What's Required for the Next Month

This week given that our video blogs are due on Wednesday (by the time you are in class they should be posted to both bloggers' blogs), you only have to complete one reading blog before Friday.

However, over break I'd like to finish reading your assigned books.  We'll have a test on them our first day back.

More Tattoos

This week I'd like you to complete three reading blogs by next Monday. I may be conferencing with you between now and then.

Also, bring in your raw footage on Thursday for Writers Workshop.

Cold-Blooded Reading

This week we'll be reading Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. Between each class (through next week) I'd like you to read 15-20 pages of the book and write a blog entry about it. You may wish to review what a reading blog is.

What's This About Revolution?

Some background for The Revolution Will Not Be Televised:

Check out the wikipedia page and also this song as labeled in Rap Genius (it explains all of the allusions.)

Documentaries

Let´s be clear about this. For next Writers Workshop have a documentary idea and a plan for shoooting it. We´ll be storyboarding in class. Your raw footage is due December 6th.

You will be graded on your use of rhetoric and understanding of visual media, and, as always, grammar and mechanics. The final project is due December 12th.


Here are some examples of what I´m hoping for.

New Bathroom Initiative

As per new school initiatives, bathroom will be limited to use once a marking period. Sorry, but those are the rules.

Find the Fallacy

This week we'll be focusing exclusively on fallacies. I'd like you to read each of the following essays and in a blog entry identify as many fallacies as you can. You should have completed at least one by Friday. The rest are due Monday.

Listen and read this speech by Gandhi.

Read this speech by Winston Churchill.

Finally, listen and read George Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant".

You might want to think about what these speakers have in common, what they disagree about, what they most fear. (Wow - did you peep this parallel structure?)

Learning Self-Defense

I expect a blog entry for Chapter 15 by Friday, and one blog entry for both Chapter 16 and 17. I would like you to insert video clips and respond to at least three other blogs in our class.

Hand in personal essays tomorrow, Thursday, November 8th. Just place them in box.

Read Chapters 11 and 12 and write one blog entry that deals exclusively with terms from those chapters. Be sure to use video clips to demonstrate any new vocabulary.

Complete the second draft of your personal essay for Wednesday's Writers Workshop.

Over the weekend read Chapter 13 and write one blog entry in which you define "paradigm" in addition to other relevant terms. Try to use humor to best demonstrate your understanding of this week's lessons.

Grades

Due to a technical error in the new Skyward system your life skill grade was weighed; that has now been fixed and thus, there is a change in the overall grade for some assignments.

What's to Come

Choose from one of the following options and write a brief essay (500 words) in response:

Option #1. Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.

Option #2. Discuss some issue of personal, local, national, or international concern and its importance to you.

Option #3. Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence.

Option #4. Describe a character in fiction, a historical figure, or a creative work (as in art, music, science, etc.) that has had an influence on you, and explain that influence.

Option #5. A range of academic interests, personal perspectives, and life experiences adds much to the educational mix. Given your personal background, describe an experience that illustrates what you would bring to the diversity in a college community, or an encounter that demonstrated the importance of diversity to you.

For next Wednesday - Halloween - be sure to bring in your second draft of your personal essay.

Read Chapter 6 by Thursday. Write one blog entry.

Read Chapters 7 and 8 over the weekend. Write one blog entry for each. 

The Debate Under a Rhetorical Lense

On Monday night please watch:

Topic: Foreign policy
8-9:30 in Bogotá
Location: Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida (Tickets)
Sponsor: Commission on Presidential Debates
Participants: President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney
Moderator: Bob Schieffer (Host of Face the Nation on CBS)

You can watch this just by googling it. There are usually many live feeds. If none of those work, use Democracy Now's webpage.

Write one blog entry in which you discuss one section of this debate in terns of pathos, logos, ethos, as well as deliberative, forensic, or demonstrative. 

All Lies and False Propaganda

This week we'll begin reading a key text for this course, for our new unit specifically on rhetoric and political debate. It's a non-fiction, non-literary text - something like an erudite and quirky textbook - so you'll need to focus on new vocabulary and make lots of connections. Embed video, photos, whatever you need to make it click.

Complete Chapter 2 and write one blog entry by Friday. Read Chapter 4 and write a blog entry this weekend. Be sure to respond to a few other blogs as well. Look at how other people are going about it. Discuss the text.

By the way, the allusion in the title is a quotation from Rocky in Rocky III.

Publishing

Please submit your revised memoirs to Guzman gjulio@cng.edu today. Be sure to attach a cover letter.

Reading for Style

While reading your memoirs this week, I'd like you to consider style - in terms of diction. How is this writer writing? How does that relate to her/his rhetorical strategy? Be sure to cite text. I'd like two completed by Friday. I expect to discuss them with you this week.

Terms of Engagement: Grammar

"Here’s a chilling thought: What if our English teachers were wrong? Maybe not about everything, but about a few memorable lessons. " 

I found an interesting (and relevant) debate over at the New York Times about grammar rules.  Read both sides of the argument and in one blog entry choose a side. You should also define important terms (i.e, descriptivist, and prescriptivist). It might be a good idea to look at what rhetorical modes they're manipulating.

