outliers study guide, 2014 - lc language lab | jeff...

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Summer Reading Study Guide Outliers !Mr. Thomas AP Language and Composition • LCHS • Fall 2014 !

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Mr Thomas • [email protected] • LCHS " 1

Outliers Reading Guide — AP English

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Past, Present, Future Forensics, Demonstration, Deliberation

MAKING AN ARGUMENT !

The World Around You: As much as anything else, AP wants to see whether you

possess “Global Perspective”. Being high school

students, it’s impossible to know everything about global

politics, economics, education, social welfare, and

religion (it’s impossible for adults to know everything,

though many talk like they do!). This class, then, is

designed to give you bits and pieces — information you

can use to broaden the conversation: illustrations,

stories, examples, evidence. The best writers/arguers will be the ones who make connection to

something outside themselves. That’s what this packet will do — it’s a step toward AP’s goals.

As we go through this section, we will talk about how to use these historical factors to

your benefit as an AP writer. For our purposes (in both formal and prompt writing) we will talk

a b o u t F o r e n s i c s ( t h e p a s t ) ,

Demonstration (the present), and

Deliberations (the future) to build

and shape your argument. We will do

exercises (and write in response) to

show how having an historical insight

can improve both your understanding

of a subject, enrich your reading, and

enliven your writing.


mailto:[email protected]


ANALYTICAL WRITING: A Magic Trick

Historical Background (Introduction: Forensics) Find a Theme! If you learn nothing in AP Language, learn this: THEME TIES EVERYTHING TOGETHER! AP will ask you to do a ton - find rhetorical strategies, synthesize an argument, describe impact on audience -- but, in all things, a good AP writer needs to see the connections between the material, and the connections often come from understanding the context from which the material springs. A great AP Slogan that we will use all year long: Make your concrete objects (things you can see) into abstracts (ideas that represent them), and make your abstract ideas into concrete objects. Show the reader you understand and can make connections.

Malcolm Gladwell talks about success. Each of you have read about this success; each of you have written your own recipes for success. Below you will find three perspectives on opportunity (none of them fully agree). With these perspectives, you should do two the following:

1) Cold Read - Look for (and mark) words that contribute to feeling of the speech (abstract)

2) Theme - In the box below, write one word that characterizes the message and 3 pieces of evidence (from the text) that support your conclusion

Reading #1: From Frameworks from Understanding Poverty, by Ruby Payne




Reading #2 From Miseducating People About the Poor, by Randy Bomer (University of Texas)

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!Reading #3 From Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell!


THEME = Evidence:

1.

!2.

!3.



!Introduction Writing (Draw Your Audience In . . .) Every argument has to start somewhere. An article has a lead, a book has a chapter, an essay has an introduction. The introduction is your opening argument; it gets your through the front door, so you do not want to waste the opportunity. The Introduction is the first part of an extended sale pitch, which goes something like this:




With Argumentative Writing, you need to approach your subject like an authority. Authorities speak directly; they create alternative ways of seeing a situation, and then they open their listener’s eyes to the possibilities. This is where the Rhetorical Forms come into play

Rhetorical Forms

Assignment: Practice writing Introductions on the theme you isolated in Part I.

DO NOT USE OR MENTION THE STORY — leave the concept to speak for itself !

1. Use steps 1-4 above . . .

2. Use one of the strategies above to make your listeners aware of the themes

3. In your Thesis: Demonstrate how the book reflects these themes

4. Focus on a Rhetorical Strategy for each Introduction

•Ethos - Through Credibility (Show knowledge)

•Logos -- Through Reason (Show others the facts)

•Pathos - Through Emotion (Show emotion)

As a writer, you are like a magician; you know the trick, you know how the trick will end,

but you can present the trick however you like. The reader does not need to know what you

know, you just have to get them where you want them to be. So, in the Introduction, lead them

toward the themes you have discovered with a Thesis/Major Claim that captures where you are

heading.

Thesis = Controlling idea of the paper (Ex: Poverty and education are connected)

Major Claim — Presents problem and solution (Ex: Malcolm Gladwell’s Matthew Effect

shows how educators often make life more difficult for students.)

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Analogy Classification Example

Argument Comparison-Contrast Definition

Cause and Effect Description Narration




Introduction #1: Ethos (Narration)

Introduction #2: Logos (Cause and Effect)

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Introduction

Introduction



Introduction #3: Pathos (Narration)

!SELF ASSESSMENT: (Read these three again. Which of these do you like best, and why?)


Introduction



Body Paragraphs (Demonstration - Laying the Argument) “Holistic Learning” means, essentially, “seeing the big picture.” In most cases, students are rewarded for

holistic thinking. For AP, however, we need to move from holistic to analysis, meaning you need to stop, linger,

and discover “anything an author uses to present their case” (called “Rhetorical Strategy”). To do this, a writer

needs to look at the facts before them, tie those facts into the theme, and set the reader up for the end of their trick.

Focus #1 — Writing Style, Tone, Purpose

For this exercise, we will turn your reading from holistic into analytical. Part of the process has to do with the reading, but, mostly, success lies in how much detail you are willing to put into your sentences.

SENTENCE STRUCTURE:

TONE:

!PURPOSE:


Base - short sentences using subject, verb, object.

Ex — I love English.

Suspensive — start with phrase, then subject, verb, object

Ex — Besides math, I love English most.

Cumulative — contains multiple phrases/lists

Ex — Because of the writing, reading, and language, I love English

Periodic — point is made at beginning

Ex — I love English even though it requires more of me than I think I can give.

Loose — point is made at the end

Ex — Demanding, yes, but English is rewarding.

Formal — Precise/Eloquent (as a pastor/politician might speak)

Ex — The demands of typical educational processes can be arduous and tedious.

Didactic — Teaching/Instruction (as a teacher/professor might speak)

Ex — Beware of education; it demands all your focus and attention

Conversational — Common/Street (as kids might speak in a hallway)

Ex — Man, school is tough . . .

Inform/Educate — Describe a process

Ex — To write you need paper, pen, and a sentence.

Entertain — Connect reader to difficult concept through story, humor, or insight

Ex — You ever write something that, when you read it, sounds like ducks crying?

Persuade — Sway someone’s opinion

Ex — To write well, you have to understand tricks that will make it better.



Let’s look at two different styles. In the margins, take notes on the structure, tone, purpose:

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Most Likely to Succeed, Malcolm Gladwell: New Yorker, 2008 !The Tigers held the ball first. Chase Daniel stood a good seven yards behind his offensive line. He had five

receivers, two to his left and three to his right, spaced from one side of the field to the other. His linemen were widely spaced as well. In play after play, Daniel caught the snap from his center, planted his feet, and threw the ball in quick seven- and eight-yard diagonal passes to one of his five receivers.

The style of offense that the Tigers run is called the “spread,” and most of the top quarterbacks in college football—the players who will be drafted into the pros—are spread quarterbacks. By spacing out the offensive linemen and wide receivers, the system makes it easy for the quarterback to figure out the intentions of the opposing defense before the ball is snapped: he can look up and down the line, “read” the defense, and decide where to throw the ball before anyone has moved a muscle. Daniel had been playing in the spread since high school; he was its master. “Look how quickly he gets the ball out,” Shonka said. “You can hardly go a thousand and one, a thousand and two, and it’s out of his hand. He knows right where he’s going. When everyone is spread out like that, the defense can’t disguise its coverage. Chase knows right away what they are going to do. The system simplifies the quarterback’s decisions.”

“In the spread, you see a lot of guys wide open,” Shonka said. “But when a guy like Chase goes to the N.F.L. he’s never going to see his receivers that open—only in some rare case, like someone slips or there’s a bust in the coverage. When that ball’s leaving your hands in the pros, if you don’t use your eyes to move the defender a little bit, they’ll break on the ball and intercept it. The athletic ability that they’re playing against in the league is unbelievable.”

As Shonka talked, Daniel was moving his team down the field. But he was almost always throwing those quick, diagonal passes. In the N.F.L., he would have to do much more than that—he would have to throw long, vertical passes over the top of the defense. Could he make that kind of throw? Shonka didn’t know. There was also the matter of his height. Six feet was fine in a spread system, where the big gaps in the offensive line gave Daniel plenty of opportunity to throw the ball and see downfield. But in the N.F.L. there wouldn’t be gaps, and the linemen rushing at him would be six-five, not six-one.

“I wonder,” Shonka went on. “Can he see? Can he be productive in a new kind of offense? How will he handle that? I’d like to see him set up quickly from center. I’d like to see his ability to read coverages that are not in the spread. I’d like to see him in the pocket. I’d like to see him move his feet. I’d like to see him do a deep dig, or deep comeback. You know, like a throw twenty to twenty-five yards down the field.”

