Preparing for the Midyear Exam (Day 1)

Today...

I.
I gave an overview of the midyear exam.

45 minutes (50%)
* Rhetorical & literary term vocabulary
We will review and play with these on Thursday.
In addition, I recommend making study cards and sorting terms you know from terms you are learning. Spend more time with the terms you are learning, but do not completely neglect the terms you know.

* Standard English language style and conventions
What English language conventions and aspects of style should we all know at this point in the year? We'll review these on Thursday.

* Literature: Hamlet (study notes & test), Lord of the Flies (study notes & lenses), Galileo (study notes)
We'll be discussing Galileo all week. To prepare for the other texts study the materials in parentheses above.

* AP multiple choice questions based on a passage from a work of rhetoric
You cannot really study for this, but you have been preparing for it by participating in this class. We will, however, review annotation and multiple choice strategies on Friday.

45 minutes (50%)
* Rhetorical analysis and evaluation of a passage
We have written several rhetorical analysis essays throughout the year. Review how to create effective introductions, theses, supporting paragraphs (minithesis, supporting evidence, supporting explanation of evidence, concluding sentences, transitions), conclusions.
To continue our practice we will be looking at how rhetorical strategies contribute to purpose in Kurt Vonnegut's "Here is a Lesson in Creative Writing" and Bertolt Brecht's Galileo.
Tuesday and Wednesday we will also be discussing and practicing how to use rhetorical analysis to support an evaluation of the effectiveness of rhetoric. (See below.)
Friday we will discuss some of the things we should consider when writing under the pressure of time.

II.
I then read to you a transcript published in 2005 of Kurt Vonnegut's lecture "Here is a Lesson in Creative Writing," which was apparently first given in New York City.
Go here for the transcript (excluding the opening).
Go here for a video of part of the lecture.

1. One question for us as quasi-experts on Hamlet is this one:

Is Vonnegut right about Hamlet? (What, if anything, does he stretch, caricature, or simplify for rhetorical purposes?)

2. Another set of questions, as students of rhetoric are these:

What rhetorical strategies does Vonnegut use (1) to characterize Hamlet as a play about the fundamental unknowability, mystery, and ambiguity of human fortunes and misfortunes & (2) to claim (by extension) that much worthwhile creative writing often explores and exposes the unknowable, ambiguous mystery of being instead of providing the comfortable, conventional, and often uplifting shapes of fairy tales and other popular fictions? (This is rhetorical analysis.)

Is Vonnegut's argument effective? Think of Aristotle's rhetorical triangle: logos, pathos, ethos. Think of the purposes of rhetoric: to argue, to inform, to engage. Think of SOAPSTone. (This is rhetorical evaluation built on rhetorical analysis.)

3. & then, as students of Brecht's play Galileo, here's something to try tonight:

For homework tonight create a graph for Galileo.

Choice 1: Take Vonnegut's x/y axis and use it to graph the fortunes of the protagonist, Galileo, in Galileo by Brecht. Vonnegut's y-axis is Good Fortune (at the top) & Ill Fortune (at the bottom); his x-axis is Beginning (on the left) & End (on the right) (or Beginning & Entropy). Please label the events that coincide with the changes of fortune.

Choice 2: Invent your own x/y axis. Make sure you make clear what each axis represents. Make sure you've made clear what exactly you are plotting on the graph.

Think of your graph as a kind of argument or thesis or position or claim about the play. Be prepared to defend your position by explaining the graph and supporting that explanation with evidence from the text.