American Experience

Since the beginning of first quarter, I’ve been convinced that immigration is the American Experience. Throughout its history, America has always been seen as the land to build a better life and of new opportunities. From the Pilgrims to the most recent group of immigrants, people come here from all over the world to escape from something in their native countries and strive for better lives. We even coined a term, the “melting pot”, as a metaphor for the benefits we derive from being a heterogeneous society created from the assimilation of immigrants to the United States. Recently, Time Magazine featured a picture of the “new face” of America which was represented by an ethnically mixed woman, physically demonstrating how American society has been impacted by immigration. Whether we like it or not, immigration has always been and will continue to be a part of American history and a major influence on our culture. Frankly, I believe that is what makes us a unique and enduring society, and thus so central to the American Experience.

#5 Raise Your Voice

You use your voice every day, from talking on the phone to singing in the shower. However, when it comes to school assignments, if you’re like me, you probably prefer getting a root canal to raising your hand and participating in class. However, I am here to tell you that you probably won't get much out of AP Lang if you do just that. Actively participating in AP Lang is critical to your success because, by contributing to the class discussion, not only do you demonstrate you are interested in the topic, but that you also understand what is being discussed.

As posted in #4, the AP Lang class structure includes seminars, which means that you have to speak and share your thoughts.  Don’t panic; you won’t have to wax on endlessly. These seminars are more like having a lively discussion amongst friends.  Of course, it doesn’t hurt if you can offer interesting observations that are relevant to the topic being discussed. Besides, if you don’t think you have anything particularly salient to add, you can always ask questions instead.

You will also create class notes, although not your typical class notes. “What?”, you may ask yourself, “Is this person talking about?”  Well, in AP Lang, the notes you take come from the discussions you create with other students in class. This way, you get the benefit of everyone’s contribution to the subject and they get the benefit of you speaking up.

           

#4 Thinking Quickly

Everybody thinks, even if it’s unconsciously. When is your brain not active? Never, just agree with me on this. However, I am not talking about just thinking, I am talking about quick thinking, thinking on the fly, thinking off the cuff. Picture it like this, it is like driving, you have to see, think about, and react to everything that happens on the road. So hey, don’t panic - you do this all the time.

Let’s say you are planning a surprise party for your friend. The friend sees you carrying a huge birthday cake, which has the friend’s name on it, and you think “!*#$”. Even though you may have less than 10 seconds to come up with a plausible reason, I’m pretty sure you’d be able to come up with a good reason to allay your friend’s suspicions. You Can Think On Your Feet!!

For in-class essays, you will need to think and think fast because, for timed writings, you only have 45 minutes to think about the prompt and respond. It might seem tough – and it is - but the AP Lang teachers will give you lots of practice, so take advantage of that and practice away.  C’mon – don’t be daunted. You can do this.

In addition, you’ll have the opportunity to boost your grade through the seminars which are open-ended debates about pieces of literature, such as The Great Gatsby. Anyhow, you will need to quickly assess your views on the topic and support them with evidence from the supplied text (you will always have text to use). Just think of this as a verbal essay. You have two minutes of the class’s attention to explain why Daisy Buchannan is a horrible person.

In order to get through life, you need to think quickly, period. For many of us, this is a skill that takes time to acquire and patience to build to its maximum potential. Especially since some of the college classes you will take are seminars. So might as well get started training now.

#2 Understand and Use Rhetorical Devices

Understanding and using rhetoric will most likely be new to you. Rhetoric or rhetorical devices is a certain way the author tries to convey his or her argument. You already know a few: allusion, imagery, metaphor, and alliteration. Before, you were expected to explain or summarize a text and write commentary about the text. Now, you will be expected to integrate and distinguish rhetoric or rhetorical devices into your own writing and identify them in the writing of others. I know, you ACTUALLY have to work in this class. But let me tell a secret: from now on, you will be working hard in all of your classes. Junior year is just the start of it; the need for effort will follow you into college and beyond!

Sometimes, it feels like looking for a needle in a hay stack. However, there will be many opportunities to hone this critical skill.

One such opportunity would be the AP multiple choice quizzes and vocabulary quizzes. In first semester, you will have ample opportunities to improve your performance on these types of tests. The AP MC quizzes are just like reading comprehension tests; you get an excerpt and based on that excerpt, you have to answer certain kinds of questions. Some of these questions ask you about the rhetoric found in the text. So it is important to learn them in order to answer the questions.