A college quarterback joining the N.F.L. has to learn to play an entirely new game. Similarly, all quarterbacks drafted into the pros are required to take an I.Q. test—the Wonderlic Personnel Test. The theory behind the test is that the pro game is so much more cognitively demanding than the college game that high intelligence should be a good predictor of success. But when the economists David Berri and Rob Simmons analyzed the scores—which are routinely leaked to the press—they found that Wonderlic scores are all but useless as predictors. Of the five quarterbacks taken in round one of the 1999 draft, Donovan McNabb, the only one of the five with a shot at the Hall of Fame, had the lowest Wonderlic score. And who else had I.Q. scores in the same range as McNabb? Dan Marino and Terry Bradshaw, two of the greatest quarterbacks ever to play the game.

We’re used to dealing with prediction problems by going back and looking for better predictors. We now realize that being a good doctor requires the ability to communicate, listen, and empathize—and so there is increasing pressure on medical schools to pay attention to interpersonal skills as well as to test scores. We can have better physicians if we’re just smarter about how we choose medical-school students. But no one is saying that Dan Shonka is somehow missing some key ingredient in his analysis; that if he were only more perceptive he could predict Chase Daniel’s career trajectory. The problem with picking quarterbacks is that Chase Daniel’s performance can’t be predicted. The job he’s being groomed for is so particular and specialized that there is no way to know who will succeed at it and who won’t. In fact, Berri and Simmons found no connection between where a quarterback was taken in the draft—that is, how highly he was rated on the basis of his college performance—and how well he played in the pros.




When Smart People Get it Sooooo Wrong, Martin Cornoy, Huffington Post, 2012 !In his recent piece in the New Yorker ("Most Likely to Succeed," December 15), Malcolm Gladwell likens finding good

teachers for America's schools to the "quarterback problem" that pro football teams have in predicting which star college player will make it in the NFL.

Yes, I know it seems a far-fetched premise, but here is what Gladwell has in mind: just like team officials don't really know what precise traits a good college quarterback must have to succeed in the NFL's much faster, tougher game, education managers and experts (school principals, district superintendents, academic researchers) can't identify a priori the qualities of a successful teacher. In both cases, the only way to find out who has the goods is to draft them, try them out, and maybe one in four will make the grade.

As Gladwell sees it, the two situations are alike in another respect. The stakes are high in both. Good quarterbacks make the difference between a mediocre and good football team; a good teacher makes the difference between mediocre and engaged, high performing students. According to Gladwell's source--a magical "back of the envelope" estimate by the Hoover Institution's Eric Hanushek--if we could only get rid of the "worst" 6 percent of American teachers and replace them with "average" ones, in a few short years American students would be reading and solving math problems as well as Canadians and Belgians.

Okay, it's a stretch. The fact that successful NFL quarterbacks are media idols and get salaries equal to the entire budget of a small school district might influence the number of people willing to invest years practicing to get a shot at the pros. The last time I looked there were no Pop Warner teacher leagues with twelve year-olds honing their math pedagogical skills.

But the piece is off the mark in other ways. First off, the assertion that we don't know what makes good teachers before trying them out for a few years while measuring their students' test gains is simply not true. For example, careful studies confirm what has long been suspected: how much math teachers know and how well they are trained to teach math affects their students' math gains. I'm certain Gladwell believes that raising students' test scores would have a major impact on their future job productivity. So wouldn't it make sense that teachers would be more productive if they scored high on subject matter tests?

There's more. In a huge study of North Carolina students, researchers from Duke's public policy center identified a number of teacher characteristics associated with greater student test score gains. One was how well teachers did on a licensure test. But years of experience and just having a regular teaching license made the biggest difference, followed by National Certification--a particularly demanding set of requirements for those teachers who want to be able to teach anywhere in the country. No one of these characteristics alone made a huge contribution, but together they added up to about one-fifth of the test score difference between pretty good students and mediocre ones.

So using the get-rid-of-the-worst-teachers dictum, in North Carolina you would want to get rid of the unlicensed, least experienced, lowest-scoring-on-the-licensure-test teachers. But don't forget, to increase student performance you would have to replace those with licensed, experienced, high scoring teachers. Where to get them is a question Gladwell and his informants haven't gotten around to yet.

Beyond that, as Gladwell himself points out, people who know about good teaching of reading or math can observe a teacher (or even a videotape of a teacher) and judge how good they are. In most cases, a skilled trainer can make a teacher much better. Of course, it takes practice and a good coach, but isn't that what most talented football players have had even before they get to college? And don't they get more of that once they get in the pros?

Gladwell also ignores that students in some U.S. states actually do as well as Canadians or Belgians on international tests. Minnesota made such large math gains on the Third International Mathematics and Science Survey (TIMSS) in 1995-2007 that its students now do as well as the higher scoring countries in the world. Did Minnesota fire the worst performing 6 percent of its teachers? Did the state hire four young teachers for each one it kept? Not at all. Instead, with the help of Michigan State's William Schmidt, it improved its math curriculum and helped its teachers learn to teach it effectively.

Minnesota is obviously not Washington, D.C. or LA Unified. Almost all those who become teachers in Minnesota went to school there, and the state already had a good education system in 1995. So its potential teacher pool was pretty good to start with. Yet even Minnesota doesn't have four teacher candidates for each one they keep. When you get to the other end of the teacher supply chain in many DC or LA schools, you are often just trying to find any teacher--even untrained--to put in front of each classroom.

Yes, the stakes of having good teachers are high for the students in DC and LA, but who is going to pay the pro quarterback salaries to get the best trained and the brightest to teach in inner city schools? An urban district can turn to Teach for America for smart, cheap, inexperienced college graduates to spend a couple of years in a low-income school. But by the time they pick up the skills, they leave for greener pastures. Meanwhile, the poorest inner city kids are likely to get the lowest draft picks or young teachers who have never even played the game.

No, American schools don't have a quarterback problem. They can identify good teachers when they see them. What they have is a preparation problem. Right now, not enough colleges have programs producing good teachers, and many teacher preparation programs and schools don't have enough good young teaching recruits and teacher trainers to produce top-flight education graduates.

Imagine if the NFL had 100 teams instead of 32. Unless you cranked up the quality of the college game at Divisions II, the fifty worst teams in the NFL would not be very good. This is exactly what happens in education. The "best" school districts get the pick of the crop, and yes, they make mistakes, but still end up with a lot of good teachers because they know how to pick them. The least desirable districts get what's left. Eliminating certification is not going to solve this problem. It's like asking the NFL to go to local parks and find its players by scouting pick-up touch football games.

We just have to bite the bullet, Malcolm. If we want good quarterbacks we've got to make people want to be quarterbacks--and build the infrastructure to produce great ones. Learning to become a good teacher has to be as exciting and rewarding as becoming a good athlete. Someone--and maybe it should be the large urban school districts themselves--needs to develop the college-level and in-school teacher training systems to grow enough skilled players to make every school a good one.



!Using the boxes below, write 3 paragraphs, answering the prompt according to the specifications:

OCI Paragraph: What’s the point of Article #1? (Base Sentences, Writing to Inform)

OCI Paragraph: What makes Article #2 connect with the audience? (Suspensive, Instruct)

OCI Paragraph: Which article does a better job? (Loose, Persuade)




SELF-ASSESSMENT: Which of the three paragraph do I like best, and why?

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Conclusion (Deliberations - Controlling the Argument) Deductions are conclusions. For AP, you need to create an argument, you need to support that argument, but if you cannot give the “So What” of an argument -- in an attempt to control the reader’s thinking -- you will not achieve the ultimate goal. Deductions are the lifeblood of argument and rhetoric. They are a combination of your considerations; as you look at purpose, form, devices, and style you extract a theme, you come to the issue of a big AP word: Exigency (meaning, “the reason for writing”). Everyone writes for a purpose. As a writer and reader, you need to figure out why and you need to enter into a discussion with the author, you do this in your conclusion paragraph, and it all starts with critical questions.

ASSIGNMENT:

Up to this point, you have read Malcolm Gladwell’s book, you have read two articles on poverty and education, and you have read two articles about teachers and success. Thinking about all you have read, look again at the Sales Pitch (pg 6), use items 5-8 and write a Conclusion, which . . .

1. Starts with your theme

2. Come back to your Major Claim/Thesis

3. Shows both sides of the argument

4. Writes to Persuade in a Conversational Tone

!Mr Thomas • [email protected] • LCHS " 15

Conclusion



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Style Rhetorical Triangle: Text, Author, Audience

TROPES, RHETORICAL DISTANCE, SCHEMES OF CONSTRUCTION !

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The Rhetorical Triangle

!RHETORICAL STANCE EXERCISE

Figuring out an author’s purpose can be easy - “Smoking kills!” -- or difficult -- “Is God great enough to build a rock that cannot be moved?” -- depending on kairos, or time and place of the writing. As readers, we need to explore context; we need to look at words (and their meanings), and we need to feel a text (pay attention to the mood and tone) as a way of exploring and dialoguing with an author.

Novels, books, and poems are a little more difficult to explore because they are a composite of information, entertainment, and persuasion. Below is a chart with different quotations from the books you have read. This exercise will help you to see how purpose comes about, and how authors play with Rhetorical Distance -- the methods they use to draw you in.


Speaker/Writer Audience/Reader

Exigency

Text

Context

ContextContext



Read the passages below. After reading them (Ethos), locate them in the book and, in the Context/Argument Column explore the larger context (what else is going on) of the page. In the Purpose Column, give an Internal Dialogue; use the prompt provided; these are called IMPLICATIONS (issues you cannot see, but relate to the audience at large). Try create a scenario that is going on outside the page! worldview (cause and effect), and what might be on his mind as he writes this? !

Passage Context/Argument Purpose (Reflection from Author’s Mind)

In transplanting the paesani culture of southern Italy to the hills of eastern Pennsylvania, the Rosetans had created a powerful, protective social structure capable of insulating them from the pressures of the modern world. The Rosetans were healthy because of where they were from, because of the world they had created for themselves in their tiny little town in the hills. - Pg. 8

So, if culture has something

to do with it . . .

People don’t rise from nothing. We do owe something to parentage and patronage. The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all by themselves. But in fact they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden a d v a n t a g e s a n d e x t r a o r d i n a r y opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot . It makes a difference where and when we grew up. The culture we belong to and the legacies passed down by our forebears shape the patterns of our achievement in ways we cannot begin to imagine. It’s not enough to ask what successful people are like, in other words. It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn’t. - Pg. 19

I don’t belong to myself?

“In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again. Of course, this doesn’t address why some people get more out of their practice sessions than others do. But no one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.” - Pg 40

If talent is everything,

then . . .




By the time the Termites reached adulthood, Terman’s error was plain to see. Some of his child geniuses had grown up to publish books and scholarly articles and thrive in business. Several ran for public office, and there were two superior court justices, one municipal court judge, two members of the California state legislature, and one prominent state official. But few of his geniuses were nationally known figures. They tended to earn good incomes— but not that good. The majority had careers that could only be considered ordinary, and a surprising number ended up with careers that even Terman considered failures. Nor were there any Nobel Prize winners in his exhaustively selected group of geniuses. His f ieldworkers actually tested two elementary students who went on to be Nobel laureates— William Shockley and Luis Alvarez —and rejected them both. Their IQs weren’t high enough. -- pg. 89

Nobel Prize winners are

awarded for what?

Without a degree, Langan floundered. He worked in construction. One frigid winter he worked on a clam boat on Long Island. He took factory jobs and minor civil service positions and eventually became a bouncer in a bar on Long Island , which was his principal occupation for much of his adult years. Through it all, he continued to read deeply in philosophy, mathematics, and physics as he worked on a sprawling treatise he calls the “CTMU”— the “Cognitive Theoretic Model of the Universe.” But without academic credentials, he despairs of ever getting published in a scholarly journal. “I am a guy who has a year and a half of college,” he says, with a shrug. “And at some point this will come to the attention of the editor, as he is going to take the paper and send it off to the referees, and these referees are going to try and look me up, and they are not going to find me. And they are going to say, This guy has a year and a half of college. How can he know what he’s talking about?” -- Pg 95

The sad truth of the matter

is . . .





