Outside Reading- Book review

Holiday Books: Americana

By LEAH HAGER COHEN

 I found this book to be interesting because it is essential groundbreaking, groundbreaking in the sense that it is a picture book for adults. Apparently it is in response to editors cutting the number of children’s picture books, this cutting of books is due to the fact the parents are forcing their children o read chapter books sooner. The fear of stupidity is astounding.
As I read this review I kept looking for some critical analysis of it and I simply could not find it. This author says nothing bad about this book, nothing! I thought that book reviews where supposed to review the books strengths and weakness. All this critic does is go on and on about hoe great this book its, so thus I could not talk about the critical perspective in this review. With all of the talking this critic does I barely find any useful information about this book. The over all structure of this review was rather messy, and hard to follow, which took away from the actual merit of it. I would have like to have seen some actual critical views on this book, or at least a sturdy, flowing structure.
Even so the happy go lucky tone of this author is somewhat contagious to people, as she express her excitement for this book. Cohen continually praises this author’s tone and style, all of this excitement might transfer over to some readers, not to be thought. Over all I found this review to be rather useless and a poor representation of what a book review should be.

Outside Reading-Editorial Column week one December

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8966631.stm The search for a Middle East optimist By Wyre Davies BBC Middle East correspondent This column deals with the progression or the regression of the peace talks between Palestine and Israel. It also talks about the tension in Israel and the fight over this holy land, that almost very major religion has a stake in. While these features are prominent the main focus is on the people. Generally it focuses on how they really have no hope that these peace talks will work, and how violence will simply continue. This feeling seemed to be the general consensus for people of both countries. So Davies, the author of this column, sets out to find at least one person that is optimistic about the future of this nation state. In the opening of the piece, Davies starts in first person as he beings to retell his trip to the Middle East. By recanting his story in first person he is making an attempt to draw the readers into the story. By reciting his story in first poem he begins to build is narrative voice for the reader, thus allowing them to feel more attached to this story.  Davies is also quite descriptive when he describes the landscape of the Middle East as well as describing the people, yet another tool to draw the readers in. Davies focus on the feelings of these people, he portrays both sides of the story which makes it appeal to more people. The tone of the author is very strong in this piece he starts somewhat optimistic but then that optimism declines as he continues to tell his story. These tone change reflects the mood of the people he interviewed for this column. Overall the Davis tone is very strong and stable in its portrayal of him as a real person. While the tone is stable, the mood is not, but this changing mood only helps the author in this case.  His fluctuating mood help engage the reader; it makes them wonder what emotion is going to pop up next.  Although this shift in mood helps engage the reader it is also somewhat of a ‘downer’, but given the subject matter, the tone is appropriate. Luckily though Davis ended on a good note, one of optimist and hope, he had accomplished his goal. Overall this piece is very strong and well written, Davis uses tone and mood to convey the full meaning of the piece and thus creates a very moving column. As well written as it may be this piece is not suitable for an AP essay, only because it is in first person and not in the formal first.

Class Notes Week Seven 11/15-11/26



Ap Test Strategies

1. Know what you are supposed to do
2. Know your enemy!
3. Know yourself!

How to read passages:

• read over once
• go back and read more slowly
• DO EVERYTHING SLOWLY AND CAREFULLY!

Common Types of Questions
Rhetorical Function: explain the purpose of a sentence, group of sentences, whole paragraph, or line/stanza of poetry in relation to the rest of the piece. Ask what that section does.
Context: identify meaning of a word used in the context of a passage.
Antecedent:  mainly deals with syntax-grammar; asks which antecedent the quoted word is referring to
Style: choices author has made
Tone: identify tone of passage

Hamlet



• Based on a Norse legend composed by Saxo Grammaticus, Latin 1200 AD
• Gesia Danorum or history of the Danes. Hamlet comes from books 3 and 4
• Hamlet is a revenge tragedy( revenge tragedies also know as tragedy of blood)

Tragedy

• Tragedy- an imitation of a single undefined action.
• Deals with the fall of a good, believable and consistent character

Plot May Include:

• Hero hesitation
• hero insanity (pretend or not)
• hero contemplates suicide
• multiple levels of intrigue
• able scheming villian abundance of philosophical siloques
• death



