AP LanguageNovember 5-6

I can demonstrate my comprehension of increasingly difficult texts by answering literal and interpretive questions.I can imitate a classical argumentative structure in writing a satirical piece.I can analyze a writer’s syntax and its effect on meaning.

VOICE LESSONNo sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into silence, then I was answered by a voice from within the tomb!—by a cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and continuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman—a howl!—a wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the damned in their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation.

--Edgar Allan Poe, “The Black Cat”1. The dashes in this long sentence set off a series of appositives. (An

appositive is a noun or noun phrase placed beside another noun or noun phrase and used to identify or explain it.) What noun phrase is explained by the appositives?

2. This sentence makes syntactic and semantic sense if it ends with the first exclamation point. What do the appositives add to the meaning and effectiveness of the sentence?

3. Rewrite Poe’s sentence, changing it into a series of short sentences. Read your sentences to someone sitting close by. Discuss how the use of short sentences changes the overall meaning of the original.

Identify the tone or mood of the picture. Justify your answer.

Discuss Into the Wild• Reading quiz

• Socratic discussion– Exposition or narrative structure?– How is this piece still an argument?

40 minutes writing• Imitate the structure and style of the Declaration of Independence

in declaring yourself free from some vice or habit.

• Is your piece a serious declaration of freedom or a satirical piece in the tradition of Elizabeth Cady Stanton or Saturday Night Live?

• Use the graphic organizer to help you get started.

• Remember to follow as closely as possible the classical argumentative structure.

• That means that your thesis should contain two parts or sides—they say/I say. It is a “partition.”

• The confirmation of your essay should include a minimum of 5 examples of anaphora and a triad of rhetorical fragments.

• Place the refutation of your essay at the end, in the 4th section of the essay.