AP
Language
2-Day Institute
NMSI Two-Day Conference
AP Language and Composition
Learner Outcomes ..............................................................................................................................3
Contextualizing Pre-Twentieth Century Arguments .........................................................................4
Claims in Pre-Twentieth Century Images ..............................................................................8
Close Reading: “The Great Nation of Futurity,” John L. O’Sullivan ....................................13
Close Reading: “Memorial of the Cherokee Nation” ............................................................15
Pre-Twentieth Century Texts and Modern Pairings ..........................................................................20
Steinbeck’s Letter to His Son ................................................................................................21
Lord Chesterfield’s Letter to His Son ...................................................................................24
Teacher Training Activity: Lord Chesterfield Student Samples............................................32
Understanding Syntax in Pre-Twentieth Century Texts
Close Reading Exercise: “Self-Reliance,” Ralph Waldo Emerson .......................................35
Multiple Choice: “Self-Reliance,” Ralph Waldo Emerson....................................................43
Understanding Satire: Terms .............................................................................................................46
Satire Warm-Up: Identifying Humor in Animated Films ......................................................47
Contextualizing Satire........................................................................................................................49
Close Reading: “The Passion of Parenting,” Charles M. Blow .............................................52
Close Reading: “Where Did My Little Girl Go?” Dave Barry ..............................................57
Writing Task: Style Comparison ...........................................................................................61
Close Reading: Annoying, Excerpt Joe Palca and Flora Lichtman ........................................62
Close Reading: “Good Folks,” Dorothy Parker ....................................................................64
Writing Task: Drawing on Knowledge from Two Texts .......................................................69
Teaching Satire via Images and Cartoons ..........................................................................................70
Close Reading: “A Generation Hobbled by Soaring Cost of College” .................................72
Close Reading: Political Cartoon: Monsters’ Inc. College Debt ...........................................75
Writing Task: Taking a Position about College Debt ............................................................77
Teaching Satire via Video ..................................................................................................................78
“Hashtags Skit,” The Tonight Show staring Jimmy Fallon ...................................................79
Close Reading: “#InPraiseOfTheHashtag,” Julia Turner ......................................................80
Writing Task: The Role of Social Media in Modern Society ................................................83
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Teacher Training Exercise: Contextualizing Satire ...........................................................................84
Multiple Choice Strategies Overview ................................................................................................86
MC Strategy One: Three Close Readings .........................................................................................88
Passage: “Wind,” William Least Heat-Moon
MC Strategy Two: Teacher Marked Pre-Reading .............................................................................95
Passage: “Ellen Terry,” Virginia Woolf
MC Strategy Three: Three Readings, Two Discussions, One Class Grade .......................................101
Passage: Unsigned Review in Leader, George Eliot
MC Strategy Four: Student Created Multiple Choice Questions.......................................................110
Passage: “On Compassion,” Barbara Ascher
Full Length Multiple-Choice Exam Reminders .................................................................................116
Rhetorical Analysis Everyday Overview ...........................................................................................117
Exercise #1: Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand ...........................................................................118
Exercise #2: Five Days at Memorial, Sheri Fink ...................................................................120
Exercise #3: The Glass Castle, Jeanette Walls ......................................................................122
Exercise #4: Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher, Timothy Egan ........................................124
Exercise #5: Muck City, Bryan Mealer ..................................................................................126
Exercise #6: The Emerald Mile, Kevin Fedarko ....................................................................128
Exercise #7: Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation, Dan Fagin ...............................130
Exercise #8: Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Katherine Boo .................................................132
Rhetorical Analysis Everyday: Teacher Training Exercise ...............................................................134
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National Math and Science Initiative
AP English Language and Composition Two-Day Workshop
This two-day workshop for AP English Language teachers offers strategies, lessons, and
resources designed to address common challenges teachers and students face in the AP English
Language classroom. During the interactive work sessions, participants will explore techniques
and materials to improve students’ analysis of pre-20th century prose and visual texts, with
special emphasis on syntactical analysis and commentary development. Participants also will
examine lessons and materials that strengthen students’ understanding of satire and humor, and
they will consider a range of strategies designed to support students’ understanding of tone in a
variety of genres. In addition, participants will explore strategies and techniques to embed
rhetorical analysis and argument skills into routine classroom practice as well as to improve
student performance on multiple-choice items. An important focus of the workshop is an
exploration of how to build students’ cultural and archival knowledge so that they can approach
the argument free response question with confidence and skill. Participants will receive original,
classroom-ready lessons designed to improve students’ skill and confidence in analyzing
complex texts, as well as a variety of teacher and student resources, student samples for freeresponse prompts, and original multiple-choice items.
Learning Outcomes:
After attending this workshop, participants will be able to





support students in their close reading and analysis of pre-20th century texts.
apply a range of strategies to address commentary development and comparison writing.
help students analyze satire and humor.
pair passages effectively to improve students’ comparison reading and writing skills.
apply techniques to improve student performance on the multiple choice section of the
AP English Language exam.
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endorse this product. Copyright © 2014 National Math + Science Initiative, Dallas, Texas. All rights reserved. Visit us at
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Contextualizing Pre-Twentieth Century Arguments
Before delving into longer close reading passages from the pre-twentieth century, it can be
important to contextualize the time period. One way to accomplish this task is by providing
students with brief close reading exercises from time period appropriate authors, painters, etc.
Origin: United States Primary Source Documents
Focus Area: Westward Expansion
Close Reading Warm-Up—Begin your study of this pre-twentieth time period by completing
the close reading exercises below.
Close Reading #1
Made up as it is of people from different nations, accustomed to different forms and habits of
government, speaking different languages, and more different in their modes of worship, it
would appear that the union of such a people was impracticable; but by the simple operation of
constructing government on the principles of society and the rights of man, every difficulty
retires, and all the parts are brought into cordial unison.
—Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1791
1. In Paine’s statement above, he argues that the United States is based on difference. For each
category Paine identifies, explain why the difference could make unification difficult.
a). “from different Nations”
b). “accustomed to different government”
c). “speaking different languages”
d). “different in their modes of worship”
2. While the categories above should make unification “impracticable” or unrealistic, the United
States government, founded on the rights of man, “retire” struggle and create “cordial
unison.” For each of the phrases below, explain what the word choice suggests.
a). “every difficulty retires”
Hint: Why use the word retires? Why not disappears?
b). “all the parts are brought into cordial unison”
Hint: If cordial means warm or friendly, what is Paine implying?
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Close Reading #2
It is a thorough process, this war with the wilderness—breaking nature, taming the soil,
feeding it on oats. The civilized man regards the pine tree as his enemy.
—Henry David Thoreau, Journal, 1852.
1. Thoreau uses a series of phrases to describe how the human race tries to mold/change nature.
Examine each phrase. Explain what is argued about man’s relationship with nature.
a). “thorough process”
b). “war with wilderness”
c). “breaking nature”
d). “taming the soil”
e). “feeding it on oats”
2. Thoreau employs irony when he says, “the civilized man regards the pine tree as his enemy.”
a). Why choose to use the phrase “civilized man?” Why not just use the word man?
b). Why does Thoreau choose to use the “pine tree” as an example of man’s enemy? Why not
a wild animal?
c). Explain what Thoreau hopes to accomplish by using this type of irony in his writing.
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Close Reading #3
America is a land of wonders, in which everything is in constant motion and every change
seems an improvement.
—Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835
1. Alexis de Tocqueville argues that the United States is a “land of wonders.” Explain what this
phrase is meant to suggest about the U.S. in regards to the categories below.
a). Citizens
b). Industry
c). Landscape
2. Alexis de Tocqueville describes the United States as a nation that is in “constant motion.”
Explain what this this phrase suggests about each of the categories below.
a). Citizens
b). Industry
c). Landscape
3. Explain what Alexis de Tocqueville is arguing about progress in the United States when he
says, “every change seems an improvement.”
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Close Reading #4
We were content to let things remain as the Great Spirit Chief made them. They were not; and
would change the mountains and rivers if they did not suit them.
—Chief Joseph, in a speech about the relationship between
the Nez Percé and the United States, 1877
1. Chief Joseph characterizes Native Americans, specifically the Nez Percé, as “content to let
things remain as the Great Spirit Chief made them.” Describe what each phrase suggests about
the Nez Percé.
a). “content to let things remain”
b). “as the Great Spirit Chief made them”
2. Chief Joseph uses a semicolon to abruptly stop his thought without separating it from the rest
of the second sentence. Explain the effect of the phrase, “they were not.”
3. Chief Joseph employs several phrases to characterize the “they” to whom he refers. For each
phrase explain how he characterize these people.
a). “change mountains and rivers”
b). “did not suit them”
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Claims in a Visual Text
Read the definition of Manifest Destiny. Then, examine the painting American Progress (1872)
by artist John Gast. Complete the accompanying questions.
Manifest Destiny—the belief, during the nineteenth century, that settling the United States from
coast to coast was the destiny or purpose of American citizens. Westward
expansion was meant to bring about economic growth as well as
industrialization.
Examining the Image-Answer the questions below to build knowledge and understanding.
1. List one detail presented in the painting for each of the categories below. Be sure to provide
description for how the detail is depicted.
 Landscape
 Animals

