Due Diligence Reaps Rewards

Tomorrow is my birthday, which means that I am working vigorously today so that I can relax tomorrow. I'm at home upgrading computer software, cleaning the house, doing laundry, making a powerpoint for the DDC meeting Monday morning, writing lesson plans and sub plans for Monday (because I will be at a Yearbook workshop with two of my Yearbook students that day), grading assignments, and tending to other random details of life that linger on my continual to-do list.

After Crossfit this morning and all of the productivity at home I'm tired and would love to just watch Hulu (now that I have upgraded it!), and veg on the couch. But I have to work. Tomorrow, on my birthday, I will relax and enjoy the day with my friends. But today, I must work so that I can fully relax tomorrow.

So, why the Flanecdote? Well, that is what life is about if you want to be successful AND happy. You have to put in the hours, put in the time, make the effort, before you can relax and enjoy the time off that you have earned. And then do it all again.

It is exhausting. But extremely rewarding.

As you begin working on your book reports I want you to consider that the work you will be putting in will pay off. There is nothing like delving deeply into a book. Please don't be the student from the Onion article "Girl Moved to Tears By Of Mice and Men Cliff's Notes". Do yourselves a favor and actually relish in this ancient form of entertainment - reading. You will gain so much from this project if you remain open-minded and really find the relevance in the reading. It's all about perspective and will.

For those of you that have yet to find a book - don't fret. Find a book from any of the below author's. Kik or email me your book choice asap, and I will let you know if it is available/appropriate.

AP Language and Composition Author List:

Pre-20th Century
Joseph Addison, Matthew Arnold, Francis Bacon, James Boswell, Thomas Carlyle, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Jean de Crèvecoeur, Charles Darwin, Thomas De Quincey, Frederick Douglass, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Benjamin Franklin, Margaret Fuller, Edward Gibbon, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, William Hazlitt, Thomas Hobbes, Harriet Jacobs (Linda Brent), Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Johnson, Charles Lamb, John Locke, Thomas Macaulay, Niccolò Machiavelli, John Stuart Mill, John Milton, Michel de Montaigne, Thomas More, Thomas Paine, Francis Parkman, Walter Pater, Samuel Pepys, John Ruskin, George Bernard Shaw, Richard Steele, Jonathan Swift, Henry David Thoreau, Alexis de Tocqueville, Oscar Wilde, Mary Wollstonecraft

