Bellicose

·         Contemptuous

·         Elegiac

·         Empathetic

·         Erudite

·         Fatuous

·         Formal

·         Incredulous

·         Irreverent

·         Kowtowing

·         Laissez-faire

·         Lugubrious

·         Malicious

·         Nihilistic

·         Partisan

·         Pedantic

·         Polemical

·         Reverent

·         Scathing

·         Supercilious

·         Trite

·         Vituperative

Third Hour:

·         Abstract

·         Ambivalent

·         Apathetic

·         Apprehensive

·         Archaic

·         Caustic

·         Cautionary

·         Churlish

·         Clichéd

·         Concrete

·         Cynical

·         Dejected

·         Derisive

·         Didactic

·         Impartial

·         Obsequious

·         Poignant

·         Pompous

·         Pretentious

·         Provocative

·         Resigned

·         Ribald

·         Seductive

·         Urbane

·         Whimsical

Fourth Hour:

·         Audacious

·         Bantering

·         Biting

·         Colloquial

·         Disdainful

·         Forthright

·         Gauche

·         Hubristic

·         Incensed

·         Nostalgic

·         Patronizing

·         Reticent

·         Sardonic

·         Vehement

·         Wistful

Seventh Hour:

·         Callous

·         Candid

·         Choleric

·         Clinical

·         Demoralized

·         Diffident

·         Earnest

·         Effusive

·         Enervating

·         Facetious

·         Gothic

·         Insolent

·         Jejune

·         Jingoistic

·         Jovial

·         Laudatory

·         Macabre

·         Omnipotent

·         Sentimental

·         Simple

Unctuous

1 & 3: We read "Harvest Song" for its descriptive writing qualities - sensory details, figurative language, imagery. For homework, write (1-3 paragraphs) a description of the cafeteria at lunch time or the hallway during passing period. You will be expected to include 4-5 of the senses and create a specific mood for the reader's experience. We then continued forward vocab and tone words before jumping into another mode of discourse: process analysis. This mode can be directional (a recipe to be replicated) or informational (an article regarding brain surgery for knowledge and not replication - no matter what any of you say). We will be working with process analysis situations tomorrow.

4 & 7: We highlighted the different sensory details in our descriptive writing, which should result in a rainbow of images! Then, we added more vocab words and reviewed tone words. Last, we moved into process analysis and its differences between directional and informational. At the end of the hour, you began your group work for our directional process analysis performances. We will be working on this during class tomorrow and, hopefully, find out who has the best (or worst, in this case) process.

The End of the Week

In all classes today, we finished up any outstanding allusion posters, introduced 4 new vocabulary words, and utilized the circle to review tone words.

First hour, in addition, began the reading of "Harvest Song" https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53989/harvest-song to identify the sensory images and descriptive literary elements that help convey the text's meaning. Thus far, we have covered touch/feeling and sight, so I'm going to make an educated guess that we have more of the senses involved on Monday.

Fourth hour and seventh hour, in addition, read the entirety of "Harvest Song" (link above) and identified all of the sensory images and how these connected to the theme of the text. For homework, you are to - on notebook paper - construct a description of the cafeteria during lunchtime or the hallway during passing period. The description should involve all of the senses in some way and include figurative language to help us understand your chosen place. You may choose the mood of the description.

Time for Speed Learning

Today's classes centered around learning our class tone words for this week via a process I like to call speed learning, the time to interact with each tone word and everyone in class. Afterwards, we used our circle to review the terms, definitions, and memory tricks before our daily quizzing of the meanings. We will do this every day prior to the quiz over this grouping.

With our tone work out of the way for today, we spent the rest of the hour sharing allusion posters, which will wrap up tomorrow.

P.S. And don't worry about all of those Modest Proposal questions - they will be coming back to you next week :)

Tone Time

After the vocab quiz for unit 16, we spent the rest of the time working with tone. First hour topic = speeding. Third hour topic = bees. Fourth hour topic = dry cereal. Seventh hour topic = school lunch.

Tone Paragraphs Round 1 with Information Regarding How We Will Work with Tone Each Week:

• For the given topic, you are given a tone word. For that topic, you have 10 minutes to compose a paragraph on that topic with that specific attitude. From your diction and examples, the audience should be able to identify the tone without it being literally identified (all hours).
• After writing time, we gather in a circle (no necromancy involved) and read a sampling of tone paragraphs (all hours).
• After collecting the paragraphs, we then do a round of speed learning in which the class works on memorizing that hour's tone words (only fourth hour made it this far today).
• After speed learning, we go around the room and share the tone word, definition, and memory trick with the class (tomorrow).
• Starting immediately and for each day until a quiz, we will go around the circle to check your tone word ethos (tomorrow).

