Practice Essay #3

 The excerpt below is from William Hazlitt’s “On the Pleasure of Hating” (1826). Read the excerpt carefully. Then write an essay that argues your position on the value—if any—of hatred.

[W]ithout something to hate, we should lose the very spring of thought and action. Life would turn to a stagnant pool, were it not ruffled by the jarring interests, the unruly passions of men. . . . Pure good soon grows insipid, wants variety and spirit. Pain is a bittersweet, which never surfeits. Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust: hatred alone is immortal.

In your response you should do the following:

• Respond to the prompt with a thesis that may establish a line of reasoning.
• Select and use evidence to develop and support your line of reasoning.
• Explain the relationship between the evidence and your thesis.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the rhetorical situation.
• Use appropriate grammar and punctuation in communicating your argument.

Special Edition Blog Plop your homework assignment here

 Post your Last Child in the Woods Essay here. In the comments, tell us what score you think you earned based on the rubric for the rhetorical analysis essay. 

A GREAT thesis, a GREAT introduction

 Having a great thesis and introduction are must haves for this blog post. If you did not watch the video about writing a GREAT thesis statement, you MUST!!! It it the video that will change your entire essay approach. Having a great thesis demands that you use ideas INSTEAD of devices and that makes the entire essay different. 

So, I am going to give you a prompt. Your job is to write a GREAT thesis statement based on one of the formula's from the video. UNDERLINE IT inside of your GREAT introduction!!!!

In the comments, you MUST challenge any thesis statements and introductions that are NOT great because on Monday, you will draw an introduction (which will contain a thesis) out of a grab bag and will have to write your essay based on whichever  you choose. If they are ALL great, there should be no problem writing the essay and conclusion for it. 

Here is the prompt I want you to use for the GREAT introduction which will contain a GREAT thesis statement. 

(Suggested time—40 minutes.  On the tenth anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., labor union organizer and civil rights leader Cesar Chavez published an article in the magazine of a religious organization devoted to helping those in need. Read the following excerpt from the article carefully. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze the rhetorical choices Chavez makes to develop his argument about nonviolent resistance. 

Use this link to go the essay in it's entirety. Scroll to page 9. 

link

Practice Essay The Commencement Address at Mount Holyoke

  In 1997, then United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright gave the commencement speech to the graduating class of Mount Holyoke College, a women’s college in Massachusetts. Read the following excerpt from her speech carefully. Then write a well-developed essay in which you analyze the choices Albright makes to convey her message to the audience. 

SET YOUR TIMER FOR 35 MINUTES

SINCE YOU HAVE ALREADY READ THE PROMPT AND PREPARED YOUR ESSAY, YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO JUST START WRITING!!!!!

As an aside, please check the google classroom. Since there are 4 days in between now and when I will see you again, you are going to complete the assignments from the end of video #1 and then watch the entire VIDEO #2. There is a quiz on Tuesday. You must watch and complete the assignments she gives you in video #2 before class on Tuesday. 

What the Bagel Man Saw Rhetorical Analysis!

Knitty Gritty

 Video with instructions

So, this is a video that is really good and at first glance seems really long. The writing assignment, in the end, is just to edit or rewrite the opening paragraph. However, getting to that point and really understanding it will require watching the video. There are some parts in the beginning that you can skip, like the introduction and her explanation of how things are going to work for the next few weeks, but you will be able to tell when she is getting down to business. This is practice for the rhetorical analysis essay. We will be doing 4 lessons with this passage. When you get towards the end of the video, she will have up on the screen an opening statement that she is asking you to rewrite. You will come to learn in the next few videos (which we will do this upcoming week) that she is actually teaching you about how to establish a "line of reasoning". So, watch this and then post a rewritten or edited thesis. You do not need to comment on classmates posts this week. All 20 points will be based on your rewritten thesis. 

Shut Up and Listen

 Our next unit in AP Language will be economics. As a warm up, watch this Ted Talk, Shut Up and Listen.

After listening to the talk from Ernesto Sirolli, write a rhetorical analysis of what his argument is and how he convinces his audience of this argument.