Toolboxing

Before a day of rhetorical strategies, we commenced with four vocabulary words, which will soon become part of your vernacular. Then, we played card games for 15 minutes to review familiar terms and start the introductory process of rhetorical strategies. Last, you worked on your toolbox for the remainder of the hour. The toolbox does not have a due date - it is for your benefit on quizzes and analyses. However, you should have as much done as possible for next week's first quiz.

Due Wednesday = your decorated portfolio needs to be returned. Make sure your name, AP Lang, and hour are prominently displayed.

Diagnostic Day

Watching AP Lang students type fervently was not the most exciting teaching day for me, but reading your essays in the upcoming days will give me a better picture of what we will focus upon during class. Today's diagnostic was a rhetorical analysis on Malcolm Gladwell's "The Roseto Mystery" from The Outliers. This baseline essay will help introduce you to AP evaluation process and help you determine the specific areas of essay writing that will need attention for future improvement. 

For Monday's class, bring in your index cards (if that is your chosen material) and your vocab expert word. 

Prepping for Friday & Monday

All Classes:

• Friday's classes will be in the library. As soon as you arrive, grab a laptop or claim a wall computer and begin your essay writing.

• As suggested by Lyle in AP Lit today, you are welcome to set up your essay document prior to class starting tomorrow. This means creating a document, titling it, and setting up any formatting and headings necessary to your writing. Do not start writing the essay until you are in the library.

• Monday's class will involve your index cards (or notebook) and vocab experts. Make sure you have the proper materials and preparations for such.

1: We copied down vocabulary lesson 11, and you were introduced to vocab experts. You will be sharing your vocab expertise starting on Monday. Then, we discussed the Roseto essay that you will be writing during Friday's class time. Remember to meet in the library, bring your close reading of the text, and the outline. For the last minutes of class, we played cards and you learned a few new rhetorical strategies to add to your memory banks. More to come!

3 & 7: We started off class by sharing examples of "Theme" close reading strategies. Remember, this close reading and its small paragraph analysis are the building blocks of rhetorical analysis essay -- i.e. what your diagnostic essay will cover tomorrow. Then, we did everything listed under hour 1, so do check the remaining agenda above.

Theme on Close Reading

Don't forget to close read "The Roseto Mystery" for Friday's class. You will receive a handout with the official assignment tomorrow, and you may use this handout to create an outline for the essay. (I hope you like the border.)

Don't forget to bring in your index cards if you are choosing the flashcard route for Monday's class. If you do not like the idea of flashcards, I will have notebooks for you.

During class, we performed our first close read on "Theme for English B" by Langston Hughes. Using color marking (one color per rhetorical strategy), we identified repeating strategies (motifs, tones, diction, syntax, and so on) and constructed small paragraph analyses to reflect the author's purpose. This is the basis of rhetorical analysis and what will be your first steps in constructing essays.

First hour, you definitely impressed with the confidence and thoroughness of your responses. Every group grasped onto a strategy and there was such a variety of selections and explanations. Paradox, persuasion, pronouns were big hits for me. We will work on a longer close read tomorrow.

Third hour, there was a great pause before the class strategy, but you more than made up for hesitancy by looking at how rhetorical questions, passive diction, and final statements construct a sarcasm to the assignment, the professor, and the society. Volunteer or random groups will share tomorrow and then we will have more close reading.

Seventh hour, what an impressive team effort to describe the setting moving from small (college town) to large (America) and how this could reflect a ripple effect from one person's ideological change (the teacher) to society as a whole. Volunteer or random groups will share your third color marking tomorrow.

Day 1

Before we go over today's agenda, I highly recommend checking the previous blog for tips on grammar, writing, and habitual mistakes that create distractions in writing. We will most likely discuss all of these issues at some point of the year, but many of you can actually resolve these errors now before we even start writing -- on Friday.

Otherwise...

I officially welcome you to AP Lang. Today started off with not the discipline review, but a q & a session to start the participation in your class. AP Lang is a collaborative classroom, and we all help each other to learn more about purpose and readings. (I include myself in that first person plural pronoun. I am part of the learning experience as well.)

In paperwork, we looked over the required discipline and school policies and checked out the syllabus for the class.

To end the hour, you received the rhetorical toolbox term list. In the upcoming week, you will decide whether you will have an index card holder of flashcards or a Steno pad. Once that is determined, you will need to make flashcards/provide definitions for the terms you do not already know. We will not be memorizing all the terms this week, but these rhetorical devices, modes of discourse, and fallacies will filter through class starting this week.

Due Friday: Close read The Outliers selection. Close reading means annotating for purposes, modes of discourse, and rhetorical strategies. You will use this close read to type an essay during Friday's class.

*If you are wondering what exactly this close reading means, we will be completing a couple samples together in class.

AP Lang Tips for Better Writing NOW

Welcome to AP Language & Composition. While I have been a derelict with summer blogging (best intentions, I promise you), I do update the blog every school day with overviews of our class content, previews of future assignments and strategies, and hints for improvement. As of this moment, I am revising the AP Lang syllabus -- again. The syllabus for this class is an organic document and will adjust in readings, assignments, and prompts in order to help the class succeed in all required elements.

This course differs from your average English class. How so? Our class concentrates on three areas of writing: rhetorical analysis (the what and the why), argumentation (claims and whatnot), and synthesis (incorporating multiple texts and citations). Underneath the umbrella of each area, we will study modes of discourse, multiple choice strategies, and writing methods to help you for AP testing and college-level writing and analyses.

While you are waiting impatiently to have the syllabus in your hands on Tuesday, I would like to give you a few suggestions for common writing errors. Instead of typing out all these hints again, I will advise you to check out the links to blogs from last year's course. While we will be working on all of these items at some point during the class, you may start improving these mechanical faults at the start of the year and from your own study as well.

READ THESE. PRACTICE THESE. WRITE CORRECTLY PLEASE.

http://fznaplang.blogspot.com/2015/11/prompt-writing-tips-bird-edition-part-i.html
http://fznaplang.blogspot.com/2015/11/prompt-writing-tips-part-ii.html

In a World Without Summer Reading

After a month of travelling and taking a break from the educational world, I am back to provide tips for your upcoming AP Lang class experience.

Today's blog will concentrate on argumentation, which many of you have done in past English courses. 

Argumentation is not persuasion. So, how do these discourse cousins differ? Argumentation is based on logic, logos. You are appealing to a person's reason and attempting to bring strong evidence and theory to a writing. Persuasion is stuck on emotion, pathos, in an attempt to change people's ideology. 

Argumentation breaks down into this structure: claim, evidence, warrant, counterclaim, rebuttal, and conclusion. When constructing your argument, the ability to bring in relevant examples and evidence is necessary. While each of you brings in your own ethos on a subject or two, it would behoove you to learn examples from various subjects to indicate your mature comprehensive level. For instance, keep an eye on current events, politics (can't escape it so might as well use it), history, science, math, literature, pop culture, and any other topic that suits your fancy. 

Lastly, on a mechanical note, be aware of your apostrophe usage. Apostrophe mistakes have reached an epidemic level in the past few years, and even the ACT has been throwing these errors on its English portion. Apostrophes are for contractions (can't, won't) and possessive nouns (Laura's). You do not need apostrophes for plural nouns (four pencils - not four pencil's), verbs (runs - not run's), or possessive pronouns (its - not it's, hers - not her's). Keep an eye on these little details as these mistakes do add up for your eventual reader.