2011-2012 LANGUAGE ARTS IIIENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION

GENERAL COURSE INFORMATION

This composition course is designed to prepare high school AP students to read and respond to a variety of texts at a level of performance commensurate with the expectations that post-secondary institutions have for incoming college freshmen and sophomores. The overarching goal for this course is to help students develop the critical thinking and communication skills that can lead to greater proficiency and sophistication in reading, comprehending, analyzing, and writing about textual materials that span a wide range of topics, genres, styles, eras, and purposes. Students will receive intensive instruction regarding rhetoric, rhetorical modes, and style analysis. Students will develop, practice, and apply relevant skill-sets through varied reading and writing assignments. Nonfiction and fiction materials will be studied based on selections taken from the four textbooks utilized in the course along with novels, plays, supplemental materials drawn from periodicals of recognized literary merit, research and/or resource publications and documents, and various other media. Students will be expected to write several essays throughout the year. Essays will be written in a combination of ways, including in-class timed writing and take-home essay draft revision. Students will be encouraged to diverge from the formulaic five paragraph essays to which they may have been accustomed. The reason for this, according to the College Board, is that “although such formulaic approaches may provide minimal organization, they often encourage unnecessary repetition and fail to engage the reader. Students should be encouraged to place their emphasis on content, purpose, and audience and to allow this focus to guide the organization of their writing.”

The instructional texts and strategies used in this English Language and Composition class are based on the requirements for such a course as delineated by the AP/College Board. It is augmented by input, training, lesson-design, and frameworks developed by the California State University (CSU) system for a college preparatory expository reading and writing course, which provided through the CSU Early Assessment Program (EAP). The following list, offered by the AP/College Board, succinctly identifies the goals and objectives for this course.

Upon completing the AP English Language and Composition course, students should be able to:

analyze and interpret samples of good writing, identifying, and explaining an

author’s use of rhetorical strategies and techniques;

apply effective strategies and techniques in their own writing;

create and sustain arguments based on readings, research, and/or personal

experience;

write for a variety of purposes;

produce expository, analytical, and argumentative compositions that introduce a

complex central idea and develops it with appropriate evidence drawn from

primary and/or secondary sources, cogent explanations, and clear transitions;

demonstrate understanding and mastery of standard written English as well as

stylistic maturity in their own writings;

demonstrate understanding of the conventions of citing primary and secondary

sources;

move effectively through the stages of the writing process, with careful attention

to inquiry and research, drafting, revising, editing, and review;

write thoughtfully about their own process of composition;

revise a work to make it suitable for a different audience;

analyze image as text; and

evaluate and incorporate reference documents into researched papers.

In meeting the requirements detailed in the preceding list, the AP English Language and Composition course integrates the essential standards for

reading, writing, listening, and speaking established by the State of California as

categorized in the following:

Reading:

1.3 Discern the meaning of analogies, analyzing specific comparisons as well as relationships and inferences.

2.1 Analyze both the features and the rhetorical devices of different types of public documents (e.g. policy statements, speeches, debates, platforms) and the way in which authors use those features and devices.

2.1.1 Analyze the way in which clarity of meaning is affected by the patterns of organization, hierarchical structures, repetition of the main ideas, syntax, and word choice in the text.

2.1.2 Verify and clarify facts presented in other types of expository texts by using a variety of consumer, workplace, and public documents.

2.1.3 Make warranted and reasonable assertions about the author’s arguments by using elements of the text to defend and clarify interpretations.

2.1.4 Analyze an author’s implicit and explicit philosophical assumptions and beliefs about a subject.

2.6 Critique the power, validity, and truthfulness of arguments set forth in public documents, their appeal to both friendly and hostile audiences, and the extent to which the arguments anticipate and address reader concerns and counterclaims (e.g., appeal to reason, to authority, to pathos, and emotion).

3.2 Analyze the way in which the theme or meaning of a selection represents a view or comment on life, using textual evidence to support the claim.

3.3 Analyze the way in which irony, tone, mood, the author’s style, and the “sound” of language achieve the specific rhetorical or aesthetic purposes or both.

3.5 Analyze recognized works of American literature representing a variety of genres and traditions:

a. Analyze recognized works of American literature from the colonial period forward. b. Contrast the major periods, themes, styles, and trends and describe how works by members of different cultures relates to one another in each period.

c. Evaluate the philosophical, political, religious, ethical, and social influences of the historical period that shaped the characters, plots, and settings.

3.6 Analyze the way in which authors through the centuries have used archetypes drawn from myths and tradition in literature, film, political speeches, and religious writings.

3.8 Analyze the clarity and consistency of political assumptions in a selection of literary works or essays on a topic, e.g. suffrage and women’s role in organized labor (political approach).

3.9 Analyze the philosophical arguments presented in the literary works to determine whether the author’s positions have contributed to the quality of each work and the credibility of the characters. (philosophical approach).

Writing:

1.1 Demonstrate an understanding of the elements of discourse (e.g. purpose, speaker, audience, form) when completing narrative, expository, persuasive, or descriptive

writing assignments.

1.2 Use point of view, characterization, style (e.g. use of irony), and related elements for specific rhetorical and aesthetic purposes.

1.3 Structure ideas and arguments in a sustained, persuasive, and sophisticated way and support them with precise and relevant examples.

1.4 Enhance meaning by employing rhetorical devices, including the extended use of parallelism, repetition, and analogy; the incorporation of visual aids (e.g. graphs,

tables, pictures); and the issuance of a call for action.

1.5 Use of language in a natural, fresh, and vivid ways to establish a specific tone.

1.6 Develop presentations by using clear research questions and creative and critical research strategies (e.g. field studies, oral histories, interviews, experiments, electronics, sources).

1.7 Use systematic strategies to organize and record information (e.g. anecdotal scripting, annotated bibliographies).

1.9 Revise text to highlight the individual voice, improve sentence variety and style, and enhance subtlety of meaning and tone in ways that are consistent with the purpose, audience, and genre.

2.2 Write responses to literature:

a. Demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the significant ideas in works or passages,

b. Analyze the use of imagery, language, universal themes, and unique aspects of text.

c. Support important ideas and viewpoints through accurate and detailed references to the text and to other works.

d. Demonstrate an understanding of the author’s use of stylistic devices and an appreciation of the effects created.

e. Identify and assess the impact of perceived ambiguities, nuances, and complexities within the text.

2.3 Write reflective compositions:

a. Explore the significance of personal experiences, events, conditions, or concerns by using rhetorical strategies (e.g. narration, description, exposition, persuasion).b. Draw comparisons between specific incidents and broader themes that illustrate the writer’s important beliefs or generalizations about life.c. Maintain a balance in describing individual incidents and relate those incidents to

more general and abstract ideas.

Written and Oral Language Conventions:

1.1 Demonstrate control of grammar, diction, and paragraph and sentence structure and an understanding of English usage.

1.2 Produce legible work that shows accurate spelling and correct punctuation and capitalization.

1.3 Reflect appropriate manuscript requirements in writing.

Listening and Speaking:

1.1 Recognize strategies used by the media to inform, persuade, entertain, and transmit culture (advertisement; perpetuation of stereotypes; use of visual representations, special effects, language).

1.2 Analyze the impact of the media on the democratic process (exerting influence in elections, creating images of leaders, shaping attitudes) at the local, state, and

national levels.

1.3 Interpret and evaluate the various ways in which events are presented and information is communicated by visual image makers (graphic artists, documentary filmmakers, illustrators, news photographers).

1.4 Use rhetorical questions, parallel structure, concrete images, figurative language, characterization, irony, and dialogue to achieve clarity, force, and aesthetic effect.

1.5 Distinguish between and use various forms of classical and contemporary logical arguments, including:

a. Inductive and deductive reasoningb. Syllogisms and analogies

1.6 Use logical, ethical, and emotional appeals that enhance a specific tone and purpose.

1.7 Use appropriate rehearsal strategies to pay attention to performance details, achieve command of the text, and create skillful artistic staging.

1.11 Critique a speaker’s diction and syntax in relation to the purpose of an oral communication and the impact the words may have an audience.

1.12 Identify logical fallacies used in oral address (attack ad hominem, false causality, red herring, overgeneralizations, bandwagon effect).

1.13 Analyze the four basic types of persuasive speech (i.e., propositions of fact, value, problem, or policy) and understand the similarities and differences in their patterns of organization and the use of persuasive language, reasoning, and proof.

1.14 Analyze the techniques used in the media messages for a particular audience and evaluate their effectiveness.

TEXTBOOKS:

Columbo, Gary, Robert Cullen, and Bonnie Lisle. Rereading America: Cultural Context for Critical Thinking and Writing. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007.

Kinsella, Kate, Kevin Feldman, Colleen Shea Stump, Joyce Armstrong, Carroll, and Edward E. Wilson. Prentice Hall Literature; The American Experience. New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc. 2002.

Lunsford, Andrea, John J. Ruskiewicz and Keith Walters. Everything’s An Argument 4. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007.

Lunsford, Andrea. St Martin’s Handbook. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007.

Shea, Renee, Lawrence Scanlon and Robin Dissin Aufses. The Language of Composition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008.

The Language of Composition and Everything’s An Argument are the primary textbooks for composition, and Rereading America will be utilized as a classroom supplement. Prentice Hall Literature; The American Experience will be used as a textbook resource for general historical study of American literature. St Martin’s Handbook will be the primary style and grammar textbook resource for the class.

REQUIRED AND SUGGESTED READING:

While summer is a time to relax and have fun, it is also a time to become acquainted with differing (and sometimes idiosyncratic) authorial styles in addressing common themes and current issues and/or positions. Because of the scope of the course, it is required that incoming students enrolled in the 11 th grade AP English Language and Composition course complete a number of summer reading and

writing assignments prior to the beginning of the first semester of the upcoming academic year. Those assignments will be specified later in this document. Aside from those assignments, it is also recommended that students use their summer hiatus to become familiar with Biblical and mythological source materials. Such materials will enhance a student’s knowledge of related symbols and allusions, and this knowledge can be vital in correctly recognizing and interpreting such symbols and allusions when they are used by authors. Sources for such material will be specified later in this document.

You MAY be required to do one to three reports per semester on whole-class and/or individually assigned novels that you will have to read outside of class. I strongly urge you to purchase a personal copy of any long work, such as a book or play that has been assigned for the class. You will generally have at least a two-week announcement prior to our beginning study units on long works so that you can borrow or purchase a necessary text. The remainders section and bargain bins at many major bookstores often contain discounted stock that includes books relevant to this class, from dictionaries and thesauruses (or should that be thesauri?) to novels, plays, essays, poetry or short story collections, writing style manuals, and literary terminology and criticism. Used bookstores, especially those serving our local college community, are often excellent sources for such books. The books listed below are strongly suggested, since they will help you in the upcoming year (as might Harold Bloom’s The Western Canon):

A high quality English dictionary, preferably one that has integrated synonyms and antonyms in its definitions.

Cliff’s AP Language and Composition Prep Guide will also generally serve your needs in preparing for both the class and the AP test. There are also several other preparation guides and practice materials for the AP English Language and Composition available at public libraries, on-line, and for purchase at bookstores, published by such companies as Barron’s, The Princeton Review, Kaplan, and Research and Education Association

A good supplemental text of your own that specifically deals with the standards and demands of doing college level writing and research. Two such books that have impressed me are Doing Honest Work in College by Charles Lipton, and The Craft of Research by Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Collins, and Joseph P. Williams.