People

Industry and “Civilization”
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2. Examine the movement or action in the painting. How is action portrayed?
3. Examine the light and dark shading present in the painting. What do you notice about the role
of lightness and darkness?
4. Examine the size and organization of objects within the painting. Explain how the painting is
organized.
Analyzing the Argument
5. Identify two key issues surrounding the United States’ Western Expansion that are apparent in
the painting. For each, provide a detail from the painting that supports the issue.
Issue
Detail from the Painting
6. Gast titled this painting American Progress. What does the title suggest about the painting?
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Synthesizing Sources to Create Original Argumentation
Reexamine the quotations from the warm-up. Identify a quotation that supports/extends Gast’s
argument in the painting. You will also identify a quotation that challenges Gast’s argument.
Defending—From the warm-up, choose the quotation that you believe best conveys the
argument present in the painting.
Quotation:
Explain what the speaker in the quotation is claiming about America, Manifest Destiny, or the
concept of Progress.
Responding in Writing—Write a brief defense of how the painting reflects the claim you
identified above. Use an appropriate detail from the painting as support. A template is provided.
Sentence #1:
(author of the quotation)
(paraphrase the quotation’s argument)
argues that
in order to suggest
(describe the quotation’s purpose)
.
Sentence #2: Gast’s painting, American Progress, embodies the same argument by
(describe the painting’s argument)
.
Sentence #3: American Progress establishes this argument by focusing on
(describe element of the painting)
Sentence #4: This aspect of the painting suggests
.
(describe the purpose)
.
Sentence #5: Together, (author of the quotation) and Gast create arguments that are meant to
(describe the overall effect/purpose of these similar arguments)
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.
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Response:
Challenging—From the warm-up, choose the quotation that you believe challenges the
argument present in the painting.
Quotation:
Explain what the speaker in the quotation is claiming about America, Manifest Destiny, or the
concept of Progress.
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Responding in Writing—Write a brief response of how the painting challenges the claim you
identified above. Use an appropriate detail from the painting, different from the one used in your
defense, as support. A template is provided.
Sentence #1:
(author of the quotation)
(paraphrase the quotation’s argument)
argues that
in order to suggest
(describe the quotation’s purpose)
.
Sentence #2: Gast’s painting, American Progress, challenges this argument by suggesting
(describe the painting’s argument)
instead
.
Sentence #3: American Progress accomplishes this by primarily focusing on
(describe element of the painting that is at odds with the quotation)
Sentence #4: This aspect of the painting suggests
Sentence #5: Of the two arguments,
is the most significant since
.
(describe the purpose)
.
(identify the argument/author you believe is strongest)
(describe your reason for this evaluation)
.
Response:
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endorse this product. Copyright © 2014 National Math + Science Initiative, Dallas, Texas. All rights reserved. Visit us at
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12
"The Great Nation of Futurity1,”
John L. O'Sullivan on Manifest Destiny, 1839
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The American people having derived their origin
from many other nations, and the Declaration of
National Independence being entirely based on the
great principle of human equality, these facts
demonstrate at once our disconnected position as
regards any other nation; that we have, in reality, but
little connection with the past history of any of them,
and still less with all antiquity, its glories, or its crimes.
On the contrary, our national birth was the beginning
of a new history, the formation and progress of an
untried political system, which separates us from the
past and connects us with the future only; and so far as
regards the entire development of the natural rights of
man, in moral, political, and national life, we may
confidently assume that our country is destined to
be the great nation of futurity.
It is so destined, because the principle upon which a
nation is organized fixes its destiny, and that of equality
is perfect, is universal. It presides in all the operations
of the physical world, and it is also the conscious law of
the soul -- the self-evident dictates of morality, which
accurately defines the duty of man to man, and
consequently man's rights as man. Besides, the
truthful annals of any nation furnish abundant
evidence, that its happiness, its greatness, its
duration, were always proportionate to the
democratic equality in its system of government. . . .
What friend of human liberty, civilization, and
refinement, can cast his view over the past history of
the monarchies and aristocracies of antiquity, and
not deplore that they ever existed? What
philanthropist can contemplate the oppressions, the
cruelties, and injustice inflicted by them on the
masses of mankind, and not turn with moral horror
from the retrospect?
America is destined for better deeds. It is our
unparalleled glory that we have no reminiscences of
battle fields, but in defence of humanity, of the
oppressed of all nations, of the rights of conscience,
the rights of personal enfranchisement. Our annals
describe no scenes of horrid carnage, where men were
led on by hundreds of thousands to slay one another,
dupes and victims to emperors, kings, nobles, demons
Guiding Questions
1. O’Sullivan argues, in lines 4-6, that the United
States is in more of a “disconnected position”
than other nations. What is the reason for his
argument?
2. O’Sullivan argues, “our country is destined to be
the great nation of futurity.” Explain how
O’Sullivan supports this argument.
3.Examine the words “happiness,” “greatness,” and
“duration” in lines 25-29. What is O Sullivan’s
argument about these terms?
4. O’Sullivan makes use of two rhetorical questions
in lines 30-37.
a). Identify his arguments.
b). Explain why he chooses to use rhetorical
questions instead of making statements.
5. He argues that America is “destined” for better
deeds.” Examine lines 38-53. List his reasons.
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Guiding Questions
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in the human form called heroes. We have had
patriots to defend our homes, our liberties, but no
aspirants to crowns or thrones; nor have the
American people ever suffered themselves to be
led on by wicked ambition to depopulate the land,
to spread desolation far and wide, that a human
being might be placed on a seat of supremacy.
We have no interest in the scenes of antiquity,
only as lessons of avoidance of nearly all their
examples. The expansive future is our arena, and for
our history. We are entering on its untrodden
space, with the truths of God in our minds,
beneficent objects in our hearts, and with a clear
conscience unsullied by the past. We are the nation
of human progress, and who will, what can, set
limits to our onward march? Providence is with us,
and no earthly power can. We point to the everlasting
truth on the first page of our national declaration, and
we proclaim to the millions of other lands, that "the
gates of hell" -- the powers of aristocracy and
monarchy -- "shall not prevail against it."
The far-reaching, the boundless future will
be the era of American greatness. In its magnificent
domain of space and time, the nation of many nations
is destined to manifest to mankind the excellence of
divine principles; to establish on earth the noblest
temple ever dedicated to the worship of the Most
High -- the Sacred and the True. Its floor shall be a
hemisphere -- its roof the firmament of the starstudded heavens, and its congregation an Union of
many Republics, comprising hundreds of happy
millions, calling, owning no man master, but
governed by God's natural and moral law of
equality, the law of brotherhood -- of "peace and
good will amongst men.". . .
1
6. He argues that the United States is “the nation of
human progress.” Explain what he is arguing.
7. What is the effect of describing the future as
“boundless?”
8. Explain what each phrase below suggests about
the United States.
a). “hundreds of happy millions”
b). “calling no man master”
c). “governed by God’s natural and moral law of
equality”
d). “the law of brotherhood—of ‘peace and good
will amongst men’”
9. What is O’Sullivan’s purpose in writing this
essay?
Events that will occur in the future.
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14
Memorial of the Cherokee Nation, December 1829
Memorial—Within this context, a memorial is a letter meant to serve as part of a large petition
or request to lawmakers. This letter was published first in the Cherokee Phoenix, the first
American Indian newspaper, and then in the Niles Weekly Register, a newspaper in Baltimore,
Maryland.
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To the honorable the senate and House of Representatives of the United States of
America, in congress assembled:
The undersigned memorialists, humbly make known to your honorable bodies, that they
are free citizens of the Cherokee nation. Circumstances of late occurrence have troubled our
hearts, and induced us at this time to appeal to you, knowing that you are generous and
just...
By the will of our Father in heaven, the governor of the whole world, the red man of
America has become small, and the white man great and renowned. When the ancestors of the
people of these United States first came to the shores of America, they found the red man
strong—though he was ignorant and savage, yet he received them kindly, and gave them
dry land to rest their weary feet. They met in peace, and shook hands in token of
friendship. Whatever the white man wanted and asked of the Indian, the latter willingly
gave. At that time the Indian was the lord, and the white man the suppliant. But now the
scene has changed. The strength of the red man has become weakness. As his neighbors
increased in numbers, his power became less, and now, of the many and powerful tribes who
once covered these United States, only a few are to be seen—a few whom a sweeping pestilence
has left. The northern tribes, who were once so numerous and powerful, are now nearly extinct.
Thus it has happened to the red man of America. Shall we, who are remnants, share the same
fate?
Brothers—we address you according to usage adopted by our forefathers, and the great
and good men who have successfully directed the councils of the nation you represent—we now
make known to you our grievances. We are troubled by some of your own people. Our neighbor,
the state of Georgia, is pressing hard upon us, and urging us to relinquish our possessions for her
benefit. We are told, if we do not leave the country, which we dearly love, and betake ourselves
to the western wilds, the laws of the state will be extended over us, and the time, 1st of June,
1830, is appointed for the execution of the edict. When we first heard of this we were grieved
and appealed to our father, the president, and begged that protection might be extended over us.
But we were doubly grieved when we understood, from a letter of the secretary of war to our
delegation, dated March of the present year [1829], that our father the president had refused us
protection, and that he had decided in favor of the extension of the laws of the state over us.—
This decision induces us to appeal to the immediate representatives of the American people. We
love, we dearly love our country, and it is due to your honorable bodies, as well as to us, to
make known why we think the country is ours, and why we wish to remain in peace where
we are.
The land on which we stand, we have received as an inheritance from our fathers, who
possessed it from time immemorial, as a gift from our common father in heaven. We have
already said, that when the white man came to the shores of America, our ancestors were
found in peaceable possession of this very land. They bequeathed it to us as their children,
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and we have sacredly kept it as containing the remains of our beloved men. This right of
inheritance we have never ceded, nor ever forfeited. Permit us to ask, what better right can
a people have to a country, than the right of inheritance and immemorial peaceable
possession? We know it is said of late by the state of Georgia, and by the executive of the United
States, that we have forfeited this right—but we think this is said gratuitously. At what time have
we made the forfeit? What crime have we committed, whereby we must forever be divested
of our country and rights? Was it when we were hostile to the United States, and took part with
the king of Great Britain, during the struggle for independence? If so, why was not this forfeiture
declared in the first treaty of peace between the United States and our beloved men?...
In addition to that first of all rights, the right of inheritance and peaceable possession, we
have the faith and pledge of the U. States, repeated over and over again, in treaties made at
various times. By these treaties our rights as a separate people are distinctly acknowledged, and
guarantees given that they shall be secured and protected. So we have always understood the
treaties. The conduct of the government towards us, from this organization until very lately, the
talks given to our beloved men by the presidents of the United States, and the speeches of the
agents and commissioners, all concur to show that we are not mistake in our interpretation.—
Some of our beloved men who signed the treaties are still leaving [ sic, living], and their
testimony tends to the same conclusion. We have always supposed that this understanding of the
treaties was in accordance with the views of the government; nor have we ever imagined that any
body would interpret them otherwise. In what light shall we view the conduct of the United
States and Georgia, in their intercourse with us, in urging us to enter into treaties, and cede
lands? If we were but tenants at will, why was it necessary that our consent must be
obtained before these governments could take lawful possession of our lands? The answer
is obvious. These governments perfectly understood our rights—our right to the country,
and our right to self government. Our understanding of the treaties is further supported by the
intercourse law of the United States, which prohibits all encroachments upon our territory. The
undersigned memoirists humbly represent, that if their interpretation of the treaties has been
different from that of the government, then they have ever been deceived as to how the
government regarded them, and what she asked and promised. Moreover, they have uniformly
misunderstood their own acts.
In view of the strong ground upon which their rights are founded, your
memorialists solemnly protest against being considered as tenants at will, or as mere
occupants of the soil, without possessing the sovereignty. We have already stated to your
honorable bodies, that our forefathers were found in possession of this soil in full
sovereignty, by the first European settlers; and as we have never ceded nor forfeited the
occupancy of the soil and the sovereignty over it, we do solemnly protest against being
forced to leave it, either [by] direct or by indirect measures. To the land of which we are
now in possession we are attached—it is our father’s gift—it contains their ashes—it is the
land of our nativity, and the land of our intellectual birth. We cannot consent to abandon it,
for another far inferior, and which holds out to us no inducements. We do moreover protest
against the arbitrary measures of our neighbor, the state of Georgia, in her attempt to extend her
laws over us, in surveying our lands without our consent and in direct opposition to treaties and
the intercourse law of the United States, and interfering with our municipal regulations in such a
manner as to derange the regular operations of our own laws. To deliver and protect them
from all these and every encroachment upon their rights, the undersigned memorialists do
most earnestly pray your honorable bodies. Their existence and future happiness are at
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stake—divest them of their liberty and country, and you sink them in degradation, and put
a check, if not a final stop, to their present progress in the arts of civilized life, and in the
knowledge of the Christian religion. Your memorialists humbly conceive, that such an act
would be in the highest degree oppressive. From the people of these United States, who
perhaps, of all men under heaven, are the most religious and free, it cannot be expected.—Your
memorialists, therefore, cannot anticipate such a result. You represent a virtuous, intelligent and
Christian nation. To you they willingly submit their cause for your righteous decision.
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17
Deconstructing Language to Determine Argument
For each section of text from the Cherokee Nation Memorial, choose a specific piece of language to examine closely.
Text
Examine the text below. Go back to the full
excerpt to read the section in context.
Deconstructing Language
Choose one of the bolded words/phrases
from the section of text. Discuss its
importance.
Determining Argument
Identify the argument in this section of
text. Explain, how the language you’ve
discussed in the previous box supports this
argument.
Circumstances of late occurrence have
troubled our hearts, and induced us at this
time to appeal to you, knowing that you
are generous and just... (lines 4-6)
When the ancestors of the people of these
United States first came to the shores of
America, they found the red man strong—
though he was ignorant and savage, yet he
received them kindly, and gave them
dry land to rest their weary feet. They
met in peace, and shook hands in token of
friendship. Whatever the white man
wanted and asked of the Indian, the
latter willingly gave. (lines 8-14)
We love, we dearly love our country, and
it is due to your honorable bodies, as well
as to us, to make known why we think the
country is ours, and why we wish to
remain in peace where we are. (lines 3134)
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18
Text
Examine the text below. Go back to the full
excerpt to read the section in context.
Deconstructing Language
Choose one of the bolded words/phrases
from the section of text. Discuss its
importance.
Determining Argument
Identify the argument in this section of
text. Explain, how the language you’ve
discussed in the previous box supports this
argument.
We have already said, that when the white
man came to the shores of America, our
ancestors were found in peaceable
possession of this very land. They
bequeathed it to us as their children, and
we have sacredly kept it as containing the
remains of our beloved men. This right of
inheritance we have never ceded, nor
ever forfeited. Permit us to ask, what
better right can a people have to a
country, than the right of inheritance
and immemorial peaceable possession.
(lines 36-42)
To deliver and protect them from all
these and every encroachment upon
their rights, the undersigned memorialists
do most earnestly pray your honorable
bodies. Their existence and future
happiness are at stake—divest them of
their liberty and country, and you sink
them in degradation, and put a check, if
not a final stop, to their present progress
in the arts of civilized life, and in the
knowledge of the Christian religion.
Your memorialists humbly conceive, that
such an act would be in the highest degree
oppressive. (lines 82-88)
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19
Pairing Pre-Twentieth Century Texts with Modern Equivalents
Often, students struggle with pre-twentieth century texts because they do not understand the
author’s argument due to sentence structure and vocabulary. Using modern pairings that embody
similar arguments can provide important scaffolding and confidence. See the examples below.
Focus Area: Letters from Writers to Fans
Rhetorical Analysis Free Response, 2001 AP Language Exam
George Eliot’s Letter to American Fan about Writing, 2001
 http://www.nmsiteachers.org/library/filelib/amludwig/APELA%2001%20Q1%20RA%20
George%20Eliot.pdf
Modern Pairings
C.S. Lewis’s Letter on Writing to American Fan, 1956
 http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/04/c-s-lewis-on-writing.html
Stephen King on Books that Influenced Him, 1992
 http://static.squarespace.com/static/4f576e2a24aca8d4f8e9b846/50a3b0d9e4b0be719cc2
51ba/50a3b0dce4b0be719cc2546e/1335323832008/1000w
J.K. Rowling Letter to Fan about Harry Potter, 2006
 http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/07/i-will-treasure-your-letter.html
Focus Area: Letters to Presidents
Rhetorical Analysis Free Response, 2010 AP Language Exam
Benjamin Banneker’s Letter to Thomas Jefferson, 1791
 http://www.nmsiteachers.org/library/filelib/amludwig/2010-Rhetorical%20Analysis.pdf
Supplemental: Jefferson’s Response to Banneker,1791
 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2h72t.html
Modern Pairing
Jackie Robinson’s Letter to President John F. Kennedy, 1961
 http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/jackie-robinson/images/letter-1961-01.jpg
Focus Area: Letters from Parents to Children
Rhetorical Analysis Free Response, 2004 AP Language Exam
Lord Chesterfield’s Letter to his Son, 1746
 http://www.nmsiteachers.org/library/filelib/amludwig/APELA%2004%20Q1%20RA%20
Lord%20Chesterfield.pdf
Modern Pairing
John Steinbeck’s Letter to his Son, 1958
 http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/01/nothing-good-gets-away.html
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20
John Steinbeck’s Letter to His Son Thom, 1956
The letter below was sent from author John Steinbeck to his son Thom. Thom was a teenager
away at boarding school.
New York
November 10, 1958
5
10
15
20
25
Dear Thom:
We had your letter this morning. I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine
will from hers.
First—if you are in love—that’s a good thing—that’s about the best thing that can happen to
anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you.
Second—There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing
which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an
outpouring of everything good in you—of kindness and consideration and respect—not only the
social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique
and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in
you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.
You say this is not puppy love. If you feel so deeply—of course it isn’t puppy love.
But I don’t think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. What you
wanted me to help you with is what to do about it—and that I can tell you.
Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.
The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.
If you love someone—there is no possible harm in saying so—only you must remember that
some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.
Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.
It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another—but that
does not make your feeling less valuable and good.
Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I’m glad you have it.
We will be glad to meet Susan. She will be very welcome. But Elaine will make all such
arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to. She knows about love too
and maybe she can give you more help than I can.
And don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens—The main thing is not to hurry.
Nothing good gets away.
Love,
30
Fa
from Steinbeck: A Life in Letters by John and Elaine Steinbeck. New York: Penguin Books, 1989. Permission Pending.
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21
Understanding Steinbeck’s Argument and Tone
Complete the exercise below to analyze Steinbeck’s argument and language.
1. Steinbeck sets up the body of his letter by identifying two major arguments.
First—if you are in love—that’s a good thing—that’s about the best thing that can happen to
anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you.
a) How do the phrases “good thing” and “best thing” help to develop Steinbeck’s tone?
b) Explain how Steinbeck’s last sentence in this section, an imperative or command, helps aid
his fatherly tone and advice.
c) Steinbeck could have easily used a comma instead of a dash. How does the dash allow him to
adopt a kind, patient, fatherly tone?
Second—There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing
which uses love for self importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an
outpouring of everything good in you—of kindness and consideration and respect—not only the
social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as
unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can
release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.
a) Steinbeck describes the first type of love as dangerous and dishonest. Choose the most
important word he uses to describe this type of love and discuss the impact of the language.
Word:
Impact of the Language:
b) Steinbeck describes the second type of love as precious and positive. Choose the most
important word he uses to describe this type of love and discuss the impact of the language.
Word:
Impact of the Language:
c) What is Steinbeck’s purpose in identifying and discussing two types of love with his son?
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22
2. Steinbeck’s letter transitions in lines 13-14.
But I don’t think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. What you
wanted me to help you with is what to do about it—and that I can tell you
a) Steinbeck makes use of the phrase you repeatedly. What is the purpose of this repetition?
3. Steinbeck creates a series of response to being in love. The items are numbered below.
(1) Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.
(2) The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.
(3) If you love someone—there is no possible harm in saying so—only you must remember
that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into
consideration.
(4) Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.
(5) It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another—but
that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.
(6) Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I’m glad you have it.
a) Choose one of the items in the list from above. Identify Steinbeck’s most important word or
phrase in the sentence. Discuss how it demonstrates his tone toward his son and love.
Item #
Most Important Word/Phrase:
Explain how this phrase proves the author’s tone:
4. Steinbeck ends with a brief closing argument about being deliberate and thoughtful.
And don’t worry about losing. If it is right it happens—The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing
good gets away.
a) Explain the bolded phrases above. Explain what Steinbeck is arguing.
b) Describe how Steinbeck seems towards his son throughout the course of this letter.
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23
Rhetorical Analysis Using Lord Chesterfield’s Letter to his Son
Consider Steinbeck’s letter to his son. Then, examine Lord Chesterfield’s letter to his son.
Consider how tone, argument, content, and purpose differ.
Analyzing the Prompt
This free response prompt and passage were included on the 2004 AP English Language exam.
Read the prompt and the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.
The passage below is an excerpt from a letter written by the eighteenth-century author Lord
Chesterfield to his young son, who was traveling far from home. Read the passage carefully.
Then, in a well-written essay, analyze the rhetorical strategies that Chesterfield uses to reveal his
own values.
1. This passage is excerpted from a letter. What assumptions can you make about the tone,
content, and purpose of this form of writing?
2. Lord Chesterfield is writing to his son in the excerpted passage. What tone can you assume a
father might adopt in a letter to his son?
3. What worries might a parent have about their child traveling “far from home?”
4. How might those parental concerns be different when the parent has an important title or
public position in a community?
5. Identify the task sentence. Remember, it includes the phrase, “in a well-written essay.”
Paraphrase the task sentence below.
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24
Reading and Reacting
Read the letter below. In the margins, note any initial reactions, comments, or questions.
Highlight or underline areas where you are confused or lost.
Bath, October 4, 1746
35
Dear Boy,
5
10
15
20
25
30
Though I employ so much of my time in
writing to you, I confess I have often my
doubts whether it is to any purpose. I know
how unwelcome advice generally is; I know
that those who want it most, like it and
follow it least; and I know, too, that the
advice of parents, more particularly, is
ascribed to the moroseness, the
imperiousness, or the garrulity of old age.
But then, on the other hand, I flatter myself,
that as your own reason, though too young
as yet to suggest much to you of itself, is
however, strong enough to enable you, both
to judge of, and receive plain truths: I flatter
myself (I say) that your own reason, young
as it is, must tell you, that I can have no
interest but yours in the advice I give you;
and that consequently, you will at least
weigh and consider it well: in which case,
some of it will, I hope, have its effect. Do
not think that I mean to dictate as a parent;
I only mean to advise as a friend, and an
indulgent one too: and do not apprehend that
I mean to check on your pleasures; of which,
on the contrary, I only desire to be the guide,
not the censor. Let my experience supply
your want of it, and clear your way, in the
progress of your youth, of those thorns
and briars which scratched and disfigured
me in the course of mine. I do not, therefore,
so much as hint to you, how absolutely
dependent you are upon me; that you neither
have, nor can have a shilling in the word
40
45
50
55
60
65
but from me; and that, as I have no
womanish weakness for your person, your
merit must, and will, be the only measure of
my kindness. I say, I do not hint these things
to you, because I am convinced that you will
act right, upon more noble and generous
principles: I mean, for the sake of doing
right, and out of affection and gratitude to
me.
I have so often recommended to you
attention and application to whatever you
learn, that I do not mention them now as
duties; but I point them out to
you as conducive, nay, absolutely necessary
to your pleasures; for can there be a greater
pleasure than to be universally allowed to
excel those of one’s own age and manner of
life? And, consequently, can there be
anything more mortifying than to be
excelled by them? In this latter case, your
shame and regret must be greater than
anybody’s, because everybody knows the
uncommon care which has been taken of
your education, and the opportunities you
have had of knowing more than others of
your age. I do not confine the application
which I recommend, singly to the view and
emulation of excelling others (though
that is a very sensible pleasure and a very
warrantable pride); but I mean likewise to
excel in the thing itself; for, in my mind, one
may as well not know a thing at all, as know
it but imperfectly. To know a little of
anything, gives neither satisfaction nor
credit; but often brings disgrace or ridicule.
© 2004 The College Board. All Rights Reserved.
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25
Identifying Authorial Purpose through Close Reading
After reading the entire excerpt from Lord Chesterfield’s letter, complete the exercise below.
Though I employ so much of my time in writing to you, I confess I have often my doubts whether
it is to any purpose. I know how unwelcome advice generally is; I know that those who want it
most, like it and follow it least; and I know, too, that the advice of parents, more particularly, is
ascribed to the moroseness, the imperiousness, or the garrulity of old age.
1. Underline or highlight Chesterfield’s repetition of the word “I.” How many times does he
repeat the word?
2. What does this repetition tell you about Chesterfield’s attitude towards his son and the purpose
of this letter?
3. Chesterfield says that he “doubts” whether his advice has any “purpose” for his son. Explain
what argument he is making.
4. Chesterfield describes parental advice as being thought of “moroseness,” “imperiousness” and
“garrulity of old age.”
a). Define each word/phrase.
Moroseness—
Imperiousness—
Garrulity of old age—
b). Explain what these phrases suggest about how parental advice is seen by children.
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26
5. How would you describe the tone of the letter’s opening? Reference the text specifically.
But then, on the other hand, I flatter myself, that as your own reason, though too young as yet to
suggest much to you of itself, is however, strong enough to enable you, both to judge of, and
receive plain truths: I flatter myself (I say) that your own reason, young as it is, must tell you,
that I can have no interest but yours in the advice I give you; and that consequently, you will at
least weigh and consider it well: in which case, some of it will, I hope, have its effect.
6. Why does Lord Chesterfield employ the repetition “I flatter myself” when referring to his
son’s ability to recognize and take good advice?
7. How does Chesterfield characterize himself in this excerpt? How does he characterize his son?
8. How does Chesterfield attempt to anticipate and counter any objections his son might have to
receiving parental advice?
Do not think that I mean to dictate as a parent; I only mean to advise as a friend, and an
indulgent one too: and do not apprehend that I mean to check your pleasures; of which, on the
contrary, I only desire to be the guide, not the censor.
9. In this section of the letter, Chesterfield sets up two juxtapositions. Discuss what each
juxtaposition suggests and why Chesterfield implies about his power as a parent.
a). “indulgent friend” versus someone who “check[s] pleasures
b). “guide” versus “censor”
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27
Let my experience supply your want of it, and clear your way, in the progress of your youth, of
those thorns and briars which scratched and disfigured me in the course of mine.
10. Why does Chesterfield choose to describe his youth as full of “thorns and briars?”
11. What is the effect of this metaphor on your understanding of Chesterfield’s purpose for
writing the letter?
I do not, therefore, so much as hint to you, how absolutely dependent you are upon me; that you
neither have, nor can have a shilling in the world but from me; and that, as I have no womanish
weakness for your person, your merit must, and will, be the only measure of my kindness. I say, I
do not hint these things to you, because I am convinced that you will act right, upon more noble
and generous principles: I mean, for the sake of doing right, and out of affection and gratitude to
me.
12. What is ironic about Chesterfield’s comments about his son’s motives in listening to and
adopting his father’s advice?
13. Explain how Chesterfield’s use of irony might be effective in motivating his son to adopt his
advice.
I have so often recommended to you attention and application to whatever you learn, that I do
not mention them now as duties; but I point them out to you as conducive, nay, absolutely
necessary to your pleasures; for can there be a greater pleasure than to be universally allowed
to excel those of one’s own age and manner of life?
14. Paraphrase the rhetorical question Chesterfield poses in this excerpt.
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28
15. What is the effect of the rhetorical question on your understanding of what values
Chesterfield finds important?
And, consequently, can there be anything can there be anything more mortifying than to be
excelled by them? In this latter case, your shame and regret must be greater than anybody’s
because everybody knows the uncommon care which has been taken of your education, and the
opportunities you have had of knowing more than others of your age.
16. Chesterfield uses another rhetorical question, which is included in this excerpt. How does
this question expand upon Chesterfield’s argument about his son’s education?
17. Chesterfield employs the words “mortifying,” “shame,” and “regret” as possible outcomes
for falling behind one’s peers. What are these words meant to advise his son of in terms of
failure and family?
. . . for in my mind, one may as well not know a thing at all, as know it but imperfectly. To know
a little of anything, gives neither satisfaction nor credit; but often brings disgrace or ridicule.
18. Chesterfield argues about excelling in education and those opportunities afforded to the son
of an important man. He suggests that knowing something “imperfectly” can bring “disgrace
or ridicule.” What is the effect is this language meant to have on how his son treats his
education and/or opportunities?
19. What value or values are reflected in this excerpt?
20. How does the language help you understand the values Chesterfield wishes to communicate
to his son?
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29
Analyzing the Argument
The writing prompt you deconstructed at the beginning of the lesson asks you to consider how
Chesterfield uses rhetorical strategies to communicate his values to his son. The passage has
been divided in half. For each section, identify the Chesterfield’s primary argument, support that
argument with direct reference to the text, and analyze Chesterfield’s rhetorical choices.
Section #1—Lines 1-43
Argument
What does
Chesterfield
value?
Evidence #1
What textual
evidence
supports your
conclusion?
Effect
How are the
examples you
identified
above
persuasive?
Evidence #2
What other
piece of
textual
evidence
supports your
conclusion?
Effect
How are the
examples you
identified
above
persuasive?
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30
Section #2—Lines 44-69
Argument
What does
Chesterfield
value?
Evidence #1
What textual
evidence
supports your
conclusion?
Effect
How are the
examples you
identified
above
persuasive?
Evidence #2
What other
piece of
textual
evidence
supports your
conclusion?
Effect
How are the
examples you
identified
above
persuasive?
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31
Teacher Training Activity
Lord Chesterfield’s Letter to his Son
The bulleted list below includes some of the most important issues identified by readers and the
Question Leader during the 2004 AP Language Reading.
Overarching Issues

Many students wrote about either rhetorical strategies or Chesterfield’s values.

Many students used their own experiences as children—they tended to not see the irony.

The readers of this question rewarded students for their discussion strategies even if the
student writer didn’t analyze Chesterfield correctly. Students were given wide latitude.
Low Range Essays

The low scoring papers offered little analysis into Chesterfield’s values. These students
often knew the terms, but that knowledge didn’t seem to help them understand what
Chesterfield’s values were.

Most students had no trouble both paraphrasing and summarizing the letter.
Middle Range Essays

Middle range papers provided a rudimentary analysis of Chesterfield’s rhetorical
strategies.

Middle range papers often recognized the change in tone and the rhetorical questions in
the passage.
High Range Essays

High range papers recognized the irony and understatement in the passage. These
students expressed familiarity with eighteenth-century prose.

The high range papers recognized that a writer’s choices convey meaning and
complexity.

High range papers often demonstrated rhetorical sophistication.
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32
Deconstructing Student Essays
Examine the two essays below. One is an upper half essay, the other a lower half essay. Using
the guided questions below each sample, discuss each question with your partner or group.
Student Sample A
Lord Chesterfield begins his letter by being frank with his son: “I know how unwelcome
advice generally is,” he admits. He sets up a tone of honesty and candor that one should see in a
father-son letter. Chesterfield also understands the detachment from youth that comes with age,
yet pleads, “I can have no interest but yours in the advice I give you.” By immediately
establishing his purpose and being open to a hesitant reaction from his son, Chesterfield is
wisely anticipating the said reaction, and by doing so, hoping to enrapture his son in the letter.
The author continually tries to emphasize his care without coming across as a doting and
bothersome parent. He characterizes himself instead as a “guide,” and a “friend.” As a guide,
Chesterfield draws from his own past mistakes to steer his son away from them. To express this
sentiment, the author uses a metaphor of “thorns and briars which scratched and disfigured me .
. . .” by using a metaphor that provokes images of disfigured bodies and scars, permanent
symbols of folly, the author is emphasizing the danger and lasting effects of adolescent mistakes.
Chesterfield’s second maneuver involves emotional appeal; more specifically: guilt. The
author pushes “noble and generous principles” on his son by prematurely asserting that he will
do the right thing, “out of affection and gratitude to me.” Presenting this image of the morally
ideal son puts pressure on his young son to uphold the image and not disappoint his expectant
father.
In the closing paragraph, Chesterfield addresses the knowledge his son must strive to gain.
Implying a richly educational upbringing, the author states that “attention and application” is
no longer a duty but necessary to life. This reveals knowledge to be a highly-esteemed value in
Chesterfield’s eyes. The author goes on to use rhetorical questions to emphasize the significance
of learning: “Can there be a greater pleasure than to be universally allowed to excel?”
Continuing, Chesterfield warns that “To know a little of anything gives neither satisfaction nor
credit.” His tone here is stern and dignified, showing this is a matter he takes seriously.
Through the letter, Chesterfield eased his way from an understanding friend to a preaching
parent and everything in between. “I have often my doubts whether it is to any purpose,” he
confesses, yet with his expertly written letter, he should sleep soundly.
1. Identify in Student Sample A what led readers to assign a high score to this essay.
2. How could you use this essay with students as a revision activity?
3. Identify sections of the essay in which the student offers commentary that analyzes how
Chesterfield’s rhetorical strategies reveal his values. How would you help the student expand
or revise their commentary?
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Student Sample B
In his letter to his traveling son, the Lord Chesterfield gives his son some guidance which
clearly reflects his own opinions about value. Chesterfield is both suggestive and condescending,
but his views are clearly expressed.
Lord Chesterfield, trying to seem as a friend more than a father, suggests that his son should
apply himself to what he does. “I have so often recommended to you attention and application to
whatever you learn.” He then goes on to describe this trait as “necessary to his son’s
pleasures.” Clearly, Chesterfield admires complete attention and application, as he suggests that
it is important for enjoyment of life! This rather forceful suggestion does not agree with his
aforementioned point of view,” as a friend.”
The Lord also expresses what values he expects from his son through his condescension.
Chesterfield suggests that “(his son’s) shame and regret must be greater than anybody’s,
because . . . of your education . . . and opportunities.” The implication here is that as his son was
so fortunate in his upbringing and preparation for life, he should excel in every aspect of it.
Since he as yet has not exceeded expectation, his life has thus far been shameful in his father’s
eyes. Lord Chesterfield feels his son should not “know a little of anything,” because this “often
brings disgrace or ridicule.” Here, the Lord suggests his son is a disgrace because he has not
applied himself in a manner befitting his excellent opportunities and upbringing. After all, this is
obviously a trait held in high esteem in the Lord Chesterfield.
1. Identify in Student Sample B what led readers to assign a low score to this essay.
2. How would you counsel the student to revise the thesis statement?
3. Identify sections of the essay in which the student offers commentary that analyzes how
Chesterfield’s rhetorical strategies reveal his values. How would you help the student expand
or revise the commentary?
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34
Syntax Exercise Using “Self-Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
The following passage comes from “Self-Reliance” (1841), an essay by American writer and
speaker Ralph Waldo Emerson. Read the passage carefully and note the author’s claims about
the importance of nonconformity.
40 predominating in all their being. And we are
There is a time in every man’s education
now men, and must accept in the highest
when he arrives at the conviction that envy
mind the same transcendent destiny; and not
is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he
minors and invalids in a protected corner,
must take himself for better for worse as his
not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but
portion; that though the wide universe is full
45 guides, redeemers and benefactors, obeying
of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can
the Almighty effort and advancing on Chaos
come to him but through his toil bestowed
and the Dark.
on that plot of ground which is given to him
. . . A foolish consistency is the
to till. The power which resides in him is
hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little
new in nature, and none but he knows what
50 statesmen and philosophers and divines.
that is which he can do, nor does he know
With consistency a great soul has simply
until he has tried. Not for nothing one face,
nothing to do. He may as well concern
one character, one fact, makes much
himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak
impression on him, and another none. This
what you think now in hard words and tosculpture in the memory is not without
55 morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in
preestablished harmony. The eye was placed
hard words again, though it contradict every
where one ray should fall, that it might
thing you said to-day.—‘Ah, so you shall be
testify of that particular ray. We but half
sure to be misunderstood.’—Is it so bad then
express ourselves, and are ashamed of that
to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was
divine idea which each of us represents. It
60 misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and
may be safely trusted as proportionate and
Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and
of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted,
Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that
but God will not have his work made
ever took flesh. To be great is to be
manifest by cowards. A man is relieved and
misunderstood.
gay when he has put his heart into his work
and done his best; but what he has said or
done otherwise shall give him no peace. It is
a deliverance which does not deliver. In the
attempt his genius deserts him; no muse
befriends; no invention, no hope.
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that
iron string. Accept the place the divine
providence has found for you, the society of
your contemporaries, the connection of
events. Great men have always done so, and
confided themselves childlike to the genius
of their age, betraying their perception that
the absolutely trustworthy was seated at
their heart, working through their hands,
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35
Directions: Read the sentences from each excerpt and answer the questions that follow each to
determine how Emerson’s sentence constructions reinforce his argument about the importance of
self-reliance.
Excerpt A
There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is
ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion;
that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but
through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.
1. Look at the underlined clauses. Below, write the independent clause that is underlined:
2. Below, write the dependent clause that is underlined:
3. Look at the highlighted clauses that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide.
A. Parallel structure refers to a grammatical or structural similarity between sentences or
parts of a sentence. Explain why the highlighted clauses represent parallel structure.
B. What do you notice about the length of these highlighted clauses, compared to the other
clauses in Excerpt A? How does the length of these clauses compare with other clauses in
the passage?
C. What is the effect of the length and structure of the highlighted clauses on the tone of
Excerpt A? In other words, what do you think is Emerson’s attitude about conformity,
based on the length and structure of the highlighted clauses?
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36
4. Excerpt A contains a series of noun clauses that are connected by semicolons, each beginning
with the word that. Writers use semicolons to join two or more independent clauses or to
clarify a list of items. Below, paraphrase the list of convictions, or beliefs, that Emerson
states individuals learn as they mature:
There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction . . .

…that

…that

…that

…that
5. What is the effect of having Emerson’s series of reasons connected by semicolons? What
would happen to the effect of the sentence if Emerson’s thoughts were separated by periods or
connected by the word “and”?
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37
Excerpt B
(a) A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what
he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace. (b) It is a deliverance which does not
deliver. (c) In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope.
6. Paraphrase Sentence (a) below:
7. Sentence (a) is an example of juxtaposition, in which two opposite ideas are presented in the
same sentence for effect.
A. What are the two contrasting ideas presented in Sentence (a)?
B. What is the effect of Emerson’s sentence structure on his argument about nonconformity?
8. Sentence (b) plays on the reader’s understanding of the words deliverance and deliver. Define
deliverance and deliver below:
9. What “deliverance” does the individual who conforms to other people’s expectations seek to
find?
10. Read Sentence (c). Why does conformity fail to “deliver?”
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38
11. What is the effect of the repetition of the different forms of deliver on Emerson’s point about
conformity?
12. Look again at Sentence (c). As the sentence progresses, words are omitted from each clause.
Fill in the blanks below with a word or phrase that could accurately complete the ideas
Emerson presents:
In the attempt __________________________________________his genius deserts him;
no muse befriends________________; no invention_______________________________,
no hope____________________________.
13. The deliberate omission of a word or words that are readily implied by the context is known
as ellipsis. Why do you think Emerson deliberately leaves out words from Sentence (c)? How
does the omission of words impact the meaning or tone of the paragraph in which Sentence
(c) appears?
Excerpt C
(a) Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. (b) Accept the place the divine
providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events.
14. Sometimes writers use a colon between independent clauses when the second clause
explains, illustrates, or expands on information included in the first clause. Examine
Sentence (a). Then, explain how the underlined clause explains or expands Emerson’s claim
about the importance of nonconformity.
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39
15. Sentence (b) contains an example of asyndeton, which is the deliberate omission of
conjunctions in a series of related clauses or phrases. In the box above, note where a
conjunction has been omitted. Then, in the space below, explain the effect of removing this
conjunction on the meaning of the sentence.
16. Re-read Paragraph 3 (lines 31-47). Highlight the shortest sentence in the paragraph. Below,
explain how sentence length helps the writer emphasize Paragraph 3’s main idea.
17. Read the following sentences, which are based on ideas found in Paragraph 3:
And we are now men.
We must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny.
We are not minors and invalids in a protected corner.
We are not cowards fleeing before a revolution.
We are guides, redeemers, and benefactors.
We obey the Almighty effort.
We advance on Chaos and the Dark.
Without referring to the passage, combine these sentences into one, omitting words, changing
word forms, and using colons and semicolons to connect information that lists or expands
upon the main idea.
Which is more effective—the seven sentences or the one that combines them? Why?
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40
Excerpt D
(a) Speak what you think now in hard words and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard
words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. (b)—‘Ah, so you shall be sure to
be misunderstood.’— (c) Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? (d) Pythagoras was
misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton,
and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. (e) To be great is to be misunderstood.
18. Mark any repetitions and parallel structures in Excerpt D.
19. How does Emerson’s repetition of the words “hard words” and “to-morrow” reveal his
attitude about nonconformity?
20. Writers use dashes to add emphasis, signal an interruption in thought, or to suggest a change
in thought. Given this explanation, describe how Emerson is using dashes in Sentence (b).
21. How does Emerson’s use of the dash help you understand his thoughts or feelings at this
point in the passage?
22. Sentence (d) contains an example of polysyndeton, which is the deliberate use of many
conjunctions for special emphasis. Circle the conjunctions in Sentence (d). Then, explain the
effect of using multiple conjunctions on the tone of the paragraph.
23. Explain the effect of sentence structure on the meaning of Sentence (e).
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41
Writing assignment: Read the following excerpt from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 1841 essay
“Self-Reliance.” In a well-supported response, analyze how Emerson’s sentence structure helps
him achieve his purpose.
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
There is a time in every man’s
education when he arrives at the conviction
that envy is ignorance; that imitation is
suicide; that he must take himself for better
for worse as his portion; that though the
wide universe is full of good, no kernel of
nourishing corn can come to him but
through his toil bestowed on that plot of
ground which is given to him to till. The
power which resides in him is new in nature,
and none but he knows what that is which he
can do, nor does he know until he has tried.
Not for nothing one face, one character, one
fact, makes much impression on him, and
another none. This sculpture in the memory
is not without preestablished harmony. The
eye was placed
where one ray should fall, that it might
testify of that particular ray. We but half
express ourselves, and are ashamed of that
divine idea which each of us represents. It
may be safely trusted as proportionate and
of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted,
but God will not have his work made
manifest by cowards. A man is relieved and
gay when he has put his heart into his work
and done his best; but what he has said or
done otherwise shall give him no peace. It is
a deliverance which does not deliver. In the
attempt his genius deserts him; no muse
befriends; no invention, no hope.
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that
iron string. Accept the place the divine
providence has found for you, the society of
your contemporaries, the connection of
events. Great men have always done so, and
confided themselves childlike to the genius
of their age, betraying their perception that
the absolutely trustworthy was seated at
their heart, working through their hands,
45
50
55
60
65
predominating in all their being. And we are
now men, and must accept in the highest
mind the same transcendent destiny; and not
minors and invalids in a protected corner,
not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but
guides, redeemers and benefactors, obeying
the Almighty effort and advancing on Chaos
and the Dark.
. . . A foolish consistency is the
hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little
statesmen and philosophers and divines.
With consistency a great soul has simply
nothing to do. He may as well concern
himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak
what you think now in hard words and tomorrow speak what to-morrow thinks in
hard words again, though it contradict every
thing you said to-day.—‘Ah, so you shall be
sure to be misunderstood.’—Is it so bad then
to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was
misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and
Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and
Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that
ever took flesh. To be great is to be
misunderstood.
AP® is a registered trademark of the College Board. The College Board was not involved in the production of and does not
endorse this product. Copyright © 2014 National Math + Science Initiative, Dallas, Texas. All rights reserved. Visit us at
www.nms.org or at www.nmsiteachers.org.
42
Multiple Choice Exercise
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”
This passage is excerpted from “Self-Reliance” (1841), an essay by nineteenth-century writer
and thinker Ralph Waldo Emerson. After reading the passage carefully, choose the best answer
to each question. Pay particular attention to the requirement of questions that contain the words
NOT, LEAST, or EXCEPT.
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
There is a time in every man’s education
when he arrives at the conviction that envy
is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he
must take himself for better for worse as his
portion; that though the wide universe is full
of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can
come to him but through his toil bestowed
on that plot of ground which is given to him
to till. The power which resides in him is
new in nature, and none but he knows what
that is which he can do, nor does he know
until he has tried. Not for nothing one face,
one character, one fact, makes much
impression on him, and another none. This
sculpture in the memory is not without
preestablished harmony. The eye was placed
where one ray should fall, that it might
testify of that particular ray. We but half
express ourselves, and are ashamed of that
divine idea which each of us represents. It
may be safely trusted as proportionate and
of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted,
but God will not have his work made
manifest by cowards. A man is relieved and
gay when he has put his heart into his work
and done his best; but what he has said or
done otherwise shall give him no peace. It is
a deliverance which does not deliver. In the
attempt his genius deserts him; no muse
befriends; no invention, no hope.
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that
iron string. Accept the place the divine
providence has found for you, the society of
your contemporaries, the connection of
events. Great men have always done so, and
confided themselves childlike to the genius
of their age, betraying their perception that
the absolutely trustworthy was seated at
their heart, working through their hands,
40
45
50
55
60
predominating in all their being. And we are
now men, and must accept in the highest
mind the same transcendent destiny; and not
minors and invalids in a protected corner,
not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but
guides, redeemers and benefactors, obeying
the Almighty effort and advancing on Chaos
and the Dark.
. . . A foolish consistency is the
hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little
statesmen and philosophers and divines.
With consistency a great soul has simply
nothing to do. He may as well concern
himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak
what you think now in hard words and tomorrow speak what to-morrow thinks in
hard words again, though it contradict every
thing you said to-day.—‘Ah, so you shall be
sure to be misunderstood.’—Is it so bad then
to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was
misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and
Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and
Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that
ever took flesh. To be great is to be
misunderstood.
Ralph Waldo Emerson. from “Self Reliance” (1841).
Public Domain.
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www.nmsiteachers.org.
43
1. In the passage, the writer’s overall attitude toward the concept of nonconformity can be
described as
(A) cautious and appreciative
(B) dismissive and contemptuous
(C) disinterested and apathetic
(D) nonjudgmental and objective
(E) supportive and enthusiastic
2. Which of the following best describes the function of the first sentence (lines 1-9) in the first
paragraph?
(A) It provides a personal anecdote to establish the writer’s credibility.
(B) It establishes the main idea, which is developed through the passage.
(C) It offers a concession to those who oppose the writer’s argument.
(D) It highlights a rhetorical shift in the writer’s argument.
(E) It qualifies the writer’s central claim.
3. The stylistic feature most evident in lines 1-9 (“There is a time . . . till”) is the use of
(A) historical allusion
(B) repeated syntactical patterns
(C) juxtaposition of opposing ideas
(D) hypothetical examples
(E) counterargument
4. The extended metaphor in lines 6-9 (“no kernel . . . till”) BEST serves to
(A) reinforce the idea that individuality must be nurtured and tended
(B) provide an illustrative example of the growth cycle
(C) support the claim that education is vital to an individual’s development
(D) strengthen the assertion that education leads to conformity
(E) elaborate on the claim that imitation is essential to the learning process
5. In lines 24-27, the writer indicates that individuals find happiness when
(A) they collaborate with like-minded individuals
(B) they follow social norms and expectations
(C) they accept their place within the social system
(D) they pursue their creative and intellectual impulses with enthusiasm
(E) they seek peaceful and positive relationships with others.
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44
6. The purpose of the second paragraph (lines 31-47) is to do all of the following EXCEPT
(A) explore negative consequences of pursuing nonconformity
(B) challenge readers to take intellectual risks
(C) argue that great men trust in their abilities and talents
(D) encourage readers to pursue their calling willingly
(E) show the connection between self-confidence and individuality
7. Which best describes the syntax of lines 31-32 (“Trust . . . string”)?
(A) a juxtaposition of opposing ideas
(B) repetition of key phrases
(C) a complex sentence that makes use of allusion
(D) one independent clause that elaborates upon another
(E) parallel structure emphasizes the main idea
8. The effect of the repetition in lines 53-57 (“Speak . . . to-day”) is to stress that
(A) problems occur when individuals change their minds
(B) great individuals are recognized for their disciplined and consistent thinking
(C) great thinkers are willing to revisit and re-evaluate their positions
(D) it is difficult work to produce innovative and creative ideas
(E) great thinkers frequently contradict one another as they share ideas
9. Which of the following sentences best represents the author’s main point in the passage?
(A) “We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us
represents.” (lines 18-20)
(B) “A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best . . .”
(lines 24-26)
(C) “In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope.” (lines
27-30)
(D) “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and
philosophers and divines.” (lines 48-50)
(E) “To be great is to be misunderstood.” (lines 63-64)
10. The effectiveness of the final paragraph is primarily a result of its use of
(A) ironic commentary
(B) conversational tone
(C) specific examples
(D) complex sentences
(E) clever rebuttal
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45
Understanding Satire
Terms and Examples
Satire is the use of humor to critique the shortcomings or follies of a specific person,
characteristic, location, event, situation, etc. Satire reveals the foolishness of human nature. By
making an audience laugh at their own follies, satirists hope to change human behavior. Satire
often falls into one of the two categories listed below.
Horatian—This form of satire is playful, light hearted, and gentle. Often, this type of
satire identifies shortcomings as a way to create amusement and
acknowledge the flawed nature of the human condition.
Authors: Dave Barry, David Sedaris, Mark Twain
TV/Film: The Simpsons, The Office, Pixar Films (i.e. Toy Story, Monsters, Inc.)
Juvenalian—This form of satire is often sharper/stronger and examines the corruption of
society, especially contemporary society. Knowledge of the time
period/events during which this satire was written or produced is necessary
to understand the scathing critique.
Authors: Jonathan Swift, George Orwell
TV/Film: The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, South Park*
* While each TV show above uses Juvenalian satire in some segments, the entire
program shifts between Horatian and Juvenalian satire.
Rhetorical Devices Associated with Satire
Hyperbole—the use of exaggeration to draw attention to an issue, event, or person. While
hyperbole can be used for the purpose of satire/humor, this device does not solely
exist in satire. Satirical exaggeration is dependent on word choice, tone, and
authorial purpose.
Parody—imitating or mimicking a specific form of art, literature, music, etc. in order to create
amusing/humorous commentary about the original work. The terms lampoon and
spoof are synonyms for parody.
Pun—using words in a humorous way to suggest multiple meanings. Puns create amusing
wordplay that is meant to exploit different meanings of a word or phrase.
Sarcasm—language that is meant to evoke laughter by mocking or insulting someone or
something. Since sarcasm is often in the form of quick witty remarks or one-liners, it
relies upon adopting an appropriate tone to convey humor/insult.
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endorse this product. Copyright © 2014 National Math + Science Initiative, Dallas, Texas. All rights reserved. Visit us at
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46
Satire Warm-Up
Identifying Humor in Animated Films
Satire in animated films tends to gently mock aspects of daily life, human behavior, and even
elements of popular culture. As a class, we will watch a film clip from one of the animated films
below and discuss the satire it contains.


Lego Movie
Despicable Me


Monsters, Inc.
The Incredibles
Directions: Watch the film clip. For each category below, identify and discuss an example of the
clip’s dialogue, sound effects, and visual imagery that is supposed to provide humor. Then,
decide if the example you have chosen is satirizing an aspect of society, popular culture, or the
human condition and explain. If your example isn’t satire but just a gag, explain your reasoning.
OBSERVATIONS
Words/Phrases/Dialogue
What Makes it Funny?
Is it Satire?
Put a check next to the appropriate category below. Then, explain your choice and the purpose
of this element in the film clip.
Satirizes society
Satirizes human behavior
Satirizes popular culture
Does not contain satire
Explanation:
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47
Music/Sound Effects
What Makes it Funny?
Is It Satire?
Put a check next to the appropriate category below. Then, explain your choice and the purpose
of this element in the film clip.
Satirizes society
Satirizes human behavior
Satirizes popular culture
Does not contain satire
Explanation:
Images
What Makes it Funny?
Is It Satire?
Put a check next to the appropriate category below. Then, explain your choice and the purpose
of this element in the film clip.
Satirizes society
Satirizes human behavior
Satirizes popular culture
Does not contain satire
Explanation:
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endorse this product. Copyright © 2014 National Math + Science Initiative, Dallas, Texas. All rights reserved. Visit us at
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48
Contextualizing Satire
One reason students struggle to understand satire is that they don’t fully understand the context.
Below are some examples of how to partner texts to give students the contextual background
necessary to understand the argument/purpose found within satire.
Topic: Parenting*
Contextualizing the Issue: The New York Times
“The Passion of Parenting,” Charles M. Blow
 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/07/opinion/blow-the-passion-of-parenting.html
Satirizing the Issue: Miami Herald
“Where Did My Little Girl Go?” Dave Barry
 http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/03/01/3963294/dave-barry-where-did-mylittle.html
*This pairing is included in the training materials and includes accompanying lessons/activities.
Topic: Role Of Athletes in Popular Culture
Contextualizing the Issue: Sports Illustrated
“Lebron James: I’m Coming Back to Cleveland,” as told to Lee Jenkins
 http://www.si.com/nba/2014/07/11/lebron-james-cleveland-cavaliers
Satirizing the Issue: Borowitz Report
“Lebron Congratulates People of Cleveland On Having Him Back,” Andy Borowitz
 http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/lebron-congratulates-people-ofcleveland-on-having-him-back
Topic: Television and Illegal Downloads
Contextualizing the Issue: CNN
“Game of Thrones’ Finale Breaks Illegal Download Records,” James Hibberd
 http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/19/showbiz/tv/game-of-thrones-illegal-downloads/
Satirizing the Issue: The Onion
“Shocking ‘Game of Thrones’ Finale Concludes with Arrest of 5 Million Viewers For Piracy”

http://www.theonion.com/articles/shocking-game-of-thrones-finale-concludes-witharr,36286/
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49
Topic: Science/Technology
Contextualizing the Issue: The Los Angeles Times
“Massive Hack Shows Users Still Don’t Know How to Create Safe Passwords,” The LA Times
 http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-massive-hack-passwords20131204-story.html#axzz2mcuJXiFa
Satirizing the Issue: Satire Wire
“Hacked Facebook Accounts May Explain Billions of Inane Posts”
 http://www.satirewire.com/content1/?p=5589
Topic: Annoyance and Human Behavior *
Contextualizing the Issue: Annoying: The Science of What Annoys Us
Excerpt From Annoying, Joe Palca and Flora Lichtman
Satirizing the Issue: Dorothy Parker
“Good Folks,” Excerpt
*This pairing is included in the training materials and includes accompanying lessons/activities.
Pre-Twentieth Century Pairings
When teaching pre-twentieth satirical pieces, consider providing a modern companion piece.
Providing background for students is important, however pre-twentieth texts in essay collections
include enough context prior to reading.
Contextualizing the Issue: Satirical Companion Piece from The Onion
“Industrial Revolution Provides Millions of Out-of Work Children with Jobs”

