What did you talk about in group guidance?

What questions, stresses, etc., do you have about college or work next year?  Talk it over with a partner.


Make sure you have read "Shitty First Drafts"; and, slight change of plans, you do not need to read  "A Lesson in Advanced Misplacement" for Friday, since I want to devote Friday to working on your first draft of your college essay.

Find two lines that you thought contained good or surprising insights about writing.  What advice does she give and why?

Let's take a look at Liz Dengel's essay and then I want you to write your own shitty first draft.

Syllabus sheet 
Comp notebook

Homework: Bring something you read this summer: a book from the LT reading list is ideal, but if you did not read one of those, bring in something else you read this summer or have started reading recently (like this weekend!)

Today's agenda

• Hand in college writing prompt (5 points)

• In-class writing sample # 1 (10 points)

Tomorrow: Report directly to the Reber Center for Group Guidance. Bring your LT ID for scanning in for attendance purposes.

Homework for Friday, August 26:
Make sure you have read "Shitty First Drafts"; and, slight change of plans, you do not need to read  "A Lesson in Advanced Misplacement" for Friday, since I want to devote Friday to working on your first draft of your college essay.

Is there a Survey Monkey LT password?
Check L-team sign-up email.

1st period did not even start "It's A Woman World"

Have Charlie and Kelley MacDonald exchange textbooks; 

keep these textbooks in locker until further notice 

"Who I am" sharing

Finish reviewing syllabus

"We are defined by what we forget."

What do you think this means?

1st period: read the poem, and then get their responses.

What is another set of lines or a stanza that you found intriguing? Why? 

What word choices captured your attention?
What do notice about the structure of the poem? 

Share “Who I Am” w small group and class

Discuss Woman’s World or Home Burial

Found in Translation

 Oscar Guzman, Swarthmore College / Jones College Prep

You are no less than them," my tia Nancy would say. My aunt was also my grammar school tutor and the first in the Guzman family to attend college. Not only did she lecture me academically, but she also transformed me into a real Guzman, an individual with dreams. Thanks to my aunt's support, I was the top student in my class, receiving straight A report cards. When I started attending a magnet high school, I began to travel 45 minutes outside of my neighborhood. The transition of environments consisted of numerous changes.

For the past four years of my high school life, I have beaten myself to the ground, making sure that I obtain passing grades and proving myself capable of climbing the highest mountains.

I am more than a number. That's why a test score was not going to prevent me from obtaining my goals. What hurt the most was not the discouragement provided by my college counselor from applying to selective colleges. Instead, it was her proposal to stop speaking Spanish at home. To her, my language was a barrier to success.

To this day, I have never viewed the Spanish language as a fence. Instead, I have seen it as a linguistic beauty that has been passed down in the family for generations. It has been a language that defines who I am, and I was not going to let a counselor remove my identity. Even though I disagreed with her thoughts, they still affected me. Her thoughts forced me to question, "Will having learned Spanish as a first language affect my future goals? How about my children?"

For the past 18 years, I have encountered many obstacles. People have undermined my potential for not portraying the image of the "American" person, for not reacting to issues in the same manner or solely for not speaking the English language. The main point to this issue is that I have always been capable of doing these things; the difference is that since birth, my ideas and interests are different, causing me to look at the world from a different perspective.

On April 28, 2003, my aunt Nancy delivered her first baby boy, Adrian Villafranca. It has been over two years since his birth and his first language is Spanish. As I look at Adrian's face every time I visit him, I think about the struggles that he will encounter as he grows. He will face discouragement, racism and hate. Adrian will experience these injustices simply because of the color of his skin and the culture that he was born into. I know that I will do the same for Adrian

as his mother did for me, I will teach him how to appreciate the unique and beautiful culture that surrounds him every day. As a Mexican-American, he will have to carry a great cargo like I've done for the past 18 years, and I wish him a lucky passage.

While Adrian joyously dances around the pastel-colored walls surrounding his room, I quickly realize what an innocent little boy he is, a boy unaware of the mountains that await him. In my heart, I know that he will climb them.

Love it or leave it

 Liz Dengel, Princeton / Oak Park and River Forest H.S.

In October of my freshman year, I had to take a standardized career compatibility test. I remember a feeling of dread in my stomach as I sat at my desk in homeroom and bubbled in my name. I was giving information to the enemy.

 I had devoured as much theater as possible during the previous two years. I was working to build my own identity and to forge my own path in the world. That page of Scantron bubbles threatened all of my soul-searching. I did not want to know what the testing agency thought I should do with my life. I did not want my aspirations to be undermined by the conclusions of a computer program. For a brief moment, I considered filling my sheet with inaccuracies. When my teacher started the timer, though, I found myself answering honestly. Old habits die hard.

The envelope with the results arrived in my mailbox six weeks later. On the wheel of career options, I had tied in two categories on opposite poles. My relief was boundless. The inconclusive results were the best for which I could have hoped.