Aside from the skills specific to recognizing, analyzing, and employing rhetorical strategies in composition, the A.P. class and the A. P. exam requires that you have demonstrable critical knowledge of many different works of literature such as novels, plays, short stories, poetry, or nonfiction works written by significant authors. The word “significant” as used in the preceding sentence and in the context of an A. P. exam generally excludes contemporary popular authors such as John Gresham, Stephen King, Tom Clancy, or others who are considered to write solely (Or “merely”) for commercial popularity. While such an inclusion or exclusion of commercial authors might make for an interesting topic of discussion and debate, it is a moot point in regards to the A. P. exam. The authors of that exam focus on writers who have been accepted in a general

canon of authors deemed worthy of study by colleges and universities. For that reason, you could be asked to write an essay addressing the dystopic elements in the plot and themes of a novel, novella, or short story by Aldous Huxley or George Orwell or William Golding, or the satiric elements evident in Sinclair Lewis’ novels. You might be given a poem such as W. H. Auden’s “The Unknown Citizen” and asked to interpret the dystopic or satiric elements within it, or to relate it to the theme of a significant utopian or dystopian novel. If you had any difficulty with the vocabulary in the text up to this point, please take to heart my admonition that everyone needs access to a good dictionary and thesaurus at home as an indispensable tool for accurate reading and writing.

During the school year, it would not be unusual for you to be assigned 75 to 100 pages of text to be read within a week on your own time and on your own outside of class. Remember, AP English Language and Composition will require a great deal of independent reading and writing on your part, and procrastination can have disastrous results on your performance (and grade) in that class just as it could in college courses. Moreover, I strongly recommend that you purchase your own copy of any novel or play assigned for the class so that you can make notations in it that might be useful in your comprehension, analysis, and interpretation. I urge you to avoid employing simplistic, generic aids such as the Cliff’s Notes or Monarch Notes series for the reading in the A. P. class. Such series are often too superficial to be truly useful for serious academic purposes regarding novels, plays, and poetry (and better critical resources exist).

Major book store chains, such as Border’s and Barnes and Noble, usually have great bargains in works of literature as well as books on literature, language, vocabulary, and etymology in their clearance, remainders, and bargains sections. It can be useful, rewarding, and often surprisingly fun to explore bookstores for those reasons. Please pardon the sententiousness, but I believe that it is often possible (and sometimes painful) to know too little, but impossible to know too much; the search for knowledge can lead one to discover more about one’s own interests and self, as well as about the great and wonderfully wide world.

Keep in mind that this AP class is intended to prepare you to perform well in college-level classes by giving instruction and practice in the critical thinking process, developing your analytical, rhetorical, and communication skills. It will replicate many aspects of a college freshman composition and literature class. Your notes, “one sheets”, essays, assignments, quizzes, tests, and the rest of the work that you do for this class are meant to prepare you not only for college level performance and expectations, but also for the A. P. exam. To succeed in this class, you will need to be strongly motivated and very diligent. You will be issued both a non-AP textbook and several AP textbooks, and you can expect to have reading and/or writing homework from either or both (as well as other supplementary texts) at least four school nights a week, most weekends, and most extended vacations. In terms of the workload, you usually can expect homework assignments to take approximately twenty minutes to an hour to complete. Often, you may be studying different works simultaneously. For instance, we may be reading an essay or set of related essays in class while you are reading a novel or play at home (on your own or as part of a whole-class lesson unit). You may be expected to attend lunch meetings one to three times a week at different times during the year (probably an average of four to seven weeks a semester) for extended lecture and discussion, along with the acquisition, development, review, and application of knowledge and skills.

REQUIRED SUMMER WORK:

By the end of the sophomore year, you will be issued a copy of The Language of Composition, one of the textbooks for this course. By the first day of class in Fall, you must have read the first three chapters , pages 1 through 85, for the sake of familiarizing yourself with the basic foundational concepts and terms involving rhetoric, close reading and analysis, synthesis, and effective argumentation. These chapters are crucial to establishing the groundwork for our work and studies in this class. At the beginning of your academic year for this 11th grade class, you will have a series of quizzes over the bold-faced vocabulary words and terms given in those chapters (such as rhetoric, audience, context, purpose, bias, thesis, claim, assertion, subject, speaker, rhetorical triangle, persona, ethos, logos, and pathos, for example). Moreover, you will have summer assignments from pages in that textbook, as well as assignments applying the concepts therein to material outside the textbook.

Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn must be read by the first day of class in Fall., and you must have completed a “one sheet”-style book report (I’ve supplied the format herein), and written a rough draft on one of three prompts regarding that novel. The three prompts for the summer assignment on the novel will be supplied to you by the end of the sophomore year. I highly recommend that, if possible, you purchase a copy of that novel so that you can make annotations in it. The primary textbook for this class contains instructional material regarding the use of annotation. I prefer the use of the annotation process is an aid to critical reading and critical thinking because I believe that it most effectively aids a student in maintaining focus on, and staying actively engaged with, the text while reading. Effective annotation allows the reader to react spontaneously to the text, generating material that can be useful for creating and developing essay topics involving the text while simultaneously creating a convenient personal resource for text reference.

By you also must have read three current non-fiction articles or essays that are at least six pages long chosen from any of the issue(s) of The New Yorker published between the beginning of June through the end of August of this year. The New Yorker is a venerable weekly magazine famous for the eclecticism and excellence of its articles and essays on a broad range of topics. You may buy The New Yorker in any well-stocked newsstand or bookstore, or you can find it in most public libraries. You may also access it on the internet at http//:www.newyorker.com. If you choose the internet access option, you will not be able to read all articles from an issue, but you will still be able to read most of the notable articles and essays. Peruse the hardcopy and/or internet versions for subjects that catch your eye or pique your interest. You will be given written assignments based on the textbook chapters and on The New Yorker readings that will have to be completed by the aforementioned date. The specifics for the summer assignment on the three articles will be supplied to you by the end of the sophomore year. We will begin review, discussions, and extended class work on those summer assignments by that date. You will also two quizzes and one major test over the summer reading of the novel. You

will also have several quizzes on the bold-faced vocabulary terms scattered throughout the instructional text of the first three chapters of The Language of Composition, as well as the terms given in the glossary on pages 58-59 of that textbook.

WRITING STANDARDS FOR THE A.P. LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE ARTS CLASS

All written answers and or essays turned in for this class must be submitted on or before their respective specified due dates, in dark blue or black ink, preferably typewritten or word-processed, in correct and legible sentence or paragraph form, on the front side of the paper only. Your papers should be as error free in terms of style, spelling, and grammar as one might reasonably expect according to the writing requirements associated with an A.P. Language Arts class. When writing a literary analysis, you must maintain the literary present tense unless you are quoting. Also, you cannot use contractions unless they are part of a direct quote. Generally speaking, you should not write from the first person stance using personal pronouns when writing a formal academic research paper, but for the sake of the summer work, I will allow it IF you employ it for the purpose of establishing your opinion (as a rhetorical strategy---cf. pages 1-85 of The Language of Composition). I am opting to use personal pronouns herein to underscore the imperative nature of these instructions, otherwise, the three sentences preceding this one could be written thusly:

Papers should be as error free in terms of style, spelling, and grammar as one might reasonably expect in adhering to the writing requirements associated with an A.P. Language Arts class. Maintain the literary present tense when writing a literary analysis unless quotes are being employed. Do not use contractions unless they are part of a direct quote. Do not use personal pronouns in reference to yourself as the author of the essay or report.

At the beginning of the year, you may receive several style sheets regarding words and phrases that are not acceptable for you to use in written answers or essays assigned for this class. The textbooks for this class, especially the style manual, will offer you very useful writer’s resources. Use them as aids, resources, and reference when you are writing and revising.

Initially, short essays should follow a Jane Shaffer and/or Step Up To Writing and/or EAP format or some acceptable (to me) variation thereof. Accordingly, such essays would typically consist of four to six paragraphs, beginning with an introductory topic paragraph that establishes a clearly defined subject and/or supportable thesis. The introduction is followed by two to four body paragraphs, each developing a particular aspect of the subject topic or is on a topic significant in validating the essay’s thesis. In each body paragraph, this development and/or validation is accomplished through the use of two to three details and logical, reasonable commentary sentences linking each detail to your thesis. The final paragraph is the conclusion. Word counts for the paragraphs may be mandated at the instructor’s discretion. The introductory and concluding paragraphs

each should be between 40 to 60 words long. A body paragraph could be approximately 125-175 words each. When doing word counts, you do not have to count direct quotations, articles, conjunctions, or prepositions (note that the first sentence of this paragraph had less than 30 words in it, if one does not count articles, conjunctions, or prepositions). If a concrete detail requires the use of a lengthy quotation, you may use an ellipsis to shorten it, if that does not damage the sense or context of the quote in terms its relevance or purpose in your paper.

The subject or thesis paragraph can be thought of as your contract to the audience whereby you sketch the overarching idea that you propose to explore in the essay and the general ideas you intend to use to develop that thesis effectively. Here is an example of such an introduction:

In Mark Twain’s, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , Huck shows remarkable moral development. Initially, he naively accepts the racism of antebellum America, but his sympathetic association with the runaway slave, Jim, leads him to question and ultimately defy such socially sanctioned and institutionalized injustice.

The thesis should be developed through the next two to four body paragraphs. Each body paragraph must contain two or three concrete details (sentences containing quotes or paraphrases or facts that each are properly attributed to their source), and each of the details must be used as support (in terms of evidence, proof, and/or justification) for at least two relevant, logical, coherent commentary sentences. The CD (concrete detail) is the “what (and maybe the who, when, where, how)” that has happened or is literally stated and/or concretely true according to the text, while the CM (commentary sentence) answers the implicit question “so, why should the reader know/care?” or addresses the implied significance and meaning of the “what”. It may also include the “why,” or “how,” questions that are raised by the CM. To use Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn again as an example, Huck says that he is willing to accept eternal perdition as the consequence of helping Jim (a “what” CD directly taken from the words to that effect that Huck speaks in the text), and his demonstrated rejection of the unjust rationales of the racist society surrounding him (CM2). CM1 and CM2 also reveal Huck’s growth as an individual capable of discerning and acting on what we are meant to perceive as an ethically laudable, desirable higher standard of justice than that shown by most of the adults in the book (CM3). The preceding sentences illustrate a CD followed by three CMs which probably would appear in the final body paragraph of an essay that began with the thesis example that I gave.

The final paragraph must be a conclusion that makes the reader feel that the subject or thesis has been fully addressed according to the contract established in the introduction, and that you have effectively and successfully finished your argument via presentation of information and/or proofs sufficient to that task. It should not be merely a reiteration or paraphrase of the introduction.

As you read in the General Course Outline, students will be expected to write several essays throughout the year. Essays will be written in a combination of ways that include in-class timed writing and take-home revision assignments. Students will be encouraged to diverge from the formulaic five paragraph essays to which they have been

accustomed. The reason for this, according to the College Board, is because “although such formulaic approaches may provide minimal organization, they often encourage unnecessary repetition and fail to engage the reader. Students should be encouraged to place their emphasis on content, purpose, and audience and to allow this focus to guide the organization of their writing.” As the year progresses and your skills develop, you may find effective ways of writing that will allow you to transcend the seemingly “black letter” strictures of the preceding guidelines.

In the following example assignment, you will note that the directions suggest a structure for an essay answer regarding Milton’s Areopagitica (an approximately 30+ page essay which may be an assigned reading during the school term). The directions are similar to the instructions that you might see on an A.P. exam, and the difficulty of the reading is commensurate with some of the literature you could encounter in the A.P. course and on the A.P. exam. The final draft for such an essay must be four to six paragraphs, and 350 to 700 words in length, and your preliminary draft (at least two) would be stapled to the back of the final clean copy.

A. P. Language and Composition assignment (example)Read John Milton’s Areopagitica, and, using its text as a resource, write an essay answering the following question:

What is Milton’s position regarding “The liberty of unlicensed printing” and how does he make his case to his audience? In a well-organized essay, specify the most significant arguments that he uses to support that position. Be sure to address the persuasive value of those arguments. It may be useful to address such elements of style as, diction, imagery, details, rhetoric, syntax, and tone.

The preceding question is asking whether Milton is for or against freedom of the press, what some of his best reasons are for his overall position, and what makes each of them “best”. Each reason is worthy of its own body paragraph containing at least two CDs illustrating and/or identifying the reason (preferably via a relevant and effective quote as suggested by the word “specify”), and at least two CMs for each CD stating why that CD is effective (which is what the word “persuasive” means in the context of the question). Keep in mind that persuasiveness involves a consideration of the author’s use of the rhetorical strategies of ethos, logos, and pathos by which he appeals to the audience’s intellect and/or emotions. The rhetorical strategies could be thus employed to develop appeals to logic, fairness, honor, patriotism, love, loyalty, religion, spiritually, idealism, historical precedent, societal standards, cultural norms and values, prejudice, anger, hatred, ignorance, economics, social class, et cetera. In addition, this persuasiveness can be achieved by the author’s use and control of literary elements such as diction, imagery, details, language, and syntax in addressing the audience. Perhaps the author chooses simple syntax to appeal to the relatively uneducated, unsophisticated audience in plain and colloquial language that can be easily understood and thus puts the audience at ease with an author who is unthreatening or “just like me.” Contrariwise, the author might

choose very formal language to indicate his/her respect for the audience or the subject at hand, or to impress the audience with his/her dignity. Perhaps the writer uses a high level of vocabulary with many erudite references and allusions to impress the audience with his/her knowledge and the implicit authority that such knowledge gives to his/her ideas and opinions. Maybe the author is using varied syntax and diction to appeal to a broad variety of people. Flattery or invective, a dispassionate tone, or an impassioned one, irony and sarcasm or gentle humor and affection, wild and striking imagery or unadorned concrete literalism are all useful tools in influencing an audience, and the elements identified in this footnote represent only a very limited list of an author’s available options. An attentive, analytical reader must be able to recognize and logically, coherently discuss such authorial strategies, using accurate terminology and salient evidence. Can you identify some of elements have I used in this explicatory follow-up to the A.P. style question example? Do you see the relevance and applicability of the information concerning ethos, logos, and pathos from pages 1-84 of The Language of Composition? Have you noticed the deliberately discursive style I’ve been using?

GENERAL COURSE OUTLINE (works/topics of study)

Semester 1For all of the post-Summer syllabus, I’ve adopted the strategy of listing essential authors in the textbook readings while also herein acknowledging that such a listing does not limit our scope of study to only those authors. A class such as this will be best served by leaving a wide range of authors open to investigation by the class as a whole, as well as by students who may discover avenues of investigation that lead to the unexpected. As a gratuitous example, reading Martin Luther King could lead to Frederick Douglass, or Lyndon Baines Johnson, or Edgar J. Hoover, or Malcolm X, or Franz Fanon, or Herbert Marcuse … or Greil Marcus (or William Grieder). I must also acknowledge the possibility that some of the essential authors may not be fully addressed due to the unforeseeable in terms of time constraints, whole-class dynamic/progress, and other variables.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Novel, bildungsroman, categories of satire/Juvenalian v.

Finn by Mark Twain * Horatian, author’s style, and utilization of rhetorical strategies characterization, themes, allusions, irony.

Chapters 1-3 of The Language Rhetorical foundations, terminology, and application;

Of Composition by Shea, Scanlon, ethos, logos, pathos, elements of style analysis; patterns

and Aufses * of development (narration, description, exemplification, comparison and contrast,

classification and division, definition, process analysis, cause and effect, and argument).

The New Yorker essays* Reviewing all of the preceding plus overview of the

(initiated as summer assignment rhetorical categories of narration, description, but on-going with addition of exemplification, comparison and contrast,

classificationperiodicals such as The Atlantic and division, definition, process analysis, cause

andMonthly, Harper’s, and others effect, and argument; awareness and/or

recognition ofnotable for their literary quality cultural, Biblical, literary allusions, figurative

language,and significance in style, parable v. allegory v. fable, enculturative

purposes,terms of cultural and/or historical exegetical levels; introduction to A. P. testing

format, impact) in conjunction with test-as-self-diagnostic and test-taking

skills/strategiesThe Language of Composition (ongoing throughput the year).

*As noted in previous information about this class, these works comprise the A. P. Summer Assignments. They also give students an initial common fund of knowledge and a baseline experience in A. P. level materials (and demands) that are reviewed, reinforced, and extended for approximately three weeks at the beginning of the new academic year, and utilized thereafter throughout the year.

American literary eras MLA/APA format; historico-literary overview with

(on-going throughout representative poetry/speeches/sermons, essays from

both semesters via The Pre-Columbian, Pre-Colonial, Colonial, 18th century,

American Experience Antebellum 19th century authors; supplementaltextbooks, outside readings critical commentary by Harold Bloom, V. S.and related assignments) Pritchett and others; integrate and

compare/contrast styles, authors and works from different eras and nations according to relevance of topics and themes, and specific on-going study; practice and evaluation re: a variety of testing formats integrated with study of literature, literary terms and application of

critical reading, thinking/analysis, and communicative skills; poetry and poetic forms, classical mythology, characteristics of epic and tragedy, characteristics of dramatic forms, issues in translation accuracy, translator styles.

Essential authors: Olaudah Equiano, John Smith, William Bradford, Jonathon Edwards, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine,Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, John F. Kennedy, Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne., Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Edgar Allen Poe, Martin Luther King, Annie Dillard, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman

The Language of Composition Argument as a primary focus: introduction to and

Everything’s An Argument application of syllogism, enthymeme (commonly-held

Rereading America beliefs/”givens”), exordium (introduction), narratio

St. Martin’s Handbook (background and/or exposition), propositio (thesis), confirmatio/refutatio, (main arguments and/or counterarguments), peroratio (conclusion); grammar diagnostic quizzes, tests, applications, and review; elements of argument, evidence, fallacies, presentational modes and style, and relevant patterns of development: definition, exemplification, classification and division, process analysis, and narrative (the latter considered both as a rhetorical strategy and as a common fiction and prose technique, along with point of view, e. g.third person objective); precis v. abstract; primary thematic topics on education, community/society, work, and politics; secondary thematic topics on nature, popular culture, science and technology.Essential authors: Francine Prose, Margaret Talbot, Horace Mann, James Baldwin, Barbara Ehrenreich, Thomas Carlyle, Ellen Goodman, Anna Quindlen, Amitai Etzioni, Paul Theroux, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Virginia Woolf, Stephen Jay

Gould, Loren Eisley, T. H. Huxley, Sven Birkerts, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Jacob Bronowski, David Denby, Mark Twain, Brent Staples, Teresa Wiltz,, Rachel Carson, Joyce Carol Oates, Wendell Berry, Jamaica Kincaid, Jonathon Swift, Chris Hedges, Oliver Goldsmith, Wole Soyinka, Gary Soto

Arthur Miller Writer in depth, The Crucible, historical context, polemical and universal significance in drama and themes.

Semester 2 (it should be acknowledged there is the likelihood of permeability between the two semesters; a specific assignment or general topic of study may naturally overlap)

American literary eras Primarily 19th and 20th century American short stories,

(on -going throughout essays, documents, poetry, novels, authors’ form and

both semesters via The style (e. g. Stephen Crane’s style is compared/ contrasted

American Experience with Ambrose Bierce, Transcendentalists theses and

Integrated with the other themes are compared/contrasted with Realists and

textbooks, outside readings Naturalists); continue to integrate andand related assignments) compare/contrast authors and works from

different eras and nations according to relevanceof topics and themes, and specific on-going study;practice and evaluation re: a variety of testing formatsintegrated with study of literature, literary terms, and application of critical reading, thinking/analysis, and communicative skills.

Essential authors: Stephen Crane, Frederick Douglass, Ambrose Bierce, Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Jack London, Kate Chopin, Edgar Lee Masters, Willa Cather, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, e. e. cummings, Wallace Stevens, Ernest Hemingway, Carl Sandburg, Robert Frost, William Faulkner, E. B. White, Flannery

O’Connor, John Updike, Carson McCullers, Ian Frazier, John Hersey, E. L. Doctorow, Randall Jarrrell, Langston Hughes, Arna Bontemps

The Language of Composition Review and extend first semester’s instructional content

Everything’s An Argument with additional readings; narrative may be more

Rereading America emphasized in the of study particular literary works

St. Martin’s Handbook employing narration as their primary mode.Primary thematic topics on nature, popular culture, science and technology and extension of thematic topics on education, community/society, work, and politics.

Essential authors: Sherman Alexie, Kyoko Mori, Booker T. Washington, Claudia O’Keefe, Jane Howard,, Gretel Ehrlich, George Orwell, N’gugi wa Thiong’o, Marjorie Agosin, Amy Tan, Peter Berkowitz and Michael Mc Faul, Ursula Franklin, Vine Deloria Jr. , Stefanie Coontz, Judy Root Aulette, John Taylor Gatto, Mike Rose, Jean Anyon, Horatio Alger, Harlon L. Dalton Steven Cruz, James Madison, Diana L. Eck

John Steinbeck Writer in depth: author’s style, themes and significance. Of Mice and Men, essays and excerpts from other works modern drama and themes

Summer Assignment

I Read Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and do a book report on it based on the A. P. One Sheet format that follows this paragraph (and/or was supplied to you at the beginning of Summer vacation). A well-done report based on the prompts given in the A. P. One Sheet would probably average eight to fifteen pages in length. Follow the directions carefully. Use quotes and MLA text citation format properly. Type or word process it in black ink in an “unfussy” font such as the one you’re

reading. MLA style formats can be found online and at the library, or you may choose to buy your own copy of an MLA Style Handbook (7th edition). The MLA formats are also covered in the textbooks you will be using at the start of your class. This report is due on the first day of class in Fall.

NOVEL/PLAY “ONE SHEET” REPORT QUESTIONS

SECTION I GENERAL INFORMATION REGARDING THE REPORT

THIS IS REFERRED TO AS A “ONE SHEET" BECAUSE THE DIRECTIONS AND QUESTIONS AND/OR PROMPTS FOR THE REPORT CAN FIT ON THE FRONT AND BACK OF ONE SHEET OF PAPER. AN ACTUAL COMPLETED REPORT, PROPERLY DONE, WOULD EASILY AVERAGE BETWEEN SIX TO FIFTEEN (OR MORE) TYPED/WORD-PROCESSED PAGES, DEPENDING ON THE LENGTH AND COMPLEXITY OF THE NOVEL OR PLAY USED IS THE SUBJECT OF THE REPORT. BY THE WAY, THERE IS NO NECESSARY CORRELATION BETWEEN A LITERARY WORK’S LENGTH AND ITS COMPLEXITY.

THE FINAL GRADE FOR THE REPORT PRODUCT MAY BE ASSIGNED EITHER HOLISTICALLY AS AN OVERALL LETTER GRADE BASED ON THE GRADER’S IMPRESSION OF THE OVERALL QUALITY OF THE REPORT, OR THE GRADE MAY BE SIGNIFIED AS A NUMBER THAT REFLECTS THE SUM TOTAL OF ALL THE REPORT’S SPECIFIED SECTIONS; A NUMERICAL GRADE IS BASED ON THE POINTS VALUE YOU CAN EARN FOR EACH ANSWER SECTION, IF EACH IS TOTALLY, CORRECTLY, THOROUGHLY DONE (WHICH REQUIRES THAT YOUR ANSWERS FULLY ADDRESS THE SPECIFIC ASPECTS FOR EACH QUESTION SECTION AND THAT, WHERE RELEVANT, YOUR ANSWER RESPONSES ARE VERY THOUGHTFUL, DETAILED, AND WELL-DEVELOPED). IN EITHER CASE, BE SURE THAT YOU THOROUGHLY READ AND ADDRESS THE SPECIFIC ASPECTS OF EACH QUESTION SECTION. THE AFOREMENTIONED ASPECTS ARE FULLY DETAILED, WITH SOME EXAMPLES REGARDING AN ACCEPTABLE RESPONSE, IN SECTION II

THE ANSWERS MUST BE ARRANGED IN THE NUMERICAL ORDER GIVEN. THEY MUST BE TYPED/WORD-PROCESSED IN DARK BLUE OR BLACK INK ON ONE SIDE OF THE PAGE ONLY FOLLOWING THE CURRENT MLA STANDARDS AND FORMAT. THE REPORT MUST COME IN ON OR BEFORE THE SPECIFIED DUE DATE. IF THIS ASSIGNMENT IS NOT DONE, OR IF IT IS DONE INCORRECTLY OR INCOMPLETELY, YOU WILL LOSE POINTS ON YOUR OVERALL GRADE. THE ANSWERS MUST BE IN YOUR OWN WORDS, AND INDUBITABLY UNPLAGIARIZED. A PLAGIARIZED PAPER WIL RECEIVE LITTLE-TO-NO CREDIT, DEPENDING ON THE BLATANCY AND EXTENT OF THE PLAGIARISM. YOUR TEXTBOOK GIVES GUIDELINES AS TO WHAT CONSTITUTES PLAGIARISM, AND IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT YOU REVIEW THOSE GUIDELINES; IN THE SIMPLEST TERMS, PLAGIARISM IS THE USE OF ANOTHER AUTHOR’S EXACT WORDS OR A PARAPHRASE OF HIS/HER WORDS AND/OR IDEAS WITHOUT GIVING PROPER ATTRIBUTION/CITATION FOR THE SOURCE OR ORIGIN OF THOSE WORDS/IDEAS.

POINTS WILL BE LOST IF THE REPORT IS NOT COMPLETELY AND CORRECTLY DONE, AND TURNED IN ON/BY THE ASSIGNED DUE DATE(S).

SECTION II QUESTIONS/PROMPTS

THE NUMBER THAT APPEARS IN PARENTHESIS AT THE END OF EACH QUESTION AND/OR PROMPT REFLECTS ITS POSSIBLE NUMERICAL VALUE ( IF THE GRADER OPTS

TO USE A NUMERICAL SCORE FOR THE FINAL OVERALL GRADE, AS PER THE SECOND PARAGRAPH OF SECTION I ) .

1. TITLE OF NOVEL, AUTHOR, PUBLISHER, AND DATE WRITTEN OR COPYRIGHTED. (10)

2. IDENTIFY AND FULLY DESCRIBE THE MAJOR CHARACTERS (DEPENDING ON THE NOVEL OR PLAY, YOU SHOULD HAVE AT LEAST TWO MAJOR CHARACTERS, AND IT IS LIKELY THAT YOU WILL HAVE MORE THAN TWO). TO FULLY DEVELOP YOUR DESCRIPTION, THE CHARACTERIZATION MUST INCLUDE PHYSICAL AS WELL AS PSYCHOLOGICAL, EMOTIONAL, BEHAVIORAL, AND MOTIVATIONAL (PERSONALITY-DRIVEN) ASPECTS. THIS CHARACTERIZATION MUST BE DRAWN AND JUSTIFIED BY DIRECT AND/OR INDIRECT REFERENCE TO THE TEXT AND YOU SHOULD EMPLOY DIRECT QUOTES OR YOUR PARAPHRASE, INCLUDING PAGE REFERENCE AND/OR CONTEXT). YOU MUST IDENTIFY WHETHER OR NOT THE CHARACTER(S) ARE ROUND/DYNAMIC (CHANGING OR GROWING). FLAT/STATIC(UNCHANGING OR NOT GROWING) AND POSSIBLY, IF FLAT /STATIC, WHETHER THEY ARE STEREOTYPES (OR, PERHAPS, ARCHETYPAL IN SOME WAY). YOU MUST ALSO IDENTIFY WHICH OF THE MAIN CHARACTERS ARE PROTAGONISTS OR ANTAGONISTS, AND, IF APPROPRIATE WHETHER EACH CAN BE CATEGORIZED AS ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING: HERO, FOIL, AND/OR ANTIHERO. AN ANTI-HERO IS GENERALLY DEFINED AS A PROTAGONIST WHOSE QUALITIES/CHARACTERISTICS MAKE HIM/HER CHARISMATIC/ATTRACTIVE, SYMPATHETIC. OR EVEN SOMEHOW ADMIRABLE, THOUGH THE CHARACTER SEEMS TO GO AGAINST THE USUAL NOBLE CHARACTERISTICS OF A TYPICAL OR STEREOTYPICAL HERO OR “GOOD GUY" --- JOHN GARDNER'S TITLE CHARACTER IN HIS NOVEL GRENDEL COULD BE SEEN AS A VICIOUSLY REBELLIOUS ANTI-HERO IN A STRUGGLE AGAINST A SENSELESS WORLD AND CRUEL, STUPID, HATEFUL SOCIETY, AND MILTON’S PORTRAYAL OF LUCIFER/SATAN IN PARADISE LOST ALLOWS THAT CHARACTER TO DEMONSTRATE REMNANTS OF GRANDEUR AND NOBILITY THAT REMIND US OF HIS FORMER STATUS AS AN ARCHANGEL WHILE ALSO HIGHLIGHTING THE HAMARTIA (TRAGIC FLAW) AND HUBRIS (INSOLENT AND/OR BLIND OVERCONFIDENCE, USUALLY BASED IN ARROGANT PRIDE) THAT LED HIM TO BECOME AN “ARCH-ANGEL RUINED” WITH “GLORY OBSCURED” AS A TRAGIC RESULT OF HIS WILLFUL SELF-CORRUPTION AND DIABOLIC ACTIONS. IF YOU ARE UNFAMILIAR WITH ANY OF THE LITERARY TERMS USED THUS FAR IN THIS DOCUMENT, MOST OF THEM ARE DEFINED IN YOUR T'EXTBOOK, AND WE WILL BE DISCUSSING, USING, AND REVIEWING SUCH TERMS THROUGHOUT THE YEAR BECAUSE THEY ARE ESSENTIAL IN UNDERSTANDING, ANALYZING. AND CRITICIZING LITERATURE AND DRAMA

YOU SHOULD HAVE AT LEAST TWO STRONGLY DEVELOPED AND JUSTIFIED PARAGRAPHS OF INSIGHTFUL, DETAILED DESCRIPTION FOR EACH CHARACTER (40+ POINTS)

3. SIGNIFICANT MINOR CHARACTER(S) ( THERE ARE USUALLY AT LEAST TWO) WITH PARAGRAPH DESCRIPTION DETAILNG THEIR PURPOSE IN THE WORK AND WHY YOU HAVE CHOSEN THAT (OR THOSE) CHARACTER(S) AS SIGNIFICANT. (THE CHARACTERS THAT ARE THE MOST FLAT ARE USUALLY MINOR CHARACTERS, BUT "SIGNIFICANT" IND/CATFS THAT THEIR PRESENCE WAS NECESSARY TO ADVANCE THE PLOT IN SOME WAY). (20+ POINTS-)

4. CONFLICTS - LIST THE TYPES AND AN EXPLANATION OF EACH AND HOW THEY RELATE TO THE WORK'S THEMES (MORAL. LESSON, OR MESSAGE). CONFLICT TYPES: 1. PERSON vs. PERSON (PROTAGONIST vs. ANTAGONIST) 2. PERSON vs. SOCIETY (ONE PROTAGONIST vs. A COMMUNITY OF PEOPLE) 3. PERSON vs. SELF (PROTAGONIST IS DIVIDED BY OPPOSING ELEMENTS WITHIN OWN INNER SELF) 4. PERSON vs. NATURE (PROTAGONIST vs. NATURAL ELEMENTS) 5. PERSON· vs. FATE (PROTAGONIST vs. DESTINY OR SUPERNATURAL ELEMENTS).

BE SPECIFIC IN IDENTIFYING THE CHARACTER OR CONCEPT ALONG WITH THE TYPE-FOR EXAMPLE, IN THE MOVIE TITANIC, WE SEE EVIDENCE OF A PERSON vs. SOCIETY . CONFLICT WHEN THE LOWER-CLASS CHARACTER NAMED JACK ATTEMPTS TO INTERACT ON EQUAL SOCIAL TERMS WITH MANY CHARACTERS WHO ARE MEMBERS OF THE WEALTHY AND POWERFUL UPPER CLASS. BECAUSE OF THE RIGID CLASS STRUCTURE OF THE TIME, THE UPPER CLASS PASSENGERS GENERALLY REJECT JACK. A PERSON vs. PERSON CONFLICT RELATED TO THE PERSON VS SOCIETY CONFLICT OCCURS WHEN JACK BEGINS TO HAVE ROMANTIC FEELINGS FOR ROSE, A MEMBER OF UPPER CLASS SOCIETY WHO INITIALLY SPURNS HIS ADVANCES, BUT WHOSE FEELINGS CHANGE AS SHE GETS TO KNOW JACK ON A MORE PERSONAL LEVEL ROSE'S FEELINGS FOR JACK ARE ALSO COMPLICATED BY THE PERSON vs. SELF CONFLICTS SHE EXPERIENCES REGARDING HER OWN DESIRES TO ESCAPE HER MOTHER'S CONTROL AND EXPECTATIONS FOR HER (ANOTHER PERSON vs. PERSON CONFLICT). SHE ALSO WANTS TO AVOID A LOVELESS MARRIAGE WITH A SNOBBISH AND JEALOUS CAD (WITH WHOM SHE ALSO EXPERIENCES A PERSON vs. PERSON CONFLICT AS HER FIANCE ATTEMPTS TO DOMINATE AND CONTROL HER). EACH OF THESE CONFLICTS IS RESOLVED WHEN --- (you would have to watch the movie to see how each is individually resolved). REMEMBER YOU MUST SPECIFY THE RESOLUTIONS IN YOUR ANSWER). THE CONFLICTS AND THEIR RESOLUTIONS REFLECT THE THEMES THAT: 1) TRUE LOVE CAN OVERCOME SOCIAL OBSTACLES AND PREJUDICES (AND TIME, AND DEATH, 2) STANDING UP FOR LOVE (OR THE RIGHT/ETHICAL/MORAL THING) CAN HELP A PERSON GROW TO BECOME BOTH MORE INDEPENDENT AND BETTER AS A PERSON, and 3) HAVING HIGH SOCIAL AND/OR ECONOMIC STATUS DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY MAKE SOMEONE MORALLY OR ETHICALLY GOOD. IF YOU DON'T ADDRESS THE THEME, YOU'LL AUTOMATICALLY LOSE HALF THE CREDIT FOR THE QUESTION (40+)

5. PLOT SYNOPSIS/SUMMARY: DESCRIBE/DETAIL AT LEAST 10 MAIN EVENTS ESSENTIAL TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF THE PLOT (AND RELATED TO CONFLICT AND/OR THEME DEVELOPMENT) AS THEY OCCURRED ( IN CHRONOLOGICAL/SEQUENTIAL ORDER),USING AT LEAST A PARAGRAPH FOR EACH (IF AN EVENT IS TRULY ESSENTIAL AND SIGNIFICANT, IT WILL REQUIRE AT LEAST ONE MULTI-SENTENCE PARAGRAPH TO DETAIL WHAT HAPPENED AND WHY IT IS IMPORTANT). THE PLOT SYNOPSIS/SUMMARY SHOULD BE COMPLETE ENOUGH FOR ME TO FOLLOW AND UNDERSTAND YOUR VERSION OF THE ARC OF THE STORY FROM BEGINNING TO END, AND FOR YOU FULLY DEMONSTRATE THAT YOU FOLLOWED AND UNDERSTOOD THE ARC OF THE STORY FROM BEGINNING TO END. THIS PART OF YOUR REPORT WOULD EASILY BE A FULL 3-5 PAGES SECTION. YOU MAY FIND SOME OVERLAP IN YOUR SUMMARY AND YOUR RESPONSES TO PROMPTS #2, #3, AND #4. ( 1OO+)

II By the end of your academic year as a sophomore (or, early in Summer, during vacation), you should be supplied with a copy of the A. P. English Language and Composition textbook entitled The Language of Composition (if you have to return to the school site during vacation to pick up the text, be sure to do so as soon as possible). You must read the first three chapters, pages 1 through 85, for the sake of familiarizing yourself with the basic foundational concepts and terms involving rhetoric, close reading and analysis, synthesis, and effective argumentation. These chapters are crucial to establishing the groundwork for our work and studies in this class. At the beginning of your academic year for this 11th grade class, you will have a series of quizzes over the bold-faced vocabulary words and terms given in those chapters (such as rhetoric, audience, context, purpose, bias, thesis, claim, assertion, subject, speaker, rhetorical triangle, persona, ethos, logos, and pathos, for example). Moreover, you will have

summer assignments from pages in that textbook, as well as assignments applying the concepts therein to material outside the textbook.