http://www.theonion.com/articles/industrial-revolution-provides-millions-ofoutofwo,2877/
Satirizing the Issue: Jonathan Swift
“A Modest Proposal”
 http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/30827_modestproposal.pdf
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50
Example #2
Contextualizing the Issue: Satirical Companion Piece from The Onion
“Scientists: Rich People, Poor People May Have Shared the Common Ancestor”
 http://www.theonion.com/articles/scientists-rich-people-poor-people-may-haveshared,36547/
Contextualizing the Issue: The New York Times
“Poverty in America is Mainstream” Mark R. Rank
 http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/02/poverty-in-america-is-mainstream/
Satirizing the Issue: William Hazlitt
“On Want of Money”
 http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/ap/students/english/ap06_frq_english
_lang.pdf
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51
The Passion of Parenting
Charles M. Blow
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
I’ve been a single dad for 13 years. As with most single parents — and indeed with most
parents — it hasn’t always been easy.
People sometimes say that parenting is the toughest job you’ll ever love. But I believe
that parenting is sometimes so tough — and exhausting — that you don’t always remember to
slow down enough to love it. Sometimes the love is registered in retrospect.
We jockey to give our children the best without giving them so much that they can’t
appreciate what they have. We try to encourage them without coddling them. We lavish gifts
upon them while simultaneously trying to nurture grit within them.
Parents walk a thin line between oppositional forces, never knowing if we are truly
getting it right, judging ourselves and being judged by others.
And we are inundated by studies and books and advice: do this or that if you want your
child to succeed and not spend his or her 20s on your sofa.
I try to tune most of it out. When I feel overwhelmed, I call my mother. She always
seems to know what to say. I guess that’s why they call it “mother’s wit.”
When my three children were younger, and the strain of taking care of them seemed as
though it would overwhelm me, my mother would tell me what an elderly babysitter once told
her when she too felt overwhelmed: “Baby, one day they’ll be able to get themselves a cup of
water.”
It was a simple way of saying that children grow up and become more self-reliant and
eventually they set out on their own to chart their own course. You won’t always have to wait on
them hand and foot.
She told me to remember that the more people a child has who truly loves him or her, the
happier that child will be. So I work hard to maintain and expand their circles of love.
She taught me that parenting was a lot like giving a hug: It’s all about love and pressure
and there is no one way to do it.
She taught me that sometimes you have to make time for yourself so that you will have
energy to give to your children. Allow them to have a pizza night every now and then. An
occasional treat won’t hurt them, but working yourself to a frazzle will surely hurt you. Rest.
She taught me that you must allow yourself time to find stillness and so you can be
moved by it. Sometimes we are so busy that we forget why we’re busy. We have so many things
on our list of priorities that we lose sight of what’s really important.
And she taught me that my children are not truly mine. They don’t belong to me; they’ve
simply been entrusted to me. They are a gift life gave to me, but one that I must one day give
back to life. They must grow up and go away and that is as it should be.
But as the time with my children in my home draws to a close — my oldest is away at
college and my twins are 16-year-old high school juniors — I’m beginning to feel the pains in
my chest that all parents feel when their children move away.
I thought that this would be a celebratory time, a time when I would relish the idea of
getting back to me, of working late without worry and taking last-minute weekend jaunts.
But I don’t. Letting go is hard for me to do. I must let go, but my heart feels hollow. I
can’t imagine me without them.
Lately there are times that I find myself just staring at my children, that kind of look that
says, “I see you, really see you, and I love you with an all-consuming love, the kind of love that
envelops you and sustains me.” It’s the kind of look that invariably draws from my children a
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“What? What are you looking at?” They speak the words through the slightest smile, a barely
registered one, the kind of smile a teenager manages when they know that they are loved, but
feel that they are too old for hugs or tears.
Life gave them to me. I’m preparing myself, as best I can, to give them back to life.
from “The Passion of Parenting” by Charles M. Blow. The New York Times, November 6, 2013. Permission Pending.
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53
AP Language and Composition
SOAPSTONE: Question Resource
Using SOAPSTone
Being able to understand multiple layers of meaning in a text is an expected AP English skill.
Every time you read, SOAPSTone should be one of the ways you approach annotating the text.
Use the questions below to focus your thoughts. You should be able to answer a majority of these
questions every time you have completed a close reading.
SPEAKER- Remember that the speaker is not always the author.
 What are his/her values?
 What kind of person does he/she seem to be?
 What is his/her education or experience?
o Identify textual proof for all questions above.
OCCASION
 What caused this text to be written?
o What specific event or issue forced the author to write?
AUDIENCE
 What type of person does the text reach? Be specific.
 How can the audience be described specifically?
o Think: age, socioeconomic status, education, experience, etc.
PURPOSE
 What is the ultimate goal of the author?
 What “change” does he/she want to accomplish?
o This should be a complex statement of purpose.
An answer like “change immigration” might be right but it’s still too broad.
 Define the goal specifically.
o Example: Motivate changes in immigration policy
o Example: Improve healthcare opportunities for immigrants
SUBJECT
 What is the topic of this text?
o Think: Under what category would this text be filed?
 Example: Environmentalism
Climate Change
TONE
 What is the author’s attitude?
 What emotions does he/she rely upon within his/her argument?
o Identify specific textual evidence as proof.
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SOAPSTONE Assignment
Reread the editorial by Charles Blow. Then, referring to your SOAPSTONE reference when necessary, identify specific examples in
Blow’s writing that exemplify each element of SOAPSTone.
Elements of
SOAPSTONE
Examples
Identify examples directly from the text.
Commentary
Explain what can be determined about speaker, occasion, audience, purpose,
subject or tone based on the evidence.
Speaker
Occasion
Audience
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Elements of
SOAPSTONE
Examples
Identify examples directly from the text.
Commentary
Explain what can be determined about speaker, occasion, audience, purpose,
subject or tone based on the evidence.
Purpose
Subject
Tone
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56
Where Did My Little Girl Go?
Dave Barry
5
10
15
20
25
30
Girls do not go through puberty the way boys do. For boys, puberty is a gradual process
— it took me decades — and it’s not all that drastic. When the boy is done undergoing puberty,
he’s hairier and smellier, but still basically the same.
Female puberty is a whole different kettle of biological fish. For years my daughter was
this sweet, innocent little girl who played with dolls, slept with stuffed animals and viewed me as
a wise authority figure because of all the amazing things I knew how to do, such as tell time.
Then one day at about 4:30 in the afternoon Sophie went into her bathroom (which is pink) and,
WHOOM, some kind of massive hormone bomb went off in there. She emerged maybe 45
minutes later having aged, biologically, at least seven years. Suddenly she was this woman, with
legs and everything, walking around. The same thing happened pretty much simultaneously to
her friends — all of them were suddenly beautiful, feminine, poised, sophisticated, and several
linear feet taller than the boys their age.
The day the hormone bomb detonated marked the end of the era wherein my daughter
viewed me as an authority. These days, pretty much the only time she turns to me for guidance is
when she can’t find the Cinnamon Toast Crunch. When she needs to discuss anything more
important — school, relationships, hair, clothes, makeup, hair accessories, and biological matters
I don’t even want to think about — she confers with her several hundred closest girlfriends or
my wife, who is also a woman. I am way out of the loop. I don’t even know where the loop is.
Nevertheless I am, legally, Sophie’s father, and I have certain fundamental obligations, the main
one being to protect her from harm, with “harm” defined as “men.” As a lifelong male myself, I
am well aware of the way we think, and I don’t want anybody thinking things like that within a
1,000-yard radius of my daughter.
The problem I am facing right now is boys, which, biologically, are nothing more than
short men. My daughter’s school is infested with them. Lately they have taken to hanging around
our house, darting around out there on bicycles and skateboards and trying to act as though they
are not thinking about what they are thinking about, which we all know is exactly what they are
thinking about.
Here’s what really bothers me: Sometimes they get inside the house.
I blame my wife. If it were up to me, our house would be surrounded by giant (but humane) traps
baited with some kind of bait that would be attractive to 13-year-old boys, such as fireworks or
shorts that are even baggier than the shorts they’re already wearing. Every now and then we’d
hear the loud THWONK of a steel door slamming shut, indicating that a 13-year-old boy had
come too close to the house. I would then go outside and, after a stern warning, drive the boy out
to the Everglades and release him into the wild.
from You Can Date Boys When You’re Forty: Dave Barry on Parenting and Other Topics He Knows Very Little
About” by Dave Barry. New York: Putnam Adult, 2014. Permission Pending.
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57
Dave Barry’s Perspective
Understanding Satire and Identifying Implicit Issues
After reading Dave Barry’s essay about his daughter, consider the ways in which he satirizes
being a father. Complete the exercises below to examine his writing specifically.
Hyperbole
Dave Barry’s writing style relies upon repeated exaggeration of himself, his daughter, and the
boys that show up at his home. Underline every example of exaggeration in the excerpt below.
Then one day at about 4:30 in the afternoon Sophie went into her bathroom (which is
pink) and, WHOOM, some kind of massive hormone bomb went off in there. She
emerged maybe 45 minutes later having aged, biologically, at least seven years. Suddenly
she was this woman, with legs and everything, walking around. The same thing happened
pretty much simultaneously to her friends — all of them were suddenly beautiful,
feminine, poised, sophisticated, and several linear feet taller than the boys their age.
Phrase
Identify an example of
hyperbole from the excerpt.
Paraphrase
Explain what this
exaggeration means.
Effect
Explain why Barry chooses to
exaggerate in this way.
Writing Extension
Why might Barry choose to employ hyperbole when he describes being the dad of a teenage
daughter? Construct an argument about how Barry’s exaggeration helps him make an argument
about being a parent.
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58
Sarcasm and Syntax
Answer the questions below to understand how Barry’s use of syntax adds to his satire.
Example #1—Nevertheless I am, legally, Sophie’s father, and I have certain fundamental
obligations, the main one being to protect her from harm, with “harm” defined as
“men.”
1. Barry offsets the word legally with two commas. Why does Barry choose to include the word
“legally” at all?
2. Why create a one-word dependent clause by putting “legally” between commas?
3. Pay specific attention to Barry’s use of quotation marks. Define both of the words in quotation
marks based on their context.
a). “harm”—
b). “men”—
4. Why does Barry choose to put these two words, harm and men, in quotations?
5. Using your syntactical knowledge from above, consider the following:
a). What is Barry’s attitude/tone towards parenting a teenage girl?
b). How does Barry’s syntax help to build this attitude/tone?
Example #2—Here’s what really bothers me: Sometimes they get inside the house.
6. Barry could use a period instead of a colon. Why does he choose to link these two ideas in one
sentence?
7. Why does Barry choose to use the pronoun “they” instead of the word “boys” in this sentence?
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Understanding Barry’s Arguments and Purpose
Examine Barry’s essay as a whole. Then, choose one of Barry’s topics to discuss in a brief
written response.
Check the topic you plan to discuss.
Parenting
Teenage Girls
Teenage Boys
Responding in Writing
Use the assertion template below, if necessary, to construct an argument about Barry’s writing.
Barry’s argues that
(topic from above)
(describe Barry’s attitude towards this topic)
is/are
in order to suggest
(describe Barry’s purpose in discussing this topic)
.
Final Conclusions
Dave Barry chooses to use satire to discuss parenting, teenage girls, and teenage boys. Why
might a father choose to use satire to discuss his role as a parent?
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60
Style Comparison: Dave Barry and Charles M. Blow
Reread both excerpts below and underline all of the language that describes, explicitly and
implicitly, how each author feels about parenting. Then answer the accompanying questions.
“The Passion of Parenting” Excerpt
But as the time with my children in my home draws to a close — my oldest is away at
college and my twins are 16-year-old high school juniors — I’m beginning to feel the pains in
my chest that all parents feel when their children move away.
I thought that this would be a celebratory time, a time when I would relish the idea of
getting back to me, of working late without worry and taking last-minute weekend jaunts.
But I don’t. Letting go is hard for me to do. I must let go, but my heart feels hollow. I
can’t imagine me without them.
1. What causes the author to feel a “pain in his chest” when he considers his children “moving
away?”
2. What is his argument about being a parent?
“Where Did My Daughter Go?” Excerpt
If it were up to me, our house would be surrounded by giant (but humane) traps baited with some
kind of bait that would be attractive to 13-year-old boys, such as fireworks or shorts that are even
baggier than the shorts they’re already wearing. Every now and then we’d hear the loud
THWONK of a steel door slamming shut, indicating that a 13-year-old boy had come too close
to the house. I would then go outside and, after a stern warning, drive the boy out to the
Everglades and release him into the wild.
3. Why does Barry want to “drive the boy[s] out to the Everglades” who hang around his home?
4. What does Barry’s argument seem to be about parenting?
Writing Extension
Both authors make similar arguments about parenting but use very different writing styles and
authorial voices to achieve their goals. Write a response that analyzes the rhetorical strategies
each writer uses to achieve his purpose and explain which passage offers a more persuasive case.
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61
Annoying: The Science of What Bugs Us
Author’s Note Excerpt
Joe Palca and Flora Lichtman
5
10
15
20
The trouble with investigating the science of annoyance is that unlike simple topics such
as string theory or molecular genetics, the science of what’s annoying is highly complex,
drawing on multiple disciplines from physics, chemistry, and biology in the natural sciences to
psychology, sociology, anthropology, and linguistics in the social sciences to history, literature,
philosophy, and art in the humanities.
Indeed, the expert in annoyingness, if such a person existed, would be a true polymath1.
Of course, we all have some expertise in the sensation—both in generating it in others and
feeling it within ourselves. In fact, when you tell somebody you’re writing a book about the
science of what’s annoying—after you get the guffaws out of the way—you often hear a long
diatribe about the annoying thing that happened just the other day. It’s paradoxical—we don’t
like being annoyed but seem to enjoy thinking about what annoys us. Although everyone can tell
you what’s annoying, few, if any, can explain why. That’s why we turned to science.
It may seem like a trivial pursuit, but think about it for a moment. Feeling annoyed seems
to be a universal trait. Can you think of anyone who is immune to it? Although as a species
modern humans appear to have become exquisitely sensitive to annoyances, other species look to
be at risk as well. While animal behaviorists and microbiologists may disagree with the
terminology, it’s difficult to argue with the statement that at least something remarkably similar
to annoyance occurs across a broad swath of the animal kingdom. Older dogs become annoyed
with pesky puppies; fruit flies are smart enough to avoid irritants; even bacteria will switch on
their flagellums and move away when faced with the microbiological equivalent of fingernails
on a blackboard. In the great tradition of reductionism, understanding these annoyances will
surely tell us something about our own.
from Annoying: The Science of What Bugs Us, by Joe Palca and Flora Lichtman. New York: Wiley, 2011. Permission Pending.
1
A person who has a wide variety of
knowledge, expertise, and education
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62
Annoying: The Science of What Annoys Us
Understanding Argument
Palca and Lichtman set up a series of observations and arguments about what annoys
individuals. Examine the examples below and complete the accompanying exercises.
Example
“…the science of what’s
annoying is highly
complex.”
Explanation
Task: Why might understanding what annoys be “highly
complex?”
Task: What does it say about individuals that they are experts in
generating annoyance in others?
“…we all have some
expertise in the sensation—
both in generating it in
Task: What does it say about individuals that they are also
others and feeling it within
experts at experiencing annoyance?
ourselves.”
Task: Why might we enjoy thinking about what annoys us? Why
not just let go of annoyance?
“It’s paradoxical—we
don’t like being annoyed
but seem to enjoy thinking
about what annoys us.”
Task: What argument is being made about annoyance and the
human condition?
“Feeling annoyed seems to
be a universal trait. Can
you think of anyone who is
immune to it?”
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63
“Good Souls”
Dorothy Parker
Directions: As you read underline all of the words/phrases that Parker uses to describe and
satirize “good folks.” Reconsider/reread the excerpt from Annoying: The Science of What Bugs
Us. Determine if Parker’s level, albeit satirical, of annoyance with “good folks” is simple
annoyance or something more.
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
All about us, living in our families, it may be, there exists a race of curious creatures.
Outwardly, they possess no marked peculiarities; in fact, at a hasty glance, they may be readily
mistaken for regular human beings. They are built after the popular design; they have the usual
number of features, arranged in the conventional manner; they offer no variations on the general
run of things in their habits of dressing, eating, and carrying on their business.
Yet, between them and the rest of the civilized world, there stretches an impassable
barrier. Though they live in the very thick of the human race, they are forever isolated from it.
They are fated to go through life, congenial pariahs. They live out their little lives, mingling with
the world, yet never a part of it. They are, in short, Good Souls.
And the piteous thing about them is that they are wholly unconscious of their condition.
A Good Soul thinks he is just like anyone else. Nothing could convince him otherwise. It is
heartrending to see him, going cheerfully about, even whistling or humming as he goes, all
unconscious of his terrible plight. The utmost he can receive from the world is an attitude of
good-humored patience, a perfunctory word of approbation, a praising with faint damns, so to
speak--yet he firmly believes that everything is all right with him.
There is no accounting for Good Souls.
They spring up anywhere. They will suddenly appear in families which, for generations
have had no slightest sigma attached to them. Possibly they are throw-backs. There is scarcely a
family without at least one Good Soul somewhere in it at the present moment--maybe in the form
of an elderly aunt, an unmarried sister, an unsuccessful brother, an indigent cousin. No
household is complete without one.
The Good soul begins early; he will show signs of his condition in extreme youth. Go
now to the nearest window, and look out on the little children playing so happily below. Any
group of youngsters that you may happen to see will do perfectly. Do you observe the child
whom all other little dears make "it" in their merry games? Do you follow the child from whom
the other little ones snatch the cherished candy, to consume it before his streaming eyes? Can
you get a good look at the child whose precious toys are borrowed for indefinite periods by the
other playful youngsters, and returned to him in fragments? Do you see the child upon whom all
the other kiddies play their complete repertory of childhood's winsome pranks--throwing bags of
water on him, running away and hiding from him, shouting his name in quaint rhymes, chalking
coarse legends on his unsuspecting back?
Mark that child well. He is going to be a Good Soul when he grows up.
Thus does the doomed child go through early youth and adolescence. So does he progress
towards the fulfillment of his destiny. And then, some day, when he is under discussion,
someone will say of him, "Well, he means well, anyway." That settles it. For him, that is the end.
Those words have branded him with the indelible mark of his pariahdom. He has come into his
majority; he is a full-fledged Good Soul.
The activities of the adult of the species are familiar to us all. When you are ill, who is it
that hastens to your beside bearing molds of blanc-mange, which, from infancy, you have hated
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40
45
50
55
with unspeakable loathing? As usual, you are way ahead of me, gentle reader--it is indeed the
good Soul. It is the Good Souls who efficiently smooth out your pillow when you have just
worked it into the comfortable shape, who creak about the room on noisy tiptoe, who tenderly
lay on your fevered brow damp cloths which drip ceaselessly down your neck. It is they who ask,
every other minute, if there isn’t something that they can do for you. It is they who, at great
personal sacrifice, spend long hours sitting beside your bed, reading aloud the continued stories
in the Woman's Home Companion, or chatting cozily on the increase in the city's death rate.
In health, as in illness, they are always right there, ready to befriend you. No sooner do you sit
down, than they exclaim that they can see you aren’t comfortable in that chair, and insist on your
changing places with them. It is the Good Souls who just know that you don’t like your tea that
way, and who bear it masterfully away from you to alter it with cream and sugar until it is a
complete stranger to you. At the table, it is they who always feel that their grapefruit is better
than yours and who have to be restrained almost forcibly from exchanging with you. In a
restaurant the waiter invariably makes a mistake and brings them something which they did not
order--and which they refuse to have changed, choking it down with a wistful smile. It is they
who cause traffic blocks, by standing in subway entrances arguing altruistically as to who is to
pay the fare.
from The Portable Dorothy Parker, by Dorothy Parker and Brendan Gill. New York: Viking, 1988. Permission Pending.
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65
Deconstructing Vocabulary to Understand Satire and Style
Dorothy Parker employs unusual combinations of language to describe “good folks.” Examine
the quotation and definition. Complete the task for each vocabulary word.
Quotation: “They are fated to go though life, congenial pariahs (line 9).
Definition(s): To be congenial is to be pleasant, easy-going, or agreeable. To be a pariah is to
be an outcast.
Task: The definition for congenial and pariah seem to be at odds with each other. Why does
Parker choose to use them together?
Quotation: “The utmost he can receive from the world is an attitude of good-humored patience, a
perfunctory word of approbation, a praising with faint damns, so to speak--yet he firmly
believes that everything is all right with him” (lines 13-15).
Definition(s): To be perfunctory is to be hurried, careless, or hasty. Approbation is approval,
respect, or esteem.
Task: Perfunctory and approbation seem to be at odds with one another. To approve of
something takes time and is often not careless. What is the effect of putting these two
words together to describe “good folks?”
Quotation: “…maybe in the form of an elderly aunt, an unmarried sister, an unsuccessful
brother, an indigent cousin” (lines 20-21).
Definition(s): To be indigent is to be poor, needy, or destitute.
Task: Parker employs the following adjectives, “elderly,” “unmarried,” “unsuccessful,” and
“indigent,” to describe “good folks.” Why does she end save “indigent” for last?
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Understanding Parker’s Perspective on Good Folks
Examine each of Parker’s descriptions of “good folks.” Then, deconstruct her language and
explain her satire.
Good Folks
Parker’s Purpose
Paraphrase—Summarize Parker’s description.
Importance—Explain why Parker chooses to describe good folks this
way.
“wholly
unconscious of their
condition”
Satire—Explain how Parker’s language is satirical in nature.
Paraphrase—Summarize Parker’s description.
Importance—Explain why Parker chooses to describe good folks this
way.
“Though they live
in the very thick of
the human race,
they are forever
isolated from it”
Satire—Explain how Parker’s language is satirical in nature.
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Paraphrase—Summarize Parker’s description.
Importance—Explain why Parker chooses to describe good folks this
way.
"Well, he means
well, anyway."
Satire—Explain how Parker’s language is satirical in nature.
Paraphrase—Summarize Parker’s description.
“It is they who, at
great personal
sacrifice, spend
long hours sitting
beside your bed, …
chatting cozily on
the increase in the
city's death rate.
Importance—Explain why Parker choose to describe good folks this way.
Satire—Explain how Parker’s language is satirical in nature.
Writing Extension and Classroom Discussion
1. Parker uses the phrase “good folks” satirically. The people she describes are not “bad folks”
but they aren’t technically good folks either. Define “good folks” according to Parker.
2. Why would Parker choose to satirize this type of person?
3. What does this satire tell you about Parker as an author/writer?
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Writing Task
Drawing on Knowledge from Two Texts
Directions: After reading the excerpt from Annoying and “Good Folks,” respond to the argument
prompt below. Use your knowledge from both texts as a place from which to start your response.
PROMPT
“Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritation and
resentments slip away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.”
--Mark Twain
Consider this quotation about humor and irritation by Mark Twain. Then, write an essay that
takes a position on Twain’s assertion that humor saves individuals from being inhibited by the
annoyance present in everyday life. Support your argument with appropriate evidence from your
reading, observation, or experience.
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Teaching Satire via Images and Cartoons
Satirical images present students with the stratified and difficult task of appropriately
deconstructing images, understanding cultural references, and considering the purpose of
employing satire to construct arguments about current events. Since this intensifies the task of
image deconstruction, it is important to offer students context and scaffolding.
Resources for satirical images are listed below along with models of text to image pairings. The
goal of such pairings is not only to contextualize the issue satirized in the image but to also help
students engage in synthesis tasks that require them to examine differing points of view.
Cagle Post Political Cartoons
The Cagle Post is an online syndicate of political cartoons from across the United States. The
website groups political cartoons by current event topic and is searchable by keyword. See the
pairing below as a model for contextualizing political cartoons.
Website: http://www.cagle.com/
Topic: Student Debt*
Contextualizing the Issue: The New York Times
“A Generation Hobbled by the Soaring Cost of College,” Andrew Martin and Andrew Lehren
 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/business/student-loans-weighing-down-ageneration-with-heavy-debt.html?pagewanted=all
Satirizing the Issue: Cagle Post
“Student Loans,” Nate Beeler
 http://www.cagle.com/tag/monsters-university/
*This pairing is included in the training materials and includes accompanying lessons/activities.
The New Yorker Covers
The New Yorker covers offer a weekly satirical take on current events and popular culture. You
can examine new covers each week by visiting The New Yorker’s Tumblr page. The cover is
highlighted at the top of blog post. By clicking the image of the cover you will be taken to an
online post, called “Cover Story,” that describe the artist’s work and showcases other covers. See
the pairing below as a model for contextualizing The New Yorker covers.
Website: http://newyorker.tumblr.com/
Topic: Body Image and the Media
Contextualizing the Issue: The Atlantic and The New York Times
“Body Image Pressure Increasingly Affects Boys,” Jamie Santa Cruz
 http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/body-image-pressure-increasinglyaffects-boys/283897/
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“The Limits of Plastic Surgery,” Catherine St. Louis
 http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/01/the-limits-of-cosmetic-surgery/
Satirizing the Issue: The New Yorker Cover
“Oscars 2014”
 http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/CVC_TNY_03_03_14_580.jpg
The Oatmeal
The Oatmeal is run by Matthew Inman who is a cartoonist and website designer. While some of
the cartoons are not appropriate for classroom use, Inman often parodies popular culture in a way
that it is relevant for AP Language. See the pairing below as a model for contextualizing The
Oatmeal comics.
Website: http://theoatmeal.com/
Topic: Action Heroes and Steroid Use
Contextualizing the Issue: Men’s Journal and The Hollywood Reporter
 “Building a Bigger Action Hero,”
o http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/building-a-bigger-action-hero-20140418

“Hollywood and Steroids: When A-List Actors Go the A-Rod Route,” Tatiana Siegel
o http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-steroid-use-a-list-609091
Satirizing the Issue: The Oatmeal
“The Evolution of Hugh Jackman’s Upper Body”
 http://theoatmeal.com/comics/hugh_jackman
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“A Generation Hobbled by the Soaring Cost of College”
Andrew Martin and Andrew Lehren
Directions: Read the article and annotate specifically about how college debt impacts
students.
5
10
15
20
25
30
ADA, Ohio — Kelsey Griffith graduates on Sunday from Ohio Northern University. To start
paying off her $120,000 in student debt, she is already working two restaurant jobs and will soon
give up her apartment here to live with her parents. Her mother, who co-signed on the loans, is
taking out a life insurance policy on her daughter.
“If anything ever happened, God forbid, that is my debt also,” said Ms. Griffith’s mother,
Marlene Griffith.
Ms. Griffith, 23, wouldn’t seem a perfect financial fit for a college that costs nearly
$50,000 a year. Her father, a paramedic, and mother, a preschool teacher, have modest incomes,
and she has four sisters. But when she visited Ohio Northern, she was won over by faculty and
admissions staff members who urge students to pursue their dreams rather than obsess on the
sticker price.
“As an 18-year-old, it sounded like a good fit to me, and the school really sold it,” said
Ms. Griffith, a marketing major. “I knew a private school would cost a lot of money. But when I
graduate, I’m going to owe like $900 a month. No one told me that.”
With more than $1 trillion in student loans outstanding in this country, crippling debt is
no longer confined to dropouts from for-profit colleges or graduate students who owe on many
years of education, some of the overextended debtors in years past. As prices soar, a college
degree statistically remains a good lifetime investment, but it often comes with an unprecedented
financial burden.
About two-thirds of bachelor’s degree recipients borrow money to attend college, either
from the government or private lenders, according to a Department of Education survey of 20078 graduates; the total number of borrowers is most likely higher since the survey does not track
borrowing from family members.
By contrast, 45 percent of 1992-93 graduates borrowed money; that survey included
family borrowing as well as government and private loans.
For all borrowers, the average debt in 2011 was $23,300, with 10 percent owing more
than $54,000 and 3 percent more than $100,000, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reports.
Average debt for bachelor degree graduates who took out loans ranges from under $10,000 at
elite schools like Princeton and Williams College, which have plenty of wealthy students and
enormous endowments, to nearly $50,000 at some private colleges with less affluent students
and less financial aid.
*HOBBLED means to holdback, impede, and/or obstruct.
from “A Generation Hobbled by the Soaring Cost of College,” by Andrew Martin and Andrew Lehren. The New York Times, May
12, 2012. Permission Pending.
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Understanding the Issue:
“A Generation Hobbled by the Soaring Cost of College”
After reading the excerpted article, complete the accompanying questions.
1. Reread the first paragraph of the article excerpt.
a). Make a list of the things that Kelsey Griffith and her parents are doing to deal with her
college debt.
b). Based on the list you’ve created, what does the Griffith family’s attitude toward debt seem?
2. Kelsey Griffith comments that, “as an 18 year old, it sounded like a good fit” but that she did
not understand the concept of owing “900 dollars a month.” What argument is being made
about college debt and a person’s age?
3. The article argues that, “a college degree statistically remains a good lifetime investment, but
it often comes with an unprecedented financial burden.” Explain the impact of the phrase
“unprecedented financial burden.” What should college students realize?
4. Examine the statistics from 2011 about college debt.
 Average debt in 2011 was $23,300
 10 percent owed more than $54,000
 3 percent owed more than $100,000
Considering the data, what role does college debt play in life after college?
5. Examine the title of the piece. Pay particular attention to the words “hobbled” and “soaring.”
What are the authors arguing about college debt and a college education?
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Visual Text Reference
Close reading skills are important not only for printed text but for images as well. While a
speaker crafts a speech for a larger purpose, political cartoonists do the same with the images
they capture and present to the public.
When you are examining an image, use the annotation guide below to construct useful images.
Visual Text Annotation Guide

Landscape and Color
o How does the landscape create the image’s tone?
o How does this color choice affect the meaning in the image?

Facial Expressions, Body Language, Attire
o What argument can be made about the individuals based on their facial
expressions, body language, and clothing?
o Political Cartoons: Consider what is overblown/larger than life in the cartoon.
What is the purpose?

Organization, Size, Arrangement
o How are the elements arranged?
 What is in the foreground?
 What is in the background?
o How does the organization of the image establish a sense of setting?

Argument and Purpose
o What argument is created?
o What purpose does an image like this have for the general public?
Image Response
Use the format below to respond in writing to any photograph.
Claim: Identify the image and the argument it presents.
Evidence: Identify one element from the image that supports this argument.
Commentary (two sentences minimum): Discuss the importance of this element within the
image. Discuss how it contributes to the argument. Be sure to address tone.
Evidence: Discuss a second element from the image that supports the same argument.
Commentary (two sentences minimum): Discuss the importance of this element within the
image. Discuss the purpose of the image in its entirety. Be sure to address meaning.
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74
Deconstructing Political Cartoons
Examine the political cartoon. Deconstruct the image using the visual reference overview.
Landscape/Color Observations
Describe how color is used and the background. Pay particular attention to any contrasts.
Facial Expressions, Body Language, Attire
Describe facial expressions/body language/attire and how these elements differ between the
monsters and the congressman.
Organization, Size, Arrangement
Describe how are the elements are arranged/sized/organized. Explain how this organization
helps the cartoonist make an argument.
from Joe Heller’s Political Cartoons. Green Bay Press-Gazette, July 2, 2013. Permission Pending.
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75
Deconstructing Political Cartoons: Turning Observations into Commentary
Use your observations from the previous page to answer the questions below thoughtfully.
1. Why does the cartoonist choose to make an allusion to the animated film Monsters, Inc. when
talking about the reality of college-related debt?
2. What is ironic about the phrase, “who’s that scary creepy guy?”
3. Why is the Congressman depicted in bland colors and with a smirk on his face?
4. Why is there no landscape in the background of the political cartoon?
5. What argument is being made about college debt?
6. What are the pros and cons of this cartoon? What works well? What is missing?
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Responding in Writing: Taking a Position on College Debt
Now, that you have read/examined two texts about college debt, synthesize your own argument
based on the information presented. You must refer to both sources in your response.
Claim: Construct an original argument about college debt based on your reading/viewing.
Evidence: Identify an aspect from the article that you will discuss.
Commentary (two sentences minimum): Discuss the importance of this element. What does
this prove about college debt?
Evidence: Identify an aspect from the political cartoon that you will discuss.
Commentary (two sentences minimum): Discuss the importance of this element. What does
this prove about college debt?
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77
Satire in Video
When using video in the classroom, it is important to give students focused segments from
longer satirical programs so that they are able to truly understand the satire without getting lost.
It also of importance to provide students appropriate contextualization to deepen their
understanding. Below are examples of useful video pairings.
Understanding Smart Phone Applications
Contextualizing the Issue: Tech Crunch
“Why a Stupid App Like Yo May have Billion Dollar Platform Potential,”
 http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/26/why-a-stupid-app-like-yo-may-have-billion-dollarplatform-potential/
Satirizing the Issue: The Colbert Report
Yo Smart Phone App Segment
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b23LSEX6qzY
The Role of Twitter
Contextualizing the Issue: The New York Times
“#InPraiseOfTheHashtag,” Julia Turner
 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/magazine/in-praise-of-thehashtag.html?pagewanted=all
Satirizing the Issue: The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon
Hashtags Skit*
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57dzaMaouXA
The last ten-fifteen seconds may need to be cut because of language that is bleeped.
Watch the video first to make a determination.
*This pairing is included in the training materials and includes accompanying lessons/activities.
Popular Music Performers and Power
Contextualizing the Issue: CNN
“Beyonce: Forbes Most Powerful Celebrity,” Breeana Hare
 http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/30/showbiz/celebrity-news-gossip/beyonce-forbes-100/
Satirizing the Issue: Saturday Night Live Digital Shorts
The Begency
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGxe83lXgJg
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Understanding Satire via Video
Hashtags Skit: The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon
Watch the skit. Then, complete the accompanying assignment. Begin by looking for allusions to
other aspects that are meant to be satiric. When looking for allusions, be sure to find allusions
that create satire about people’s behavior, popular culture, use of hashtags, etc.
Video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57dzaMaouXA
Allusion
Identify the reference that
Fallon/Timberlake make to
another aspect of popular
culture.
Purpose
Explain how this reference adds satire to the skit. How does it
critique human nature?
1.Describe the “characters” that Fallon and Timberlake are playing. How do they seem?
2. Why might Jimmy Fallon have chosen to satirize hashtags?
3. What argument is being made about Twitter?
4. What argument is being made about the use of hashtags?
5. Describe the satire in this skit. What is the purpose using satire to discuss this topic?
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“#InPraiseOfTheHashtag”
Julia Turner
Directions: As you read the excerpt of Turner’s article, annotate specifically for her argument
about the role of hashtags in society.
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
The pound sign is a typographical symbol with ambitions. For decades, it was an
afterthought on our telephone keypads, mashed occasionally in frustration during prolonged
customer-service calls. But lately, it is conquering new territories, visible on our TV screens
(#debates, for example, during the most recent presidential debate); at the box office
(#holdyourbreath, plugging the title of a recent horror movie); even spray- painted on your
favorite football teams’ turf (#GOHOGS at the 25-yard-line in Razorback Stadium).
For this, of course, we can thank Twitter. Five years ago, Twitter’s users invented what’s
now known as the hashtag: a pithy phrase, preceded by that hungry octothorpe, used to either
label or comment on the preceding tweet. (Pretend this sentence is a tweet.
#thiswouldbethehashtag.)
In the early days, hashtags were primarily functional — a way of categorizing tweets by
topic so that members of the Twittersphere could follow conversations of interest to them by
searching for a list of similarly tagged tweets. The first hashtag, proposed by the user Chris
Messina, was intended to collate conversations about the tech conference BarCamp, so the
hashtag was #barcamp. Other tags in the early days served as straightforward metadata, directing
people to tweets about news, events and user interests: #sandiegofires, #roseparade, #education
and so on.
Over time, though, the hashtag has evolved into something else — a form that allows for
humor, darkness, wordplay and, yes, even poetry. During this same period, Twitter as a
corporation recognized the power of the hashtag, which has now become a part of the site’s
design, lingo and sales pitch to advertisers. Your particular hashtag, for example, can let the
whole world know who’s talking about the release of #Halo4.
As a result, we’ve arrived at a strange moment for the hashtag. The people at Twitter are
fond of saying that the hashtag is the new URL — and it’s true that you’re just as likely to see
the former as the latter these days on-screen at the end of a movie trailer.
Yet the rise of the hashtag’s commercial possibilities shouldn’t lead us to overlook what
is truly remarkable about it. This bit of utilitarian Web ephemera, invented with functionality
squarely in mind, has blossomed into a marvelous and underappreciated literary device.
For anyone who has been irked by the more irritating examples in circulation —
#awkward, #winning and #fail all come to mind — these literary pretensions may sound lofty.
You’re unlikely to spot much wordplay in the “trending topics” highlighted on Twitter, where
the hashtags tend to be event-driven: #Steelers, #Halloween, #WalkingDead. Occasionally you’ll
also see a form known as “the Mad Lib hashtag”: Trending topics like #IWannaKnowWhy or
#willgetyouslapped, which are basically punch lines in search of crowd-sourced setups. These
hashtags tend to generate a ton of response, turning Twitter into a giant slumber-party game,
where half the guests get a little too earnest (#Iwannaknowwhy my boyfriend doesn’t love me)
and half just make class-clown cracks (#IWannaKnowWhy girls actually want boyfriends. . . .
Trust me, they suck).
But the hashtag, for the dexterous user, is a versatile tool — one that can be deployed in a
host of linguistically complex ways. In addition to serving as metadata (#whatthetweetisabout),
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45
50
55
the hashtag gives the writer the opportunity to comment on his own emotional state, to
sarcastically undercut his own tweet, to construct an extra layer of irony, to offer a flash of
evocative imagery or to deliver metaphors with striking economy. It’s a device that allows the
best writers to operate in multiple registers at once, in a compressed space. It’s the Tuvan throat
singing of the Internet.
The resulting juxtapositions can be spare, goofy, poignant or elegant. Consider Conan
O’Brien: “Have you ever noticed that you never see me and Ryan Gosling in the same room at
the same time? #gullibleladiespleaseread.” Or the theater critic Jesse Oxfeld: “Oh, you know,
standing in front of Whole Foods, on the phone with Mom, answering her question about how to
spell Holocaust. #nevermisspell.” Or the writer Susan Orlean: “My 7 yo has taken to calling me
‘Lady,’ as in, ‘What’s for dinner, lady?’ #wheredidigowrong.”
These constructions all tend toward the particular — a sardonic twist to the tweet. But the
hashtag can also be a joke about itself, as when the HBO wunderkind Lena Dunham tweets,
“What’s my place in it all? #questionsevenmymomcantanswer.” Part of the joke is that her
hashtag is so elaborate, so concatenated, that no one else would ever conceive of using it.
from “#InPraiseOfTheHashtag,” by Julia Turner. The New York Times, November 2, 2012. Permission Pending.
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81
Opposing Point of View: “#InPraiseOfTheHashtag”
After you have read the article, complete the accompanying exercises.
1. Turner argues that the purpose of hashtags has changed over the past several years. Describe
how, according to Turner, the purpose of hashtags has changed.
Original Purpose Of Hashtags
Current Use of Hashtags
Evaluate
What does this shift say about technology, human behavior, and the relationship between the
two?
2. Turner argues that tweets can be used to, “sarcastically undercut… to construct an extra layer
of irony…” Explain why Twitter users would want to use hashtags this way. What does this
type of hashtag allow a person to accomplish?
3. Take a position on Turner’s argument. Are hashtags a viable form of satire or are they just a
basic form of humor?
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82
Current Events: The Role of Social Media in Modern Society
Developing an Argument
Directions: After viewing the Jimmy Fallon hashtags skit and reading the excerpt
“#InPraiseOfTheHashtag,” respond to the argument prompt below. Use your knowledge from
both texts as a place from which to start your response.
PROMPT
Much has been made of the role that social media plays in modern society. Some argue that it is
a selfish form of self-promotion and narcissism. Others argue that social media strengthens
relationships and provides personal and corporate transparency.
Write an essay that takes a position on the role of social media and its value within today’s
society. Support your argument with appropriate evidence from your reading, observation, or
experience.
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Teacher Training Exercise: Part One
Using the pairings throughout the training materials as a model, create your own satirical pairing.
Identify a topic area and then find two sources. The first should contextualize the issue for
students. The second should satirize the same issue. For each source, provide the appropriate
information below so that it can be used as a classroom resource for teachers.
Topic:
Contextualizing the Issue
Source:
Title:
Web Address:
Summary:
Satirizing the Issue
Source:
Title:
Web Address:
Summary:
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Teacher Training Exercise: Part Two
Once you have identified your topic area and two pieces, one to contextualize an issue and the
other to satirize the issue, construct a lesson that incorporates both pieces. Use the checklist
below to organize your tasks. Examine the considerations below as you construct your materials.
Lesson Creation Checklist
 Scaffolds for a Variety of Learners
 Engages Students in Close Reading
 Asks Student to Identify Argumentation and Purpose
 Allows Students to Contextualize the Topic
 Helps Students Understand Satire about the Topic
 Asks Students to Respond in Writing
 Creatively and Rigorously Engages Students
Lesson Design Considerations
Lesson Length
The lesson should fit either within the span of one double blocked class (approx.75-90 minutes)
or two shorter periods (approx. 40-50 minutes).
Lesson Design
While the lessons in the training materials take a “pen-to-paper” format, you may choose to
design a lesson that implements technology, partner or small group work, round robins, etc.
Determine the format that will work best based on a diverse student audience. Remember as well
that this lesson should provide enough scaffolding to make all types of students comfortable.
AP Rigor and Engagement
It is important that the lesson asks students to practice AP Language and Composition skills.
Students should be engaged in close reading, identifying authorial style, argument, and purpose.
Students should also wrestle with the role of satire within the topic and within culture. It is also
important that the lesson offers the right amount of engagement and creative/critical thinking
practice.
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AP Language Multiple-Choice Strategies
Two-Day Training 2014
Overviews of the multiple-choice strategies included in the training are provided below.
Strategy #1—Three Close Readings
Often students struggle with multiple-choice because they do not know what to identify in the
accompanying passage. This exercise asks students to read the passages three times before
viewing, reading, and answering the multiple-choice questions. In this way students become
intimately familiar with the passage before trying to delve into multiple-choice questions and
answer choices.
First Reading
Students read the passage and construct a preliminary set of annotations. Annotations for
a first reading are often an attempt to find meaning. Students do not have to identify
every important aspect of the passage, but they should try to identify, mark, and discuss
elements of the passage that strike them as important.
Second Reading Template
This template is specific to the multiple-choice passage. It asks students to examine,
deconstruct, and respond to specific elements present in the text. The areas of focus and
deconstruction questions are based on most of the multiple-choice questions that
accompany the passage.
Third Reading Template
This template can be used with any multiple-choice close reading passage for AP
Language. Students examine the argument, purpose, and style of the passage as a whole.
The third reading of the passage is meant to help students answer those multiple-choice
questions that require synthesis of ideas throughout the entire passage. After completing
this third reading, students should feel comfortable with answering the accompanying
multiple-choice questions.
Strategy #2—Teacher Marked Pre-Reading
Once students are familiar with the format, question types, and expectations for AP Language
multiple-choice, it can be helpful to provide students with a pre-marked multiple-choice passage.
See the example in the training materials as a model. The classroom teacher marks up the
multiple-choice passage in advance and asks students to read the passage and to create a series of
annotations based specifically on the marked sections of text. In this way, students are practicing
annotation and considering the types of multiple-choice questions assigned to the passage. See
the bulleted list below for one way to implement this strategy into a class.



Student Reading and Annotations
o Teachers may also choose to send the pre-marked passage home for
reading/annotating homework.
Partnered Discussion and/or Whole Class Discussion
Students Complete Multiple-Choice Assessment
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Strategy #3—Three Readings, Two Discussions, One Class Grade
This exercise/multiple choice game relies upon students having an understanding of and comfort
with the format of AP Language multiple-choice questions. First, students complete a series of
multiple-choice questions. This may be done during the class prior to implementing this
multiple-choice strategy. Then, students discuss their answers to those multiple-choice questions
in small groups. The goal of small group discussion is to create consensus and to have peer
teaching and re-teaching of multiple-choice skills. Small groups must determine, through
discussion, the best possible answer choices for each multiple-choice question. The final step is
to use an entire class discussion format to determine the correct answer for each multiple-choice
question. Again, the role of this discussion is to encourage peer teaching of multiple-choice
concepts. After consensus is reached, the entire class receives the same grade on the multiplechoice assessment.
Strategy #4—Student Created Multiple-Choice
Having students create multiple-choice questions can be beneficial for deepening close reading
skills. Successfully completing this type of task requires that students are familiar with multiplechoice questions, skills, and expectations. Since this is the case, this strategy is best saved for a
time, usually midway through the school year, when students have spent a significant amount of
time practicing multiple-choice. While it is tempting to use student multiple-choice as exams and
quizzes, remember that multiple-choice creation and implementation is often a process that takes
years of vetting and revision in order to be as fair as possible. This strategy is best implemented
as a way for students to practice close reading from a different angle.
Full Length Exam Reminders
These reminders should be discussed with students prior to taking a full-length multiple-choice
exam. These tips are meant to have students begin with the multiple-choice passages and
questions that they believe are easiest for them. Students should work their way from easiest to
most difficult questions, regardless of how the multiple-choice passages are arranged. In this
way, students build confidence and momentum as they work their way through a full-length
multiple-choice exam.
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87
“Wind,” William Least Heat-Moon
Multiple-Choice
(The following passage is excerpted from a nonfiction book published in the late twentieth century.)
Climatologists speak of thunderstorms pregnant
First Reading
with tornadoes, storm-breeding clouds more than twice
Annotations
the height of Mount Everest; they speak of funicular
envelopes and anvil clouds with pendant mammati and
(5) of thermal instability of winds in cyclonic vorticity,
of rotatory columns of air torquing at velocities up to
three hundred miles an hour (although no anemometer
in the direct path of a storm has survived), funnels that
can move over the ground at the speed of a strolling
(10) man or at the rate of a barrel-assing semi on the turnpike; they say the width of the destruction can be the
distance between home plate and deep center field and
its length the hundred miles between New York City
and Philadelphia. A tornado, although more violent
(15) than a much longer lasting hurricane, has a life
measured in minutes, and weathercasters watch it
snuff out as it was born: unnamed.
I know here a grandfather, a man as bald as if a
cyclonic wind had taken his scalp—something wit(20) nesses claim has happened elsewhere — who calls
twisters Old Nell, and he threatens to set crying
children outside the back door for her to carry off.
People who have seen Old Nell close, up under her
skirt, talk about her colors: pastel-pink, black, blue,
(25) gray, and a survivor said this: All at once a big hole
opened in the sky with a mass of cherry-red, a yellow
tinge in the center, and another said: a funnel with
beautiful electric-blue light, and a third person: It was
glowing like it was illuminated from the inside. The
(30) witnesses speak of shapes: a formless black mass, a
cone, cylinder, tube, ribbon, pendant, thrashing hose,
dangling lariat, writhing snake, elephant trunk. They
tell of ponds being vacuumed dry, . . . chickens cleanplucked from beak to bum, water pulled straight up
(35) out of toilet bowls, . . . a wife killed after being jerked
through a car window, a child carried two miles and set
down with only scratches, a Cottonwood Falls mother
(fearful of wind) cured of chronic headaches when a
twister passed harmlessly within a few feet of her
(40) house, and, just south of Chase, a woman blown out of
her living room window and dropped unhurt sixty feet
away and falling unbroken beside her a phonograph
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record of “Stormy Weather.”
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Multiple-Choice: Second Reading Exercise
Read the passage a second time. Pay attention to the specific elements in each of the paragraphs.
Then, complete the questions below to deepen your knowledge of the passage.
Paragraph #1
1. What type of language is being used in the first half of the paragraph?
2. What does the statement in parenthesis, lines 7-8, tell you about scientists and tornadoes?
3. Why does the author choose to use the distance between Philadelphia and New York City as a
point of reference in lines 11-14?
4. The first sentence of the passage is fourteen lines in length. List the ways, rhetorical and
otherwise, that this sentence conveys the power and diversity of tornadoes.
Paragraph #2
5. List four different effects that the language in lines 18-19 creates.




6. What is the reference to “under old Nell’s skirt,” in lines 23-24 meant to suggest?
7. Examine the last sentence of the paragraph (lines 32-43). What argument can be made about
these eyewitness “accounts?”
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Multiple-Choice: Third Reading Exercise
After you have read the passage for a third time, complete this assignment.
Passage Information
Time Period:_________________
Type of Writing:________________________
What assumptions can you make about the piece based on the time period and its genre?
Observations
Author
Describe the author. How does he/she seem? What type of person is he/she?
Describe the author’s attitude towards the topic.
Name the sources from which he/she gathers evidence.
Writing Style and Organization
How does the author develop and organize his/her entire argument?
Where does the passage shift? Line(s): _____-______
Section#1—Describe organization and argument. What is the tone at the end of the first section?
Section #2—Describe organization and argument. What is the tone at the end of this section?
Argument
List one argument the author makes about the topic.
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90
“Wind,” William Least Heat-Moon
Multiple Choice Questions
Answer the multiple-choice questions using your notes from the three different readings.
1. The author develops the passage primarily through
(A) accumulation of detail
(B) pro-and-con argument
(C) thesis followed by qualification
(D) assertion supported by evidence
(E) analysis of the ideas of others
2. The author is best described as (A) a curious individual who seeks out diverse information from a variety of sources (B) a serious scientist who is determined to learn more about the causes of these storms
(C) an excited eyewitness who is too distracted to fear for personal safety (D) a confused novice who is unable to decide which claims are accurate (E) an ironic interpreter who comments on the failures and follies of others
3. Compared with that of the rest of the passage, the diction of lines 1-8 (“Climatologists . . .
survived”) is (A) informal and straightforward
(B) technical and specialized
(C) subjective and impressionistic
(D) speculative and uncertain
(E) understated and euphemistic
4. The statement “although . . . survived” (lines 7-8) is an admission that
(A) details about technical equipment are of interest only to specialists
(B) some tornadoes are so powerful that scientists cannot quantify them precisely
(C) scientists have abandoned the effort to mea- sure the wind speed of tornadoes
(D) predicting the path a tornado will take is extremely difficult
(E) precise measurement of wind speed will aid climatologists in categorizing tornadoes
5. Which of the following is true of the comparisons in lines 11-14 (“they say . . . Philadelphia”)?
(A) They emphasize the unpredictable nature of tornadoes. (B) They exaggerate the danger of tornadoes in order to make people cautious of them. (C) They use technical terminology in order to ensure accuracy of description. (D) They draw on familiar information to particularize an aspect of tornadoes. (E) They clarify the distinctions between the language of climatologists and that of
weathercasters.
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91
6. The first sentence of the passage (lines 1-14) employs all of the following to convey the power
and variety of tornadoes EXCEPT (A) abstract generalization
(B) the jargon of climatologists
(C) metaphor
(D) parallel construction
(E) varying degrees of formality
7. The passage implies that unlike hurricanes, tornadoes are not given human names because (A) there are too many of them
(B) their destruction is not as great as that of hurricanes
(C) they last too short a time
(D) they move too erratically to be plotted
(E) they can appear in any area of the world
8. When the passage moves from the first paragraph to the second, it also moves from (A) overview to illustration
(B) analysis to argumentation
(C) narration of the past to analysis of the past
(D) assertion to definition
(E) objective presentation to ad hominem argument
9. The phrase “as bald as if a cyclonic wind had taken his scalp” (lines 18-19) does all of the
following EXCEPT (A) describe the grandfather with an image related to the cyclone (B) suggest a lighter tone for the paragraph
(C) particularize the first of several sources of information mentioned in the paragraph
(D) suggest the power of the tornado
(E) express concern about the condition of the grandfather
10. In context, the image of being up under Old Nell’s skirt (lines 23-24) is meant to suggest (A) safety
(B) confusion
(C) domesticity
(D) familiarity
(E) imprisonment
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92
11. Which of the following best describes the images in the last sentence of the passage (lines
32-43)? (A) A disdainful rehearsal of other people’s experiences (B) A random listing of repulsive or frightening occurrences (C) A thorough review of absurd legends
(D) A series of increasingly detailed and implausible events
(E) A chronological account of major storms
12. The second paragraph of the passage relies especially on the use of (A) cautionary advice
(B) colorful anecdotes
(C) self-deprecating humor
(D) extended analysis
(E) terrifying juxtapositions
13. The passage ends on a note of
(A) utter exhaustion
(B) genuine relief
(C) catastrophic destructiveness
(D) ominous warning
(E) light hearted irony
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93
“Wind,” by William Least Heat-Moon
Multiple Choice Answers
1. A
8. A
2. A
9. E
3. B
10. D
4. B
11. D
5. D
12. B
6. A
13. E
7. C
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94
“Ellen Terry,” Virginia Woolf
Multiple-Choice Exercise
Read the following multiple-choice passage. Areas of importance, or the areas that will be
examined by multiple-choice questions, have been highlighted and numbered. For each
numbered area, consider the importance, both explicit and implicit, and create a useful
annotation.
(The passage below consists of excerpts from an essay
published in the 1940s.)
Annotations
Paragraph #1
It is the fate of actors to leave only picture postcards1
behind them. Every night when the curtain goes down
the beautiful coloured canvas is rubbed out. What
remains is at best only a wavering, insubstantial
(5) phantom2— a verbal life on the lips of the living.3
Ellen Terry was well aware of it.4 She tried herself,
overcome by the greatness of Irving as Hamlet and
indignant at the caricatures of his detractors, to
describe what she remembered. It was in vain. She
(10) dropped her pen in despair. “Oh God, that I were a
writer!” she cried. “Surely a writer could not string
words together about Henry Irving’s Hamlet and say
nothing, nothing.” 5 It never struck her, humble as she
was, and obsessed by her lack of book learning, that
(15)she was, among other things, a writer. It never occurred
to her when she wrote her autobiography, or scribbled
page after page to Bernard Shaw late at night, dead
tired after a rehearsal, that she was “writing.” The
words in her beautiful rapid hand bubbled off her pen.6
(20) With dashes and notes of exclamation she tried to give
them the very tone and stress of the spoken word. It is
true, she could not build a house with words, one room
opening out of another, and a staircase connecting the
whole. But whatever she took up became in her warm,
(25) sensitive grasp a tool. If it was a rolling-pin, she made
perfect pastry. If it was a carving knife, perfect slices
fell from the leg of mutton. If it were a pen, words
peeled off, some broken, some suspended in mid-air,
but all far more expressive than the tappings of the
(30) professional typewriter.7
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95
Paragraph #2
With her pen then at odds and ends of time she has
painted a self-portrait. It is not an Academy portrait,
glazed, framed, complete. It is rather a bundle of loose
leaves upon each of which she has dashed off a sketch
(35) for a portrait8 — here a nose, here an arm, here a foot,
and there a mere scribble in the margin. The sketches
done in different moods, from different angles, sometimes contradict each other. . . .
9
Annotations
Paragraph #3
Which, then, of all these women is the real Ellen
(40) Terry? How are we to put the scattered sketches
together? Is she mother, wife, cook, critic, actress,
or should she have been, after all, a painter? Each part
seems the right part until she throws it aside and plays
another. Something of Ellen Terry it seems overflowed
(45) every part and remained unacted. Shakespeare could
not fit her; not Ibsen; nor Shaw. The stage could not
hold her; nor the nursery. But there is, after all, a
greater dramatist than Shakespeare, Ibsen, or Shaw.
There is Nature. Hers is so vast a stage, and so
(50) innumerable a company of actors, that for the most
part she fobs them off with a tag or two.10 They come
on and they go off without breaking the ranks. But
now and again Nature creates a new part, an original
part. The actors who act that part always defy our
(55)attempts to name them. They will not act the stock
parts—they forget the words, they improvise others
of their own. But when they come on the stage falls
like a pack of cards and the limelights are extinguished.
That was Ellen Terry’s fate—to act a new part.11 And
(60) thus while other actors are remembered because they
were Hamlet, Phèdre, or Cleopatra, Ellen Terry is
remembered because she was Ellen Terry.12
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96
“Ellen Terry,” Virginia Woolf
Multiple-Choice Questions
1. Which of the following statements is best sup-ported by information given in the passage?
(A) Terry never focused on one career; she was skilled at so many things that she did not
excel in any one thing. (B) Terry was so clever an actress that her portrayal of a role seemed to change every night.
(C) Shaw encouraged Terry to become a play- wright by carefully tutoring her in creating
plots and characters. (D) Because Terry lacked confidence in certain of her skills, she never fully realized she was a
person of rare talents and gifts. (E) Because Terry did not have natural talent for either writing or acting, she struggled to
learn her crafts and became great through sheer willpower.
2. The author’s attitude toward Terry can best be described as (A) superior and condescending
(B) unbiased and dispassionate
(C) sympathetic and admiring
(D) curious and skeptical (E) conciliatory and forgiving
3. In line 1, “picture postcards” functions as a metaphor for the (A) published text of a play
(B) audience’s impressions of the actors’ performances
(C) critical reviews of plays
(D) plays in which the actors in the company have previously performed
(E) stage designer’s sketches of sets and scenes
4. The passage implies that the primary enemy of the “beautiful coloured canvas” and the
“wavering, insubstantial phantom” (lines 3 and 4-5) is the (A) cost of producing plays
(B) whims of critics
(C) passage of time
(D) incredulity of audiences
(E) shortcomings of dramatists
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97
5.The phrase “a verbal life on the lips of the living” (line 5) suggests that
(A) performances live only in the memories of those who witness and speak of them
(B) actors do not take the trouble to explain their art to the public
(C) the reviews of critics have a powerful influence on the popularity of a production
(D) dramatists try to write dialogue that imitates ordinary spoken language
(E) audiences respond to the realism of the theater
6. What is the relationship of the second and third sentences (lines2-5)to the first sentence (lines
1-2) ?
(A) They are structurally less complex than the first.
(B) They are expressed in less conditional terms than the first.
(C) They introduce new ideas not mentioned in the first.
(D) They clarify and expand on the first.
(E) They question the generalization made in the first.
7. The pronoun “it” (line 6) refers to which of the following?
(A) “fate” (line 1)
(B) “curtain” (line 2)
(C) “canvas” (line 3)
(D) “phantom” (line 5)
(E) “life” (line 5)
8. The effect of italicizing the words “nothing, nothing”(line13) is to
(A) emphasize Terry’s sense of frustration
(B) indicate a sarcastic tone
(C) suggest the difficulty of writing great parts for actors
(D) link a clear sense of purpose to success in writing
(E) imply that Terry’s weakness in writing is her tendency to exaggerate
9. The words “bubbled off” (line 19) and “peeled off” (line 28), used to describe the way Terry
wrote, emphasize (A) polish and sophistication
(B) thoughtfulness and application
(C) bluntness and indiscretion
(D) mystery and imagination
(E) ease and spontaneity
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98
10. Which of the following stylistic features is used most extensively in lines 25-30? (A) inversion of normal subject/verb/object order
(B) repetition of sentence structure
(C) periodic sentence structure
(D) sentence fragments for emphasis (E) use of connotative meanings that add complexity
11. The effect of mentioning an “Academy portrait” (line 32) is to (A) imply that Terry deserved to have her portrait painted by a great artist (B) suggest that Terry was adept at self-expression both in writing and in painting (C) clarify the informal nature of Terry’s self- portrait through contrast (D) hint that Terry’s self-absorption prevented her from writing about herself dispassionately
(E) blame Terry for her rebellion against the conventions of art forms
12. The “sketches” (line 36) are most probably (A) responses to reviewers who have criticized Terry’s acting (B) paintings by Terry of other actors
(C) stage directions from playwrights
(D) self-revelatory remarks
(E) descriptions of characters Terry has portrayed
13. The author suggests that Shakespeare, Shaw, and Ibsen could not “fit” (line 46) Terry chiefly
because (A) the parts they created did not allow Terry to make use of every aspect of her talents (B) their dramatic talents were focused on plot rather than on character (C) Terry was better at conveying certain kinds of characters and emotions than she was at
conveying others (D) their plays were set in historical periods different from the one in which Terry lived (E) the speeches they wrote for their female characters were written in accents and dialects
different from Terry’s
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99
“Ellen Terry,” Virginia Woolf
Multiple-Choice Answers
1. D
8. A
2. C
9. E
3. B
10. B
4. C
11. C
5. A
12. D
6. D
13. A
7. A
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100
Three Readings, Two Discussions, One Class Grade
AP Language Multiple Choice Practice
This passage and accompanying multiple-choice questions will be put through the “wringer”
three times. Follow the directions below to appropriately complete this assignment.
Step #1—Individual Test Taking





Read and annotate the passage.
Skim the multiple-choice questions.
Rank the multiple-choice questions in terms of difficulty.
Answer the multiple choice questions from easiest to most difficult.
Record your answers on the three columned answer sheet.
Step #2—Small Group Discussion, Assessment, and Decision Making

Discuss the passage as a small group.
 Discuss where there was difficulty/struggle in the text.
 Your discussion must be at least 5-7 minutes in length.
 Small group discussion is meant to improve each member’s understanding of the author,
argument, purpose, etc.
 Look up any vocabulary with which the entire group is unfamiliar.
 Each individual should improve their annotations based on the small group discussion

Discuss your multiple-choice answers.
 Discussion is meant to help every group member understand the multiple choice and
correct answer choices better. Be kind, thoughtful, and thorough.
 You must come to a group consensus about the correct answer choice for each question.
 Once consensus has been reached for a question, construct a brief rationale for the correct
answer. This is not meant to be incredibly detailed. It is meant to provide the group
talking points/leverage when discussing their answer choices with the entire class.
 Each individual should record the group’s answers on the three columned answer sheet.
Step #3—Large Group Discussion and Debate





The entire class will get the same grade based on the final answer choices that they
collectively agree to in discussion.
Each group should record their answer choices on the board/chart paper. These answers
should be written legibly so the entire class can see the answer choices.
For those questions that every group answers the same, those choices will automatically
become the class’s answer choice
For those answer choices where there is dissention between groups, there must be a
classroom discussion and consensus must be reached about the correct answer.
o Discussion should be kind, thoughtful, and thorough. Small group rationales will be
used to aid discussion.
Each individual should record the class’ answers on the three columned answer sheet.
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101
George Eliot Unsigned Review in Leader
Multiple-Choice Passage
(The passage below is excerpted from an essay written in
nineteenth-century England.)
Annotations
It has been well said that the highest aim in
education is analogous to the highest aim in
mathematics, namely, to obtain not results but
powers, not particular solutions, but the means by
(5) which endless solutions may be wrought. He is the
most effective educator who aims less at perfecting
specific acquirements than at producing that mental
condition which renders acquirements easy, and leads
to their useful application; who does not seek to make
(10) his pupils moral by enjoining particular courses of
action, but by bringing into activity the feelings and
sympathies that must issue in noble action. On the
same ground it may be said that the most effective
writer is not he who announces a particular discovery,
(15) who convinces men of a particular conclusion, who
demonstrates that this measure is right and that
measure wrong; but he who rouses in others the
activities that must issue in discovery, who awakes
men from their indifference to the right and the
(20)wrong, who nerves their energies to seek for the truth
and live up to it at whatever cost. The influence of
such a writer is dynamic. He does not teach men how
to use sword and musket, but he inspires their souls
with courage and sends a strong will into their
(25) muscles. He does not, perhaps, enrich your stock of
data, but he clears away the film from your eyes that
you may search for data to some purpose. He does
not, perhaps, convince you, but he strikes you,
undeceives you, animates you. You are not directly
(30) fed by his books, but you are braced as by a walk up
to an alpine summit, and yet subdued to calm and
reverence as by the sublime things to be seen from
that summit.
Such a writer is Thomas Carlyle. It is an idle
(35) question to ask whether his books will be read a
century hence: if they were all burnt as the grandest
1
of Suttees on his funeral pile, it would be only like
cutting down an oak after its acorns have sown a
forest. For there is hardly a superior or active mind
(40) of this generation that has not been modified by
Carlyle’s writings; there has hardly been an English
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102
book written for the last ten or twelve years that
would not have been different if Carlyle had not lived.
The character of his influence is best seen in the fact
(45) that many of the men who have the least agreement
with his opinions are those to whom the reading of
Sartor Resartus was an epoch in the history of their
minds. The extent of his influence may be best seen in
the fact that ideas which were startling novelties when
(50) he first wrote them are now become common-places.
And we think few men will be found to say that this
influence on the whole has not been for good. There
are plenty who question the justice of Carlyle’s
estimates of past men and past times, plenty who
(55) quarrel with the exaggerations of the Latter-Day
Pamphlets, and who are as far as possible from
looking for an amendment of things from a Carlylian
theocracy with the ‘greatest man’, as a Joshua who is
to smite the wicked (and the stupid) till the going
2
(60) down of the sun. But for any large nature, those
points of difference are quite incidental. It is not as a
theorist, but as a great and beautiful human nature,
that Carlyle influences us. You may meet a man
whose wisdom seems unimpeachable, since you find
(65) him entirely in agreement with yourself; but this
oracular man of unexceptionable opinions has a
green eye, a wiry hand, and altogether a Wesen, or
demeanour, that makes the world look blank to you,
and whose unexceptionable opinions become a bore;
(70) while another man who deals in what you cannot but
think ‘dangerous paradoxes’, warms your heart by the
pressure of his hand, and looks out on the world with
so clear and loving an eye, that nature seems to reflect
the light of his glance upon your own feeling. So it is
(75) with Carlyle. When he is saying the very opposite of
what we think, he says it so finely, with so hearty
conviction—he makes the object about which we
differ stand out in such grand relief under the clear
light of his strong and honest intellect—he appeals
(80) so constantly to our sense of the manly and the
truthful—that we are obliged to say ‘Hear! hear!’ to
the writer before we can give the decorous ‘Oh! oh!’
to his opinions.
Annotations
1 A suttee is a now-obsolete Hindu funeral practice.
2 Carlyle believed that great men, or heroes, shaped history through their
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personal actions and divine inspiration. Joshua, a military leader and
successor of Moses, led the Jewish people to the Promised Land.
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103
George Eliot Unsigned Review in Leader
Multiple-Choice Questions
1. What is the relationship between the two paragraphs in the passage?
(A) The first paragraph describes strengths of a writer that Carlyle exhibits, and the second
discusses his legacy.
(B) The first paragraph surveys various types of writers, and the second focuses on Carlyle.
(C) The first paragraph describes Carlyle’s critics, and the second depicts his supporters.
(D) The first paragraph considers who influenced Carlyle, and the second lists those he
influenced.
(E) The first paragraph explains Carlyle’s major ideas, and the second evaluates his
predictions.
2. Which of the following best represents the author’s intended audience?
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
(E)
individuals who are fairly well acquainted with Carlyle’s writing
readers who are having trouble understanding Carlyle’s prose
writers who hope to produce books that are like Carlyle’s
instructors looking for different ways to teach Carlyle
scholars seeking information about Carlyle’ s personal life
3. Lines 5-12 (“He is . . . noble action”) contrast (A) the acquisition of skills and the possession of aptitude (B) the labor of reasoning and the exhilaration of acting (C) the dissemination of knowledge and the cultivation of intellectual and moral powers (D) the traits of practical students and those of creative thinkers (E) the benefits of learning and the rewards of teaching
4. The author uses the phrase “On the same ground” (lines 12-13) to set up a comparison
between
(A) the aims of mathematics and those of education
(B) conceptually powerful writers and exemplary educators
(C) intellectual challenges faced by writers and those faced by readers
(D) the formulation of solutions and the identification of problems
(E) scientific writing and inspirational writing
5. On the basis of the first paragraph, Thomas Carlyle is best characterized as a writer who is
(A) ambitious, seeking to increase the number of people buying his books
(B) revolutionary, agitating his readers to adopt a radically new worldview
(C) charismatic, enticing his readers to support his views and beliefs
(D) provocative, compelling his readers to reach their own conclusions
(E) masterful, overpowering his readers with a sense of awe and veneration
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104
6. The “acorns” (line 38) represent
(A) Carlyle’s young children
(B) Carlyle’s less prominent contemporaries
(C) ideas in Carlyle’s books
(D) books written about Carlyle
(E) those who are critical of Carlyle
7. In lines 47-48, the author refers to “an epoch in the history of their minds” to
(A) illustrate the ways in which other intellectuals disagreed with Carlyle
(B) define the meaning of the title Sartor Resartus
(C) question the continued relevance of Carlyle’s ideas
(D) describe the major impact that Carlyle had on other people
(E) characterize the arduous process of reading Sartor Resartus
8. The author mentions the Latter-Day Pamphlets (lines 55-56) primarily to
(A) provide an example of what is indisputably “good” (line 52)
(B) identify the book that discusses “past men and past times” (line 54)
(C) acknowledge some of the concerns held by the “plenty” (line 54)
(D) justify Carlyle’s desire for “an amendment of things” (line 57)
(E) explain Carlyle’s inspiration for the theory of the “‘greatest man’” (line 58)
9. In context, it can be inferred that the author’s attitude toward “a Carlylian theocracy” (lines
57- 58) is
(A) disdainful
(B) skeptical
(C) inquisitive
(D) supportive
(E) reverential
10. Which rhetorical strategy does the author adopt in lines 44-63 (“The character . . . influences
us”)? (A) She goes on the offensive, berating opponents of Carlyle for their absence of wisdom,
judgment, and foresight. (B) She acknowledges but discredits other arguments, accusing Carlyle’s critics of
misunderstanding the originality of Carlyle’s ideas. (C) She claims that most people do not recognize Carlyle’s genius, suggesting that only a
discerning few are capable of doing so. (D) She cites facts to counter opposition to Carlyle’s eminence, claiming that all of Carlyle’s
judgments are unassailable.
(E) She gives examples of Carlyle’s far-reaching influence, noting that even criticism of
Carlyle implies praise.
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105
11. What purpose do lines 63-74 (“You may . . . own feeling”) serve?
(A) They contrast the appeal of a writer who merely confirms his readers’ views with that of
a writer who boldly challenges them.
(B) They develop an analogy between the kinds of individuals people are attracted to and the
kinds of writing they prefer.
(C) They challenge the idea that writers modify their ideas to appeal to a wide range of
readers.
(D) They examine whether relationships based on shared ideas and interests are rewarding to
both parties.
(E) They provide examples from various writers in which the appearance of good and evil is
deceptive.
12. In lines 75-83 (“When he . . . his opinions”), the author develops her rhetorical purpose by
(A) contrasting “he” and “we” to set Carlyle apart and show how he is critical of everyone
else
(B) inserting dashes to highlight Carlyle’ s most influential ideas and opinions
(C) employing dramatically urgent adverbs to create a surprising conclusion for the reader
(D) delaying the conclusion of the independent clause to build up the reader’s sense of
anticipation
(E) utilizing the parallel “Hear! hear!” and “Oh! oh!” to imitate a chorus of approval for
Carlyle
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106
Multiple-Choice Answer Sheet
Record your answers on this sheet for each of the three times you work with the multiple-choice.
Question
Individual
Group
Entire Class
#
Answers
Answers*
Answers
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
*Complete the brief rationale assignment for each question when you are working in small
groups. You will need to be able to defend your small group answer choices to the class.
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107
Multiple Choice Rationales
Construct a series of talking points that can be used, if necessary, for the whole class discussion.
Question #
Rationale
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
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108
George Eliot Unsigned Review in Leader
Multiple-Choice Answers
Question nine has been discarded because of difficulty based on wording/structure. You
may choose to have students skip this question when using this multiple-choice practice
in class.
1. A
7. D
2. A
8. C
3. C
9. —
4. B
10. E
5. D
11. A
6. C
12. D
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109
Student-Created AP Multiple Choice
Use the provided passage to create seven useful multiple-choice questions.
Passage Deconstruction
 Read the passage and annotate.
o Treat your first reading the same as you would any other reading for AP
Language.