Class Notes Week Six 10/25-10/29

Drama

• Drama is to be preformed, not read
• presents action
• through actors
• on stage
• before an audience
• Soliloquy- the act of speaking alone or to oneself
• Aside-when characters turn from the person to whom they are talking and speak directly to the audience
• Dramatic Conventions-a set of rules which the participant or audience and actor are both engaged in, they are usually set up within the drama/play and are used throughout all drama and theater.
• Chorus-a company of actors who comment (by speaking or singing in unison) on the action in a classical Greek play
• Narrator-A narrator is, within any story (literary work, movie, play, verbal account, etc.), the person who conveys the story to the audience
• Tragedy-the main character is brought to ruin or otherwise suffers the extreme consequences of some tragic flaw or weakness of character;
• Comedy- light and humorous drama with a happy ending
• catharsis-A release of emotional tension after an overwhelming vicarious experience, resulting in the purging or purification of the emotions
• hamartia-tragic flaw: the character flaw or error of a tragic hero that leads to his downfall
• melodrama-A kind of drama having a musical accompaniment to intensify the effect of certain scenes
• farce- comedy characterized by broad satire and improbable situations
• Non realistic drama- Drama that, in content, presentation, or both, departs markedly from fidelity to the outward appearances of life
• Realistic Drama-Drama that attempts, in content and in presentation, to preserve the illusion of actual, everyday life
• Romantic comedy-light-hearted, humorous plot lines, centered on romantic ideals such as a true love able to surmount most obstacles
• Foil characters- a character who contrasts with another character

Class Notes- Week Five 10/11-10/22

Tone: the writer's or the speaker's attitude toward the subject, the reader, or themselves

Voice: belongs to narrator

Style: belongs to author

(Rhythm and Meter- Chapter 12)

Rhythm: any wavelike recurrence of motion or sound

Accented/Stressed Syllables:  when one or more syllables are given more prominence in pronunciation than the rest

Rhetorical Stresses: things we use to make our intentions clear

Run-On-Line: The sense of the line moves without pause on into the next line

End-Stopped Line: the ending of the line corresponds with a natural speech pause

Caesuras: pauses that occur within lines, either grammatical or rhetorical; resource for varying the rhythm of lines

Free Verse: predominating type of poetry

Prose Poem: depends entirely on ordinary prose rhythms

Rhythm: designated the flow of actual, pronounced sound

Meter: identifying characteristics of rhythmic language

Foot: basic unit of meter, normally one accented syllable plus one or two unaccented syllables

Metrical Variations: calls attention to some of the sounds because they depart from what is normal

Substitution: Replacing the regular foot with another one

Extra-metrical Syllables: added at the beginnings or endings of line

Truncation: the omission of one or more unaccented syllables at the beginning or the end of a line of verse

Scansion: the analysis and visual representation of a poem's metrical pattern

Grammatical and Rhetorical Pause: punctuated pauses that are longer than commas

Chapter 13-Sound and Meaning

Onomatopoeia:  the use of words which sound like what they mean (ex. hiss, snap, bang)

Phonetic Intensives: group of words whose sound connects with their meaning to some degree

Euphony:  smooth and pleasant sounding

Cacophony: Rough and harsh sounding

Chapter 14- Pattern

Structure: arrangement of sentences thoughts, ideas, and images.

Form: External Pattern

Stanzaic Form: poet uses a series of stanzas; repeated units having the same number of lines

Fixed Form: traditional pattern that applies to a whole poem

Limerick: the pattern aabba, freely allows the use of a substitute foot for the first foot in any line; mainly used for humor and nonsense verse

Sonnet: must be 14 lines long, les rigid then the limerick; almost always is iambic pentameter, either in Italian or English

 Italian or Petrarchan Sonnet:  divided between eight lines (octave) using two or three rhymes using two rhymes arranged abbaabba and six lines (sestet) using any arrangement of either two or three rhymes cdcdcd and cdecde.

English (Shakespearean) Sonnet: three quatrains and a concluding couplet, rhyming abab cdcd efef gg. Units are marked off by the thymes and the development of the thought

Villanelle: complex pattern of repetition and rhyme; two rhyme sounds; 19 lines are divided into five three-line stanzas and a four-line concluding quatrain; varies stress patterns and the meaning of the repeated lines



Class Notes- Week Four Oct 4-8

Week Four

Perrine Reading

Chapter 8-Allusions

• Allusion- reference to something in history or previous literature
• Titles can be allusions
• Allusions can be dangerous, not everyone may know to what you are referring.
• Many come from the Bible

Chapter 9- Meaning and Idea

• Total meaning- experience it communicates
• Prose meaning- ‘ingredient’ of a poem that can be separated out\
• Prose meaning will not necessarily or perhaps even usually be an idea
• There may not always be a message
• Value of a poem is not so much on truth of an idea, as it is on the power to which it is communicated

Ap Test

Two Sections actual test and a writing portion.