III After you have read pages 1-9 of The Language of Composition, do the essay assignmentgiven on page 9 based on your reading of Einstein’s letter to Phyllis Wright, which is reproduced in the textbook on pages 9 and 10. Be sure to address the whole prompt: How rhetorically effective do you find Einstein’s response? Explain your answer in terms of subject, speaker, audience; context and purpose; and appeals to ethos, logos, and pathos. context. It will be very helpful for you to study and use the six paragraphs responding to the essay by Judy Heyman as an example and model of what to do for this assignment.

After you complete a first draft, hand-written, on one side of the page(s) only, continue and complete the rest of the assigned reading in this textbook. When you reach the assignment on page 26, jot down notes and ideas that you might use on the back of your original first draft of the “Einstein’s Letter” assignment. When you finish page 1-85, revisit the original assignment (prompt and text) on Einstein’s letter, then review your first draft and revise it (you should find revisions worth making by the time you finish reading through page 85), typing or word-processing your final draft. Staple the revised final draft to the front of (all) your first draft pages. This is due on the first day of class in Fall.

IV The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been immeasurably significant in American culture and literature from the year of its publication to the present. It is important for its influence in creating a common literary fund used for inspiration, reference, and allusion for many of the authors of the United States of America, and for the special vitality it possesses in still stirring passions and arguments about its effectiveness as a window into many aspects of American society and that society’s past, its present, and (perhaps) its future. At the same time, it is a mirror of the American psyche and of its audience (in both the collective and individual senses). When Ernest Hemingway said, “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called HUCKLEBERRY FINN”, he was asserting that Twain’s novel is the beginning of an indigenously American style of writing about an indigenously American way of seeing and being. I hope that reading the novel and completing the book report allowed you to see Twain’s skill as a novelist without diminishing your enjoyment of the story. However, I think it would be useful also for you to use the information, assignments and skills given in pages 1-84 of The Language of Composition to identify where and how Twain uses some of the concepts therein to create characterization. The assignment and practice that you were given on pages 9 and 10 regarding Einstein’s letter would be useful to recall when you respond to the prompt that you choose for this assignment.

HUCK FINN ESSAY PROMPTS

Choose ONE of the following prompts and respond to it in a logical, coherent essay. Be sure to fully address all of the issues raised by the prompt, and use the writing guidelines given in the writing standards information for this class;

A. By the last paragraph of chapter 15 in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck has had a powerful realization regarding his own thoughtless behavior, and he learns to respect the dignity and value of another on the basis of Jim’s brief speech to him regarding “trash”. Why/how is Jim’s speech so rhetorically effective? Develop and explain your answer in terms of subject, speaker, and audience; context and purpose.

B. In chapter 22 of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Colonel Sherburn makes a speech that stops a lynching. Why/how is Sherburn’s speech so rhetorically effective? Develop and explain your answer in terms of subject, speaker, and audience; context and purpose; and appeals to logos, ethos, and pathos. Your answer should also identify the target of the lynching party and the reason(s) for the lynching party’s formation AND its dissolution.

C. In chapter 23 of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Jim relates an anecdote regarding his daughter, Elizabeth. Why/how is Jim’s anecdote so rhetorically effective? Develop and explain your answer in terms of subject, speaker, and audience; context and purpose; and appeals to logos, ethos, and pathos. Consider and address thepossible significance of the fact that, unlike the two speeches alluded to in prompts A and B, this powerfully affecting anecdote ends without Twain reporting the reaction of its audience to us.

V One of America’s most renowned periodicals is The New Yorker, a venerable weekly magazine famous for the eclecticism and excellence of its articles and essays on a broad range of topics. The New Yorker can be purchased at any well-stocked newsstand or bookstore, and it can be found in most public libraries. It may also be accessed on the internet at http//:www.newyorker.com .

By the first day of school you must have read three current non-fiction articles or essays that are at least six pages long, chosen from any issue(s) of The New Yorker published between the beginning of June through the end of August of this year. Peruse the hardcopy and/or online versions for subjects that catch your eye or pique your interest. If you choose the online access option, you will not be able to read all of the articles and essays from a particular issue, but you will be able to read some articles and essays in their entirety. You are to use each of the articles or essays as the subject for an analytical essay assignment detailed as detailed below. At the conclusion of each of your essays, include a proper article citation Based on the textbook chapters you have read, do the following for EACH of the three The New Yorker readings you have chosen. I have included information and examples for proper MLA documentation format for both a

paper/hard copy of a weekly magazine and online copy or online version of a paper/hard copy magazine following the assignment details below.

Write an essay wherein you identify the author, title, and source of the article or essay that you have chosen (name of the periodical and date of its publication). Identify the specific subject of the article or essay, and summarize its main points. Identify its pattern of development. If it seems to have more than one pattern of development, identify the patterns, and determine whether there is a prevailing pattern and, if so, identify it. You must use details, quotes, or other references to the text to support your claim(s) (see chapter 1, page 13-26 of The Language of Composition for models and examples to help you with this part of the essay). Your essay must also address the speaker, and audience; context and purpose; and appeals to logos, ethos, and pathos. Remember, you must use details, quotes, or other references to the text to support your claim(s).

A basic way to approach the organization of this essay would be to identify the author, title, and source of the article or essay that you have chosen, the specific subject of the article or essay, and the summary of its main points for the material in your first paragraph. The second and perhaps third and fourth paragraphs might be used to identify its pattern (or patterns) of development, using details, quotes, or other references to the text to support your claim(s), depending on the complexity of the topic or the amount and detail of the information given. You may choose to devote a paragraph or more to appeals to logos, ethos, and/or pathos. As in the case of patterns of development, there may be more than one type of appeal being used, and you need to defend, support, and/or justify your claims as to the type of appeal(s) you’ve identified with details, quotes, or other references to the text to support.

At the bottom of the page, beneath the concluding paragraph for each of your essays, you must give a correct MLA style item citation for the article or essay that you used. I have included an example for both a paper “hard copy” magazine and an online copy of the magazine. Read the information and closely study the examples that I’ve included as your models. Pay attention to capitalization, punctuation, order, and spacing for each of the items included in the citation example and follow the model scrupulously in your article citation

PERIODICAL CITATION FORMATThe basic entry for a periodical includes the following three elements separated by periods:

The author’s name, last name first The article title, in quotation marks The publication information, including the periodical title (underlined), the

volume and issue numbers (if any, the date of publication, and the page number(s)

For works with multiple authors, only the first author’s name is inverted. Note that the period following the article title goes inside the closing quotation mark. Finally, note that MLA omits the in titles such as the New Yorker.

Article in a Weekly Magazine (Example):

Reed, Julia. “Hope in the Ruins.” Newsweek 12 Sept. 2005: 58-59.

Magazine Article Online (Example) Notice that the first date in the example refers to the publication date of the article, while the second refersto the date it was published:

Reuss, Robert. “European Unity: The History of an Idea.” The Economist 30 Dec. 2003. 6 Jan.

2004 <http://www.economist.com/word/europe/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2313040>.

Literature based assignment examples:

From A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Conner

1. The events in this story are precipitated by the protagonist’s petty selfishness. Track and list how selfishness (as implicitly/explicitly evidenced in what the protagonist says and does, and the motivations behind the actions) leads to the ultimate fate of the family.2. A monkey is a not uncommon symbol (in the works of religious artists) for the fallen nature of mankind and the extremes of behavioral depravity resulting from Original Sin. Is that fact/ knowledge relevant to the story and/or author’s style and themes? How?3. After reading the story, go back and locate at least three examples of foreshadowing involving death/mortality which precede the grandmother’s, “You’re the Misfit… I recognized you at once!” Be sure to address diction, imagery, details and other elements of style in responding to this question.4. List the prior occupations of the Misfit. Why (in terms of symbology/theme) do you think O’Conner gave him such a resume/career history?5 The protagonist has a moment of epiphany at the end of her life (and it leads immediately to her death, apparently). What is her epiphany?

From Poetry unit

Rubric for poetry analysis and directions for student lesson

presenter________________

Each of the item categories listed below as i-x is a critical element in the successful analysis of a poem. You may use the item categories as a means of organizing your presentation to the class. Each item is worth a certain number of points based on the rubric immediately below, and determined by the student’s presentation relevant to each item. Items I and II are each worth an automatic four points only. Each of the items from iii on will be graded on a scale of 0-4 as follows:

0 = no or very little response/the item was not addressed in any meaningful manner

10 = minimal, underdeveloped (under-explicated and/or under-justified), and/or incomplete, generally incorrect (or otherwise below average) response (incorrect use of terms, incorrect interpretation, incorrect use of context or context clues). A score of “1” also would typically signify an apparently egregious lack of preparation.

20 = “average” response; some evidence of thought/preparation and/or grasp/presentation of material relevant to the item. No or very few glaring errors in analysis, a justifiable and defensible response is given employing references or quotes to the material as evidence, but the overall response is not as fully developed, as would be characteristic of a “3.”

30 = good response; definite/obvious evidence of thought/preparation and/or grasp/presentation of material relevant to the item. Few errors in analysis, and a justifiable, defensible response is given employing references or quotes to the material as evidence, but the response is not as fully developed as would be characteristic of a “4.”

40= excellent response; definite/obvious evidence of thought/preparation and/or grasp/presentation of material relevant to the item. No, or very minor, errors in analysis, and a cogent and coherent justifiable and defensible response is given employing reference or quotes to the material as evidence. Response is thorough and very well developed.

To begin your presentation, you must first identify the title and author of the poem, then you are to read it aloud to the class once through in a delivery appropriate to your conception of the author’s intent. In preparing for you oral reading of the poem, consider your analysis and practice the reading so that you are comfortable with the vocabulary and the flow of the language. Your delivery will be dependent to a great degree on your grasp of the poem. For example, would Lady Lazarus be true to its author’s apparent intent if it were read aloud slowly, lugubriously, and tearfully, or would it be more true if it were read angrily or manically or mordantly, or sardonically or i some combination of two or more of the preceding moods/tones? What sort of oral reading would ruin the poem’s impact on a listener? What would enhance its impact?

The score precedes the item description.

I _______ Title

II _______ Author

III _______ Relevant literary biography of author (in your own words), such as: (a) National origin.(b) Historico-literary era.(c) Typical genre of poetry ( i. e. Ezra Pound is typically associated most often with Modernism, and, to a lesser extent, for his influence on T. S. Eliot).(d) Affiliation with any “school” or styles ( H. D. is typically associated most often with the Imagiste school of poetry) (e) Degree of general and/or academic/critical importance or significance, as well as acclaim and/or fame garnered in the poet’s lifetime and afterward. For example, John Donne was most famous to his

contemporary public for his sermons as an Anglican divine, while his poems were relatively unknown except by a small coterie of patrons, friends, and acquaintances who admired them highly. In the 18th century, his published work was often criticized as over-complicated, over-embellished, willfully (original), personal, and complex and obscure, and to be deliberately “hard.” His reputation has grown hugely in the 20th century, often exactly for those aspects which were seen as defects by critics in the 18th century.

