APEnglish–Los Al

Period 6

10/5/09

Today, Shira and Sharon passed back three Tone worksheets, which are going to be done throughout the week. Instead of completing one of the worksheets today, we spoke about the essays which were written on
Friday. Mr. Eldridge only graded half of sixth period’s essays because our essays were so dreadful. We did not answer what the question was asking us. Our essays were not unified. Shame, Sixth Period!

So today was devoted to improving our abilities to answer essay questions. We must remember that abstract nouns, such as democracy, cannot do things or think about things. Introductions need to be short
and address the prompt quickly. It is sufficient if the intro just contains the thesis, as long as it answers the question that the prompt is asking. Unfortunately, Wyatt and Erin did not get to the point fast enough in their essays. Wyatt took too long to funnel in; though funneling is an important method in an essay, as the learned Dr. Coriaty taught most of us, lack of time in AP English requires us to funnel briefly and cut to the chase quickly. In the bodies of most of our essays, we were too general. Stereotypes- especially in the
case of the word pair “gang” and club”- dominated the essays. The prompt was not asking to distinguish words’ meanings, which is what most people thought. They did not read or pay attention to the second
part of the prompt. Mr. E told us that on an intellectual level, the question was asking us to find where the word’s labels came from. When Wyatt told us that the labels came from society, peeved Mr. Eldridge
threatened to throw his dirty towel at him. We found out that the words and their connotations were shaped by stereotypes, which are characteristics that are exaggerated by peoples’ views of the world.

Then Mr. Eldridge read a well written essay by one of our peers. Around the time that Lindsay left to use the lou, Megan was amused by Wyatt’s comments. Shira made a remark along the lines of “How are our essays supposed to be that good? How are we supposed to know that random information?” (Shira was talking about the support that was in the example essay.) Mr. E responded by saying that we need to know things to write good essays and that we should know who Billy the Kid, cow rustlers, and homeless people are. Then Mr. Eldridge explained the cow branding and transportation process. He recommended that we watch the movie “Young Guns” to find out more about Billy the Kid and the Old West in general.

Then we went over some word pairs from the essay. While Ryan was quietly explaining that the word “art” is more professional than the word “craft” Justine Wallace was examining her fingernails because she could not hear him. Sharon said that kids do crafts fun for  at summer camps. Paul said that “art” has a higher status that crafts, which most people can make fairly easily. Kris ridiculously said, “I don’t know- crafts have a physical aspect. They are simply made, while one creates art.” The class came to the conclusion that the word “art” describes something that expresses beauty and emotion.

Then I proceded to tell an amusing story about how I went to an art gallery this weekend. The room was literally pilled high with tires and tarps filled with oil, which the viewers were encouraged to climb on. A voice recording was saying things along the lines of, “Rearrange the tires as if you were rearranging your life…” After,Erin told a story about a museum she went to in which there was an exhibit that featured written and auditory quotes of mental people as well as a scary doll on the ground with a chair on its head. In
addition, Mr. Eldrige described an interesting art exhibit that he saw in which life sized mannequins were making love to each other. These three examples support what Mr. E said about how each person has a
different perspective on life and art.

While talking about the words “revolutionary” and “terrorist”, Adrian told us that, years ago, when people were overthrowing the government in South Africa, the British thought of the people of terrorists, while the Americans thought of them as revolutionaries.  During the discussion of the words “instrument” and “tool”, we discovered that the word “instrument” has a higher status than the word “tool”. Wyatt announced that he sees the status’ of “instrument” and “tool” differently than the rest of the class. His individual point of view supports that though people might see a word in a different light than it is used, the accepted meaning of the word is usually the one that prevails.

At the end of class Shira, Mr. Eldridge, and Kris had to help Nicole figure out the puzzle of the week and she found the answer. Sharon tried to help Nicole by mistakenly telling her that not many people knew who President Johnson or President Roosevelt was, therefore, they were most likely not the answer to the puzzle. Little did Sharon know, Presidents Roosevelt and Johnson were very important presidents.

Sharon, study your US history. Class, practice writing better essays!
(You get an A for effort, if that helps.)

pictures:

Filed under: Daily Scribe and