In addition, AP Lang students take several vocab quizzes, which is a total misnomer as the material tested on these quizzes are not words, but rather rhetorical devices. Further, there are two types of vocab quizzes: definition and identification. Identification is definitely the harder of the two because you need to spot the device used in a given quote. Go to www.virtualsalt.com/rehtoric.htm for definitions or www.google.com for examples.

Enough about exams, let’s move on to the other good stuff. You will learn to write rhetoric alerts and rhetoric lotteries. Rhetoric alerts are really interesting because they require that you find the rhetorical device in any kind of communication ranging from a commercial to a conversation. For example, the alert could be a funny commercial. Rhetoric lotteries are editorials that incorporate several assigned devices chosen randomly. For example, I had to write as Tim Tebow, using ethos, deductive reasoning, taste, slippery slope, straw man, allusion, etc. However, in order to successfully write a rhetoric lottery, you’ll first have to know how to identify and write the devices. Although we may not realize it, we use rhetoric every day; the challenge here is to apply what you learn in class to a specific scenario. These are useful skills you will use in the future whether as a lawyer, trying convince the jury and judge that your argument is correct; as a businessman, writing contracts that have double meanings, or as the President, trying to inspire the people you govern into action.

#1 Effective Writing

You have been writing your entire life. After learning the alphabet, you learned to write words, sentences, then paragraphs, and finally essays. Initially, you were restating the plot of the Clifford the Big Red Dog or the life cycle of caterpillars in your writing. But no more! Now that you are in high school, you have to create, express and defend new and original arguments from your point of view, not the authors’.

 
In AP Lang, you write your argument on the prompt, but you include your own support, analysis and evidence. You will be articulating your own ideas in your writing and then proving them with support from your evidence and analysis. Essentially, the teachers want you to write like college students; this technically is what an AP class is - a college level class.

By second quarter, there are four basic types of essays you should be able to compose: argumentative, synthesis, rhetorical analysis, and compare/contrast. In argumentative essays, you pick an argument and defend or justify it. With synthesis, you are given a prompt to answer and documents with which you have to incorporate into your essay. Rhetorical analysis is the explanation of the author’s argument through analyzing their rhetoric. And compare and contrast is the examining the similarities and differences between two subjects.

When you write, be efficient and succinct. A huge problem for me in my writing was that my ideas would be all over my essay and although they were good, they didn’t make a coherent argument that supported my thesis. That is why it is important to write an outline before every essay. Believe me when I say that you will not only finish more quickly, but your essay will be straightforward and easy to follow. Also when writing, use smart diction. This demonstrates your knowledge of vocabulary. Just make sure you don’t use words that you don’t know or can’t use properly. If you don’t like books, rest assured - there are many online dictionaries just waiting for you to use them.       

            

Now the grading scale for the essays in an AP class is different from non-AP classes in that they are graded on a scale from 1-9, with 9 being the highest grade. My tip for achieving that highly coveted “9” is to carefully structure your argument to make it most effective. Like everything else, writing takes practice and in order to improve and ultimately excel as a writer, you must work at it.

Remember, you will be required to write effectively for the rest of your life and to make arguments and successfully defend them.  The good news is that the skills you learn in AP Lang will always stay with you and help you to excel at effectively communicating.

  

My Top 5 List

Many of you who are here are either thinking of taking AP Lang or are just simply forced to read this blog. The truth is, you will probably be making a blog of your own next year, as you will probably be taking this class because you, like me, want to impress colleges.

When you do, you will probably find out that it is more work than what you bargained for. But you can help yourself now by understanding what is specifically is being asked of you as an AP Language student and spending the rest of your year preparing for it.

At its most basic, the following list is what you will be expected to know and do next year. I know, it seems like a lot and some of the list you probably have never heard of; but trust me, by the end of second quarter, you will know all of it.

1. EFFECTIVELY WRITE

2. UNDERSTAND AND USE different rhetorical devices

3. MAP AND ANNOTATE texts

4. THINK ON THE SPOT

5. USE YOUR VOICE 

In my next post, I will talk more about effective writing.