• 50-55 multiple choice questions
• Look more at style then symbols
• Always ask why author does this
• Need to study vocab
• Have two hours for essays and one hour for multiple choice
• Three open response essays
• A closed reading section

The Critical Approaches and Test

• Feminism- Examines women’s roles and the treatment of women in literature.  Focuses on gender stereotypes, differences between males and females, as well as power struggles between the two genders.
• Archetypal and Mythological- Focuses on myths
• mythological= human nature, religion, culture, and history
• archetypal= universally well-known themes from myths
• Psychoanalytical-Literary texts, like dreams, express the secret unconscious desires and anxieties of the author. About what author didn’t intend.
• Formalism-Focuses on literary tools and devices used in a text. Author uses literary elements to present point. 
• Postcolonial- Concerned with postcolonial texts. Looks at issues of power, economics, politics, religion, and culture. Analyzes changes as a result of colonialism and its end
• New Historicism- Looks at the historical context and implications of the piece. Utilizes historical influence author’s background, and social background to draw conclusions.
• Marxist-Society is made up of 2 parts: base (economic structure) and the superstructure (everything else). Provides an angle on literature that analyzes the economic, and resulting social situations in a story. Class Struggle.  

Class Notes- Week Three Sep 27 - Oct 1

Week Three

The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing

• Syntax: The arrangement of words in a sentence
• Being verbs=passive
• Intransitive verbs= more active
• Transitive verbs= most active
• Syntax can set the tone, the speed, or it can emphasize certain areas.
• The construction and length of these sentences determines the factors listed above
• Fan Boys (For, and, nor, but, or, yet, so)
• Subordinating Conjunctions- a conjunction that connects subordinate words, phrases, or clauses to some other sentence element(ex. if, as, so, unless, although, when)
• Compound Sentence- sentence of two or more coordinate independent clauses, often joined by a conjunction or conjunctions
• Complex Sentence- has one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses
• Simple Sentence- A sentence having no coordinate or subordinate clauses
• Independent Clause- A group of words made up of a subjectand a predicate. An independent clause can stand alone as a sentence.

Clarity

• be clear in thoughts and words- say what you mean
• rely on good strong verbs, don’t always lean towards formal
• keep major aspects clear

The Plain Style  

• Don’t always need to write formally, but you should never rely on plain style
• Find a voice and stick with it
• Don’t fear plainness, sometimes it makes for a better essay

Concision

• Avoid being to ‘wordy’
•  A few strong verbs are better then lots of weak ones
• Use an active voice not a passive voice,
• be suspicious of adverbs
• cut out empty words and phrases

Rhetoric

• simple can be the best choice sometimes
• parallelism, done well, can add grace and power to a passage
• repetition drives home an idea
• don't change tenses in a writing
• the rule of three
•  easy on the humor

Class Notes- Week Two Sep 20-24

Week Two

Similes:is a figure of speech that indirectly compares two different things by employing conjunctions
Metaphors: figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them
Personification: A figure of speech in which animals or inanimate objects are endowed with human qualities
Apostrophe: A figure of speechin which some absent or nonexistent person or thing is addressed as if present and capable of understanding.
Synecdoche: A figure of speechin which a part is used to represent the whole (for example, ABCs for alphabet) or the whole for a part
Metonymy: figure of speechin which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated
Dead Metaphors: A figure of speechthat has lost its force and imaginative effectiveness through frequent use.
Symbol: Something that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention, especially a material object used to represent something invisible
Allegory: The representation of abstract ideas or principles by characters, figures, or events in narrative, dramatic, or pictorial form
Paradox: A seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true
Overstatement: exaggeration in the service of truth
Understatement: saying less than one means (example: That looks nice.)
Irony- the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning   

• Verbal Irony: A contradiction of expectation between what is said and what is meant
• Dramatic Irony: irony that is inherent in speeches or a situation of a drama and is understood by the audience but not grasped by the characters in the play.
• Situational Irony: An occasion in which the outcome is significantly different from what was expected or considered appropriate. See also:

Sarcasm: a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain
Satire: a literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit

Rhetorical

 Rhetoric is the art of communication"-Aristotle

Argument

1. Ethos – convincing by the character of the author. We tend to believe people whom we respect.
2. Pathos- means persuading by appealing to the reader's emotions.
3. Logos-  means persuading by the use of reasoning.