I'd like to see these as soon as you can (latest Tuesday, October 2nd).

The Memoir Outhouse

Be sure to begin reading your memoirs and blog about first impressions (keeping in mind your AP Eng Lang formation).

Complete Memoir Books

There were all types of formatting chaos with this last assignment. However, the few I saw makes me think this is a worthwhile venture.

So this Writers Workshop, your group must have (1) a completed first draft with cover (design) (2) a computer. I´ll be showing you how to do the publishing in class.

http://www.bonkersworld.net/printing-press/

Stop by at Lunch to Pick Up Essays

There are two essays I'd like you to read and blog (one entry) about for next Tuesday's class. Think about how it connects with what we've been examining in class.

Missing Memoirs

I'm noticing not everyone has posted their memoir. I'm going to have to speak to you about not completing assignments.

More and More Space

Alright here are

two 


more.

More Blank Space!

I think we've run out of room on the other pad. Try this one.

Make a Book

Based on your group's assignment, you must either group these memoirs by tone, diction, or by content by this Friday. I'll talk more about where to post these books later this week.

Change of Plans

Please upload your nameless memoir here.

I think dropbox was too complicated for next week's task.

Finishing Up Remembering

Okay this week I'd like two more reading blogs, focusing specifically on diction. (Yeah!)

And also for Thursday bring in your completed draft sans passive voice.

Lang Is Heating Up

Quite literally! We'll be discussing this article about language's role in the U.S's presidential election. If you want to get a head start, go right ahead.

Passive Voice Review, Anyone?

This is everything you need to know about passive voice, if you missed our workshop.

Tony Tony Tone

Don´t have the tone sheet? Try here.

Toning Up

This week I'd like you to write three more reading blogs; however, in these, in addition to visual vocabulary, I'd like you to include discussions of tone. For example, is the tone changing? If not, should it?

Also, bring in your second drafts of your memoir (between 5,000 and 10,000 words).

Some Things I Want You to Remember

This week I'd like you to be:

working on your memoir pieces

and

reading the memoirs you took out

Bring your memoir pieces to class Thursday for our Writers Workshop.

In addition by next Monday, you should have written three blogs regarding the memoir you're reading.

Get Memoirizing

Before our class next Tuesday I'd like you to begin reading the memoir you selected to read outside of class (45 minutes) and write a reading blog entry according to the instructions below this entry.

What is a reading blog?

What is a reading blog?

Reading to Blog

What's more important the book or our interpretations of the book? Can there be a book without there being interpretation? We'll be able to answer some of those questions after we've recorded the history of our relationships with our books.

In order to preserve paper, as well as to promote our communication with the academic world outside of CNG, we'll be keeping blogs about the books we read.

You will write your own blogs, and respond to your blogs as prescribed by your weekly homework blog entry. You should not approach each blog the same way. With variety comes varied thought; therefore, I hope you focus on different topics and take different approaches in each entry.

Here are some possibilities:

-Respond to the text personally: 

I never had my house blown down by a wolf, but I have felt loss. For example, I once abandoned my favorite apartment. I left most of my furniture there, some clothes, even a television!

-Connect text to another book, a film, work of art, a comic or any other creation: 

The Three Little Pigs reminds me of The Matrix. When the Wolf "huffed and puffed and blew his house down" he acted just as Morpheus did for Reeve's character. Suddenly, Reeves was without the security he once felt.

-Ask questions to later answer:

What might the grandmother represent? Why would the Wolf want to blow down the houses? How might I write a better ending? I would then maybe answer these questions in later blogs. 

-Visual Vocabulary 

Select the words you think it was important to define in the text. Match a picture to it on your blog post. 

-Hyperlink 

You might want to use the 21^st century's answer to footnotes when you're talking about something that is not common knowledge. We'll do a demo of how to insert a hyperlink in class.

You may use any combination of these, or you can write your own type of entries. Let your reading guide your entries. We'll take a look at them next week in class and in conferences.

But How to Begin

This week I'd like you to begin your memoir pieces (roughly 5,000-10,000 words). The first drafts will be due next Wednesday.

The Very First Memoir - Ever!

I thought we'd have a look at St.Augustine's Confessions. This weekend I'd like you to read Books Six and Seven of St.Augustine's  Confessions, available for pdf download here. (You can then put these on your e-readers.)

First, I'd like you to make one visual vocabulary list (ten words with definition and picture).

Second, I'd like you to create a chart of St.Augustine's change.

Finally, draw a separate rhetorical triangle for Book Six and Book Seven.

Your First Homework Assignment - Oh the Fun!

Please go to blogger before our next class and create a blog. Be sure to create your title based on the guidelines established today.

Come On In, The Words Are Fine

Welcome to AP Language and Composition. And yes, it's true: it's all a lie! You'll see what we mean by that soon, and then, your world will be upside-down, and everything will fit neatly into this triangle: