Confidential File: Horror Comic Books!

Here is a great piece of propaganda from the 1950's. This will be an experiment in collective rhetorical analysis.

If we have time...Are you popular?

2011 AP Grammies Awards - Focus on Tone

Phase 3 of our vocabulary begins today and it will require some creative writing; however,  glory and some sweet reward awaits.  You will screen each of these short vignettes and find the various synonyms of the tone on display.  From this muse, you will write a brief yet creative narrative description of the tone for seven of these scenes.  The writing should be reflective of your understanding of the connotations of the tone and growing confidence in sentence sophistication.

Rage- (n) acrimony, bluster, choler, hemorrhage, eruption,

Sample:  His arrogance, an embedded deformity, sparked this phillipic.  This was his last lie he would tell.  Her snapped heart now hemorrahages a bile of hate congealed in his false accusations.

Considering the following:

• Strong verb choice
• Show mix of simple, complex, compound, compound-complex sentences
• Drop in sentence spice where appropriate
• Range of tonal adjectives to emotions on display
• noun + participle descriptors
• Use of allusions where appropriate
• Use a thesaurus to kickstart noun and verb choice to capture tone

Don't jam all of these ideas into the description.  Sometimes less can be more. 

 Watch again

#1-Javier Barbem          #8 Jennifer Lawrence
#2 James Franco           #9  Noomi Rapace
#3 Natalie Portman       #10  Vincent Cassel
#4 Jesse Eisenberg        #11  Anthony Mackie
#5 Chloe Moretz           #12  Robert Duvall
#6 Matt Damon             #13  Lesley Manville
#7 Michael Douglas      #14  Tilda Swinton

 Submission:  Over break you can watch these again to discover more nuance than what you initially observed in class.  When you are ready to submit, click on your class period below.  Complete the submission form, copy and paste your description. I will format the submissions and we will vote for the best writers.  Finish before we get back from Break.  Good luck.

Period 2                  Period 5/6              Period 7/8










2 5/6 7/8

Turkeys & TED

Watch one of the following TED lectures.  Write an AP style rhetorical analysis of the speech as you discuss the rhetorical strategies of the presenter.  Cap your your time within the parameter of an hour to process the content and write the essay.

Science- Juan Enriquez shares mindboggling science

Elaine Morgan says we evolved from aquatic apes (Emily Warkins!)

Bonnie Bassler on how bacteria "talk"

Richard Dawkins on our "queer" universe

Education

Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity

Jose Abreu on kids transformed by music 

JK Rowling: The fringe benefits of failure

Economics-

Steven Levitt analyzes crack economics

Hanna Rosin: New data on the rise of women

Computers-

Mikko Hypponen: Fighting viruses, defending the net

Marco Tempest: The magic of truth and lies (and iPods)

You know my feelings about cephalopods...

Tuesdays With TED- Guest #1 Jane McGonigal

Find the text of speech here.

Party Rock- Clever Writing

This is a repost from a post that deconstructs the current party anthem "Party Rock"

LMFAO, a dance pop music duo, is boldly advancing its “party rock” music, one that is devoid of any musical aspects of rock but seems to be channeling the broader culture of rock. It’s easy to write this off as a careless misappropriation of one art form into an highly dissimilar form. Like evoking nineteenth century impressionist oil paintings when talking about a crayon drawing just because they’re both renderings of a tree.

Cool Ad for Mirage

Can you spot the appeals here?