Absentees tone word assignments, which you are expected to complete outside of class:

1: Jason = laissez-faire

3: Grace = didactic

4: Maddi = incensed

Cold Day Update

What a surprise that we are at home today! Not that I am complaining - although, I do have housework and laundry to do.

In regards to your Modest Proposal Multiple Choice assignment, you will have an extension to Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. This is a 23 1/2 hour extension, so do note the specific time. Remember, you will need to share the assignment with me by this time. As of yesterday afternoon, I had several submissions, which means turning in this assignment early will benefit you (less on your agenda) and me (for copy and paste purposes).

As we will have the vocab quiz and tone paragraphs on Wednesday, we will share allusion posters on Thursday.

Allusion Poster Addendum

With 119 students and 571 allusion poster possibilities, the math shows a plethora of allusion posters that were not assigned to AP Lang and AP Lit. As we would like the future allusion wall to be full of all these examples, you have the opportunity to create 1 additional allusion poster for 15 points extra credit.

How will this work? Below, you will find the numerical listing of remaining allusion topics (mostly historical). You will e-mail me with a request for one allusion poster. (You may also send a short list in case your favorite option has already been claimed by another student.) If no one has claimed the topic, I will e-mail you back with the go-ahead to create this allusion poster. The "claiming" of the allusion will be first-come, first-serve. You will then create this extra allusion poster AFTER you have completed your previous assigned allusion posters. Yes, you have to do the assigned ones first. You will then bring in this extra allusion poster with your fourth allusion poster during our last week of show and tell in order to share with the class. 

Available extra allusions to start: 95, 440, 446, 447, 448, 451, 452, 455, 456, 469, 470, 472, 473, 475, 476, 478, 479, 481, 482, 484, 485, 487, 488, 490, 491, 493, 494, 502, 503, 504, 505, 506, 507, 508, 509, 510, 511, 512, 513, 514, 515, 516, 517, 518, 519, 520, 521, 522, 523, 524, 525, 526, 527, 528, 529, 530, 531, 532, 533, 534, 539, 540, 541, 542, 543, 544, 545, 546, 547, 548, 549, 550, 551, 552, 553, 554, 555, 556, 557, 558, 559, 560, 561, 562, 563, 564, 565, 566, 567, 568, 569, 570, 571. 

By the way, AP Lit has the same extra credit opportunity, so if you are interested in claiming one of these topics, you may want to do so sooner rather than later :)

Hello, Multiple Choice Makers

In all classes, we finished up reading "A Modest Proposal," and you received an assignment that will take you to the other side of the testing world: the test maker.

In regards to "A Modest Proposal," you are to create 10 multiple choice questions for the text. I recommend using the MC packet and former MC passages to give you ideas of how to write the questions and how to add distractions to the possible answers. This is due on Google Doc by 4 p.m. Tuesday. For the 10 questions, you will need 5 choices for the answers, you should mix easy, middle, and difficult questions, provide an answer key, and use paragraph numbers for any references.

As a reminder, the link to a copy of "A Modest Proposal" - with paragraph numbers - is on a previous blog from this week. If the link does not work, you are welcome to Google "A Modest Proposal" and read a copy online.

In a few hours, we picked our tone paragraph topics for next week. First hour will be writing about speeding, fourth hour will be composing paragraphs on dry cereal, and seventh hour will be trying to top that Taco Bell paragraph with the topic of school lunches. Third hour will determine this on Tuesday!

See you next week for tone paragraphs, more MC, and more modes of discourse.

Happy Birthday, Ozymandias!

The king of kings is 200 today with Shelley's "Ozymandias" published on this day in The Examiner! Surprisingly, Shelley chose a pen name!

In fourth hour today, we finished up vocab, shared our allusion posters, and began our reading of "A Modest Proposal," which we will finish up tomorrow!

Bon Appetit

On this block day, we are almost all on the same page, literally! Vocab experts to start, allusion posters to follow, and "A Modest Proposal" to follow. We are nearing the end of the proposal and a major shift either just happened or is about to happen according to the bell's interruption. Don't forget to bring your MC packet - given to you in December - to class as we will resume MC work next time!

If you want to review "A Modest Proposal" or read ahead: https://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/modest.html.

The Final Finale

I am typing this up in the middle of the registration meetings, so I may just throw in a few fun facts with credits and classes while I am recapping today's agenda. For instance, as many of you will be applying to college during the first semester of senior year, your junior grades will be the marker of your abilities to those colleges.

