Wide Reading Assignment

Wide Reading/Current Events Assignment

Every Monday  we will discuss a current event or issue that explores a topic that can help expand our knowledge of the world, as well as the issues that surround it. This task will also help us start to form arguments.

Steps:

1.    Read a captivating text. Bring text with you to class.

2.    Summarize text. Include in summary all the elements of SOAPSTone.

3.    Pose an open-ended question related to the text that can be discussed during a Socratic seminar

4.    Write 1-2 paragraphs with your argument for this question

5.    These will get placed in a portfolio that will aid you in preparing for AP exam.

Narrative Essay Rubric

Hopefully last night you drafted from the heart. Now it is time to look at the rubric. Remember, even narrative essays have a persuasive purpose- how is that story changing or influencing the way the audience will look at life? All of Maya Angelou's pieces have dual purpose: to entertain , but also perhaps to inform or educate...

use this link to access rubric

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B0hrzIqP6ySYRUhndWloS09DdUU

Cage Bird Powerpoint Project

On monday we will work together in our assigned groups to analyze a pivotal chapter. Over the weekend, become an expert in your assigned chapter! On monday we will create powerpoints to share with the class  the following findings:

1.  Summary of chapter

2.  Characterization (describe each character in chapter):

3.  Description and importance of setting

4.  What is the subject of this piece? 

5.  What is the purpose of this piece? 

6. What rhetorical devices does Angelou use to make this piece effective? 

     7. Memorable Language ( tropes, schemes)

Here are the groups in case you forgot to write down:

Group 1	Group 2	Group 3	Group 4	Group 5	Group 6
Chapter 2 Uncle Willie	Chapter 5 Po’ White Trash	Chapter 11-12 The Rape	Chapter 19 The Fight	Chapter 24 Visiting the Dentist	Chapter 35 Losing her Virginity

Describing Tone

While reading some of your SOAPSTones this weekend, it became clear that describing tone is difficult. Here are some terms commonly used to describe the tone of a text( the ones that are in bold I find very useful and commonly found):

1.        accusatory-charging of wrong doing

2.        apathetic-indifferent due to lack of energy or concern

3.        awe-solemn wonder

4.        bitter-exhibiting strong animosity as a result of pain or grief

5.        cynical-questions the basic sincerity and goodness of people

6.        condescension; condescending-a feeling of superiority

7.        callous-unfeeling, insensitive to feelings of others

8.        contemplative-studying, thinking, reflecting on an issue

9.        critical-finding fault

10.     choleric-hot-tempered, easily angered

11.     contemptuous-showing or feeling that something is worthless or lacks respect

12.     caustic-intense use of sarcasm; stinging, biting

13.     conventional-lacking spontaneity, originality, and individuality

14.     disdainful-scornful

15.     didactic-author attempts to educate or instruct the reader

16.     derisive-ridiculing, mocking

17.     earnest-intense, a sincere state of mind

18.     erudite-learned, polished, scholarly

19.     fanciful-using the imagination

20.     forthright-directly frank without hesitation

21.     gloomy-darkness, sadness, rejection

22.     haughty-proud and vain to the point of arrogance

23.     indignant-marked by anger aroused by injustice

24.     intimate-very familiar

25.     judgmental-authoritative and often having critical opinions

26.     jovial-happy

27.     lyrical-expressing a poet’s inner feelings; emotional; full of images; song-like

28.     matter-of-fact--accepting of conditions; not fanciful or emotional

29.     mocking-treating with contempt or ridicule

30.     morose-gloomy, sullen, surly, despondent

31.     malicious-purposely hurtful

32.     objective-an unbiased view-able to leave personal judgments aside

33.     optimistic-hopeful, cheerful

34.     obsequious-polite and obedient in order to gain something

35.     patronizing-air of condescension

36.     pessimistic-seeing the worst side of things; no hope

37.     quizzical-odd, eccentric, amusing

38.     ribald-offensive in speech or gesture

39.     reverent-treating a subject with honor and respect

40.     ridiculing-slightly contemptuous banter; making fun of

41.     reflective-illustrating innermost thoughts and emotions

42.     sarcastic-sneering, caustic

43.     sardonic-scornfully and bitterly sarcastic

44.     satiric-ridiculing to show weakness in order to make a point, teach

45.     sincere-without deceit or pretense; genuine

46.     solemn-deeply earnest, tending toward sad reflection

47.     sanguineous -optimistic, cheerful

48.     whimsical-odd, strange, fantastic; fun

Is she effective?

