APEnglish–South El Monte HS

Period 4

Hi everyone! (:

Today we mainly talked about the speeches on the green packet that we were supposed to do for homework and then we graded about 3-4 essays (the district one we wrote last Friday)

So here’s the breakdown:

1.     Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (April 16, 1963)

• ·        Utilizes ETHOS
  • ·        8th Century = 700’s
  • ²       Paul is an 8th Century prophet
  • ²       Compares his actions to the cause of spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ
  • ²       By comparing himself to the prophets of long ago who probably weren’t remembered, he emphasizes that the name isn’t important but what he does is = humility trope
  • ²       States that the gospel of freedom needs to be remembered
  • ²       (side note) the 700s is why we don’t speak Arabic today
  • ·        Uses “we” which makes the audience feel included
  • ·        The beginning of the letter starts with “My fellow clergymen…”
  • ·        Says that without direct action, nothing can be accomplished
  • ·        His ethos gets lowered because he is in jail
• ·        SYNTAX
  • ²       “Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their “thus saith the Lord” far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town”
  • Ø       He places himself at the end of the sentence (how he fits in)
  • Ø       (Sean said he was the “savior” of the sentence as well as the problem)
  • Ø       Parallelism, but somewhat different à emphasizes his uniqueness by changing the structure of the sentence

2.     Patrick Henry, “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” (March 23, 1775)

• l       Utilizes PATHOS (stirs up a violent response)
• l       Uses rhetorical questions
• l       Metaphors and imagery excite the audience
• ²       Imagery: “Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?”
• Ø       Supinely (means to lie on your back) is a metaphor à you can’t protect yourself
• *       Dying, moral situation = upright in which you are not upright. In other words, you can’t stand up to someone or something.
• *       Evokes a pity because they have no control à anger and hatred
• *       “bound us hand and foot” refers to slavery à more imagery
• ü       Slavery is a familiar image and the audience knows that blacks are treated unequally. Being compared to slaves is very degrading
• ü       (probably talks about slavery because Henry is Virginian)
• l       Uses religion (God)
• ²       Says that God is on their side and that he will help them fight the battle
• l       Builds up emotion à break à crescendo, and then repeats
• l       In the beginning he uses long sentences because things are questionable. Then he changes to a short sentence structure and exclamations (rallying).

Then, we graded the district essays we wrote last Friday.

• l       6 = superior
• l       5 = very good
• l       Everything’s generalized

RANDOM NOTES:

• l       Today everyone got their progress reports. Some people were happy, and others…not so happy. Brian came over to our table and told us that a “U” on the report card means that you need to “satisfactorize!”
• l       Everyone pretty much sat around and did nothing for about 10-15 minutes until E told us to do something because apparently a lot of people didn’t do their hw.
• l        TLP had a dinosaur cake
• l        Our group wished on 11:11 and tried to figure out the Friday warm-ups on the board. I forgot the answers.
• l        Jordan asked where E got his jeans because he liked them. We told him they were Seven jeans and he asked how we knew. Then we told him that we could tell because of the pocket and Jordan turned around and stared at his butt. HAHA. Annie claimed he had a man crush on E.

HW: Do #3 in the green packet

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND EVERYONE!(=

-Colleen

Period 5

Today was pretty relaxed and not much went on. The first thing we did was grade each others SAT essays on a scale from 1-6. 6:superior in every manner, 5: well done in every way, 4: adequate, and 3 no longer adequate. No one should be getting a 1 or 2 because we are AP students and the essay would have to be ridiculously horrendous.

Here are a few the grading guidelines for your essay:

1. 25 minute essays are not as strictly graded as 45 minute essays
2. Look for a holistic score, so how they did overall
3. Should take reader 2-2 1/2 minutes to read

Here are a few tips for writing the essay:

1. Don’t use hypothetical situations (i.e. the word “if”)
2. Use concrete examples that are easy to grasp
3. Longer essays will generally be scored higher
4. Try to stay away from personal opinions because they usually do not elaborate the topic

Ethos or Pathos?

MLK Jr.
In MLK Jr’s speech he definitely uses an appeal to pathos. He compares himself to eighth century whose names we do not know. By using this comparison he implies that his message is more important than his name. Mr. E., “great humility trope.” MLK also says that he only does this because his faith and religion tells him to. This establishes his legitimacy. In his speech he refers to Apostle Paul who was also thrown into jail.

Patrick Henry
Patrick Henry, in his “give me liberty or give me death” speech, uses:

1. Blunt Statements
2. Rhetorical Questions
3. An appeal to pathos
4. Tone and imagery

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Filed under: Daily Scribe, Language Notes

Stupid comes from a Latin root stupidus, “amazed” or “confounded.” It literally meant to be struck senseless (this comes from stupere, stunned; from the Proto-Indo-European root *(s)tupe- “hit,” from base *(s)teu-). And this only seems appropriate from Roman culture that always prized a good fight-those Romans were always spoiling for a new war and a new chance to conquer.

Originally stupid spoke of one’s inability to speak. It is related to astonished (a variant of astonied, literally “turned to stone”). In an oral society to be struck speechless would be catastrophic. Every part of life was communicated through speech: business, war, politics, education, religion. The last would probably be the worst, for in ancient religion, pronouncing the names of the deity was the first step in gaining his/her favor. Without speech, he/she/it would not be too happy. And, amazingly, even reading was out loud. Sustained silent reading was not invented until the 6^th century CE with the Benedictine monks who had developed a rule of silence (in order to aid in contemplation)-an amazing innovation!

We still see remnants of the root in the forms of stupefied, e.g., Stupefied silence buoyed in the wake of the professor’s question.. And there is the noun: stupor, a mental haze.

By 1541 stupid is attested as meaning “mentally slow” in English. It gradually replaced the Old English unwis (literally, not wise) and retained its overtones of “stunned by surprise, grief, etc.” well into the 18^th century. My guess is that the idea of a (silent) reading public had finally taken hold by then and silence was a sign of decorum and respect, not imbecility. Self-restraint was the core of civility. It became polite to refrain, to defer. What became rude was its opposite: constant chatter.

And so, today stupid generally refers to those who idle away their time with inane conversation, or perhaps just monologue to no audience in particular. We call them “chatty-Cathies” or chismosas now. We have popular clichés: “Silence is golden…” with its handy corollary, “…so shut-up and get rich.” And there are our idioms: to put one’s foot in one’s mouth, as in to say something stupid or grossly inappropriate, usually in reference to a compliment or innocuous comment that sounded of ill intent. Consequently we turn to the proverb: “The silence of a stupid man looks like wisdom.”

And so we see how a word can transition from a physical meaning, to a mental one, and then switch in application and, consequently, in meaning, with changes in cultural context.

As Forrest Gump says: “My mama always told me: Stupid is as stupid does.”*

Postscript: In my ever-engaging Encyclopedia of Stupdity, you can find a lengthy discussion on ‘pataphysics. What is ‘pataphysics, you may ask? Why it is the ever engaging science of imaginary solutions! It was developed by playwright Alfred Jarry who defined it as “the science of imaginary solutions, which symbolically attributes the properties of objects, described by their virtuality, to their lineaments.” Just think of the possibilities! Jarry conceived of a decerebration machine, developed Perpetual Motion Food, and computed the surface of God.  ‘Pataphysics purported aim is to “explode” the common belief in what really exists and what does not. (Since when has fantasy been unreal?) ‘Pataphysics must truly be either the most stupid or most brilliant philosophy ever developed.

The Beatles immortalized the “science” in their famous song about the homicidal Maxwell Edison in “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”: “Joan was quizzical / studied ‘pataphysical science in the home.”

* For those that truly DO stupid, we have the wonderful and charming Darwin Awards.  These awards are bestowed upon those who have, for the sake of mankind, unintentionally eliminated their genes from the reproductive pool (i.e., died) through their own magnificent stupidity.  (I use magnificent in its root meaning, magnus “great”.)  Read some of the great moments of past winners and near winners at http://www.darwinawards.com/.  They’re a hoot!

