Month: October 2021

Halloween’s over, early Black Friday sales are here, so it’s time to get into the holiday spirit! With that in mind, please read and annotate Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” (you’ll receive it in your first class this week) and bring your annotated work to class Monday, Nov. 8 (A)/Tuesday, Nov. 9 (B), to serve as the springboard for a major group assignment. You’ll find instructions for annotating Swift here and, as always, in the Menu section along the left side of the blog. In addition to these basic annotation notes, you need to locate, highlight and label all parts of the Aristotelian argument. If it helps, here’s an audio book — and another, so you can pick your preference — that you can listen to as you read Swift’s work. Just MAKE SURE that you read along as you listen to make a connection between the written and spoken period language. Finally, you’ll find an Understanding Satire handout you’ll need to complete your annotation both here and under the menu section of the blog

Beyond this, we’ll work this week in class on your first synthesis essay (you’ll get the prompt in class), and we’ll conduct a special double-seminar session on Wednesday, Nov. 3 (A)/Thursday, Nov. 4 (B) to cover chapters 5-12 in Wu’s The Attention Merchants. Come to class with four HOTQs — two for Chapters 5-8 and two for Chapters 9-12 — ready to hand in. And this time, I’m grading them carefully, so make sure they’re real, relevant, and ready for inspection!

And with that…bye-bye, babies!

This week’s post is super brief, because you already know all the things!

First, make sure to complete all current AP Classroom assignments by midnight tonight (Sunday, 10. 17).

Second, we’ll meet in the library on Monday (A)/Tuesday (B) to refresh our database research skills. We’ll be in the library all period; you’ll spend the time time left after Miss Ivenskaya’s presentation to research your side of the pumpkin debate. Which I will assign in class.

Third, come to class Wednesday (A)/Thursday (B) having read chapters 1-4 of The Attention Merchants WITH YOUR HOTQs in your hot little hand, ready to turn in. We’ll spend the first half of class discussing the book; you’ll work in groups on next weeks pumpkin debate in the second half of class. Pro tip: Get the slides designed and started early; don’t wait until you’ve set your case.

Fourth, if you’re Team A Day, come ready with movie snacks and beverages for Friday; we’ll be screening a documentary that keeps our fall technology theme going.

That’s it! See you in class!

You can feel it in the air! As the temperature drops, fall storms move in, and leaves begin to turn, it’s time to kick off preparation for the 10th Annual Great BTWHSPVA Pumpkin Debate, which truly is — no snark — the best of times, the time every BTW student lives for, the time all other English students envy.  As we get started, it’s time to dust off  our argumentative “skeleton,” our classical Aristotelian argumentative structure, again, and dress it up with some more Required Writing Elements.  Then, you’ll work with a team to employ all this newfound knowledge for the first time, creating a response to the standing Great BTWHSPVA Annual Pumpkin Debate topic:

Should the beautiful pumpkins pictured below be allowed to live, pristine and untouched, to serve as a harbinger of the harvest season, or should it be carved into a Halloween jack-o’-lantern? Plot twist: You won’t get to select your side in this debate. You’ll select your team, then I’ll  assign your team a side to prepare. 

Brace yourself! It’s spooky how much your writing will improve once we beef up our argumentative approach and work on sentence structure!

This Week’s Assignments:

FIRST: Select your team (we’ll have a total of 6 in each class) and post the full names of every member, along with your class period, as a comment below.

SECOND: Working with your group, you’ll begin creating — and share with me next week — a Google slides deck covering all  parts of the Aristotelian argument, one slide per each part of the argument, complete with appropriate illustrations — for your assigned side. You’ll start by researching pumpkin facts and debate angles in class, but as a group, you’ll likely need to work outside of class to create a solid argument. You’ll also need to identify which team members will deliver which parts of your argument. Every team member needs to participate in the delivery of the debate. Further, you’ll need to be ready to cross-examine the other side in your debate AND be cross-examined by them. 

THIRD: You’ll bring your copy of Tim Wu’s The Attention Merchants to class for a book check on Monday, 10.11 (A)/Tuesday, 10.12 (B),  and our kick-off of our next major community seminar read. I’ll present the reading schedule in class so you’ll know week by week what’s due. For your first reading assignment with this book, you need to read the first four chapters by next Wednesday, 10.20 (A)/Thursday, 10.21 (B).

FOURTH: By midnight Sunday, 10.17, complete the  new assignments and videos in AP Classroom. Fair warning: if you miss this week’s deadline, you will receive only half credit for your work, and you’ll only have a few additional days to receive even that. This work is important exam prep. Get it done.

FIFTH: Celebrate by watching David S. Pumpkins and his skeleton friends do their thing. Still the best thing Halloween in a long while. And with that, you’ll have dropped the mic on another week in Lang.