In order to figure out if the rhetoric is effective, you first need to figure out the rhetorical triangle!

Logos Pathos and Ethos Oh My!

How to develop ethos	Demonstrate ones knowledge and qualifications Establish a common ground with your audience             ( shared values and experiences) Acknowledge the opposing views (counterargument) and refute them with your own points
How to develop pathos	Create images  Include sensory details in order for audience to imagine situation Include anecdotes in order for audience to connect to event to evoke sympathy Passionate  delivery and an overall emotion and sympathies of the speech or writing as determined by the audience. The pathos of a speech or writing is only ultimately determined by the hearers.
How to develop logos	Include facts, statistic and evidence acknowledge counterargument but then refute the validity of that argument

SOAPSTone

Who is the Speaker?
The voice that tells the story. 
What is the Occasion?
The time and the place of the piece; the context that prompted the writing. 
Who is the Audience? 
The group of readers to whom this piece is directed. 
What is the Purpose?
The reason behind the text. 
What is the Subject? 
Students should be able to state the subject in a few words or phrases. 
What is the Tone?
The attitude of the author. The spoken word can convey the speaker's attitude and thus help to impart meaning through tone of voice. With the written word, it is tone that extends meaning beyond the literal, and students must learn to convey this tone in their diction (choice of words), syntax (sentence construction), and imagery (metaphors, similes, and other types of figurative language). The ability to manage tone is one of the best indicators of a sophisticated writer. 

Men, Who Needs Them?

By GREG HAMPIKIAN

Boise, Idaho

MAMMALS are named after their defining characteristic, the glands capable of sustaining a life for years after birth — glands that are functional only in the female. And yet while the term “mammal” is based on an objective analysis of shared traits, the genus name for human beings, Homo, reflects an 18th-century masculine bias in science.

That bias, however, is becoming harder to sustain, as men become less relevant to both reproduction and parenting. Women aren’t just becoming men’s equals. It’s increasingly clear that “mankind” itself is a gross misnomer: an uninterrupted, intimate and essential maternal connection defines our species.

The central behaviors of mammals revolve around how we bear and raise our young, and humans are the parenting champions of the class. In the United States, for nearly 20 percent of our life span we are considered the legal responsibility of our parents.

With expanding reproductive choices, we can expect to see more women choose to reproduce without men entirely. Fortunately, the data for children raised by only females is encouraging. As the Princeton sociologist Sara S. McLanahan has shown, poverty is what hurts children, not the number or gender of parents.

That’s good, since women are both necessary and sufficient for reproduction, and men are neither. From the production of the first cell (egg) to the development of the fetus and the birth and breast-feeding of the child, fathers can be absent. They can be at work, at home, in prison or at war, living or dead.

Think about your own history. Your life as an egg actually started in your mother’s developing ovary, before she was born; you were wrapped in your mother’s fetal body as it developed within your grandmother.

After the two of you left Grandma’s womb, you enjoyed the protection of your mother’s prepubescent ovary. Then, sometime between 12 and 50 years after the two of you left your grandmother, you burst forth and were sucked by her fimbriae into the fallopian tube. You glided along the oviduct, surviving happily on the stored nutrients and genetic messages that Mom packed for you.

Then, at some point, your father spent a few minutes close by, but then left. A little while later, you encountered some very odd tiny cells that he had shed. They did not merge with you, or give you any cell membranes or nutrients — just an infinitesimally small packet of DNA, less than one-millionth of your mass.

