Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Food Fight!

bros-and-sis-food-fight.jpgRead Food Fight by Gahan Wilson beginning on page 675 of your books.

Look up and define anthropomorphized.

Blog questions 2, 4, 5, and 6 and be prepared to discuss all of them.

Tomorrow you will have the opportunity to put into practice some of what we've been working on the last couple of days.

image credit 

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

The Mirror of Her Dreams

For those of you who may have forgotten, tonight is a night for making up missing work before the grace period runs out reflection.JPGtomorrow.

Also, if you are a creative individual and have poetry, short stories, photography, art, etc that you would like to showcase in the Figh High School's very own Mirror Magazine, then turn your submissions in to me, the box in the library, or mirrormagazine@hotmail.com.

image credit

Monday, April 28, 2008

Silence and the Notion of the Commons

caro_silence.gifTonight 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.

image credit

Friday, April 25, 2008

That assertive angel

For your homework, blog your response to the following prompt:

Assertion Journal: The Angel in the House

Defend, challenge, or qualify the following assertion noting the complexity of the issue and acknowledging any possible objections to your point of view: the angel in the house is dead and no longer lives in the imaginations of either women or men.

Remember to explain the assertion, provide support for your position, and address the counterargument.   Responses should be 250-350 words.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Angel in the House

After reading Virginia Woolf's "Professions for Women" answer the following questions on your blog:

p 360 Discussion question # 3

p 361 Rhetoric and Style questions 4 and 9

Second Period: Please remember to bring in stuffed animals.  The drive runs through April 30th, but the sooner we get our contribution in, the better.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Bears!!!!

teddy-bear.jpg


Don't forget


to bring a stuffed animal for traumatized kids. It really is a good cause.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Light homework...No complaining!

All right, as stated in class, your homework tonight is to finish reading "Why Don't We Complain?" by William F. Buckley Jr. 

Remember to blog the questions on "The Future of Happiness" you created in your groups along with the ones you did last night.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Rephrasing the question

The results of our question analysis in class today are below.  Your task is to write new questions that require the same or very similar skills to answer based on the Future of Happiness text we read over the weekend.  If you haven't read it, please do so.  Homework then is to blog questions for 1-3.  We'll finish 4 and 5 up tomorrow in class.  That does not mean you don't have to do 1-3 tonight.   

  1. Identify something in the text; Analyze text/diction in context for meaning

  2. Explain an assertion; identify his argument; evaluate his techniques

  3. Analyze how diction reveals his bias/attitude

  4. Identify a relationship (between elements of a text); analyze par. 6 for pros & Cons then create/synthesize an ideal relationship

  5. Analyze the effect of a ref. to a person; evaluate how convincing his argument is; identify an effective rhetorical move or propose one that would make the argument better


Oh, and please make an effort to work better in groups during class.  Some of you do well, others waste time prodigiously.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Controlling the Message

You may find this article interesting, given the paper we just finished on the influence of television.

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Extra Credit?!

Write up an argument analysis with an eye to establishing its foolproof construction or its downfall.  I will give extra credit for a well-done analysis (whoo hoo!).  If you don't want the extra credit, just watch the video for your own interest in his argument. If you do want to try for extra credit, blog your analysis by the end of the week.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/zORv8wwiadQ" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

This video was made by another amazing University of Puget Sound alumnus.

Don't forget to scroll down for your actual assignment!

Friday, April 18, 2008

Fallacious D and the Future of Happiness

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.


  • Begging the Question

  • Slippery Slope

  • False Dilemma

  • Post Hoc

  • Biased Sample

  • Gambler's Fallacy

  • Hasty Generalization

  • Ad Hominem

  • Straw Man

  • Tu Quoque


Borrowed (stolen) from the wise and illustrious nstearns

* Use the handout and this Nizkor Project site to help with this task.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

The birds, oh the birds!

The BirdsYour 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 yourswarming-birds.jpg 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.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

The Bird and The Machine

Tonight, your homework is to do the Questions for Discussion on page 607-8.  Please blog your answers, but also come prepared to talk about the essay in class tomorrow as well as to do some closer analysis in groups.

Please read:

Just a quick note on turning in papers.  When we have a paper due, it is due at the beginning of class.  If you had computer problems, you should come early so you can print it out.  Class time is not for writing your bibliography or reformatting your paper.   We spent all that time yesterday going over these issues to avoid that.  (In fact someone today told me, as they begged for more time to correct something they did wrong, that they weren't really listening.  Not my problem...late paper.)

You are almost adults; you need to start taking responsibility for your work.   If you don't know how to do something in your wordprocessor, look in help.  Don't just say I don't know how--do something about it.  People who can't figure things out for themselves are a bane in an office or on a job site.  Learn how to find things out for yourself.  Someone today told me they couldn't find any information on MLA.  Well, not only is there a link on the blog that we have discussed twice now, but typing MLA into Google gives over 14 million results, and the ones on the first page provide more than enough information to write your papers.  Don't be lame; be resourceful.

Friday, April 11, 2008

22 Class Days until the AP Test!

Runners 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? 

WindVickieFinishI 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.  :)

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Synthesis Strategies

Here are the results of the activity we did in class on synthesis essays the other day.  I was waiting for 2nd period, but you're writing now so I'll wait no longer.  Extra credit to those who posted their group's results.  I've linked what 1st semester did as well for your edification.
Period 1

Period 2 (Manfred)



  • ????


Original AP Class


Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Huxley or Orwell?

As you know, I will not be in class on Wednesday, April 2nd.  I hope that you have a very productive day in the computer lab with the substitute.  I promised a few resources to help in your thinking process.  Here are some resources.  :)

Here is the full introduction to Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death.  Hopefully this will help you put the quote in our essay question into better focus.
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.

Some internet resources of varying authority that you may find helpful: