Read Food Fight by Gahan Wilson beginning on page 675 of your books.
tomorrow.
Tonight read Silence and the Notion of the Commons by Ursula Franklin found on page 641 of your books. (How come no one ever names their daughters Ursula anymore? Maybe if Charlie ever gets a sister...) Take a look at the questions and the type of things they ask. Construct a multiple choice question of the depth we have seen so far (perhaps use the questions as a starting point). Your question should include a stem (the question part) and five (a-e) choices. Make your distractors reasonable so it is not too easy. If this proves difficult, just do your best. We will be doing a group activity in class on Tuesday that will hopefully alleviate any confusion you may have about this as well as familiarize yourself more intimately with the inner workings of an AP multiple choice question. You've all answered enough multiple choice questions in your lives that I'm pretty confident you'll do well.You may find this article interesting, given the paper we just finished on the influence of television.
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/zORv8wwiadQ" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]Hasty conclusion like toy balloon: easy blow up, easy pop.
--Charlie Chan at the Race Track
Your homework comes in two parts.
Part one is to make sure you have the 3 scenarios on your blog. Sorry for any confusion before, but hopefully it is clear(er) now. Edited instructions are below.
Part two is to read the Future of Happiness by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on page 623 of your books.
Here are 10 logical fallacies. Research them here* and then create for your blog three short scenarios: two of which are examples that you make up of the fallacies below and one that is meant to be logically consistent. In class, we'll examine these paragraphs and see if the class can guess which is which. Make sure that it's not obvious that you're using a fallacy. Make us work; make us better.
Your homework for tonight is to blog the rhetoric questions on page 608. Answering these well is engaging in analysis of the text. Try to answer the questions thoroughly, but also note the type of things you're being asked to notice. What type of question is it? Include your answer to that at the end of each of your
question responses. This is important because you will need to be able to look for these types of things without questions prompting you as to what to look for.
Are you rested and ready for the final sprint to the AP test? We have much to do yet. I have my thoughts on what we should spend our time on, but you're the ones taking the test, not me. So, I'd like you to think about where you feel the weakest and most in need of practice. Remember the types of questions you'll face are Synthesis, Argument, and Analysis as well as the multiple choice section. What do we need more information on? What do you want more practice on?
I know the tempting answer is "EVERYTHING!", but try to nuance your thinking a little bit. We won't be perfect. There is no way that we can be in less than a semester. Let's focus on being solid, being good. What will it take to get there? We'll have a session to take stock on Tuesday when the papers are due. And then, sprint to the finish!
See you Monday!
P.S. Those of you who are avid Grade Checker checkers may have noticed that your grade went up. The synthesis timed writes were awarded practice write status, earning full 100% credit. :)
We were keeping our eyes on 1984. when the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, w at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.
But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. as Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetitive for distractions." In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate would ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love would ruin us.
This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.