IV ______ The poem’s structure, syntax, and diction.

V ______ The poem’s mood, tone, and/or attitude (there may be more than one present, and it may shift)

VI ______ Imagery, allusion, and/or symbolism. There may be several examples of any one, two, or all of these in a poem--- you will be expected to recognize and address the presence and purpose/ use of many/most of them in a poem---consider how many (different and often interrelated or conflated) images, symbols, and allusions were used in Plath’s Lady Lazarus as opposed to Hardy’s Neutral Tones, or e e cumming’s Buffalo Bill’s.

VII ______ Other relevant literary devices (irony, paradox, synecdoche, dissonance, repetition, hyperbole, personification, and so forth) obviously present in the work. Give examples from the text and identify how/ why you are thus labeling the example with that term. A good to excellent response also defensibly explicates the poet’s purpose in using each of the devices, as when Donne uses personification in Death Be Not Proud as a means of “humanizing” and thus demystifying an otherwise potently fearsome and often abstractly addressed concept. By this means, he can divest death of what he argues is an inappropriately perceived awesome grandeur. Through a metaphysical conceit hinging on an orthodox Christian concept of resurrection, Donne argues that Death is relatively insubstantial and paradoxically impotent; Death serves us by freeing the soul from the body and allowing it to be liberated into eternal life. As the paradoxical consequence of this service, Death destroys itself by destroying its power over us.

VIII _____ Favorite and/or most powerful and/or striking and/or meaningful line/sentence/phrase, with a detailed explanation, justification, and defense for your choice.

IX _____ Identify the theme(s). These can be seen as the moral, message, and/or lesson revealed through the poem. Often a poem may have more than one theme, or it may have a primary theme with subordinate and/or supporting themes---To use an example from English literature, the commonly excerpted 18 lines starting with “Know then thyself…” and

closing with, “…of the world.” from Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Man succinctly reflects the themes that (1) it is both pretentious and futile for human beings to try to understand or “know” (in the rational sense) God, since (2) we are ignorant of our own true selves as a result of the paradox of having a human nature “…created half to rise, and half to fall…”. (3) This ignorance keeps us from being rational about our own thoughts and beliefs. (4) Awareness of the foregoing should inspire us to “study” (rationally examine and learn) about ourselves as individuals and as a collective social species first and foremost, and thus (5) we should learn how to improve upon ourselves individually, socially, and, ultimately, societally. These five interlocking themes are typical of the “proper” attitude promoted by the Neoclassical moralists of the English Age of Reason.

X ______ You will also be expected to use instructional tools/aids/ resources such as the whiteboards, graphics or posters or hand-outs outlining and/or summarizing your presentation’s main points or dissecting or highlighting elements and aspects of the poem relevant to your analysis. You may also use Socratic questioning/ probing to engage the audience or examine ideas, or whatever else may serve to make this an effective presentation that is also a useful lesson (for us and you).

I do not want a mere static lecture (with you speaking from your desk or planted in the front of the room), nor do I want mere print-outs or photocopies from other authoritative critical sources without at least your own appended notations, explanations, or commentary or other such integrated interaction with the text material for us to work on. For example, Ezra Pound’s process of, and attitude towards, the concept (and purpose) of translation should have a significant impact on our approach to The River Merchant’s Wife; A Letter.

___________ (total)

READING SATIRE

Satire is a mode which may be employed by writers of various genres: poetry, drama, fiction, non-fiction. It is more a perspective than a product.

Satire mainly exposes and ridicules, derides and denounces vice, folly, evil, stupidity, as these qualities manifest themselves in persons, groups of persons, ideas, institutions, customs, or beliefs. While the satirist has many techniques at his disposal, there are basically only two types of satire: gentle or harsh, depending on the author’s intent, his audience, and his methods.

The terms romanticism, realism and naturalism can help us understand the role of satire. Romanticism sees the world idealistically, as perfectible if not perfect. Realism sees the world as it is, with healthy doses of both good and bad. Naturalism sees the world as imperfect, with evil often triumphing over good. The satirist is closer to the naturalist than he is to the romantic or realist, for both the satirist and naturalist focus on what is wrong with the world, intending to expose the foibles of man and his society. The difference between them lies in their techniques. The naturalist is very direct and does not necessarily employ humor; the satirist is more subtle, and does.

For instance, people plague with overpopulation and starvation is not, on first glance, material for humor. Many works have treated such conditions with sensitivity, bringing attention to the plight of the world’s unfortunate. Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath is such a work. However, Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” takes essentially the same circumstances and holds them up for our amused examination. How does the satirist make an un-funny topic humorous? Why would he do so?

The satirist’s techniques – his weapons – include irony, parody, reversal or inversion, hyperbole, understatement, sarcasm, wit, and invective. By exaggerating characteristics by saying the opposite of what he means, by using his cleverness to make cutting or even cruel remarks at the expense of his subject, the write of attire can call the reader’s attention to those things he believes are repulsive, despicable, or destructive.

Whether he uses harsh (Juvenalian) or gentle (Horatian) satire depends upon the writer’s attitude and intent. Is he merely flaunting his cleaver intellect to play with words for our amusement or to inflate his own sense of superiority? Is h probing the psychological motivations for the foolish or destructive actions of some person(s)? Is he determined t waken an unenlightened or apathetic audience, moving its members to thought or action? Are the flaws which the satirist points out truly destructive or evil, or are they the faults we would all recognize in ourselves if we glanced in the mirror which, though not admirable, are not really harmful to us or society? Is the author amused, sympathetic, objective, irritated, scorned, bitter, pessimistic, and mocking? The reader needs to identify the satirist’s purpose and tone. Its subtlety sometimes makes satire a difficult mode to detect and to understand.

Irony is perhaps the satirist’s most powerful weapon. The basic of irony is inversion or reversal, doing saying the opposite or the unexpected. Shakespeare’s famous sonnet beginning “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun…” is ironic tribute to the speaker’s beloved; who he finally declares is “as rare/As any she belied with false compare.” At the same time, Shakespeare is poking fun at the sonnet form as it was used by his cotemporaries – himself included- to extol the virtues of their ladies. By selecting a woman who, by his own description, is physically unattractive in every way imaginable, and using the conventions of the love sonnet to present her many flaws, he has inverted the sonnet tradition. Then asserting that she compares favorably with any of the other ladies whose poet-lovers have lied about their virtues, he presents us with the unexpected twist. Thus, he satirizes both the love sonnet form and its subject by using irony.

Other notable poetic satires include Koch’s Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams, in which he parodies Williams’ This Is Just to Say. Koch focuses on the simplicity and directness of Williams’ imagery and makes the form and ideas seem foolish and trivial. In Boom! Nemerov takes issue with a pastor’s assertion that modern technology has resulted in a concomitant rise in religious activities and spiritual values. Nemerov catalogues that instant, disposable, and extravagant aspect of Americans’ lifestyles, which results in “pray as you go…pilgrims” for whom religion is another convenience, commercial rather than spiritual.

Satire in drama is also common: Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest is wonderfully funny in its constant word play (notable on the name Ernst) and its relentless ridiculing of the superficiality which Wilde saw as characteristic of British gentry. Barrie’s The Admirable Chrichton has a similar them, with added assertion that is the “lower” or servant class which is truly superior – again, the ironic reversal so common in satire. Both of these plays are mild in their ridicule: the authors do not expect or desire any change in society or in the viewer. The satire is gentle: the satirists are amused, or perhaps bemused at the society whose foibles they expose.

Classic novels which employ satire include Swift’s Gulliver’s Travelers and Voltaire’s Candide, both of which fairly vigorously attack aspects of the religions, governments, and prevailing intellectual beliefs of their respective societies. A modern novel which uses satire is Heller’s Catch-22, which is basically an attack on war and the government’s bureaucratic bungling of men and materiel, specifically in WW II. But by extension, Heller is also viewing with contempt the unmotivated, illogical, capricious behavior of all institutions which operate by that basic law; “Catch-22.” Like Swift and Voltaire, Heller is angry. And although his work, like the other two, has humor and wit, exaggeration and irony, his purpose is more than intellectual entertainment for his readers. Heller hopes for reform.

Heller’s attack is frontal, his assault direct. Swift had to couch his tale in a fantastic setting with imaginary creatures in order to present his view with impunity. The audience, as well as the times, also affects the satirist’s work. If the audience is hostile, the writer must veil his theme; if the audience is indifferent, he must jolt them with bitter and reviling language if he desires change. If he does not fear reprisals, the satirist may take any tone he pleases.

We can see satire in operation in two adaptations of the biblical story of King Solomon, who settled the dispute between two mothers regarding an infant: cut the baby in two and divide it between you, he told them. The rightful mother protested, and was promptly awarded the child. The story is meant to attest to the King’s wisdom and understanding of parental love.

However, Twain’s Huck Finn has some difficultly persuading runaway slave Jim that Solomon was wise. Jim insists that Solomon, having fathered “bout five million chillen,” was “waseful…He as soon chop a chile in two as a cat. Dey’s plenty mo’. A chile er two, mo ’er less, warn’t no consekens to Solemun, dad fetch him!” Twain is ridiculing not only Jim’s ingenuousness, as he does throughout the novel: he is also deflating time-honored beliefs about the Bible and its traditional heroes, as he earlier does with the account of Moses and the “bulrushers.” While Twain’s tone is fairly mild, his intent shows through as serious; Twain was disgusted with traditional Christianity and its hypocritical followers, as we see later in Huck Finn when young Buck Grangerford is murdered in the feud with the Shepherdsons: “I wished I hadn’t ever come ashore that night to see such things.”

A second satiric variation on the Solomon theme appears in Asprin’s Myth Adventures, in the volume Hit or Myth. Skeebe, the narrator, realized that he, as King pro-tem, must render a decision regarding the ownership of a cat. Hoping to inspire them to compromise, he decrees that they divide the cat between them: “Instead they thanked me for my wisdom, shook hands, and left smiling presumable to carve up their cat.” He concludes that may of the citizens of this realm “don’t have both oars in the water,” a conclusion very like Huck’s: “in ever see such a nigger. If he got a notion in his head once, there warn’t no getting it out again.” The citizens’ unthinking acceptance of the infallibility of authority is as laughable as Jim’s out-of-hand rejection of Solomon’s wisdom because no wise man would “want to live in the mids’ er sich a blim-blammin’ all de time” as would prevail in the harem with the King’s million wives.”

Questions on the AP exam regarding satire may appear in the objective sections over specific experts, but more often they appear as essay topics dealing with sections of poetry, fiction, or non-fiction. Students are asked to show how the author uses satire to enhance his theme, or to show how the author’s rhetorical devices help convey the satiric tone, or to deduce the author’s intended audience, judging from the satiric tone of the work. In any case, the student’s ability to perceive that the writer is using satire and to identify his techniques and evaluate their effectiveness is the basis of AP exam items on satire.

Let’s look at an excerpt from Wodehouse essay, Do Thrillers Need Heroines? in which the author argues that females do not contribute to the a plot of thrillers and only cause problems for the villains, who seem unable to dispatch the heroines with anything like intelligence and efficiency properly.

“For, though beautiful, with large grey eyes and hair the colour of ripe corn, the heroine of the thriller is almost never a very intelligent girl. Indeed, it would scarcely be overstating it to say that her mentality is that of cockroach-and not an ordinary cockroach, at that but one which has been dropped on its head as a baby. She may have escaped death a dozen times. She may know perfectly well that notorious Blackbird Gang is after her to secure the papers. The police may have warned her on no account to stir outside her house. But when a messenger calls at half-past two in the morning with an unsigned note saying ‘Come at one,’ she just snatches her hat and goes. The messenger is one-eyed Chinaman with a pock-marred face and evil grin, so she trusts his immediately and, having accompanied him to the closed car with steel shutters over the windows, bowls off in it to the ruined cottage in the swamp. And when the hero,at great risk and inconvenience to himself, comes to rescue her, she will have nothing to do with him because she has been told by a mulatto with half a nose that it was he who murdered her brother Jim.” (The English Tradition, Non-fiction, MacMillan, 1968.p 404).

