Passages

Whether in multiple choice, argument, or tone, we are all working on a passage of some sort. 

First and third hours had their Modest Proposal multiple choice questions today and will resume vocab and share tone paragraphs tomorrow. 

Fourth hour concluded their analysis of MC passage 5 and then worked with new vocab and our next round of tone words to the topic of Walmart. Your Modest Proposal MC will be tomorrow.

Seventh hour continued with vocab and your 8 tone words and then moved into looking at the CDQ argumentative essays. The great lessons here would be to always maintain a focus on your argument and bring in as many mature, specific examples as possible to convey your understanding of the prompt. If time permitted, we completed a MC practice to keep us in the mindset of process of elimination, close reading, and breaking down questions to have the greatest accuracy.

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.

Happy Quizentine's Day!

And on this Quizentine Day, first and third hour finished their exemplifications on vision, fourth hour was assigned their individual paragraphs on vision for Tuesday, and seventh hour reviewed the fifth MC passage and started vocab.

Exemplifying

1 & 3: We completed MC passage 4, emphasizing process of elimination and explaining correct and incorrect answers to help you break down the questions and add to your knowledge for the next passage. We began exemplification with its five parts: brainstorming, thesis writing, relevance assessing, range determining, and specific writing. In order to do so, we are working on writing definition paragraphs explaining the meaning of the abstract word "vision." If you happened to be absent today, you will need to 1. brainstorm a list of multiple examples that would reflect vision. 2. write a thesis statement defining the word "vision" in your own words. 3. select 1 of your examples that best represent the thesis. 4. write 1 paragraph exemplifying how your example reflects the thesis.

7: As we move forward with MC and start to turn back to argument, today we copied down new vocab, created new tone paragraphs to the topic of school rules, completed the MP MC, and voted on the topic for our next multiple choice practices.

Exemplification

First off, kudos to those of you who wrote your multiple choice questions for A Modest Proposal, especially those in seventh hour as I just finished copying and pasting your work for your classmates. While this may seem a minor activity, becoming a test-maker will help you understand the intricacies of the questions, distractors, and overall accuracy of answers to make you a superior test-taker.

4: Today was our vocab/tone quiz, our fourth MC practice passage, and the start of exemplification. We didn't make it too far, but you have the introduction of the five parts of exemplification: brainstorming, thesis, relevancy, range, and specificity. Since all those terms mean absolutely nothing without actual practice, we are currently working in groups to exemplify the abstract noun of "vision." Thus far, you have created a brainstorm of all the examples you can think of regarding "vision" with the intent to have these ready for class and group discussion next time around. Remember, your brainstorm should include different subjects: art, history, myth, sports, pop culture, current events, math, science, psychology, literature, music, film, and any other variety of ideas. To be able to show a commonality between all those examples conveys maturity and understanding of the topic, two components we want to feature in our future writings.

Questions, Questions, Questions

1: You completed the tone and vocab quiz and A Modest Proposal reading, which sets you up for writing 10 MC questions with answers A-E, of varying difficulties, of whole passage and directed sections, and includes the answer key. If you need the passage, the link is on a previous blog - actually two previous blogs.

3: We reviewed for tone/vocab quiz tomorrow, finished those last paragraphs of a A Modest Proposal, and prepped for your completion of 10 MC questions with answers A-E, of varying difficulties, of whole passage and specific sections, and add the answer key. If you need the passage, it is on the previous blog and one from last week as well. You also completed the fourth MC practice passage, which we will go over next time.

4: We reviewed tone/vocab and then completed MC passage 3. You still have a day to finish up your A Modest Proposal questions, so don't forget to share with me.

7: We wrapped up our first exemplification practice on vision and then moved into the fifth MC passage.

Eat Those Babies!

Our satire reading is at the forefront of AP Lang today, or at least in three of the classes, as we read and digested (yep, couldn't help myself there) the situation in Ireland, the British upper-crust pretension, and Swift's hyperbolic satire to further indicate the cruelty all have to the impoverished, namely those poor lads and lasses born into a world of begging, rags, shambles, and utter miserable existence of the time. 

Whenever you will need it, either for readings or making multiple choice questions in the near future, here is the link to the text that has the same paragraph numbers as our textbook: A Modest Proposal.

1: After vocab/tone review - and yes, all of those previous tone words will make reappearances, we spent the rest of the time reading "A Modest Proposal," which we will finish the last paragraphs tomorrow.

3: After finishing up all the new vocab, we reviewed the tone too, and then made our way into "A Modest Proposal," with 2 paragraphs left to read for tomorrow!

4: We wrapped up "A Modest Proposal," and you have an assignment that is due by 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday via sharing: to write 10 multiple choice questions on the text on a Google doc, provide answer key, and write questions that offer a variety of questions in difficulty and style. Use your MC packet for hints on how to write the questions, and remember to take a looksee at your previous MC passages for ideas. We also finished up vocab and tone work today for reviewing purposes tomorrow.

7: We completed the vocab/tone quiz, which means a new topic will be here later this week! Meanwhile, we continued on our pathway of exemplification, moving through the steps of brainstorming, thesis, relevance, range, and specificity. At this point, you are on the specificity step and writing an exemplification paragraph to further validate your team's thesis of vision. Have this ready to go for class tomorrow!