Cultures of honor tend to take root in highlands and other marginally fertile areas, such as Sicily or the mountainous Basque regions of Spain. If you live on some rocky moun ta ins ide , the explanation goes, you can’t farm. You probably raise goats or sheep, and the kind of culture that grows up around being a herdsman is very different from the culture that grows up around growing crops. The survival of a farmer depends on the cooperation of others in the community. But a herdsman is off by himself. Farmers also don’t have to worry that their livelihood will be stolen in the night, because crops can’t easily be stolen unless, of course, a thief wants to go to the trouble of harvesting an entire field on his own. But a herdsman does have to worry. He’s under constant threat of ruin through the loss of his animals. So he has to be aggressive : he has to make it clear, through his words and deeds, that he is not weak. He has to be willing to fight in response to even the slightest challenge to his reputation— and that’s what a “culture of honor” means. It’s a world where a man’s reputation is at the center of his livelihood and self-worth. — Pg. 166

What does a Culture of

Honor mean at the high

school level?





using other people’s voices to sharpen our own Point-of-View. Here you will use a method that is called They Say/I Say (it’s a book, and it is much more involved than the following). Academic/Argumentative Writing involves conversation between you and someone else; here is the basic pattern:

State your Major Claim (problem and solution — Concrete/Abstract) Ex: People define success differently, but Malcolm Gladwell argues . . .

Example of the Argument from Perspective #1 (They Say . . . Textual) Ex: Dr. Terman explained success came from people’s intelligence . . .

Example of the Argument from Perspective #2 (They Say . . .Textual) Ex: Chris Langan, though, knew success came from other places . . .

Your Response to the Arguments (I Say . . introducing global argument) Ex: Both are correct, but . . .

Conclusion (I Say . . addressing the global perspective - Audience) Ex: Success may be defined differently, but . . .

Prompt: Write a They Say/I Say Paragraph using your personal Equation for Success in conversation with voices from the Rhetorical Stance Exercise:

Straight Writing — Formal, To Inform:

Feature Writing — Didactic (Teaching), To Persuade:




Editorial Writing — Conversational, To Entertain:

!SELF REFLECTION:

Of the three paragraphs, which do you like most, and why?




! !

Visualizing a Text Closing the Rhetorical Space

MAJOR PREMISE, MINOR PREMISE !

RHETORICAL DISTANCE (Space between reader and author)

Malcolm Gladwell uses people’s stories to translate difficult concepts. As writers, you

will be asked to do the same — make words into pictures and pictures into words. To do this, you

will use all the Rhetorical Modes (Narration, Definition, Comparison-Contrast, Cause and

Effect, Argumentation, Process, Exposition, and Example) and utilize all the Rhetorical

Stances/Purposes (inform, entertain, persuade). As readers, we have two major goals when

reading that help us locate the author’s purpose:

1) Determine the Major Premise - the one claim that sums up the author’s point

2)Determine the Minor Premise - a summary statement supporting author’s evidence




!TRANSLATION EXERCISE: Below are two examples of men with similar opinions from the

book Outliers. If you can isolate that, then you will be able to see the differences between

different perspectives (it’s called classification, and it is a powerful AP tool).

1) Write an explication (translation) that gives you a handle on the text 2)Write the author’s major premise (the exact claim that makes his argument clear) 3)Write the author’s minor premise (summary of the proof that supports his argument)

!!Mr Thomas • [email protected] • LCHS " 23

Marita doesn’t need a brand-new school with acres of playing fields and gleaming

facilities . She doesn’t need a laptop, a smaller class, a teacher with a PhD, or a bigger

apartment. She doesn’t need a higher IQ or a mind as quick as Chris Langan’s. All those

things would be nice , of course. But they miss the point. Marita just needed a chance.

And look at the chance she was given! Someone brought a little bit of the rice paddy to

the South Bronx and explained to her the miracle of meaningful work.

!Gladwell, Malcolm (2008-10-29). Outliers: The Story of Success (pp. 268-269). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle

1) Write an explication that gives you a handle on the text (own words) !!!!!2) Author’s major premise (exact claim that makes argument clear) !!!3) Author’s minor premise (summary statement supporting argument) !!



Reading #2

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I complained to God in so many words: “Here I was, the wounded representative of the negro

race in our struggle to be accounted free and equal with the dominating whites!” And God

was amused; my prayer did not ring true with Him. I would try again. And then God said,

“Have you not done the same thing? Remember this one and that one, people whom you have

slighted or avoided or treated less considerately than others because they were different

superficially, and you were ashamed to be identified with them. Have you not been glad that

you are not more colored than you are? Grateful that you are not black?” My anger and hate

against the landlady melted . I was no better than she was, nor worse for that matter…. We

were both guilty of the sin of self-regard, the pride and the exclusiveness by which we cut some

people off from ourselves. !Gladwell, Malcolm (2008-10-29). Outliers: The Story of Success (p. 284). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.