My favorite quotation is a Chinese proverb: "Love what you do, and you will never work a day in your life." I had taken the freshman standardized test too seriously. It was meant only to give me ideas about career possibilities that I might some day love, but I perceived the trap of an arranged marriage. I did not want to decide on a sensible career now and hope that I would learn to love it later.

I have carried this proverb with me through every career counseling session and every college information night I have since attended. When helpful high school counselors make prudent suggestions about my future, I thank them, smile politely, and remind myself that choosing a path is a matter of love.

As long as I love what I am doing, its difficulty is insignificant. Fifteen minutes of biology homework always felt like an eternity, but 15 hours of writing flies by in a breath. Ten seconds of swimming is 10 seconds too much, but 10 weeks of dance is a gift. If I have to wait tables in order to pay the rent before I go to rehearsal, then those 16 hours of work will leave me more fulfilled than a 9-to-5 life ever could. As the poet once said, "Money can't buy me love."

In the same way that my ribs feel a little lighter when I enter a theater, I find myself breathing more easily on the Princeton campus. I know the Princeton curriculum is rigorous, but I also believe I will find more to love passionately at Princeton than at any other university. Hours spent sleeping would feel like wasted time in a place where there is so much to see and to know. Four years of inspiration would feel like no work at all.

Look at college admissions letters. Discuss ethos, pathos, logos, and diction.

How do you want to present yourself in a college application letter? Who is your audience?

Review Syllabus

Time Permitting: Can You Hear Me Now ppt

HW: Bring your chosen college essay prompt for tomorrow, August 24, (to leave with me)
and 
in the reading packet you received yesterday,
read A lesson in Advanced Mis-Placement
and 

Shitty First Drafts for Friday, August 26.

Welcome to class and my blog (I generally use this instead of Canvas)

4AP periods 1 and 7
3AP Periods 2, 5, 6
Planning periods and lunch: 3, 4A and 8

Attendance...please let me know if I mispronounce your name or if you go by a nickname

Intro/my background

• Undergrad
• Grad
• Professional - Envirnomental and Teaching
• Daughter is an LT grad
• Summer

Hand out textbooks...please write the number of the textbook on the sheet that is going around the room

Begin syllabus review...please have signed by 8/26 

Save everything you write in this class for purpose of self-assessment activities throughout semester/year

How to Speak Rhetoric Composition notebook...please have by 8/26

Hand out “Who I Am” sheet

College admissions letter. How do they establish ethos? To what extent do they rely on pathos? What about logos?

Homework:  Due 8/23: Complete “Who I Am” graphic for tomorrow. Attach a copy of a picture of yourself if you have one. 

Due  Wed., 8/24: Pick an essay prompt from a prospective school you are considering or from the common app. (You can find these online) Handwrite the prompt on a sheet of paper. (5 points) 

Finish independent learning presentations!!

If you are taking the final exam for this class, it will be like the 1st semester final exam ( a rhetorical analysis essay), but you will not have the same text options to choose from. You will be presented with two other options.  Below is the prompt:

Directions:

Choose one of the following pieces to write about. You should write a well organized and insightful five to six paragraph essay analyzing how the writer uses rhetorical elements and strategies to develop his/her argument/point(s).  Avoid mere plot summary; make sure that you articulate what the author’s main argument(s)/point(s) are and how he or she uses specific rhetorical elements/strategies to develop the argument(s). Make sure to use some textual evidence – generally, short quotes embedded into the flow of your sentences – to support your analysis.  A reminder: while reading the piece and working on your essay, you may wish to consider the devices we studied this semester, which include but are not limited to the following:

Tone/Mood

Imagery

Allusions

Organization and Structure

Syntactical Patterns (parallel structure, repetition, antithesis, sentence length and style/arrangement)

Diction (word choice)

Figurative Language (metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole, understatement)

Selection of details

Use of examples/analogies

Use of Comparison/contrast

Irony

Rhetorical Appeals (ethos, logos, pathos)

Please turn in items in the following order:

·        Your rhetorical analysis essay

·        This sheet

Annotated copy of piece

Period 7 files and links


Period 8 files

Paul's project

Period 7: Independent Learning Presentations

May 16

Becca

Alison

Maiya

Jack

Tara

            Vicky

            Albert

May 17

            Kay

            Niko

            Brandon

            Jacob

            Lara

            Lyrick

            John

May 18

            Stephanie

            Nick

            Kyle

            Emily

            Ben

May 19

Brenden


Period 8: Independent Learning Presentations


May 16

Maddie
Alexis
Frannie
Claudia
Paul
Erica
Sarah

May 17

Michael
Sam 
Dan
Griffin
Kim
Maeve
Morgan

May 18

Marina
Cullen
Emilio
Rachel
George
Isaac
Colin