Finalizing your Synthesis Essay Prompt Creation

Welcome to class AP scholars!  For today, you will be working on the following:

1.  Finding additional sources to go with the synthesis prompt you created last night.  Be sure that, though you should have at least one visual/graphic source, you do not have more than two.  You should find newspaper or magazine articles with relevant info. for your topic choice.  The sources you find should offer balance, so that a person writing in response could write to support either position in the argument.

To get a sense of the types of sources used in the synthesis essay, go to the AP central website and have a look at the sources provided for the prompts from 2012-2008.   

http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/Controller.jpf

2.  Next, create a Pages document where you will type in your created synthesis essay prompt.  Try to follow a format similar to the one used by the AP.    Now that you have gathered your sources, list and attach a link for each of them at the bottom of your created prompt.  Be sure to list the sources the same way the AP does, with Source A (Fitzgerald), Source B (Lee), etc.  

Please email me your created prompt with sources.  I hope to have this by the end of the class period from each of you.  If not, please have it to me by this evening.

3.  Once you are done, you have time to work on other homework or study your schemes and tropes (no quiz currently scheduled, just a good idea to study and practice those).

Synthesis Prompt Analysis & Creation

Today, we analyzed the synthesis prompts that have been given in the past.  We talked about concentration on the intended response and how to assess what the prompt is asking.

For homework, each of you should create your own synthesis prompt, looking to prompts of the past for ideas and guidance as far as setup.  Additionally, you should find 2 sources to go along with your prompt.

We briefly looked at the past synthesis essay sources on AP Central.

I strongly suggest you look at these past test examples for guidance.

Examine these sources for the use of schemes and tropes

Analyze TWO of the following sources for schemes, tropes, and other rhetorical devices used by this speaker.  Finally, examine and explain the intended impact, and if this speaker was successful in achieving his/her purpose, in your opinion.

Ted Kennedy's Eulogy at his brother, Robert Kennedy's funeral

Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address

John Steinbeck's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, 1962

Annie Dillard's "Write Till You Drop"

"We are Virginia Tech" remarks by Nikki Giovanni, professor at VT and acclaimed author

Mary Fisher's AIDS address at the 1992 Republican National Convention

Schemes and Tropes

For the remainder of this week, we will be talking about schemes and tropes.
Use this PDF to organize your notes about these various figures of rhetoric discussed in Everyday Use, ch. 3, pp. 79-85
Schemes and Tropes

Round 3 of presentations

In preparation for the presentations, please read one selection from each group below.  Fill in the "upcoming presentations" wksts., due tomorrow prior to the presentations.
Note: You do not need to read an article from your own section, if you are presenting.  You will need to read an article for the other presentation.

Mid-19th century writers
Mark Twain "Concerning Tobacco"
Frederick Douglass "The End of All Compromises with Slavery-- Now and Forever"
Harriet Jacobs "The Loophole of Retreat"


Feminist Writers of the 19th century
Charlotte Perkins Gilman "Why Women Do Not Reform their Dress"
Margaret Fuller "American Literature; Its Position in the Present Time, and Prospects for the Future"
Elizabeth Cady Stanton's speech "Solitude of Self" (read first two pages of speech)


Late 19th century writers
Thomas Carlyle's "Signs of the Times"
Charles Darwin "The Descent of Man" (read ch. 1, pages 1-3)
Oscar Wilde The Picture of Dorian Gray (read the preface to this book)
Thomas Macaulay quotes

Round 2 of presentations

In preparation for the presentations, please read one selection from each group below.  Fill in the "upcoming presentations" wksts., due tomorrow prior to the presentations.
Note: You do not need to read an article from your own section, if you are presenting.  You will need to read an article for the other presentations.

Rationalist writers of the 18th century
Thomas Jefferson's "Dialogue Between my Head and my Heart" (read first six paragraphs)
Ben Franklin's Autobiography excerpt
Ben Franklin's 13 virtues
Mary Wollstonecraft's "The Wrongs of Women"
Thomas Paine's Common Sense excerpt

Romantic writers & Transcendentalists of the 19th century
Ralph Waldo Emerson "Friendship" essay
Henry David Thoreau quotes
Matthew Arnold's "Calais Sands"
Charles Lamb's "Death Bed"

Prep. for Upcoming Presentations

Welcome to class today!  Thank you for coming with your contemporary connections planning notes today.  I will be checking them tomorrow at the start of class, and we will discuss the essay further.

Also tomorrow, presentations will begin.  Review the handout to be sure you are fully prepared.

As we will be going chronologically through our authors, our first presenters will be Mikki, Johnea, Nick, Maci, Makenna, Brooke, & Connor R.

In preparation for the presentations, please read one selection from each group below.  Fill in the "upcoming presentations" wksts., due tomorrow prior to the presentations.
Note: You do not need to read an article from your own section, if you are presenting.  You will need to read an article for the other presentation.

Renaissance writers:
Sir Thomas More
"Of Pride and Envy" (only read the "pride" OR "envy" section)
Francis Bacon
"Of Death"

Early 18th century writers:
Joseph Addison & Richard Steele
Articles from "The Spectator" and "The Tatler" (it is suggested you read just one article per author)
"Genius" by Addison
Jonathan Swift
"An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity" (read paragraphs 1-10)
Thomas Hobbes
DeCive ch. 2 "Of the Law of Nature Concerning Contracts" (read I, II, and III)
Samuel Pepys
Read a diary extract from Pepys from the years 1660-1669 (just one year)