Read the passage a second time and identify areas of the text that would be appropriate
for a multiple-choice question.
Multiple-Choice Reminders
 There are no plot summary questions.
o AP Language Multiple Choice is not meant to test if you have read the passage. It
is meant to test if you have read the passage closely and carefully.

You must have five answer choices for each question.
o Each answer choice must be a viable choice. While there might an answer choice
that is clearly wrong, answer choices should not be silly/foolish.
o Remember that some answer choices are often partially correct.
o Remember that the correct answer choice is the most correct of the choices.

Be sure that your multiple-choice questions and answer choices are appropriate and
accurate.
o Be careful when you are identifying authorial style, technique, purpose, and
argument that you are on the right track. Seek help if you are uncertain.
Assignment Requirements
 Seven Multiple Choice Questions
 Five Answer Choices per Multiple-Choice Question
 Typed and Appropriately Organized
Required Multiple-Choice Questions







Rhetoric
Argument
Purpose
Inference—Words, Phrases Lines
Inference—Paragraphs/Sections
Inference—Entire Passage
Organization/Grammar
*See the Types of AP Language Multiple-Choice Resource for example question stems. You may
also use returned multiple-choice practice for question formatting.
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110
AP Language and Composition Types of Questions
Below are broad categories of AP Language and Composition multiple-choice questions and
question stems.
1. Rhetoric
Questions about rhetoric ask that students examine devices and style.




What dominant technique/rhetorical strategy is the speaker using in lines…
All of the following may be found in the passage EXCEPT
The rhetorical strategy employed in lines…is best described as….
The style of the passage is best determined as…
2. Argument & Purpose
Questions about argument and purpose require a thorough examination of the
passage. Examine the first and last sentence of each paragraph and the first and last
paragraph of the passage.







The speaker asserts that…
The most apparent goal is…
The most probable reason…
The first paragraph of the passage serves to…
The point of the speaker’s statement is…
The speaker’s primary purpose in the passage is…
The speaker accomplishes all of the following EXCEPT
3. Inference
Inference questions ask students to define words, read for main ideas and understand
tone.
Words, Phrases, Lines
Remember to read around the line numbers in order to establish context.


In context line 28 most nearly means…
In line 22, the word “other” most probably refers to…
Paragraphs/Sections
These questions require close reading over the course of a section.



The metaphor developed in the second paragraph suggests primarily that…
The speaker emphasizes in lines 20-30 that…
Which of the following ideas can be inferred from…
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111
Entire Passage
These questions can ask about tone, mood, attitude or how the passage is
characterized.




The tone of the passage is best described as…
The atmosphere established in the passage is mainly one of…
The author’s attitude towards the topic is…
The passage as a whole is best characterized as…
4. Organization/Grammar
Questions of this sort examine the patterns, order and grammar in the passage.
 The phrase_______ signals a shift from______to______....
 The phrase_____refers to which of the following…
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112
“On Compassion,” Barbara Ascher
Multiple Choice Passage Creation
Create a series of seven multiple-choice questions to accompany this passage. Follow the
directions provided on the assignment sheet.
The man’s grin is less the result of circumstance
than dreams or madness. His buttonless shirt, with
one sleeve missing, hangs outside the waist of his
baggy trousers. Carefully plaited dreadlocks bespeak
(5) a better time, long ago. As he crosses Manhattan’s
Seventy-Ninth Street, his gait is the shuffle of the
forgotten ones held in place by gravity rather than
plans. On the corner of Madison Avenue, he stops
before a blond baby in an Aprica stroller. The baby’s
10)mother waits for the light to change and her hands close
tighter on the stroller’s handle as she sees the man
approach.
The others on the corner, five men and women waiting
for the crosstown bus, look away. They daydream a bit
(15) and gaze into the weak rays of November light. A man
with a briefcase lifts and lowers the shiny toes of his right
shoe, watching the light reflect, trying to catch and balance
it, as if he could hold and make it his, to ease the heavy
gray of coming January, February, March. The winter
(20) months that will send snow around the feet, calves,
and knees of the grinning man as he heads for the shelter of
Grand Central or Pennsylvania Station.
But for now, in this last gasp of autumn warmth, he is
still. His eyes fix on the baby. The mother removes her
(25) purse from her shoulder and rummages through its
contents: lipstick, a lace handkerchief, an address book.
She finds what she’s looking for and passes a folded dollar
over her child’s head to the man who stands and stares even
though the light has changed and traffic navigates around
(30) his hips.
His hands continue to angle at his sides. He does not
know his part. He does not know that acceptance of the gift
and gratitude are what makes this transaction complete.
The baby, weary of the unwavering stare, pulls its blanket
(35) over its head. The man does not look away. Like a
bridegroom waiting at the altar, his eyes pierce the white
veil.
The mother grows impatient and pushes the stroller
before her, bearing the dollar like a cross. Finally, a black
(40) hand rises and closes around green.
Was it fear or compassion that motivated the gift?
Annotations
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113
Up the avenue, at Ninety-First Street, there is a small
French bread shop where you can sit and eat a buttery,
overpriced croissant and wash it down with rich
(45)cappuccino. Twice when I have stopped here to stave
hunger or stay the cold, twice as I have sat and read and
felt the warm rush of hot coffee and milk, an old man has
wandered in and stood inside the entrance. He wears a
stained blanket pulled up to his chin, and a woolen hood
(50) pulled down to his gray, bushy eyebrows. As he
stands, the scent of stale cigarettes and urine fills the
small, overheated room.
The owner of the shop, a moody French woman,
emerges from the kitchen with steaming coffee in a
(55)Styrofoam cup, and a small paper bag of . . . of what?
Yesterday’s bread? Today’s croissant? He accepts the
offering as silently as he came, and is gone.
Twice I have witnessed this, and twice I have
wondered, what compels this woman to feed this man?
(60)Pity? Care? Compassion? Or does she simply want to
rid her shop of his troublesome presence? If expulsion
were her motivation she would not reward his arrival with
gifts of food. Most proprietors do not. They chase the
homeless from their midst with expletives and threats.
(65) As winter approaches, the mayor of New York City
is moving the homeless off the streets and into Bellevue
Hospital. The New York Civil Liberties Union is
watchful. They question whether the rights of these
people who live in our parks and doorways are being
(70) violated by involuntary hospitalization.
I think the mayor’s notation is humane, but I fear it is
something else as well. Raw humanity offends our
sensibilities. We want to protect ourselves from an
awareness of rags with voices that make no sense and
(75) scream forth in inarticulate rage. We do not wish to
be reminded of the tentative state of our own well-being
and sanity. And so, the troublesome presence is removed
from the awareness of the electorate.
Like other cities, there is much about Manhattan now
(80) that resembles Dickensian London. Ladies in highheeled shoes pick their way through poverty and
madness. You hear more cocktail party complaint than
usual, “I just can’t take New York anymore.” Our citizens
dream of the open spaces of Wyoming, the manicured
(85) exclusivity of Hobe Sound.
And yet, it may be that these are the conditions that
finally give birth to empathy, the mother of compassion.
Annotations
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www.nmsiteachers.org.
114
We cannot deny the existence of the helpless as their
presence grows. It is impossible to insulate ourselves
(90)against what is at our very doorstep. I don’t believe that
one is born compassionate. Compassion is not a character
trait like a sunny disposition. It must be learned, and it is
learned by having adversity at our windows, coming
through the gates of our yards, the walls of our towns,
(95) adversity that becomes so familiar that we begin to
identify and empathize with it.
For the ancient Greeks, drama taught and reinforced
compassion within a society. The object of Greek tragedy
was to inspire empathy in the audience so that the common
(100) response to the hero’s fall was: “There, but for the
grace of God, go I.” Could it be that this was the response
of the mother who offered the dollar, the French woman
who gave the food? Could it be that the homeless, like
those ancients, are reminding us of our common humanity?
(105) Of course, there is a difference. This play doesn’t
end—and the players can’t go home.
Annotations
from The Habit of Loving, by Barbara Lazear Ascher. New York: Random House, 1989. Permission Pending.
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115
Full Length Multiple-Choice Exam
Reminders
Review these reminders to prepare for a full-length multiple-choice exam.
Time Management
 Examine all of the passages and questions in the exam booklet. Choose the passage you
understand the best.
o Then, after you’ve completed the passage and questions, choose the next passage
you understand the best. This means you will not go out in numerical order.
o Save the most difficult passage for last.

Monitor your time for each passage.
o If necessary, write a stop/start time at the top of each multiple-choice passage to
hold yourself accountable.
o Consider that with four passages you should spend 15 minutes per passage/set of
questions.

Monitor your time for multiple-choice questions.
o Be sure that you do not spend more than a minute trying to determine the answer
for a multiple-choice question.
Approaching the Passage
 For each passage, read ONLY the questions stems FIRST in order to focus how you
approach the passage.

Read the passage and mark for:
o Main Ideas
o Shifts in Tone, Argument or Topic
o Rhetorical Devices and Style
Answering the Questions
 Cross out wrong answers immediately.

Do not linger too long over any one question.
o Guess if necessary.
If Time Runs Out
 With a minute or two remaining, pick a letter and bubble in any remaining answers. This
step is only to be used if you run out of time.
o The goal is to answer all of the questions thoughtfully but do not leave an answer
blank.
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116
RA Everyday!
Finding Time to Scaffold Student Rhetorical Analysis and Argumentation
Close Reading and Responding
Students often argue that they either can’t find anything to annotate or don’t know what to
annotate in close reading passages. Their struggle is twofold. They struggle to know what to
annotate and they struggle to unlock the meaning and purpose in their annotations.
Daily close reading exercises are necessary in order to build those student skills but often
classroom teachers feel pressed for time. Deconstructing the first paragraph of the prologue or a
chapter from a long form nonfiction work provides students with much needed practice. Since
the close reading passages are brief, they keep students from getting lost or overwhelmed. They
also help to develop student confidence and scaffold close reading and critical thinking skills for
larger close reading passages
These brief exercises are meant to teach students that no matter the length of the passage, there is
always something of importance to which they should pay attention. These types of exercises
also provide students the “what” and “why” of close reading. Narrowing student focus and
identifying significant language provides ample scaffolding for student writing. Exercises of this
nature teach students how to eventually find those “rhetorical moves” on their own and, more
importantly, how to deconstruct that rhetoric for meaning and purpose.
Implementation and Time Management
Over the course of a week and in this short form, students can engage in several brief guided
close-reading assignments. In the models provided, students would complete the first page of the
assignment during the first ten minutes or last ten minutes of class.
The second page of each model assignment, a writing response with possible revision extensions,
could be used for the following:
 Students complete two-three close reading exercises over the course of a week. On the
final day of the week, students choose one of the close reading passages for which they
will construct the accompanying well-developed paragraph.
o Teachers only grade student observations/writing from the passage they choose.
 With a partner, students examine the passage deconstruction exercises they have
completed over the week. Together, they choose the passage where their joint
observations are the best and they construct the accompanying well-developed paragraph.
These exercises can also be used for longer assignments. Since all of the sample passages
showcase the opening paragraph of a nonfiction text, consider adding the three to five paragraphs
that follow the passage for a full-length rhetorical analysis. Students can then use this exercise as
a prewrite/warm-up.
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117
Close Reading Exercise #1
Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand
Read and annotate the passage. Answer the accompanying questions.
Passage
In the predawn darkness of August 26, 1929, in the back bedroom of a small house in
Torrance, California, a twelve-year-old boy sat up in bed, listening. There was a sound coming
from outside, growing ever louder. It was a huge, heavy rush, suggesting immensity, a great
parting of air. It was coming from directly above the house. The boy swung his legs off his bed,
raced down the stairs, slapped open the back door, and loped onto the grass. The yard was
otherworldly, smothered in unnatural darkness, shivering with sound. The boy stood on the lawn
beside his older brother, head thrown back, spellbound.
1. The first sentence consists of four clauses. They are numbered below.
Sentence: In the predawn darkness of August 26, 1929,1 in the back bedroom of a small
house in Torrance, California, 2 a twelve-year-old boy sat up in bed,3 listening.4
a). How is “predawn darkness” different from early evening darkness or middle of the
night darkness?
b). What importance is there in describing the house as “small” and the boy’s bedroom as
in the “back” of the house?
c). Why might it be important to identify the boy’s age? Why is twelve a significant age?
d). What type of emphasis does Hillenbrand create by separating the word “listening”
from the rest of the sentence?
2. Hillenbrand makes uses of a series of verbs to describe the boy’s actions. He “swung,”
“raced,” “slapped,” and “loped” from his bedroom to the backyard. What do these verbs tell
you about the boy’s character?
from Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, by Laura Hillenbrand. New York:
Random House, 2010. Fair Use.
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118
Responding in Writing
Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand
Task: Examine your responses to the close reading questions that accompany the passage.
Construct a written response that makes use of those observations.
Prompt: In a well-developed paragraph, analyze the rhetorical strategies Hillenbrand uses to
characterize the house and the boy.
Writing Revision: Your topic sentence or claim should appear at the beginning of the
paragraph. Revise it so that it includes better vocabulary and a stronger argument.
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119
Close Reading Exercise #2
Five Days at Memorial, Sheri Fink
Read and annotate the passage. Answer the accompanying questions.
Passage
At last through the broken windows, the pulse of helicopter rotors and airboat propellers set
the summer morning air throbbing with the promise of rescue. Floodwaters unleashed by
Hurricane Katrina had marooned hundreds of people at the hospital, where they had now spent
four days. Doctors and nurses milled in the foul-smelling second-floor lobby. Since the storm,
they had barely slept, surviving on catnaps, bottled water, and rumors. Before them lay a dozen
or so mostly elderly patients on soiled, sweat-soaked stretchers.
1. What does the phrase “at last” suggest about the state of affairs at the hospital?
2. Fink describes those marooned at the hospital as surviving on “catnaps, bottled water, and
rumors.” Explain what the items in the list convey about the mental and physical state of the
doctors and nurses.
3. The final sentence of the paragraph is a fragment.
Sentence: Before them lay a dozen or so mostly elderly patients on soiled, sweat-soaked
stretchers.
a). Why might Fink choose to save the description of hospital patients, the reason the
hospital exists, for the end of the paragraph and then provide only a fragmentary
description?
b). Instead of describing the “elderly patients,” Fink describes the stretchers. Explain the
effect of Fink’s description and why she chooses to describe objects instead of
people.
from Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink.
New York: Crown, 2013. Fair Use.
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120
Responding in Writing
Five Days at Memorial, Sheri Fink
Task: Examine your responses to the close reading questions that accompany the passage.
Construct a written response that makes use of those observations.
Prompt: In a well-developed paragraph, analyze how Fink’s language contributes to her
argument about hospital, its employees, and its patients.
Writing Revision: Examine how you have incorporated evidence in your writing. Rewrite your
lease effective evidence sentence so that it more concisely introduces the evidence and cites a
brief reference to the text.
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121
Close Reading Exercise #3
The Glass Castle, Jeanette Walls
Passage
I was sitting in a taxi, wondering if I had overdressed for the evening, when I looked out the
window and saw Mom rooting through a Dumpster. It was just after dark. A blustery March
wind whipped the steam coming out of the manholes, and people hurried along the sidewalks
with their collars turned up. I was stuck in traffic two blocks from the party where I was heading.
1. In the first sentence, Jeanette Walls omits using the pronoun “my” when describing her
mother. She also chooses to capitalize “Mom” when she doesn’t need to do so. What do these
two rhetorical choices tell you about how Walls’ views her mother?
2. The phrase “wondering if I had overdressed for the evening” is completely at odds with the
phrase “saw Mom rooting through a Dumpster.” What is the effect of this contrast and why
does Walls choose to juxtapose her thoughts about eveningwear against her mother’s
dumpster diving?
3. Examine the bolded language in the sentence below.
Sentence: A blustery March wind whipped the steam coming out of the manholes, and
people hurried along the sidewalks with their collars turned up.
a). What does this language tell you about the setting of Walls’ story?
b). Explain why the setting is of such importance when introducing Walls’ mother who is
“rooting around in a Dumpster.”
from The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls. New York: Scribner, 2005. Fair use.
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122
Responding in Writing
The Glass Castle, Jeanette Walls
Task: Examine your responses to the close reading questions that accompany the passage.
Construct a written response that makes use of those observations.
Prompt: In a well-developed paragraph, analyze how the rhetorical strategies employed by
Walls characterize this unexpected sighting of her mother.
Writing Revision: Highlight your first piece of evidence and the commentary that follows it.
Identify what your analysis is lacking and revise/rewrite your commentary.
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123
Close Reading Exercise #4
Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher, Timothy Egan
Passage
The Last Indian of Seattle lived in a shack down among the greased piers and coal bunkers of
the new city, on what was then called Wet Street, her hovel in the grip of Puget Sound, off plumb
in a rise above the tidal flats. The cabin was two rooms, cloaked in a chipped jacket of
clapboards, damp inside. Shantytown was the unofficial name for this part of the city, and if you
wanted to dump a bucket of cooking oil or a rusted stove or a body, this was the place to do it. It
smelled of viscera, sewage and raw industry, and only when a strong breeze huffed in from the
Pacific did people onshore get a brief, briny reprieve from the residual odors of their labor.
1. The first sentence provides a stark contrast between the “Last Indian of Seattle” and the place
where she actually lives.
a). Consider, by itself, the phrase “the last Indian of Seattle.” Where does one expect the
last representative of any culture to exist and how do we expect they should be
treated?
b). Egan uses the words/phrases “greased,” “coal bunkers,” and “hovel” to describe her
home. Explain how this language contrasts with the phrase “the Last Indian of
Seattle.”
2. Examine Egan’s language in the sentence below.
Sentence: Shantytown was the unofficial name for this part of the city, and if you wanted to
dump a bucket of cooking oil or a rusted stove or a body, this was the place to
do it.
a). Look at the bolded language in Egan’s list. What types of objects get “dumped” in
shantytown?
b). What does the phrase, “this was the place to do it,” suggest about Seattle’s
shantytown?
from Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher by Timothy Egan. New York: Mariner Books, 2012. Fair Use.
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124
Responding in Writing
Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher, Timothy Egan
Task: Examine your responses to the close reading questions that accompany the passage.
Construct a written response that makes use of those observations.
Prompt: In a well-developed paragraph, analyze how Egan’s language allows him to make an
argument about the treatment of Seattle’s last Indian.
Writing Revision: Examine the final sentence of your paragraph. Determine what you have
inadvertently omitted. Revise. Add another sentence that extends your final thought.
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125
Close Reading Exercise #5
Muck City, Bryan Mealer
Passage
One of the greatest high school football programs in America, one that has supplied the NFL
with an average of one prospect per year, does not have a booster club. There is no team bus or
multimillion-dollar stadium in which they play. There are no parents who volunteer their time for
raffle drawings and car washes, or to decorate the windows of Main Street on game days. There
are no steak nights or bumper stickers, and no water tower or welcome sign along the highway
that boasts of their achievements.
1. Mealer sets up a contrast in his first sentence.
a). Examine the phrases below. Then, explain how an athletic program described in this way
should be treated.