20th Century to the Present
Edward Abbey, Diane Ackerman, James Agee, Paula Gunn Allen, Roger Angell, Natalie Angier, Gloria Anzaldúa, Hannah Arendt, Michael Arlen, Margaret Atwood, James Baldwin, Dave Barry, Melba Patillo Beals, Simone de Beauvoir, Lerone Bennett Jr ., Wendell Berry, Sven Birkerts, Susan Bordo, Jacob Bronowski, David Brooks, William F . Buckley, Judith Butler, Rachel Carson, G . K . Chesterton, Winston Churchill, Kenneth Clark, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Jill Ker Conway, Arlene Croce, Richard Dawkins, Vine Deloria Jr ., Daniel Dennett, Jared Diamond, Joan Didion, Annie Dillard, Maureen Dowd, Elizabeth Drew, W . E . B . Du Bois, Leon Edel, Gretel Ehrlich, Loren Eiseley, Richard Ellmann, Nora Ephron, Niall Ferguson, Timothy Ferris, M . F . K . Fisher, Frances Fitzgerald, Janet Flanner (Genêt), Tim Flannery, Shelby Foote, Richard Fortey, John Hope Franklin, Antonia Fraser, Thomas L . Friedman, Paul Fussell, John Kenneth Galbraith, Mavis Gallant, Henry Louis Gates Jr ., Atul Gawande, Ellen Goodman, Nadine Gordimer, Stephen Jay Gould, Stephanie Elizondo Griest, David Halberstam, Elizabeth Hardwick, Elva Trevino Hart, Chris Hedges, John Hersey, Christopher Hitchens, Edward Hoagland, Richard Holmes,
bell hooks, Zora Neale Hurston, Pauline Kael, Evelyn Fox Keller, Helen Keller, George Kennan, Jamaica Kincaid, Martin Luther King Jr ., Barbara Kingsolver, Maxine Hong Kingston, Naomi Klein, Paul Krugman, Alex Kuczynski, Lewis H . Lapham, T . E . Lawrence, Aldo Leopold, Gerda Lerner, Andy Logan, Philip Lopate, Barry Lopez, Norman Mailer, Nancy Mairs, Peter Matthiessen, Mary McCarthy, Frank McCourt, Bill McKibben, John McPhee, Margaret Mead, H . L . Mencken, Jessica Mitford, N . Scott Momaday, Jan Morris, John Muir, Donald M . Murray, V . S . Naipaul, Geoffrey Nunberg, Joyce Carol Oates, Barack Obama, Tillie Olsen, Susan Orlean, George Orwell, Cynthia Ozick, Steven Pinker, Francine Prose, David Quammen, Arnold Rampersad, Ishmael Reed, Rick Reilly, David Remnick, Adrienne Rich, Mordecai Richler, Richard Rodriguez, Sharman Apt Russell, Carl Sagan, Edward Said, Scott Russell Sanders, George Santayana, Simon Schama, Arthur M . Schlesinger, David Sedaris, Richard Selzer, Leslie Marmon Silko, Barbara Smith, Red Smith, Susan Sontag, Shelby Steele, Lincoln Steffens, Ronald Takaki, Paul Theroux, Lewis Thomas, George Trevelyan, Calvin Trillin, Barbara Tuchman, Cynthia Tucker, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, John Updike, Gore Vidal, Alice Walker, Jonathan Weiner, Eudora Welty, Cornel West, E . B . White, George Will, Terry Tempest Williams, Garry Wills, E . O . Wilson, Edmund Wilson, Tom Wolfe, Virginia Woolf, Richard Wright, Malcolm X, Anzia Yezierska 

A Sense of Urgency With a Splash of Humility

Language has always fascinated me. As a species we have evolved beyond other species mainly because of our opposable thumbs and our extensive language/communication skills. I have always enjoyed writing and conversing because through communication we come to better understand ourselves and our world, and grow and evolve as individuals and as a society/culture. 

I recently sensed a great deal of hesitation amongst my AP Lang students as we transitioned from rhetorical analysis to argumentation. They are so worried about being wrong or sounding stupid, when all they have to do is explore their ideas and think critically. 

I have provided them with academic language lists and organizational structures, now they just need to be curious. They need to think about the essay prompt with a sense of relevance to their world and society as a whole.

What I told one student as she lamented over the timed writing to be done the next day .... 

"Education is a process. I'M still learning. Everyday. 'She who knows, knows that she know nothing at all.' Think about it as growth rather than needing to be perfect tomorrow. No one is perfect. There is always room for improvement! .... No one has all of the right answers! That is why we, as a society, continue to question, explore, and invent! We grow as a society because we are naturally curious. We explore and question our world in order to figure things out. This essay is a chance to explore and figure things out. Think of it as an opportunity to engage and question life."

In their writing and speaking skills, I want my students to be academic, thorough, and descriptive, but I also want them to be engaged, creative, and thoughtful. I want my students to want to question the text and explore, not just answer the prompt dryly and regurgitate sentence stems. I want my students to want to gain more knowledge rather than thinking of essays and projects as a chore or some kind of torture. 

In the end I just want them to understand the art of rhetoric and see how they can use it (for good or evil); I want them to be able to argue a position no matter their actual opinion of the topic; I want them to question things and never live in ignorance or apathy. 

Those may be some lofty goals, but I've got hope! #MakeHopeHappen #Teacherlife #APLang

P.S. For my scholars....

Extra Credit ---- Answer any or all of the following questions in one complete AXES paragraph (one AXES paragraph per question)

1. Find the paragraph of antithesis and/or juxtaposition. Why/how is it effective?
2. Find the anaphora. Why/how is it effective?
3. The Wittgenstein quote is an appeal to ___________ (Hint: logical fallacy)
4. Find the allusion. Why/how is it effective?
5. Does Ms. F have enough ethos to be persuasive? Explain