Over the next nine months, you stole minerals from your mother’s bones and oxygen from her blood, and you received all your nutrition, energy and immune protection from her. By the time you were born your mother had contributed six to eight pounds of your weight. Then as a parting gift, she swathed you in billions of bacteria from her birth canal and groin that continue to protect your skin, digestive system and general health. In contrast, your father’s 3.3 picograms of DNA comes out to less than one pound of male contribution since the beginning of Homo sapiens 107 billion babies ago.

And while birth seems like a separation, for us mammals it’s just a new form of attachment to our female parent. If your mother breast-fed you, as our species has done for nearly our entire existence, then you suckled from her all your water, protein, sugar, fats and even immune protection. She sampled your diseases by holding you close and kissing you, just as your father might have done; but unlike your father, she responded to your infections by making antibodies that she passed to you in breast milk.

I don’t dismiss the years I put in as a doting father, or my year at home as a house husband with two young kids. And I credit my own father as the more influential parent in my life. Fathers are of great benefit. But that is a far cry from “necessary and sufficient” for reproduction.

If a woman wants to have a baby without a man, she just needs to secure sperm (fresh or frozen) from a donor (living or dead). The only technology the self-impregnating woman needs is a straw or turkey baster, and the basic technique hasn’t changed much since Talmudic scholars debated the religious implications of insemination without sex in the fifth century. If all the men on earth died tonight, the species could continue on frozen sperm. If the women disappear, it’s extinction.

Ultimately the question is, does “mankind” really need men? With human cloning technology just around the corner and enough frozen sperm in the world to already populate many generations, perhaps we should perform a cost-benefit analysis.

It’s true that men have traditionally been the breadwinners. But women have been a majority of college graduates since the 1980s, and their numbers are growing. It’s also true that men have, on average, a bit more muscle mass than women. But in the age of ubiquitous weapons, the one with the better firepower (and knowledge of the law) triumphs.

Meanwhile women live longer, are healthier and are far less likely to commit a violent offense. If men were cars, who would buy the model that doesn’t last as long, is given to lethal incidents and ends up impounded more often?

Recently, the geneticist J. Craig Venter showed that the entire genetic material of an organism can be synthesized by a machine and then put into what he called an “artificial cell.” This was actually a bit of press-release hyperbole: Mr. Venter started with a fully functional cell, then swapped out its DNA. In doing so, he unwittingly demonstrated that the female component of sexual reproduction, the egg cell, cannot be manufactured, but the male can.

When I explained this to a female colleague and asked her if she thought that there was yet anything irreplaceable about men, she answered, “They’re entertaining.”

Gentlemen, let’s hope that’s enough.

Greg Hampikian is a professor of biology and criminal justice at Boise State University and the director of the Idaho Innocence Project.

A Night Full of Rhetoric!

Besides the MTV music awards ( which happened to end right before Obama's speech AND just happened to be on a thursday night when always aired on a sunday), Obama gave his acceptance speech to run as democratic candidate.

Please watch speech and answer the following questions:

1.What is the occasion of this speech? Why is he giving it?

2.Who is his audience?

3.How does he develop his credibility? What specific things does he say that help us as listeners believe what he is saying?

4.What is the subject?

5. What is his purpose? What does he want?

6. What is his tone? How do you know?

7. Can you identify any rhetorical devices he uses to grab the listeners attention or make his speech more powerful? (Alliteration, imagery, allusions, etc...)

Here is link or you can just google "Barack Obama DNC speech"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/9527379/US-Election-2012-Barack-Obamas-DNC-speech-in-full.html

Rhetorical Device mixer Monday September 10

Task: Pretend you are a Rhetorical device and you are attending a meet and greet party.

1.    Who are you?

2.    What do you do for a living? (definition)

3.    Who do you hang out with? (similar elements)

4.    Where can we find you? (examples in text or books)

5.     Create a 8.5 X 11 poster with definition,example and graphic