A couple sources for your synthesis paper

This has been making the rounds on Facebook:

People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.
You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.
[Expletive] that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.
- Banksy

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 Click here for the "Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory" transcript.

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Synthesis Essay on consumerism and Commodification

AP English Language and Composition

Synthesis Essay on Consumerism and Commodification

Consumerism is a term used to describe a social and economic system that encourages the ever-increasing consumption of goods and services. Commodification (or commoditization) is a related term used to describe the process of turning ideas, values, and other entities not normally regarded as a commodities into a commodity ( economic products). 

Imagine that a school district looking to make its curriculum more relevant to life in the 21^st century has asked you to evaluate the role of consumerism and commodification in contemporary American culture. Carefully review the sources I've provided in this unit. Then synthesize information from at least five (5) of the sources and incorporate that information into a coherent, well-developed essay that identifies the key issues associated with consumerism and commodification and that examines their implications for life in the 21^st century.

Make sure that your argument is central; use the sources to illustrate and support your reasoning. Avoid merely summarizing the sources. Indicate clearly which sources you are drawing from, whether through direct quotation, paraphrase, or summary. Cite the sources using the information provided below in parentheses.

Source A (The Ad and the Ego)                      Documentary film

Source B (Daisey)                                            “Mr. Daisy and the Apple Factory” (radio nonfiction story)

Source C ("Psychographic Groups")

Source D (Waterson)                                       The comic in the packet

Source E (Kruger)                                            The art collage in the packet

Source F (Frank)                                              “Dissent Commodified” (commentary)

Source G (Vanderbilt)                                      “The Gaudy and the Damned” (essay)

Source H (McLuhan)                                        excerpt from The Medium is the Massage

Source I (Fortune)                                            excerpt from Working edited by Studs Terkel (oral history)

Source J (Chaddha)                                          “How many Che T-shirts…” (commentary)

Source K (Seel and Wilensky)                          “The World According to Abercrombie & Fitch” (commentary)

Source L (Johnson)                                          “When Teens Talk, Companies Listen” (newspaper feature article)

Due March 2, 2012. Think three to five pages (1000-1500 words) or so.

Here is a link  to an AP English Language and Composition Question 1 (Synthesis Question)

and here is a link to model essays that respond to that the question.

Resources for Argument Essays

In class on Friday we shared and clarified our initial impressions of the concepts in The Ad and the Ego and how they might apply to our own experiences with advertising. Then we selected two to six concepts that we'd like to continue to discuss next week. Finally I asked those of you who will be watching the American football game Sunday night to pay close attention to the advertising through the lens of the concepts we've considered this week.

For the last twenty minutes of class we took a look at argument rubrics and examples. Looking at the examples of 8s and 9s in the links below please pay attention to (1) the ways that the essays build to a bold assertion in the introduction and conclusion, (2) the ways that some of them attack opposing arguments, and (3) the ways that the essays incorporate effective examples and counterexamples to support a position.

2009 Argument Prompt (adversity develops character) last page of the PDF
2009 Argument Rubric, Example Essays, and Comments
2009 Argument Prompt Additional Comments by Graders

2009 Form B Argument Prompt (effects of TV) last page of the PDF
2009 Form B Argument Example Essays

2007 Argument Prompt (incentives for charitable acts) last page of PDF
2007 Argument Rubric, Example Essays, and Comments

Reading a Philosophical Novel: Grendel by John Gardner

Take notes chapter by chapter. I recommend taking two pieces of unlined paper and holding them horizontally. Fold the papers into thirds. You'll end up with twelve columns, a column for each chapter.

When deciding what to take notes on consider the relationship of the chapter...

* to the original Beowulf story (What stays consistent? What is changed or added?),
* to the zodiac symbols (How are they significant? What are they doing there?),
* to other repeated images (look for patterns!), to particular characters (their philosophies and actions),
* to Grendel's psychological development (Think of him as a child growing into young adulthood. How does he change? Why?),
* to John Gardner's overall exploration of the questions, If we cannot know for sure the purpose and meaning of our lives, what kind of meaning and purpose should we assert? And what are the implications of that choice for ourselves and others? Or to put it a different way, how should we live? Should we invent values and try to live up to them or should we accept the world as meaningless and strive for personal gratification?
*to the ways the book itself enacts or embodies storytelling as a way of creating meaning and purpose by shaping experience with imagination.

What argument does Gardner seem to make in the novel? And how does he make the argument?

