The Burden of History

As many of you are students of history, you are aware that this is the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and other concentration camps and the end of WWII. As the years go further by, we lose sight of the human toll on those that suffered. As a result, as some of my classes are aware, I have been following the Auschwitz Memorial on Twitter and reading the harrowing stories of human cruelty and loss every day. Furthering this immersion into the horrible side of history, CBS Sunday Morning recently aired this feature of survivors from the camp and what they are trying to do to keep the memory alive of the people who did not survive there: Return to Auschwitz. I was debating whether to share this with you since it is harrowing and heartbreaking, but I decided to do so for 2 reasons (beyond just to increase your historical ethos): 1. over 60% of  millennials do not know what Auschwitz was and 2. one of the daughters interviewed made the comment that subsequent generations carry "the burden" of what humanity has done to each other. The "burden" is true - we study, learn, and attempt not to repeat what our ancestors have done. Alas, I think we all know that does not always work.

As an AP Lang student, keeping abreast of history and current events does aid your arguments and understanding of texts, whether they be archaic or recent. I highly recommend watching news features and reading online newspapers to help you with your constant learning of the world around you. In addition, you never now when a five minute segment may inspire you to do something to help others or, minimally, give you an example for an essay.

By the way, these videos are not required watching. Only for those of you wanting to add to your knowledge banks.

Some more stories that I have seen/read in the past months:

Here is another story regarding orphanages in Tennessee, true history, that also could be an example for your future arguments but also for your continual building of empathy: Tennessee Orphanage.

Adding to your ethos regarding military families and how military dads are shaping their children's lives: Homefront Dads.

How DNA solved the mystery of a body in a cave: The Cave Criminal.

And since this year we adopted a giraffe from the zoo (we adopt an animal every year as a Valentine Day's present to each other), here is a little background on those magnificent animals, the ones that have the highest blood pressure of animals: Nature Up Close: The Giraffe.

And lastly, especially in a non-timed prompt, avoid Hitler. First off, do you know how many high school students rely on this horrendous figure for almost every prompt (seriously, I don't know how that happens)? Second, if you want to stand out to the grader, try to find other nefarious historical figures such as Pol Pot (per Caleb Fick's recommendation) or Idi Amin that will show off your ethos.

Well, that was a tad focused and a tad desultory - I blame the sweets and coffee from AP Lit's bon voyage party in second hour.

Oh, and if you want to continue to sound smart and prepared for class, know what the word "coy" means - it will come into play later this week!

For our classes today:

1: Completed our fifth MC passage, which was timed and solo and analyzed for further understanding of the passage, the questions, and the phrasing of answers on the exam. We then voted on our next tone topic, twins, which will find its writing tomorrow during class.

3: In regards to the fifth MC passage, ditto to first hour. We then voted on our next tone topic, accents, which you are writing in paragraph form this evening. While you don't have to time yourself the 10 minutes that you have in class, try to keep to that approximation as this is a creative activity and not a research essay.

4: We began class with going over our vision exemplification paragraphs to give you all a sense of how to construct this mode of discourse. The emphasis, as always, in on the topic of exemplification an the specific examples help to validate your ideas. We then completed MC practice passage #5 as our earlier hours did. I'm hoping (you are taking it right now as I type) that we have a chance to go over every question in analysis, but whatever is left over will be how we start tomorrow's class.

7: After vocab and tone work, we returned back to argumentation using the poem "To His Coy Mistress" to review claim, evidence, warrant, counterclaim, rebuttal, and conclusion. This poem also allowed us to discuss the terms challenge, defend, and qualify, phrasing that used to pop up in argumentative prompts and may be referenced from time-to-time. To further our understanding of c,d, q and get us in the mood for argumentation writing, we are somewhere in the process of scoring the c.d.q rangefinders and looking at their abilities with argumentation.