1) Write an explication that gives you a handle on the text (own words) !!!!!2) Author’s major premise (exact claim that makes argument clear) !!!3) Author’s minor premise (summary statement supporting argument) !!



OPTIC EXERCISE: Narration to Devices (Moving from Concrete to Abstract)

As a reader, you need to uncover the layering great authors use to develop a story. If every story could be boiled down to one sentence, then we will miss the beauty of language and the artistry that defines our culture -- and, simply, overlook God’s first and most cherished action: creativity! As you will soon understand, great writing has multiple meanings and AP expects writers to see those layers and address them; the best way to do this is to think in terms of concrete language -- language you can experience with your senses (a rock) -- to abstract -- words that define (rocks represent strength, timelessness, anchor). As a reader you need to think at both levels.

Below, you will see two pictures. Admittedly, pictures are not books, but, as effective readers, you need to visualize your reading: you need to see faces, hear voices, set scenes. Using the OPTIC Exercise, look closely at the picture and write a thesis. Rather than just an argumentative statement, your thesis should be affective, meaning it should deal with the emotional cues of the picture. As an example, rather than say, “This person is determined {abstract}; his eyes are focused on the rim {concrete}” you should talk about the emotional point-of-view of the picture-taker (Exigence): “The panoramic scope of the picture . . .” or “The rugged landscape and mountain climber’s body language suggests . . .”


OPTIC DETAILS

!Overview

!Parts

!Title

!Interconnection

!Conclusion (Thesis)




OPTIC DETAILS

!Overview

!Parts

!Title

!Interconnection

!Conclusion (Thesis)

Compare-Contrast Paragraph Outline: What is going on in these two pictures?

Thesis

Explanation #1

Explanation #2

Explanation #3



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Writing to the Text Synthesis, Persuasion, Analysis

ADDRESSING THE PROMPT !

Make a Decisions

AP asks you to write three kinds of essays as a way for you to see a text from multiple perspectives as you Answer the given Prompt. In order to understand, here are some essential tools:

• Claim — A statement of opinion

• Support — Support for the opinion

• Counter-Claim (Qualifying Statement)— An opposing POV

• Backing — Support for the opposing POV

the expectations fully, you have to understand the concept of Support (material that builds your argument) and Qualifying Statements (information that shows you understand both sides) or Counter-Argument (material that shows the opposition to your argument). In an AP setting, you will usually encounter this point/counter-point perspective. Therefore, you will need to uncover the method in your reading, and demonstrate in your writing that you understand how to balance more than one idea at a time.




In the exercises below, you will be given a paragraph formula and a prompt. In answering the prompt you must use the formula, you must answer the prompt, and you must use both support and qualifying statements to build your arguments. Each paragraph will have a different purpose so YOU MUST READ THE PROMPT CAREFULLY! To say AP will try and trick you is not exactly true, but they will ask you to read like sophisticated readers -- ie, those who understand good writing happens in layers and it needs to be taken apart. Remember: ALWAYS BE LOOKING (AND WRITING) FOR TWO SIDES (called paradox)!

Classic Argument

The first and most basic rhetorical pattern, the Classical Argument can happen at the

paragraph level or the essay level; at best, both will happen. This argument assumes you will start

with your own opinion and then present the counter-argument, somebody else’s. Read the

passage below and answer the prompt using this particular formula:

PROMPT: Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers tells different stories of success. In the passages below, you will see two opinions about the nature of success. Read both passages carefully. Then write a response that examines the speakers Major and Minor Premises, and carefully your position.

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From From

But in Western agriculture, the opposite is true. Unless a wheat- or cornfield is left fallow every few years, the soil becomes exhausted. Every winter, fields are empty. The hard labor of spring planting and fall harvesting is followed, like clockwork, by the slower pace of summer and winter. This is the logic the reformers applied to the cultivation of young minds. We formulate new ideas by analogy, working from what we know toward what we don’t know, and what the reformers knew were the rhythms of the agricultural seasons. A mind must be cultivated. But not too much, lest it be exhausted. And what was the remedy for the dangers of exhaustion? The long summer vacation— a peculiar and distinctive American legacy that has had profound consequences for the learning patterns of the students of the present day.