In all classes today, we finished looking at the MC passage regarding Nantucket and worked with process of elimination to find the best answer. As noted, you need to understand the passage via reading and not skimming to better answer these questions. Afterwards, we looked at the writing prompt and how Sandy's tone reveals a sardonic, frustrated, agitated stance on the war, the propaganda machine, and the military. If you grabbed onto the accurate attitude and polysyndeton, you most likely had a higher score on the AP exam.

In first hour, we started talking about your senior options for next year, and we will finish going over those tomorrow.

In third & fourth hour (maybe seventh), you received your finals back, filled in your rhetorical analysis chart, and placed all your papers in your portfolio.

So, what are the options for next year's English credit?

Year-long:

• AP Lit (all literature analysis involving prose and poetry, a book club of verbal and written analysis, more reading emphasized over writing) 
• Senior Lit (a continuation from American Lit, this class aids students in writing - academic and lifestyle - and reading)

Semester classes:

• Shakespeare (you've heard it through a wall for a semester, and this is the focus on Shakespeare's plots, characters, and motifs; assignments are more project-based)
• Creative Writing (another side of your brain required to write with freedom and not rely on the formula of modes of discourse)
• Sci-Fi (reading and analyzing science fiction motifs, characterization)
• Advanced Composition (this is the same credit as AP Lang first semester so you still can take this course, but you will not be double-dipping on credit; this course preps your for the varying modes of discourse required at any level of college writing)
• Speech (moving from quick bursts to fully developed, researched speeches to help ease you into public speaking)
• Advanced Speech (continuation of speech)

Practical Art Elective: Newspaper
Drama Elective: Film Studies

You have to take one full year of English, but you can also take more English courses if you would like to treat some classes as electives. So, you could take AP Lit and then take Shakespeare and Speech. Or, you could take 4 semester courses.

You want to choose the course(s) that are best for you and what you want to do in the future. I would recommend talking to teachers of the courses and also students currently enrolled in these classes.

Strategies, Strategies, Strategies

After vocab experts, we reviewed our 24 rhetorical strategy definitions in order to break down the toolbox portion of the final. Taking a different approach, you had to first recognize what the author was doing in the sentence and the identify the specific strategy. The lesson here? You have to figure out what it is happening first and then put a name to it. For our last moments, we looked at close reading the Nantucket passage from the final - each class was at a different point with the reading, so we will resume on Monday.

Don't forget to start your allusion poster for next week!

The Clock

First hour, what a way to start off our semester with a flying clock shattering on the floor! As noted, we don't need time to measure our class - especially when we looked at a variety of elements during class.

 For all hours, we started off with a new set of vocabulary words, unit 16, which runs the gamut from recreant to salacious and back again (lots o' synonyms happening). We will start up this cycle of words tomorrow- and we may just go back to our previous units to see if you still have the same vernacular that you have the new year that you had in the past year.

Then, you received your argument essays back - with the option to revise for an improved grade in the next 24 hours at 2:40 p.m.

Next, you filled an index cards with writing topics that we will be using during our tone work during the semester.

Continuing on, you received your allusion poster project and your 4 assigned allusions for the month.

To end the hour, I gave you a list of 24 rhetorical strategies that you will need to have defined - with confidence - for tomorrow's class. You will be participating with definitions, and then using these definitions to answer questions.

Alliteration
Allusion
Anadiplosis
Anaphora
asyndeton
Complex sentence
Compound sentence
Cumulative sentence
Declarative sentence
Epistrophe
Epithets
Euphemism
Exclamatory sentence
Imperative sentence
Interrogative sentence
Malapropism
Metonymy
Periodic sentence
Personification
Polysyndeton
Simple sentence
Synecdoche
Telegraphic syntax
Zeugma

Observations on Sandy, Nantucket, and Lucy

I just have 2 essays left to evaluate for AP Lang, and I am very excited to have read and witnessed the growth of writing - whether it be via rhetoric, argument, or both - that many of you have indicated via the Lucy argument essay and the final. There are still some of you that are works-in-progress, which will be our goal to work on as we resume AP Lang in 2018. Our first few days back will concentrate on the skills tested on the final with reviews of rhetorical analysis prompt close reads, rhetorical strategy identifications, and multiple choice close reads and questions.

Prior to our resumption on Thursday, here are some thoughts on your most recent work and elements that will take center stage as we return to class. And due to a couple make-up finals that will be taking place shortly, I will have to be vague with the prompt and final content as to not give an unfair advantage.

For any essay we write in class, you are NOT USING RHETORICAL QUESTIONS. This should sound familiar since I have pointed out this persuasive technique that is not appropriate for rhetorical analysis or argumentation. Also, you are WRITING IN THIRD PERSON (unless it is a personal anecdote in an argument). The phantom "we" does not exist; "you" is persuasive and, remember, you are not persuasive for any essay that you are writing in this class.