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Filed under: Etymologies, Language Notes

“Personality is the supreme realization of the innate idiosyncrasy of a living being. It is an act of courage flung in the face of life, the absolute affirmation of all that constitutes the individual, the most successful adaptation to the universal conditions of existence, coupled with the greatest possible freedom of self-determination.” [C.G. Jung, 1875-1961]

So this week’s etymology is a word that seems like it should simply be taken at face value. But then again, we should never judge a book by its cover. This week’s etymology is personality, 1) the quality or condition of being a person; 2) the totality of qualities and traits, as of character or behavior, that are peculiar to a specific person.

Personality, personal, persona, person, all come from the same ancient Latin root personalis, which entered English from two sources: around 1225 from the Old French word personne “human being” and from Medieval Latin personalitatem, c. 1380. Previous to this English preferred the ancient mann, a gender-neutral noun that described all humans: as in mankind (OE, mancynn, from cynn “kin”); but, eventually, it became more common to associate it with males. “Woman,” in Old English was wif-mann: apparently your job was all defining.

Person, personality, then, must have represented something different than the ancient mann, if the English adopted it. And this may be buried in the word’s history. Person is really a compound word: per- “through” and sonus “to sound”. It was originally applied to ancient actors who wore masks while on stage (like Shakespeare’s Dramatis Personae). You’ve, no doubt, seen the famous happy mask/sad mask combination that adorns many a thespian’s poster? This is a visual allusion to the ancient theater where actors wore masks (since most of the characters were gods or goddesses or legendary heroes human faces just wouldn’t do), which were equipped with megaphones so they could be heard by the entire amphitheater. So in the Latin we have a sense of a personality hiding what’s beneath. Much different in connotation than the strong and very physical Old English mann!

And in many ways our personality is a mask we wear to the world. Oddly, though, if we pretend long enough and (paradoxically) honestly enough, we begin to take on those very characteristics. “Fake it until you make it” they always say.

And this leads us into the very modern notion that we may have different external and internal faces. Sigmund Freud took up this notion with a hunch that we refuse to recognize our real desires because we learn that they are unacceptable. So, in order to live with others, we submerge them into an area of the mind called the subconscious: those thoughts which might bubble up into the conscious if we would only let them. But never would we recognize the unconscious, which was a mighty reservoir of dark and uncontrollable impulses. This became a controlling impulse of much of 20^th century research and engaged such great minds as Abraham Maslow (hierarchy of needs), Erik Erikson (social development), Erich Fromm (character), Karl Jung (collective unconscious), Jean Piaget (cognitive development), Lawrence Kohlberg (moral development).

This self-involved trend has blossomed, so to speak, in the last 25 years, and convinced us of the need to define ourselves. How much energy do we spend defining ourselves! Now coming to terms with who we are takes up entire lifetimes, when, perhaps, we may just be changing masks. Advertisers, always cleverly toying with our hopes and fears, have taken this to the max with “personal” computers (what amazing masks they wear!) that are “customized” with My Documents and My Music and My Favorites. Now there’s MySpace, which is really nospace and nowhere-but it most definitely reveals our ancient habit of being a person: broadcasting through our own ingeniously contrived masks.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

So I’d thought I throw this in. I think Maslow’s right; or, at least, really close.

Where are your needs (not) being met?

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Filed under: Etymologies, Language Notes

Alright, now that we’re in to the swing of the school year, let’s move on to one of my favorite etymologies. This week’s etymology comes to us from the Middle Ages-and for a Medievalist like me the best things come from that ever entertaining millennium.

Our word is assassin, one who murders by surprise or one who carries out a secret plot to kill a prominent person.

It comes into English from Medieval Latin (again, if you’re unclear about the difference between Latin and Medieval Latin see last week’s post). It entered into Latin during the 11^th-12^th centuries from Arabic or Persian. As you may remember from those sketches they try to pass off as history in 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th grade, these were the centuries of the Crusades. Difficult and brutal centuries, and the Crusades were difficult and brutal adventures, fleecing Europe of some of its most prized warriors, kings, ne’er-do-wells, poor farmers, and even an entire army of children.