Things to remember: the book begins in spring in the twelfth (and last) year of Grendel terrorizing the humans. Each subsequent chapter moves one month forward* in the twelfth (and last) year of Grendel war with the humans.  The narrative, however, also includes flashbacks to the years before the beginning of Grendel's raids on Hart hall in chapters 1-5 and to years during his attacks in chapters 6-8. Consider cyclical time and linear time.


*Chapter 1: late March until late April (Aires, the ram), Chapter 2: late April until late May (Taurus, the bull), Chapter 3: May/June (Gemini, the twins), Chapter 4:  June/July (Cancer, the crab), Chapter 5: July/August (Leo, the lion), Chapter 6: August/September (Virgo/the virgin), Chapter 7: September/October (Libra, the scales/the balance), Chapter 8: October/November (Scorpio, the scorpion), Chapter 9: November/December (Sagittarius, the centaur [halfman & halfhorse] archer), Chapter 10: December/January (Capricorn, the horned goat/the sea goat), Chapter 11 (Aquarius, the water-bearer/the cup-bearer), Chapter 12 (Pisces, the fish)







You'll need to have read the first six chapters (at least) by Friday, January 6 (the epiphany) and have finished the whole book by Thursday, January 12. (Remember that the personal essay--described in a previous post--is due on Wednesday, January 4.)

Personal Experience Essay (for term two)

Earlier in the year I promised that we would return to personal essay writing. Now is the time.
Due January 4, 2011

Option #1 Explore your own existential dilemma or existential crisis

There are several ways of approaching the existential dilemma. Here's a set of questions that might help you think existentially:

What happens to your sense of self, sense of belonging, sense of the order and purpose of existence when you encounter radical trauma, painful loss, and the corrupted nature of humanity? 

Or to approach the dilemma from a slightly different angle, what do you do — what do you say, what do you feel, what do you think —  when you encounter trauma, loss, and/or determine that the world — mankind, human nature, human civilization — is corrupt (dishonest, debauched, defiled): “an unweeded garden / That grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature / Possess it merely”?


Use the questions as a lens through which to examine your own life. I do not necessarily want you to answer the questions directly but to address the gist of the questions in light of some specific (not general) experience(s) in your life and/or observations of the world you live in. Use some of the tools of the storyteller: narrative structure, perspective, style, and tone; characterization both direct and indirect; suggestive imagery both literal and figurative; dialog; etc. Also reflect upon your narrative; reflection is a primary tool of the essayist.

Let me be clear if you pick this option you will be writing about your own experience(s) and/or observation(s) not about Hamlet!!!!!!!

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Option #2 Responding directly and personally to Hamlet

Choose a theme in Hamlet. Write a personal essay developing a personal response to the depiction of the theme in the play. There are two ways to develop this paper. (1) You may make a point by point comparison and/or contrast between the work and yourself. (2) You may refer to the work briefly and then devote the rest of your essay to your own response to the theme.

The essay should begin with a relevant quotation from the play. The essay should show an understanding of how the theme is developed in Hamlet. The essay should also show an understanding of how the theme relates to your life and/or the world in which you live. The essay should be thoughtfully organized and thoughtfully written. Rhetoric matters. Language matters.

Some Hamlet Notes

What have we learned about how language works in literature, Elizabethan theatre, Shakespeare’s writing, and Hamlet itself?

I.                     Hamlet’s sound

A.      Rhyming couplets provide memorable closure and summation

B.       Iambic Pentameter/Blank verse

1.        provides structure, unity

2.        provides potential for emphasis by way of variation: “to be or not to be; THAT is the question.”

II.                   Hamlet’s language

A.      Word play

1.        5.1 “lie”: lie down & tell lies

2.        4.7 “too much of water”: tears & drowning [&, obliquely, Hamlet’s wish to melt (1.2)]

B.       paradoxes: “more than kin less than kind”

C.       figurative language/metaphors: king > worm > fish > beggar is a metaphor for Hamlet’s questioning of the Elizabethan social structure

III.                 Some Hamlet performance

A.      Acting Choices (interpretations)

                  Ex. See student blog posts on 1.2, 2.2, 3.1, 3.2, 4.4: Olivier, Zeffirelli (Gibson), Branagh, Almereyda (Hawke), Doran (Tennant)

B.       Visual Choices (interpretations)

Ex. “to be or not to be”