This idea— that effort must be balanced by rest— could not be more different from Asian notions about study and work, of course. But then again, the Asian worldview was shaped by the rice paddy. In the Pearl River Delta, the rice farmer planted two and sometimes three crops a year. The land was fallow only briefly. In fact, one of the singular features of rice cultivation is that because of the nutrients carried by the water used in irrigation, the more a plot of land is cultivated, the more fertile it gets.




The Classic Argument: Focus on YOUR Argument

Below, write a brief, Classic Argument (one sentence for each item above).

Write Below:

Introduction Introduce your issue and capture the attention of your audience. Try using a short Anecdote, Analogy, or Metaphor.

Narration To Classify (separate your argument) by laying out a Narrative of the situation, showing you understand the history of the situation you are discussing.

Proposition/Thesis Discuss reasons why you have taken your position.

Refutation Show why the arguments of others are not persuasive. Concede any point that has merit bus show this concession does not damage your case.

Conclusion Summarize the most important points and appeal to reader’s feelings (Pathos)




Rogerian Model

Carl Rogers was a psychologist who, among other courses of study, wrote about conflict

resolution. This particular argument style comes about as a result of holistic thinking (the idea

that we see the big picture without examining the details). This pattern asks you to enter into

another person’s argument in order to find your own. Read the passage below and answer the

prompt using this particular formula:

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About: Bill Joy About: The Beatles

After graduating from Berkeley , Joy cofounded the Silicon Valley firm Sun Microsystems, which was one of the most critical players in the computer revolution . There he rewrote another computer language— Java—and his legend grew still further. Among Silicon Valley insiders, Joy is spoken of with as much awe as someone like Bill Gates of Microsoft. He is sometimes called the Edison of the Internet. As the Yale computer scientist David Gelernter says, “Bill Joy is one of the most influential people in the modern history of computing.” The story of Bill Joy’s genius has been told many times, and the lesson is always the same. Here was a world that was the purest of meritocracies. Computer programming didn’t operate as an old-boy network, where you got ahead because of money or connections. It was a wide-open field in which all participants were judged solely on their talent and their accomplishments. It was a world where the best men won, and Joy was clearly one of those best men.

The Beatles— John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George

Harrison, and Ringo Starr— came to the United States in

February of 1964, starting the so-called British Invasion of the

American music scene and putting out a string of hit records

that transformed the face of popular music. The first

interesting thing about the Beatles for our purposes is how

long they had already been together by the time they reached

the United States . Lennon and McCartney first started playing

together in 1957, seven years prior to landing in America.

(Incidentally, the time that elapsed between their founding and

their arguably greatest artistic achievements— Sgt. Pepper’s

Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Beatles [White Album]— is

ten years .) And if you look even more closely at those long

years of preparation, you’ll find an experience that, in the

context of hockey players and Bill Joy and world -class

violinists, sounds awfully familiar. In 1960, while they were still

just a struggling high school rock band, they were invited to

play in Hamburg, Germany.


Actor Christopher Reeve, who was paralyzed in a horse riding accident, said this about heroism: “A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.” Gladwell’s book Outliers tells the story of people who some might consider heroes. Read the passage below and then, in an organized response use evidence from the book that address Reeve’s statement.



!Rogerian Argument: Focus on THE OPPONENT’S Point of View

Below, write a brief, Rogerian Argument (one sentence for each item above).

Write Below:

Introduction Set up the scenario for your writing: what is the Exigency (purpose for the paper); use Anecdote, Classification, Narrative to establish the issue

Concessions Reassure that you hope to persuade by showing you agree with the readers who are opposed and do not thing they are completely wrong

Thesis Now that you have earned the confidence of your audience, state your Major Claim or Proposition

Support Explain why you have taken this position and provide support for it.

Conclusions Conclude by showing how your reader and other people could benefit from accepting your position. Indicate the extent to which this position will resolve the problem you are addressing




Toulmin Model:

Toulmin is the toughest model to follow. He thinks like a statistician and explains like a

contract lawyer. Nonetheless, AP likes this method: it’s concise, but not too stylistic. Use it (and

the example of the picture given) to answer the following prompt:

Toulmin Model: Focus on THE ISSUE

On the last page of the workbook, write a Toulmin Response that addresses, qualifies, and argues

your position.

Data The problem you are addressing

Warrant Why this problem affects the audience

Backing Evidence to the affects

Initial Claim One possible solution to the problem

Rebuttal What opponents would say about the solution

Qualifier Why their point-of-view could be correct.

Final Claim Your proposed final solution to the problem




Write Below:

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