Welcome to Camelot

The rough draft for your JFK paper is due on Monday November 2, 2009.  Remember we will meet in the classroom tomorrow and we will be in the lab right outside our room.

Requirements and Reminders:

• Respond to the prompt on page 57 of our textbook. You may use the sample thesis above the prompt if you wish.


• 900-1200 words


• Final draft due Wednesday November 4, 2009


• Use MLA format with the following caveats: 1) Single-space your heading 2) Leave the page number and last name off the first page. Format examples are here and examples of the above-noted modifications are here.


• I WILL NOT accept papers that are written in pencil, single-spaced, or with the heading on the right. Papers that are not in MLA format will be returned ungraded for corrections and will be counted as late.

Suggested method:

1. Identify the purpose (JFK’s purpose) that you wish to write about.


2. Using a different colored highlighter or pen, mark everything in the speech that supports or helps enact that purpose.


3. Look for patterns/groupings in what you’ve highlighted.


4. Using those patterns, develop an argument concerning how JFK uses rhetorical strategies to accomplish the purpose you identified.

Caution: Do not start writing without identifying the purpose. Without that, you cannot write a thesis. Without a thesis, your argument will meander through whatever you’ve noticed in the speech, creating a paper without clear direction that is confusing and frustrating both to write and to read/grade.

Tuesday Lab

We are in the library computer lab both 1st and 2nd periods. We'll go ahead and meet there. Bring your books and your JFK questions. I'll check those off tomorrow.

Quick task

I'm going to try something in the computer lab Thursday.

To make it work, go to http://giddings.pbworks.com/ and request access.

Go here http://giddings.pbworks.com/JFK-Comments to use the JFK wiki page.  It will notify you via email when someone else leaves a comment.

Analyzing JFK

As a first step in our work on JFK's inaugural address, annotate his speech in as much detail as you can.  The better job you do on this, and on all the activities we do on this speech, the easier time you'll have writing a strong analytical paper.

Text Annotation

Go to the text annotation site and click on The Autumn of the Multitaskers link.  Clicking on the callout boxes like I showed you in class on Friday, make at least one comment on the essay.

That's it.  Have a great Homecoming weekend!

Multiple claims in the multitasking article

Take a look at the multitasking article tonight and identify the overall claim/assertion (the glossary of The Language of Composition has a good definition if you need one).  Then, identify the claim/assertion in each section of the article (sections are indicated by a drop cap).  Blog your results.

Remember we have a vocab quiz tomorrow (week 5).

Autumn of the Multitaskers?

Read The Autumn of the Mutitaskers tonight for class tomorrow.  If you wish to print it out, here is a pdf version.  We will analyze it in class and you may very well have some homework using this article tomorrow night.  (Who am I kidding?  Yes, you will have some homework on this tomorrow night.)

You also may wish to check out the Forum I set up and keep forgetting to mention in class.

Timed Write Wednesday!

Yes it is graded, but keep in mind that the work we've done on Lord Chesterfield will help you succeed.  If you feel that your AP squared chart of the Lord Chesterfield letter was lacking, you may find benefit in redoing it or adding to it to the same level we did in class today.

If nothing else, it will help you develop the habits of mind that will give you success in doing analysis.  Developing those habits of mind will help you a great deal on the AP test as well as in AP Lit next year and in college the year after.  Frankly, the ability to think through something thoroughly, to analyze its parts in relation to its whole, is useful in most careers as well as life as a thinking person in society.

Now try it with Lord Chesterfield

Use the AP² tool we started working on today in class to further analyze Lord Chesterfield's letter.  The purpose for this is twofold.  You can practice using an analysis tool on a familiar text and perhaps you'll see something more in the Lord Chesterfield letter that you have missed up to this point.

Click on the picture to the right to see a the model in more detail.

Have a great weekend!

PS I'm still plugging away on those Metacognition papers.  I need to learn to write less on them...

More than just pretty pictures…

Tonight read pages 49-51 in The Language of Composition.

We are going to do the assignment on page 51 in class, sort of.  If you find an ad that is visually interesting that you want to bring in, please do so.  That is not required as my TA pulled some for tomorrow and we’ll only need 1 per group of 3 or 4.

You get to make posters tomorrow!  Posters analyzing a visual advertisement using the AP² analytical tool, but hey, they’re posters!  Whoo hoo!

Lord Chesterfield Revisited

Now that we have realized what Chesterfield was really on about in the letter to his son, we're going to dive in a bit more deeply.

Tonight, read pages 57-63 in Everyday Use (you may find it helpful to peruse page 85 as well).

Then annotate Lord Chesterfield's Letter anew.  Bring that in tomorrow on paper as we will work with it in small groups and as a class.

Nicole M, Josilyn, Jacob, Brittany, and Agnes will all be gone at an FCCLA meeting where they will be plotting to overthrow the world and put an end to papers about Lord Chesterfield.  Wish them well.  If they are unsuccessful, you might offer to share your notes with them. ("I do not, therefore, so much as hint to you" that tomorrow is a good time to take some notes.)  Even so, going on an all day field trip seems like an awful lot of trouble just to get out of analyzing a wee little missive from 1746.

Diction, Syntax, Toxophilus! Oh My!

As we discussed in 1st period and as you hopefully picked up through the din of Trojan TV 2nd period, we are moving into analyzing other people's arguments.  We were able to tell a whole lot this morning through diction and syntax, allusion and metaphor -- all elements of style.  We will start studying and practicing analysis tomorrow with the return of Timed Write Tuesdays (Whoop Whoop!).

By Wednesday, read pages 35 through the very top of 48 in the Language of Composition and do the assignment on page 48-49.  You'll notice that we've already started reading it, going through the first couple of pages in class.  Read it again.  Though it is due by Wednesday, you may find benefit in at least finishing the reading before the timed write tomorrow.

Since we can't write in our books, here is the text for annotation: Toxophilus. If you want the editable text, here it is.  Our selection begins 3 words into the 5th line of the 1st paragraph and finishes at the end of that same paragraph.

By the way, someone turned in a ripped up, crayon/marker besmirched portion of a summer assignment with no name.  Who would like to claim that fine piece of work?

New Forum

You may notice a new page link entitled AP Forum at the top of the page.  Remember how I told you I could create a discussion forum where you could talk about a given assignment or tap into each others' understanding on how to do an essay etc?  Well, I remembered and the result is the forum above.

You can join a topic by clicking on it and see the thread and add to it.  Or you can also create your own topic if there isn't one about what needs to be discussed on a given day.  Check it out and see if it might be useful to you.  If not, we certainly don't have to use it.