Elements Of reasoning

1. Thesis
2. Claims: the topic sentences of your body paragraphs
3. Warrants: Warrants: the explanation of your reasoning that ties your evidence to your claims
4. Evidence: the facts that support your claims 

Class Notes-Weak One Sep13-17

,Week One

• Poetry - language that is condensed to an artist effect.

·Diction- Choice and use of words in speech or writing

• Denotation - refers to the literal meaning of a word, the "dictionary definition."
• Connotation - refers to the associations that are connected to a certain word or the emotional suggestions related to that word.

Concrete vs. abstraction  

clothes                            pants                         jeans                                   Levis 

<-------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------->

Abstracts                                                                                                                     Concrete 

• after a certain point, being so specific becomes absurd. 

·Precision- The state or quality of being precise; exactness

Elevation vs. Colloquialism 

Slang                    Colloquial                           Elevated                 Epic diction

ß-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------à

            Informal                                                                                                   Formal

• dialect - a form of a language spoken in a particular geographical area or by members of a particular social class or occupational group, distinguished by its vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation
• Jargon-  language that is specific to a profession 
• Regionalism - A certain form of speech or phrases that are specific to a specific area

Class Notes- Outside Reading Book Review

Class Notes- Outside Reading Editorial Column

Myth and Madness

By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: September 18, 2010

Type: editorial columns

My first reaction to this article was that the author Maureen Dowd, seems terrible cynical and sarcastic. But at the same time Dowd keep the piece formal to an extent, it was formal enough that I believe that it would be accepted on the Ap exam. First off the author never slipped into first person, she never let that wall come down. She never waivered in her tone, all through the piece it had a base tone, with a few extra spices thrown in here and there. So all through out her pice she was consistent in tone, topic, and wording, and being consistent makes for an Ap paper.
Since Dowd never slipped out of 3^rdperson it made her sound sophisticated, while the quotes she used to bash political figures where all in first person. By doing so it made them seem less knowledgeable, less certified for the job. But then again it wasn’t very hard to do when she picked quotes that had them comparing themselves to myths and fairy tales. By using such quotes she paints a picture of these political figures, that it isn’t very flattering at all. It makes them seem childish and not exactly connected to the real world. When potential voters read this article they may be turned off by the child like nature portrayed here, which seems to be exactly her intent. Because who really wants your representative in government to be comparing themselves to fictional characters. As a voter that would be me somewhat nervous.
The nice thing about this piece is that the author is very constant which helps create and solidify her voice. To keep such a sarcastic and somewhat mocking voice she uses embarrassing quotes and somewhat humor and mocking phrases such as, “cited another fantasy world to conjure up a Christ like image for the Tea Party.” Or “She might have gone a broom too far, though.” To sum it up I believe that this article is worthy of the Ap exam, her tone was consistent, as was her writing style. All of these parts make for a good strong article which this piece clearly is.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/opinion/19dowd.html?ref=maureendowd

Class Notes- Outside Reading Essay

Footprint Fossils Offer Earliest Evidence of Dinosaurs’ Ancestors
By Kenneth Chang

This essay is about the find of new dinosaur fossils, or more of footprints. All thought no actual bones have been found the scientists are optimistic, this optimism seems to have rubbed off on the author and his choice of tone. All thought any finding of fossils is exiting, what is special about these fossils is that they are older then any other fossils we have on record. These footprints where found in a quarry in Poland and these foots print are able to trace the lineage of dinosaurs.
When reading this article I wasn’t surprised to find the tone that Kenneth Chang adopted was a formal one. Since it is an essay it should be formal, or at least in my opinion. By keeping it formal the author gains credibility. The first way Mr. Chang accomplishes this is by always staying in 3^rdperson, he never slips down into the other two, which makes for a smooth consistent essay. The tone he uses also seems very informative and somewhat exited by the findings in this article, which any one interested in fossils would be exited because they had just found fossil older then any they had ever seen. By keeping this interested tone, it helps engage and interest the reader, but he doesn’t get overly exited or else it might make the reader warily. Because when someone is overly exited, we begging to wonder if something is wrong with them, or there trying to sell something.  By keeper a formal, professional tone it helps make the readers trust him, it makes us believe that he knows what hes taking about, which he mostly likely does. But by also keeping the excitement it helps us from falling asleep, there is a thin line for interested and engaged to warily and unsure for any reader. Although this author is able to walk the line fairly well. By keeping such a consistent and formal tone, that remains in third person it seems to me that is piece would work for an Ap Exam.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/science/07dinosaurs.html?ref=science