1.        Branagh’s mirror= deceit, also outward action v. self-directed action

2.        Zeffirelli’s catacombs= death “the undiscovered country”

3.        Almereyda’s Blockbuster= “Action” / “Go Home Happy” (irony)

IV.           Some Hamlet patterns

A.      Characters

1.        Hamlet’s foils: Laertes and Fortinbras

2.        Hamlet (acts/is mad, wishes to die 1.2, 3.1), Ophelia (is/acts mad, allows herself to do die 4.5, 4.7)

3.        Polonius uses Reynaldo to spy on Laertes (2.1); Claudius uses Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on Hamlet (2.2)

4.        Ophelia, Gertrude, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern follow and obey

A.      Plot & Meaning

1.        Dramatic Irony

a.        Hamlet believes Claudius is confessing for his sins and so does not kill him.

b.       The reader/audience knows that Claudius has failed to confess.

c.        Mel Gibson claims that Hamlet’s failure to kill Claudius here triggers all the other deaths in the play (triggers the tragedy as such).

2.        Fitting deaths

a.        Polonius dies spying

b.       Ophelia dies passively (& in water)

c.        Gertrude dies drinking to Hamlet (Her death triggers Hamlet to action vs. Claudius, no?)

d.       Laertes (“I am justly killed by my own treachery.”)

e.        Claudius (by sword and drink)

f.         Hamlet (“the rest is silence”)

g.       Rosencrantz and Guildenstern die as servants

3.        Is Fortinbras rewarded for

a.        Deception?

b.       Action?

B.       Some Themes

1.        Responding to a flawed and fallen world filled with flawed and fallen men and women

a.        Hamlet sees the world as corrupt.

aa.     “How weary, flat, stale, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world.”

bb.    “tis an unweeded garden”

cc.     “Man delights not me nor woman neither”

b.       This view is triggered – it seems – by his mother’s overhasty marriage (and later by Ophelia’s lying).

aa.     “Frailty thy name is woman” 1.2

bb.    “Get thee to a nunnery.” 3.1

2.        Revenge: the dueling necessities of thought and action

a.        Hamlet 2.2, 3.1, 4.4

b.       Laertes 4.7

c.        Fortinbras 1.2, 4.4, 5.2

3.        Deception: exploiting the gap between appearances and reality, seems and is

a.        Secret murders (and attempts)

b.       Spying

c.        Lying

d.       Acting

C. Some Threads

                  1. appearance and truth

                  2. corruption and honesty 

                  3. madness and normalcy

         4. playing and acting

         5. words and speaking 

         6. women and womanliness: mothers, daughters, lovers,  

            “strumpets”

                  7. men and manliness: fathers, uncles, friends, rivals

         8. action and inaction

         9. water and other fluids 

         10. responses to authority: mocking, obeying, flattering, etc.

         11. life and death (and the afterlife) 

                  12. ghosts and spirits

                  13. sleep and dreams 

         14. flora (flowers, plans) and fauna (animals)

                  15. fortune and fate

                  16. I and eye (the self and seeing)

     D. Big questions

What happens when you encounter trauma, loss, and the corrupted nature of humanity? 

What do you do — what do you say, what do you feel, what do you think —  when you encounter trauma, loss, and/or determine that the world — mankind, human nature, human civilization — is corrupt (dishonest, debauched, defiled): “an unweeded garden / That grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature / Possess it merely”?

Passage Explication Paper

Write a formal analytical essay explicating a passage of your choice in Hamlet.

To explicate a passage an essayist must unfold its meaning by meticulously explaining

(1) what content is being conveyed,

(2) how the content is conveyed through literary and rhetorical techniques, and

(3) how the passage* is significant within the work as a whole.

(1)

What does the passage say?

What is significant about what it says?

(2)

How is the passage is written?

What is significant about how it is written?

(3)

How is the passage (and how it is written) related to the whole?

What is significant about the passage in relation to the whole?

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Prewriting

Type the passage.

Reread the passage aloud.

Annotate the passage meticulously.

Write down everything you notice.

Write down questions.

Create a provisional bold, insight giving an overview of (1) (2) (3) in a unified manner.

Organize your annotations into a logical sequence of particular insights about the text that will support your central insight about the passage as a whole.

Writing

Introduction

Create the necessary context for the reader to understand your insight and its significance.

The context will then lead into your central insight—your bold assertion.

Body paragraphs

Follow your plan—the logical sequence of particular insights that support the overall insight.

Remember: Work meticulously through the text (from beginning to end) unfolding how (1) meaning, (2) technique, and (3) connections to the whole found throughout the passage contribute to the overall insight (1, 2, 3).

If some part doesn’t fit your big idea you have to re-evaluate the big idea.

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State an interpretive idea.

Support it (usually with a direct quotation).

Explain how the supporting evidence (usually a quotation) develops the idea.