The armies of Christendom encamped in the “Holy Land” were foreigners in every sense of the word. They were totally unprepared for the complex, nearly indecipherable political tumult of the Middle East. They were subjected to (and committed) atrocities, military attacks, night time raids, brigandage, murder, and (yes) terrorism. There is a legend that a sect of fanatical Muslims, intent on protecting their lands from invaders, which the Crusaders were most assuredly were, would use hashish to enter into ecstatic, mystical states. Members of this sect would, at night, enter Crusader camps, murdering their enemies. From the term hashishim “takers of hashish”, then, the Latin speaking Crusaders created the word assassin as the noun and assassinare as the verb to assassinate, or murder in secret.

But this explanation seems a little too perfect. I mean what a better way to smear your enemies with an awful crime: secret killing was considered a crime punishable by death, whereas open, public killing was considered not exactly lawful, but not as great a crime, and marginalize them as users of mind-altering drugs, robbing them of rationality and moral purpose. This description also flies in the face of reason: who would believe that drug-crazed religious fanatics would have the skill, patience, and training to infiltrate guarded camps, execute soldiers, and escape? There’s nothing better than being labeled by your enemies!

An alternative origin seems to hold a little better chance of being correct. A fringe and unhappy faction of Muslims, the Nizaris-who spoke Persian, not Arabic-gained a leader in al-Hassan ibn-al-Sabbah (Hassan son of Sabbah), a rising star in the Abbasid Caliph’s service; but his ambition outstripped the Caliph’s desire to reward. This charismatic and austere man left the Caliph’s service and organized and trained the Nizaris, turning them into a deadly and feared enemy. Some stories even claim that he was the terrifying Old Man of the Mountain, since the Nazaris dwelled in the mountainous region south of the Caspian Sea; in 1090 capturing the castle of Alamut. And so his agents-secret, deadly, and possibly everywhere, the ultimate ‘sleeper cell’-were enemies of the Caliphate, the predominant Muslim power, and the Crusading Europeans. Outcasts. They were called the followers of Hassan, or Hassassin. These dreaded executioners appeared in public as anyone else, lurked in every shadow with scabard drawn, struck with awesome precision.

Later, their enemies, who were legion, conflated both terms, thereby forever tagging them with an evil that the strict Hassan would probably have never admitted. This story of hashish use was repeated by Marco Polo in his Travels (c. 1273). By this time the term hashishim had become a general term of abuse-which we find evidence for in Egyptian Arabic as hashasheen, “noisy or riotous” (c. 1930). By the 16^th century assassin had entered into French and Italian and English as “treacherous killer.”

And so the tortured history of ethnography, war, geo-politics, and philology renders up quite an interesting and twisted, secret history-much like the original fanatics themselves.

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Filed under: Etymologies, Language Notes

Here’s a little something that might help any of you who are scratching your head over the WS I handed out on Fri (Period 3 got off easy, look for it Monday):

The first place to look is a collegiate dictionary, Like Merriam-Webster’s. There is a section that shows the root (called an etymology); it will say something like:

complaint, Latin con + planere, to lament; more at plaintiff

So, then we understand that a complaint comes from a Latin word that originally meant to cry or mourn. Make sense? A lot of times it will be in brackets.

Then there’s the web: (this is from answers.com)

com·plaint (kəm-plānt‘)
n.

1. An expression of pain, dissatisfaction, or resentment.
2. A cause or reason for complaining; a grievance.
3. 1. A bodily disorder or disease; a malady or ailment.
   2. The symptom or distress about which a patient seeks medical assistance.
4. Law.
   1. The presentation by the plaintiff in a civil action, setting forth the claim on which relief is sought.
   2. A formal charge, made under oath, of the commission of a crime or other such offense.

[Middle English compleinte, from Old French complainte, from feminine past participle of complaindre, to complain. See complain.]

The etymology is at the bottom, but only describes Medieval English and Old French (which was spoken sometime around 800-1100), but not all the way back to Latin.

Etymologies, I think, are an excellent way to not only build vocabulary, but to also enrich your knowledge of words you already know. As we said the other day, words change meanings over time, they shift naturally just from use. Knowing a word’s history will allow you to make sense of metaphorical uses (i.e., read Shakespeare better), and help you write more convincingly. And it helps you win at Scrabble, which is obviously the most important!

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Filed under: Language Notes