For those of you completing the rhetorical analysis essay prompt, you had to close read the passage for at least 3 strategies, compose an organized essay with all the bells and whistles to attract your audience, include multiple examples of evidence with flow and proper citations, and construct a concluding thought to make your essay a memorable endeavor. And just a reminder to those of you stuck in the past, rhetorical analysis is written in present tense.

Before writing one sentence on that paper, you always want to close read the passage for understanding and overall strategies that can be found throughout the essay. The close reading will give you patterns, evidence, and connections to the purpose that are necessary for planning your writing.

As with every essay that you will write in this class, the introduction will feature a hook that sets up the context, the history, an analogy, or a mature look at the topic at hand. For this prompt, we had a wide range of ways to introduce the author, the text, and the topic at hand - including a reference to a popular phrase utilized during a certain president's tenure (Mama G was impressed when I mentioned that to her, CF). The thesis should clearly state the author, the active verb, the specific strategies, and the mature purpose.

The body paragraphs begin with clear indication of author, strategy, and purpose, move into an explanation of the topic sentence, add in at least 2 examples of evidence - words, phrases incorporated into the writing and cited with line numbers properly - explain all evidence, and conclude with a specific sentence tying everything together. Strategies selected can range from the standard (diction, tone, syntax) to upper-level strategies (anaphora, hypophora, epistrophe, specific forms of syntax, diction shifts, tone shifts, enumeration, the syndetons, and so on). For this essay, there was one big upper-level strategy that was required for 9 consideration.

The conclusion should not be a regurgitation of the show, but a way to end to essay with something memorable that the other 85 writers may not have completed. I recommend going back to the hook and reviewing the context in connection to what the essay just shared with the reader.

For this prompt, we had a range of 1-9 with three of you scoring that 9 zenith (BH, CH, CF). First hour's average was a 4.57, third hour's 4.54, fourth hour's 6.87, and seventh hour's 5.45.

The final also included one MC passage, which if close read, actually was a fair and - dare I say - easy passage. Looking over the finals, I saw a lot of blank passages, which does not bode well for when you have to complete process of elimination. Close reading is necessary for understanding and comprehension and for finding purpose, tone, and strategies. Unlike other MC tests (that shall remain nameless), you can't skim the passage and hope to answer the questions correctly. Take the time to read and the questions will come to you.

The last part of the final was strategy identification. While a couple of these were tricky, the majority of the statements covered strategies that we have studied in-depth (some were mentioned earlier in this blog post).

With the Lucy argument essay, I can be more specific with you! It looks like argumentation writing, with its clear structure and encouragement of varying positions, evidence selections, and explanations is a favored style of writing for many of you. Argument is a different beast than rhetorical analysis. You have a claim in place of your thesis, you have sub-claims operating as topic sentences, you have warrants explaining all of that evidence from the text, and then you have a concluding warrant ending each body paragraph. But, you know there is more: the counterclaim with multiple examples of evidence and a rebuttal with multiple examples of evidence. As modeled in class and delineated on your essay assignment sheet, this essay was a minimum 6 paragraph essay to incorporate all the above. Some of you wrote 3, 4, or 5 paragraphs, which was limiting your analysis and not fulfilling the assignment.

As with many of the rhetorical analysis prompts, Lucy had some strong hooks to set up her character. There were analogies (most impressive, BJ), medical context, Lucy context, expressive diction and syntax painting the portrait of a characterization of someone human. To add a dash of upper-level characterization, some brought in Lucy's and Ann's tones, oxymorons, telegraphic sentences, hyperbole, rhetorical questions, and other strategies to show how Lucy's character exists in all of the texts.

Overall, these were strong essays to read on these cold days stuck at home. Overall, there were four 9 scores (BH, CH, CO, KJ). First hour averaged 4.86, third hour 5.91, fourth hour 6.93, and seventh hour 6.26.

You will be receiving these essays back on Thursday, which means, if you choose to do so, that you will have 24 hours (start of class to next start of class) to revise and turn in a second draft for a better score. If absent on Thursday, you will have to wait until Monday and then you will have that 24 hour window. I highly recommend that you take this opportunity to revise your work - especially if you are on the bubble between 2 grades or would just like to bolster your overall first semester grade. I did not over-evaluate these essays. I left notes on the top and margins. It is up to you whether you decide to rewrite the work.

On the upcoming docket for AP Lang? Reviewing final skills using the final and a few other handouts (I have some typing to do), Modes of Discourse (satire, description, process analysis, exemplification), MC creation with practice passages and full test, allusion work, tone paragraphs (can't wait to see what topics we have this year), and argumentation!