Consider the the following prompt: “Discuss the techniques by which the author reveals his tone and purpose in this excerpt from Do Thrillers Need Heroines?” A student responding to the prompt should note the author’s use of exaggeration (“…her mentality is that of a cockroach…which has been dropped on its head as a baby”), ironic reversal (“…so she trusts him immediately…”), parody (“…a one-eyed Chinaman with a pock-marked face and an evil grin...a mulatto with half nose…”) understatement (…“heroine of the thriller is almost never a very intelligent girl”), and sarcasm(“…she will have nothing to do with him because show has been told…that it was he who murdered her brother Jim”).

The writer’s tone is mock-serious; while the issues in and of itself is not very important of profound, Wodehouse does have a point about the apparent stupidity of heroines with: large grey eyes and hair colour of ripe corn.” He is being clever and witty for our entertainment; he is ridiculing the institution of detective fiction and its characters with no expectation that anything will come of his revelations. Judging from the excerpt only, the student would conclude that Wodehouse’s answer to the question posed in his title is a resounding “No!” Only the final sentence of the paragraph hints at the author’s later point that the hero is: a broken reed” who has “let us down two often, and forfeited our confidence” (p.405). The fact that the heroine “will have nothing to do with him” suggests that he will be ineffectual in his task, her rescue. The student cannot guess that later Wodehouse will in fact assert that “the best way of disposing of a girl with hair the colour of ripe corn is to his the hair as hard as possible with a bit of gas pipe” (p.407). However, he laments, villains must be schooled in purging thrillers of heroines, although they seem to do fine against members of their own sex.

Thus, the excerpt gives a false rendering of the essay’s totality. The Student, however, should stick to the section provided, which reveals a gently mocking attitude toward the typical heroines I thrillers.

Being alert for irony, sarcasm, parody, inversions, hyperbole, and the other techniques of satire will help the student understand the writer’s tone and intent. Satire is a very sophisticated literary device, most often directed at pointing out the difference between the way things are and how they ought to be. The satirist depends upon our ability to see the humor in the weaknesses which he reveals in those things we cherish.

SATIRE

The Oxford English Dictionary defines satire as “the employment in speaking or writing of sarcasm, irony, ridicule, etc., in exposing, denouncing, deriding, or ridiculing vice, folly, indecorum, abuses, or evils of any kind.” Another definition in the OED defines a satire as “poem, or in modern use sometimes a prose composition, in which prevailing vices or fillies are held up to ridicule. Sometimes, less correctly, satire is applied to a composition in verse or prose intended to ridicule a particular person or class of persons.”

Satire, we may say then, is a literary form of criticism. A society may over the years have come to accept a custom, a tradition, belief, or an institution as embodying truth. The satirist sees in the world of reality that the particular custom, tradition, belief, or an institution as embodying truth. The satirist sees in the world of reality that the particular custom, tradition, belief, or institution, instead of making man’s existence secure and rich, is on the contrary,causing him serious damage. The satirist sees this world no longer as one embodying truth but rather as one embracing a lie, as one founded on evil. To correct the harm, to expose the fault, he looses his attack. But his approach is not to reveal the ugliness totally in realistic terms, to show the cancer as it is. He prefers to achieve his aims through ridicule, and he uses the weapons of exaggeration, understatement, incongruity, sarcasm, irony, humor wit, burlesque, invective parody, and any other instrument of destruction, in his literary arsenal including cold, realistic detail.

As mentioned previously in the beginning of this chapter, if a writer presents his world as it is with its elements of good (heroism, nobility, sacrifice, idealism) and its elements of evil (cruelty, bloodshed, selfishness, cynicisms), we call him a realist. Other writers concentrate their attention and attack almost entirely on what is wrong with the world: these writhers are called naturalists. Romantic writers concentrate on the heroic and noble qualities in man; they are moved by a belief that good will triumph over evil in the battle for the soul of man.

However, no writer is purely a realist, a naturalist, or a romantic. We find, for example, scenes we call melodramatic-sensational, violent, and extravagantly emotional-in both romantic and naturalistic stories. And we must learn to detect the difference between the use of melodrama in a work like Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables and in work like Emile Zola’s Germinal or Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie. There are realistic scenes in realistic works: Writers working in the triangle of evil will encroach upon the triangle of good, and writers concerned with man’s goodness will recognize the existence of evil, even to the extent of letting evil triumph. But in a romantic work, the triumph of evil will be an empty victory and defeat of good a heroic acceptance.

You may wonder what the difference is between the naturalist and the satirist, since both concentrate their attention on exposing the evil in man and in his institutions. The difference lies in method and technique. The naturalist involves the reader directly with realistic detail strengthened (or weakened) my melodrama. The satirist involves the reader circumspectly, subtly, his depiction of man’s vices and of the world’s ills. If one were to draw rectangles defining the difference between naturalistic and satiric expression, the rectangles would approximate the following forms: the lines of the satiric triangle becoming jagged and distorted and triangle losing it pristine form.

One further element needs to be considered before we go into a more detailed analysis of satire and that is the use of the unreal or the world of fantasy. The unreal may appear in any work of literature, whether it is romantic, realistic, naturalistic, or satiric. The rocking horse in D.H. Lawrence’s The Rocking Horse Winner and the snow in Conrad Aiken’s Silent Snow, Secret Snow are unreal elements in realistic stores; whereas the Houyhnhnms and Yahoos in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels are unreal characters in a satiric work. How unreal, absurd elements function in various works will become clear when we analyze specific works of literature in detail.

THE BEMUSED SATIRISTBasically, there are two approaches a satirist may take, depending on the

nature of the vice or evil he attacking and on his response to that vice or evil. He may be a detached, bemused critic with no deep desire to effectuate change. In such a case, his purpose may be to hold the mirror up to the reader or spectator and let him see himself and his world honestly. To such a satirist, the vices and follies he comments on are not destructive. They are a reflection of the obtuseness and stupidity of people, or the superficiality and meaninglessness of their lives, and of the barrenness and lack of substance in their values. In such a world, form is everything and substance nothing. The satirist applies his wit and irony in commenting on the emptiness of such an existence and on the aridity of such a world. There is much fun and some hurt in the dissection, but nco one is to seriously affect. This is the satire one finds in the novels of Jane Austen, in the plays of William Congreve, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and Noel Coward.

Jan Austen is objective, detached. Though she occasionally shows an intellectual scorn at the antics of characters like Mrs. Ennet and Lady Catherine De Bourgh, she is never angry. Her intention seems to be to record human behavior as she sees it, believing that her readers will, like herself, be amused by the folly of characters. The reader finds intellectual pleasure at the “turns of wit and irony.” He feels wise, witty, superior, and affectionate as he enjoys the foolish antics of the mortals that Jane Austen parades before him.

THE ANGRY SATIRIST

naturalistic

Romanticromantic

romanti satiric

The satirist may be an angry man. The vices and follies he sees in his world and in the people that inhabit it are intolerable to him and enrage him. He appalled by the suffering he see. He lashes out with bitterness and fury. His basic weapons are sarcasm and irony. His tirades abound with vitriolic invective and venomous denunciation. If he makes any tongue-in-cheek comments, the poison of his hatred is readily apparent. The angry satirist is often a man inwardly beside himself, frequently controlling his anger with cleverness, but more often letting loose with bitter vituperation. This is the kind of satire on finds in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver Travels, Voltaire’s Candide, Aldous Huxley’s Antic Hay, George Orwell’s 1984, etc.

OBSTACLES THE SATIRIST MUST OVERCOME

A satirist is not always free to “let go” at the society or institution he finds reprehensible or the people he considers ugly and destructive. A society has its ideals and values which make possible its continuance. Those in authority are happy with the status quo and are suspicious of the dangerous to any critic’s that threaten the system. The satirist becomes the enemy and is in danger of punishment---ostracism, exile, arrest, even execution. That is why some satirist has been subtle in their attack, couching their criticism in such ways that their intentions are not obvious. Here is where, frequently, he use of the unreal, the power to create a world of fantasy comes in handy. The leaders of Lilliput are fascinating creatures in a fairy-tale world, and Swift would insist, bear no resemblance to the fullers of England in his day.

There is another obstacle that satirist must overcome and that is his inner self. The satirist, who flagellates mankind, flagellates himself. When he exposes the weaknesses and ugliness in man, he is saying. “There, without the grace of God, go I.” Did Swift, Like Gulliver, see himself as a Yahoo? When Aldous Huxley “took apart the artistic and intellectual circles t which he belonged, was he not also flailing himself? Swift and Huxley transcended their “selves,” but at what cost one can only guess.

THE SATIRICAL VIEW

The satirist views his world with some distaste. It is an establishment world and a conventional one. Certain values, customs, beliefs, practices, styles have become fixed and fashionable. Since he doesn’t like them and feels that they engender foolish behavior, he ridicules them. A gentle and not very destructive way of doing this is to reverse the. What is considered mannerly the satirist describes as unrefined. What is holy becomes profane. The acceptable dress is depicted as gross and plebeian. Civilized ways are the epitome of vulgarity, marred by pretension, vanity and ostentation. The exemplar of conventionality, acting out what to him is the good and the beautiful, becomes a sad rather ridiculous, fool.

In examining the work of a satirist, you must raise a number of questions to determine the sincerity and profundity of the writer. Superficial satire is easy to write. Our newspapers and magazines abound with vitriolic comments on the passing scene. They are amusing or irritating for a moment and quickly forgotten. Ask yourself these questions. How much malice is there in the satirist’s criticism and what is the source of this malice? Is the bitterness the result of personal disappointments or of some illness or quirk of temperament? Has the satirist been made angry by real vices or is he practicing his wit and inflating his ego at the expense of human weakness. Are the objects of his attack worthy of his attention, and his attack one of skill, imagination, and subtlety? Is he truly concerned about the suffering or injustice he depicts, or is he moved solely by arrogance and cynicism? Is he fundamentally a misanthrope or does he despite the invective and denunciation, show a compassion for man?

THE SATIRIST’S ATTITUDE

You need also, in study the work of a satirist to determine his attitude. Ask yourself these questions regarding attitude:

1. Is the attitude of the satirist mild, sympathetic, unemotional? Is it scientific and detached? Is it characterized by raillery, banter, lightness of critical comment? (Jan Austen, George Meredith)

2. Is the attitude a reflection of intellectual scorn, of a mental irritation with those who live with self-delusions at the expense of others? (Jan Austen, Geoffrey Chaucer)

3. Is the attitude one of intense anger, hatred, and bitterness toward the harm which man inflicts on his fellows and towards the gross failure of man’s institutions? (Jonathan Swift, Voltaire, Aldous Huxley)

4. Is the comment colored by pessimism and despair or by optimism and hope? (Jonathan Swift)

5. Is it sardonic comment, characterized by derision and mockery? (Voltaairre, Anatole France)The tone of satirical work will be reflection of the satirist’s attitude.

