On Tuesday, we met to discuss Rebeca Solnit's The Faraway Nearby, to familiarize ourselves with approaches to rhetorical analysis, and to practice some of the learning activities we'll use throughout the year.
Those of you who did not attend the seminar need to read the brief summaries and share a Google Document with me (jcook@gloucester.k12.ma.us) in which you address the prompts in italics below.
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In the first hour we completed a 3-2-1 entry ticket (see below) and then conducted a whole class Socratic Seminar addressing the question, "How does the way a text is written (and organized) contribute to its argument?" This is the key question for the beginning of the year in AP English Language and Composition. It is the key question of "rhetorical analysis," which means understanding what argument is being made and how the argument is being made. This is something we will do over and over and over again in response to dozens of texts (memoirs, novels, plays, personal essays, political speeches, social satires, advertisements, magazine articles, letters, etc.)
Those of you who were not here on Tuesday need to complete the "3-2-1 entry ticket" in the Google Doc you share with me. Use your first name and last initial at the beginning of the post.
Write down three (3) specific parts of the book that you think are necessary to understand in order to understand the book as a whole. Include page numbers.
Write down two (2) specific aspects of the writing style and/or structure that you think are important to notice in order to understand the book's meaning and/or effect on the reader. These may have been aspects that you noticed when writing about the chapters, paragraphs, and sentences.
Write down one (1) question or insight about the book that you had while reading or after reading. Choose something that you think is very important for whatever reason.
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In the second hour we focused on analyzing specific passages in The Faraway Nearby, now asking the question, "How does the way the passage is written contribute to the Solnit is making in the passage?" Everyone picked a passage to share and we were able to discuss a few of them. We talked about organization, imagery, motifs, listing (and other aspects of syntax), paradoxes (including the title), and connections between seemingly unrelated stories. A couple students weren't able to present specific passages in which the way it was written contributed to its meaning, but many students did an excellent job reading, thinking, talking, and listening.
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Based on where our first two hours of discussion, I designed the third hour to give us a chance to weave our own stories into Solnit's stories and ideas.
In the same Google Doc do this:
Weave a story of your own into one of the stories or ideas from The Faraway Nearby. The story you tell should be something that you experienced or observed. Make the story vivid; bring it alive for your reader. Also, be thoughtful; draw out the meaning of the story and its relationship with some aspect of The Faraway Nearby. Write for 15 to 20 minutes; there is no word count requirement.
After you finish identify the vivid images in your story. What words make pictures for the reader? Also, identify the aspects of the story--word choices, sentence structures, punctuation--that are part of your distinctive writing style. You can identify these elements with b
Then, we ended class with a 3-2-1 exit ticket and a brief introduction to All Souls which we will meet to discuss on July 29.
This is the last thing to include in the Google Doc:
Write down three (3) specific connections between two different stories that Solnit makes in the book.
Briefly explain how two (2) specific passages contribute to the overall meaning of the book. (Give the page numbers of the passages!)
Write down (1) thing that you still don't fully understand about the book or that you wanted to talk about that we didn't get to or that you want to let me know you've been thinking about the book. In other words, write something a question, observation, or idea that you didn't get to discuss during the seminar.
Write to me if you have any questions.
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