THE SATIRIST’S INTENTION

Ask yourself these questions regarding the intentions of the satirist:1. Is the satirist seeking to display his own intellectual superiority? (George Bernard

Shaw)2. Does he wish to exhibit his wit and style for the pure intellectual enjoyment of his

audience as well as of himself? (Jan Austen, George Meredith)3. Does the satirist seek to jolt the reader out of complacency and indifference? Does

he want to make people think and act? (Jonathan Swift, George Orwell)4. Is the satirist’s aim a psychological one? Is he making a study of the motivations,

sometimes noble, sometimes ignoble, behind foolish and destructive behavior? (Jan Austen, George Meredith)

Three satirical works you might study are Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, George Meredith’s The Egoist, and Anatole France’s Penguin Island. A central theme of Tom Jones is that goodness of heart and mind is not reflected in characters who observe all the forms and conventions of their world. The Egoist seeks to show that a decent person can be corrupted by too great a concern with self. Penguin Island insists that the progress of history is not one of growth and enlightenment by rather a repeating cycle of corrupt and vicious institutions and ugly and evil practices.

TECHNIQUES EMPLOYED BY THE SATIRIST

The satirist uses many techniques in exposing the evil and folly of man and the weaknesses and failure of man’s institutions. Some are direct and obvious: others are subtle devious.

The angry satirist will resort to abuse, denunciation, and invective. He will direct his fury against individuals, against classes of people, against destructive practices, against false idols and beliefs by means of realistic description, burlesque exaggeration, and course mockery. He will us caricature, travesty and parody. Take, for example this passage from the third satire of Juvenal:

I cannot rule my spleen and calmly seeThis Grecian filth smeared over Italy!Grecian? Oho! The foul smell of this vastSewer leaves the very dregs of Greece surpassed.Long since the stream that wanton Syria lavesHas vomited its slime in Tiber’s waves,Its art and language, drowned in the scumOf Antioch’s streets, its minstrel, harp, and drum.

It is obvious that this criticism of the Greek influence upon the customs and culture of Rome is motivated by deep hatred. The use of words like filth, dregs, scum, slime vomited tells us this highlights and vigor and intensity of the emotion that generated the expression. The description is realistic, but the reader is aware of the single tone of description and exaggerated imagery. Imperial Rome as been made a foul sewer by all Grecian filth that it has permitted to be poured into it. Juvenal’s is a tone of nauseated dismay. There is a danger, however, in such violent denunciation: reality may be so falsified as to turn away the thoughtful reader. But at its best, as in Juvenal such satire moves the reader.

In order from violent satirical denunciation to be effective, the exaggeration must proceed out of the essence of an experience or personality. There needs to be a basic truth in the exaggeration. If the exaggeration is so distorted that the original object is unrecognizable, the satire fails; Grecian influence on Roman society in the eyes of many Romans was sufficiently baleful for readers of Juvenal to recognize the basic truths in his criticism. In our own day, for example, despite our concern for free speech, we recognize that there may be harmful results from pornographic books and films and from the presentation of scenes of violence in films and on T.V. Though we might not agree with the view of satirist who denounces our contemporary free ways, we would recognize the validity of his tirades, especially if his satire had the dramatic and vivid language of a Juvenal.

The impact of “mother” in American society is such as to make acceptable Philip Wylie’s vitriolic indictment of mom in A Generation of Vipers. Such a statement as the following may have shocked readers but there was enough truth in it to make the criticism a telling one:

Megaloid mom worship has got completely out of hand. Our land subjective mapped, would have more silver cords and apron strings crisscrossing it than railroads and telephone wires. Mom is everywhere and everything and damned near everybody, and from her depends all the rest of the United States. Disguised as good old mom, dear old mom, sweet old mom, your loving mom, and so on, she is the bride at every funeral and the corpse at every wedding. Men live for her and die for her, dote upon her, and whisper her name as they pass away, and I believe she has now achieved, in in the hierarchy of miscellaneous articles, spot next to the Bible and the Flag, being reckoned part of both in a way.

The language in this passage is more temperate than that of Juvenal excoriating the Greeks, but the anger and hatred are there, and the indictment is as intense.

…by what I gathered from your (Gulliver’s) own relation, and the answers I have with much pains wringed and extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.

This is vigorous, angry denunciation, and it is directed against all of mankind. Its power comes from the fact that it is a conclusion arrived at by a supposedly hones and impartial listener in response to Gulliver’s descriptions of the customs and ways of civilized Europeans. Gulliver is aghast at the conclusion of the King of Brobdingnag is obviously an exaggeration, but in the light of Gulliver’s accounts of the institutions and history of mankind an his descriptions of behavior of human beings as well as the reader’s awareness of the depths to which man can descend, there is enough truth in the characterization to make the satirical comment powerful and effective.

IRONY AS A WEAPON OF THE SATIRIST

A powerful wagon of the satirist is irony. One aspect of irony involves either saying the opposite of what one means. What the satirist most often does is to create “poor fool” central character and have him subjected to a gamut of undeserved punishments and ills which, however frightful, do not shake his optimistic and noble view of his world and of man. The contrast between his virtuous behavior and gross malefactions of the creatures that people his world, the difference between the beauty of his innocent world view and the ugliness of the world view of his tormentors, and the disparity between his fake descriptions and the repulsive reality provide the irony that illuminates the satirical criticism. Such works as Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Swift’s Gulliver Travels, and Voltaire’s Candide achieve their effects by placing innocents in shockingly cruel worlds or by having innocents praise characters, institutions, and values that are obviously corrupt.

Another ironic approach is less rancorous. It is concerned not so much with exposing the iniquitous and flagrant ills of the world but rather with ridiculing the ordinary follies of man. Where Swift’s vision of man as Yahoo depicts him as evil, ugly and obscene, Jane Austen’s vision of man depicts him as clownish, fatuous and boorish. Her irony is gentle, amusing. It does not shock. It flatters the reader. It gives the reader a sense of superiority because he does not see himself in the author’s creatures but is rather pleased with himself because he thinks he understands the writer’s brilliant comment and dissection. A satirist such as Jane Austen refuses to become bitter against what she cannot correct, and she does not need the catharsis that comes with venting violent wrath at wrongs. Her irony is blended with wit. In Pride and Prejudice, for example, Mr. Collin’s subservience to lady Catherine and lady Catherine’s arrogant and crude behavior toward those she considers beneath her are satirical subjects presented with ironic comment and punctuated with apt descriptions that surprise and delight by their unexpectedness. Learning from Mrs. Bennet that Jane was likely to be engaged to another, Mr. Collins, seeking a wife from among the Bennet girls. ‘had only to change from Jane to Elizabeth-and it was soon done- done while Mrs. Bennet was stirring the fire.” Lady Catherine, visiting the Bennets to berate Elizabeth for daring to consider marriage to Darcy, must remark on the smallness of the park surrounding the Bennett home and the inconvenience of sitting room in which the windows are full west.

THE SATIRIST AND HIS AUDIENCE

The clever satirist must consider his audience. He needs to choose a tone and a technique that is most consonant with the temper of his readers. The majority of his audience may be hostile or they may be indifferent or they may agree with him. For each class of readers the tone must be right if his work is to make any impact. What are the tones satirists have used? A satirist may adopt a tone of complete scientific detachment. What he is recording, he will insist, is the truth, recorded with dispassion and moderation. But if the truth arouses horror that is not due to the writer but rather to the matter he is reporting. For example, consider the passage from “A Voyage to Brobdingnag” in Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels:

…One day the governess ordered our coachmen to stop at several shops, where the beggars, watching their opportunity, crowded to the sides of the coach, and gave me that most horrible spectacles that ever an English eye beheld. There was a woman with a cancer in her breast, swelled to a monstrous size, full of holes, in two or three of which I could have easily crept, and covered by whole body. There was a fellow with a wen in his neck, larger that five woolpacks, and another with a couple of wooden legs, each about twenty foot high. But the most hateful sight of all was the lice crawling on their clothes. I could see distinctly the limbs of these vermin with my naked eye, much better than those of an Europeanlouse through a microscope, and their snouts with which they rooted like swine…”

How does Swift see man in this passage? Man is a creature subject to the ravages of illness and made disgusting by disease. Poverty, too, makes man disgusting because he becomes dirty, evil-smelling and infested with vermin. In this passage, Swift is not faulting society entirely, nor is he faulting man entirely. It is nature with its cruel conditions that turns man into revolting object. But society and man bear some responsibility. This is an inference we must drew from the statement. In Brobdingnag, which Swift considers to be an enlightened country, there are poverty and disease. The account is objective, scientific. The reader’s reaction is one of horror.

Quite frequently, a satirist will adopt a sympathetic tone. He will feel sorry with his readers that they must suffer some injustice or ugliness. He will divine the malady with naiveté and propose an extreme, occasionally shockingly unreal, solution to the wrong. The outrageous solution described in innocence provides sharp outlines to the evil being castigated, and the readers’ revulsion grows apace. In a column called “ A Better Idea” which appeared on May 7, 1972, in The New York Times, Russell Baker proposed that they way to defeat Vietnam was not to dump tones of bombs upon strategic areas but rather to dump loads of garbage upon the entire country, “the effluvium of the mightiest garbage-producing power the world has ever know.” That, he insisted, would bring Hanoi to its knees. By means of this apparently harmless and amusing recommendation, Baker comments satirically on what he consider to be two major concerns of our time: the pollution of our land and the resumption of the bombing of the bombing of North Vietnam. Baker states that war should never be used as a device for defeating a dangerous doctrine. “The sensible modern way to think war is a garbage disposal system”.

Baker’s technique is in the grand tradition of the tongue-in-cheek satirist which reached apex in Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal. Swift, as you recall, concerned about poverty in Ireland and suffering of the Irish, proposed that the poor of Ireland be encouraged to breed and that the off-spring of such connections be used for food at the tender age of one when they are most delectable.

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CAVEATS

I IF YOU HAVE READ CAREFULLY THUS FAR, YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED OCCASIONAL ERRORS OF VARIOUS SORTS IN THE TEXT THAT HAVE RESULTED FROM IMPERFECT DUPLICATION OR OTHER TECHNOLOGICAL ERRORS. I THINK THAT I HAVE CAUGHT AND CORRECTED MOST IF NOT ALL SUCH PROBLEMS, BUT WHEN THIS DOCUMENT IS POSTED ONLINE, OTHER MINOR ERRORS MAY BECOME EVIDENT. I DO NOT THINK SUCH ERRORS WILL IMPEDE YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE PRECEDING MATERIALS AND ASSIGNMENTS, BUT YOU MAY WANT TO CONTACT ME THROUGH THE NORCO HIGH SCHOOL WEB SITE IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS OR WOULD LIKE CLARIFICATION ON SOME CONCERNS AND/OR ISSUES INVOLVING THE AP LANGUAGE ARTS 11 CLASS AND CURRICULUM.

II ALSO, PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THE MLA STYLE GUIDES ARE ALWAYS SUBJECT TO ONGOING REVISION BY THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION. OFTEN SLIGHT REVISIONS

ACCUMULATE OVER A SINGLE YEAR. AFTER TWO TO FOUR YEARS, THESE CUMULATIVE CHANGES RESULT IN THE PUBLICATION OF A REVISED HANDBOOK. AS A RESULT OF THIS FACT, YOUR TEXTBOOKS MAY NOT HAVE THE MOST CURRENT AND CORRECT INFORMATION AND INSTRUCTIONS REGARDING MLA STYLE AND FORMAT.

YOU CAN ALWAYS GO TO THE WEBSITE OF THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION TO SEE WHAT IS MOST CURRENT. SOME OF MY STUDENTS HAVE ALSO FOUND THAT THE ONLINE STUDENT RESOURCES SECTION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA IS VERY HELPFUL IN OFFERING EXAMPLES AND COMMENTARY ON THE MOST RECENT EDITION OF THE MLA STYLE GUIDE LINE, AND THEY HAVE ALSO FOUND THAT THOSE RESOURCE PAGES HAVE BEEN HELPFUL IN OTHER ISSUES AND CONCERNS INVOLVING ACADEMIC WRITING. THEY HAVE TOLD ME THAT RESOURCE CAN BE FOUND AT: http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/AND THAT THEY’VE FOUND THE FOLLOWING TO BE PARTICULARLY HELPFUL: http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/index.html