“one of the greatest high school football programs”
“has supplied the NFL with an average of one prospect per year”
b). Why does Mealer choose to contrast the descriptions above with “does not have a booster
club?” What argument is he making?
2. What does Mealer’s repetition of the words “there is no” or “there are no” have on his
description of this football team? What type of people could survive this type of team?
3. Mealer’s list of what this football team lacks moves from “multimillion-dollar stadium” to
“steak nights” to “welcome sign.” What does his list suggest?
from Muck City: Winning and Losing in Football’s Forgotten Town by Bryan Mealer. New York: Three Rivers Press.
Fair Use.
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126
Responding in Writing
Muck City, Bryan Mealer
Task: Examine your responses to the close reading questions that accompany the passage.
Construct a written response that makes use of those observations.
Prompt: In a well-developed paragraph, analyze how Mealer uses rhetorical strategies to
construct an argument about this football team.
Writing Revision: Your topic sentence or claim should appear at the beginning of the
paragraph. Revise it so that it includes better vocabulary and a stronger argument.
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127
Close Reading Exercise #6
The Emerald Mile, Kevin Fedarko
Passage
On any given evening in summer, but most notably in late June, there comes a moment just
after the sun has disappeared behind the rimrock1, and just before the darkness has tumbled down
the walls, when the bottom of the Grand Canyon gives itself over to a moment of muted grace
that feels something like an act of atonement for the sins of the world. This is the fleeting
interregnum1 between the blast-furnace heat of the day and the star-draped immensity of the
night, and when it arrives, the bedrock bathes in a special kind of light, the pink-and-orange
blush of a freshly opened nectarine.
1
2
sharp rock wall at the upper edge of the Grand Canyon
a lapse or pause
1. The first sentence consists of five clauses. The first four clauses work together to create a
sense of time and place. Describe what each clause adds and explain why it is important to
separate these ideas with commas.

On any given evening in summer

but most notably in late June

there comes a moment just after the sun has disappeared behind the rimrock

and just before the darkness has tumbled down the walls
2. Fedarko creates contrast by describing the Grand Canyon during the day as similar to “blastfurnace heat” and in the evening as a “star-draped immensity.”
a). What is the difference between heat and “blast-furnace heat?”
b). What is the difference between full of starlight and “star-draped immensity?”
c). What is Fedarko arguing about the Grand Canyon?
from The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon by
Kevin Fedarko. New York: Scribner, 2013. Fair Use.
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128
Responding in Writing
The Emerald Mile, Kevin Fedarko
Task: Examine your responses to the close reading questions that accompany the passage.
Construct a written response that makes use of those observations.
Prompt: In a well-developed paragraph, analyze how Fedarko’s description of the Grand
Canyon supports his argument about its magnificence.
Writing Revision: Examine how you have incorporated evidence in your writing. Rewrite your
lease effective evidence sentence so that it more concisely introduces the evidence and cites a
brief reference to the text.
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129
Close Reading Exercise #7
Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation, Dan Fagin
Passage
The towering fact of Michael Gillick’s life was that he had cancer. He had always had cancer.
When he was three months old, Michael was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a fast-spreading
cancer of the nervous system. By that time, the disease was already so far advanced that it was
apparent that he had been afflicted even while still inside his mother’s womb. The doctors had
told Linda and Raymond (Rusty) Gillick that Michael had only a fifty-fifty chance of reaching
his first birthday. They missed their guess by decades, but survival came at a terrible price.
Tumors cost Michael the full use of his left eye and ear, ruined his balance, and shifted the
location of his internal organs. Steroid drugs stunted his growth and bloated his face, while
chemotherapy weakened his heart and lungs, destroyed the lining of his stomach, and dissolved
his bones to the point that walking was painful. When he was younger, Michael’s body was so
sensitive that he would scream if anyone so much as touched him. Now, he mainly just felt
exhausted, breathless, and nauseated—and that was on a pretty good day.
1. The first two sentences of the paragraph work together to tell an awful truth: Michael Gillick
has cancer.
a). What is the effect of the phrase “towering fact” when describing Gillick’s cancer?
b). The second sentence is simple and straightforward. What is the effect of the using the
phrase “had always had” to describe the Gillick’s cancer?
2. Fagin describes Michael Gillick’s life as coming at a terrible price. Examine the bolded verbs
in the sentence below. Describe how they develop Fain’s argument.
Sentence: Steroid drugs stunted his growth and bloated his face, while chemotherapy
weakened his heart and lungs, destroyed the lining of his stomach, and dissolved his bones
to the point that walking was painful
3. Examine the last sentence of the paragraph.
a). Michael Gillick’s existence is described as “exhausted, breathless, and nauseated.” What
does this simple list tell you about his everyday life?
b). Explain why Fagin choose to use a dash in the final sentence to say, “—that was on a
pretty good day.” Why not begin the sentence with that phrase?
from Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation by Dan Fagin. New York: Bantam Books, 2013. Fair Use.
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130
Responding in Writing
Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation, Dan Fagin
Task: Examine your responses to the close reading questions that accompany the passage.
Construct a written response that makes use of those observations.
Prompt: In a well-developed paragraph, analyze how Fagin uses rhetorical strategies to
characterize the extreme nature of Gillick’s cancer.
Writing Revision: Highlight your first piece of evidence and the commentary that follows it.
Identify what your analysis is lacking and revise/rewrite your commentary
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131
Close Reading Exercise #8
Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Katherine Boo
Passage
Let it Keep, the moment when Officer Fish Lips met Abdul in the police station. Rewind, see
Abdul running backward, away from the station and the airport, toward home. See the flames
engulfing a disabled woman in a pink-flowered tunic shrink to nothing but a matchbook on the
floor. See Fatima minutes earlier, dancing on crutches to a raucous love song, her delicate
features unscathed. Keep rewinding, back seven more months, and stop at an ordinary day in
January 2008. It was about as hopeful a season as there had ever been in the years since a bitty
slum popped up in the biggest city of a country that holds one-third of the planet’s poor. A
country dizzy now with development and circulating money.
1. Katherine Boo briefly flashes forward in her description of Abdul and the police station and
then backtracks seven months to 2008 when she will begin her story.
a). Boo tells her reader to “let it keep” when describing Abdul’s encounter at the police
station. What is the effect of giving the reader valuable information and then asking them
to wait?
b). Boo asks her reader to “rewind” and “keep rewinding.” What does this language allow her
to do as an author?
2. As Boo “rewinds” she makes use of the word “see” to describe the most important events over
the past seven months. Why does she choose the word “see?”
3. The last two sentences work together to discuss the setting, a slum in India.
a). Boo describes the slum as “bitty” in contrast to the “biggest” city in a country that holds an
enormous amount, “one third,” of those in poverty globally. Compared to those “big”
descriptions, why discuss a “bitty slum?”
b). The last sentence of the paragraph is a fragment. Examine the language. How does her
message become more meaningful in fragment form?
from Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo. New York:
Random House, 2012. Fair Use.
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132
Responding in Writing
Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Katherine Boo
Task: Examine your responses to the close reading questions that accompany the passage.
Construct a written response that makes use of those observations.
Prompt: In a well-developed paragraph, analyze how Boo makes use of rhetorical strategies to
develop her setting.
Writing Revision: Examine the final sentence of your paragraph. Determine what you have
inadvertently omitted. Revise. Add another sentence that extends your final thought.
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133
Rhetorical Analysis Everyday: Teacher Training Activity
It is important to have a cache of passages and close reading exercises on the ready for classroom
use. While you have been provided with eight models, a classroom teacher would need
approximately fifteen to fill a quarter and thirty to fill a semester.
Below are fifteen paragraphs from fifteen different works. With a partner, construct a close
reading exercise similar to those modeled in the training materials. The goal of this exercise is to
provide the entire training group with a wider range of quick close reading lessons so that they
can continue to implement them over the course of the school year.
Step #1—Creation and Construction
Read, annotate, and discuss the passage you have been assigned. Use the checklist below to
organize your work. Type your exercises so that they can readily be exchanged with your
colleagues. Use the file-labeling example below for ease of access.
File Labeling: Book Title (before the colon), dash, RA Everyday
Example: The Emerald Mile-RA Everyday
RA Everyday Day Exercise Checklist
 Vocabulary Definitions—if necessary
 Close Reading Questions
 Provides Detail and Scaffolding for Student Focus
 Focuses on Two Different Aspects of the Paragraph
 Writing Task
 Focuses on Author’s Purpose and Argument
 Revision Task
 Focuses on Revising a Component of Student Writing
Step #2—Peer Editing
Once you have constructed your student exercise, find another small group and exchange your
exercises. Each group should “work” the lesson as though they were students. The goal is to
identify questions that need revision and/or require more scaffolding.
Step #3—Revision
Once you have received feedback from your colleagues, reread your lesson and revise for clarity
and ease of implementation.
Further Considerations
Consider how you might use this passage as a springboard for another assignment in your
classroom. Ask yourself the following:
 How might this passage and assignment partner with a preexisting assignment?
 How might this passage/assignment introduce a unit, concept, or skill that you already
planning to teach?
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134
Teacher Training Exercise
Nonfiction Passages
Each group will be assigned one passage.
Passage #1
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, Sidddhartha Mukherjee
In a damp fourteen-by-twenty-foot laboratory in Boston on a December morning in 1947, a
man named Sidney Farber waited impatiently for the arrival of a parcel from New York. The
“laboratory” was little more than a chemist’s closet, a poorly ventilated room buried in a half
basement of the Children’s Hospital, almost thrust into its back alley. A few hundred feet away,
the hospital’s medical wards were slowly thrumming to work. Children in white smocks moved
restlessly on small wrought-iron cots. Doctors and nurses shuttled busily between the rooms,
checking charts, writing orders, and dispensing medicines. But Farber’s lab was listless and
empty, a bare warren of chemicals and glass jars connected to the main hospital through a series
of icy corridors. The sharp stench of embalming formalin wafted through the air. There were no
patients in the rooms here, just the bodies and tissues of patients brought down through the
tunnels for autopsies and examinations. Farber was a pathologist. His job involved dissecting
specimens, performing autopsies, identifying cells, and diagnosing diseases, but never treating
patients.
Passage #2
Burning Down the House: The End of Juvenile Prison, Nell Bernstein
Curtis had mixed feelings when he learned he was headed for the California Youth Authority:
“terrified and petrified.” A sprawling system of violent and poorly managed state institutions, the
Youth Authority was home to California’s most serious Juvenile offenders and, at the time, held
wards as old as twenty-five. Curtis was ten years old.
Passage #3
Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy, Carlos Eire
The world had changed while I slept, and much to my surprise, no one had consulted me.
That’s how it would always be from that day forward. Of course, that’s the way it had been all
along. I just didn’t know it until that morning. Surprise upon surprise: some good, some evil,
most somewhere in between. And always without my consent.
Passage #4
Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age, Kevin Boyle
The migrants filled the train stations of the South every day in the summer of 1925, waiting
on ramshackle wooden platforms of crossroads towns such as Opelousas, Louisiana, and
Andalusia, Alabama, and in cantilevered cavers such as Atlanta’s Union Station. When the
northbound trains pulled in, hissing and steaming, the travelers picked up cardboard suitcases
bought at five-and-dimes or battered trunks carried since freedom came. Summoning up their
courage, they strode past the Pullman porters—race men like themselves—making their way
down the platforms to the grimy Jim Crow cars, settling into their seats for long rides north.
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Passage #5
The Anthropology of Turquoise: Meditations on Landscape, Art, and Spirit, Ellen Meloy
Winter on the Colorado Plateau has not been arduous, only a thin cold without storms, a lucid
map of stillness. Caught in the abrupt instant of its rising, our faces take the tangerine sun, our
backs dissolve to silhouette in the brilliant dazzle of its incandescent beam. The nights come less
as a smooth pause than as a steep enduring purity of eye-blind dark. The mesas creak and strain
the frigid air, audible only if I lay my ear to them. The colors in their flanks—terra cotta, bloodred, salmon, vermilion—bear the temperament of iron.
Passage #6
To the End of June: The Intimate Life of American Foster Care, Cris Beam
It was an unusually warm October in Brooklyn; the men had switched their puffy coats for
crisp white tank tops, and the young mothers pried back the plastic casings on their strollers. All
two thousand people from the Roosevelt housing projects seemed to be tumbling outdoors,
leaning on cars or gathering at the bodegas, slanting their faces toward the sun to soak in the last
bits of warmth before winter. You couldn’t tell on a clear morning like this, that the Roosevelt
Houses still tipped the scales in the 81st Precinct with their homicide rates, that by nightfall the
bodegas would fill with toothless addicts busying loosies for a quarter. A bright morning like this
could make anybody grateful.
Passage #7
Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, Michael Moss
John Harvey Kellogg had one thing in mind when he created his sprawling health complex on
the prairie of Michigan in the late 18002. He wanted to cure people of what one observer had
called “Americanitis”—or the bloated, gaseous stomachache caused by the ailment otherwise
known as dyspepsia. The whole country seemed to be suffering from it, thanks in large part to
what they were eating for breakfast. Nineteenth-century Americans typically started their
mornings with sausages, beefsteaks, bacon, and fried ham, to which as the day progressed, they
added salt pork and whiskey. Grease, in effect, had become the national condiment.
Passage #8
In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, Michael Pollan
If you spent any time at all in a supermarket in the 1980s, you might have noticed something
peculiar going on. The food was gradually disappearing from the shelves. Not literally
vanishing—I’m not talking about Soviet-style shortages. No, the shelves and refrigerated cases
still groaned with packages and boxes and bags of various edibles, more of them landing every
year in fact, but a great many of the traditional supermarket foods were steadily being replaced
by “nutrients,” which are not the same thing. Where once the familiar names of recognizable
comestibles—things like eggs or breakfast cereals or snack foods—claimed pride of place on the
brightly colored packages crowding the aisles, now new, scientific-sounding terms like
“cholesterol” and “fiber” and “saturated fat” began rising to large-type prominence. More
important than mere foods, the presence or absence of these invisible substances was now
generally believed to confer health benefits on their eaters. The implicit message was that foods,
by comparison, were coarse, old-fashioned, and decidedly unscientific things—who could say
what was in them really?
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Passage #9
The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature, David George Haskell
The New Year starts with a thaw, and the fat, wet smell of the woods fills my nose.
Moisture has plumped the mat of fallen leaves that covers the forest floor, and the air is suffused
with succulent leafy aromas. I leave the foot trail that winds down the forest slope and scramble
around a house-sized piece of mossy, eroded rock. Across a shallow boulder, cresting out of the
leaf litter like a small whale. This block of sandstone defines one edge of the mandala.
Passage #10
Wild Ones: A Sometimes Dismaying, Weirdly Reassuring Story About Looking at People
Looking at Animals in America, Jon Mooallem
During the Cold War, a joint U.S.-Canadian military installation was built outside the tiny
northern town of Churchill, Manitoba, at the western edge of Hudson Bay. Those stationed at
Fort Churchill had several jobs to do, like be ready to repulse the Soviets if they invaded over the
North Pole and figure out how to lob nuclear warheads at Moscow through the Aurora Borealis,
which was proving, mysteriously, to muck up the guidance systems on their rockets. A lot of the
soldiers’ time was also spent dealing with a nuisance: hundreds of polar bears that ambled across
the tundra there every fall.
Passage #11
The Devil’s Highway: A True Story, Luis Alberto Urrea
Five men stumbled out of the mountain pass so sunstruck they didn’t know their own names,
couldn’t remember where they’d come from, had forgotten how long they’d been lost. One of
them wandered back up a peak. One of them was barefoot. They were burned nearly black, their
lips huge and cracking, what paltry drool still available to them spuming from their mouths in
salty foam as they walked. Their eyes were cloudy with dust, almost too dry to blink up a tear.
Their hair was hard and stiffened by old sweat, standing in crowns from their scalps, old sweat
because their bodies were no longer sweating. They were drunk from having their brains baked
in the pan, they were seeing God and devils, and they were dizzy from drinking their own urine,
the poisons clogging their systems.
Passage #12
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America,
Erik Larson
How easy it was to disappear:
A thousand trains a day entered or left Chicago. Many of these trains brought single young
women who had never even seen a city but no hope to make one of the biggest and toughest their
home. Jane Addams, the urban reformer who founded Chicago’s Hull House, wrote, “Never
before in civilization have such numbers of young girls been suddenly released from the
protection of the home and permitted to walk unattended upon the city streets and to work under
alien roofs.” The women sought work as typewriters, stenographers of seamstresses, and
weavers. The men who hired them were for the most part moral citizens intent on efficiency and
profit. But not always. On March 30, 1890, an officer of the First National Bank placed a
warning in the help-wanted section of the Chicago Tribune, to inform stenographers of “our
growing conviction that no thoroughly honorable business-man who is this side of dotage ever
advertises for a lady stenographer who is a blonde, is good-looking, is quite alone in the city, or
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this product. Copyright © 2014 National Math + Science Initiative, Dallas, Texas. All rights reserved. Visit us at www.nms.org or at
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137
will transmit her photograph. All such advertisements upon their face bear the marks of
vulgarity, nor do we regard it safe for any lady to answer such unseemly utterances.”
Passage #13
American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon, Steven Rinella
In the past week I’ve become something of a buffalo chip connoisseur. The perfect specimen
has the circumference of a baseball cap, with folded layers like a sheik’s turban. It’s as dense as a
gingersnap cookie, with the color and texture of old cardboard that’s been wet and dried out
again. Of course, when I say “buffalo chip,” I’m talking about buffalo dung, or what’s left of
vegetation after it passes through the digestive circuitry of North America’s largest native land
animal, also known as American bison (Bison bison). These chips will burn with an orangecolored halo of flame surrounding a coal black center; they let off a good heat, not many sparks,
and a blue-hued smoke that smells nothing like you’d expect it to. At times I’ve dipped my face
into the smoke and picked up the odors of cinnamon and cloves, dried straw and pumpkins, and
sometimes the smell of walking into a bathroom after someone smoked a joint.
Passage #14
The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II,
Denise Kiernan
There have long been secrets buried deep in the southern Appalachians, covered in layers of
shale and coal, lying beneath the ancient hills of the Cumberlands, and lurking in the shadows of
the Smokies at the tail end of the mountainous spine that ripples down the East Coast. This land
of the Cherokee gave way to treaties and settlers and land grants. Newcomers traversed the
Cumberland Gap to establish small farms and big lives in a region where alternating ridges and
valleys cradle newborn communities in the nooks and crannies of the earth. Isolated.
Independent. Hidden.
Passage #15
Assassination Vacation, Sarah Vowell
Going to Ford’s Theatre to watch the play is like going to Hooters for the food. So I had
intended to spend the first act of 1776, a musical about the Declaration of Independence,
ignoring the stage and staring at Abraham Lincoln’s box from my balcony seat. Then I was
going to leave intermission. Who wants to hear the founding fathers break into song? Me, it turns
out. Between eloquent debates about the rights of man, these wiseacres in wigs traded
surprisingly entertaining trash talk in which a deified future preside like Thomas Jefferson is
deplored as a “red-headed tombstone.” George Washington’s amusingly miserable letters from
the front are read aloud among the signers with eye-rolling contempt, followed by comments
such as “That man would depress a hyena.” Plus Benjamin Franklin was played by the actor who
played the Big Lebowski in The Big Lebowski. I was so sucked into 1776 that whole production
numbers like “But, Mr. Adams” could go by and I wouldn’t glance Lincolnward once, wrapped
up in noticing that that second president could really sing.
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this product. Copyright © 2014 National Math + Science Initiative, Dallas, Texas. All rights reserved. Visit us at www.nms.org or at
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138
Acknowledgements
RA Everyday! Teacher Training Activity
Cris Beam. Excerpt from To the End of June: The Intimate Life of American Foster Care. New York:
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Copyright © Cris Beam, 2013. Fair Use.
Nell Bernstein. Excerpt from Burning Down the House: The End of Juvenile Prison. New York: The New
Press. Copyright © 2014 by Nell Bernstein. Fair Use.
Kevin Boyle. Excerpt from Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age.
New York: Henry Holt and Company. Copyright © 2004 by Kevin Boyle. Fair Use.
Carlos Eire. Excerpt from Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy. New York: The
Free Press. Copyright © 2003 by Carlos Eire. Fair Use.
David George Haskell. Excerpt from The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature. New York: Viking
Press. Copyright © 2012 by David George Haskell. Fair Use.
Denise Kiernan. Excerpt from The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win
World War II. New York: Touchstone. Copyright © 2013 by Denise Keirnan. Fair Use.
Erik Larson. Excerpt from The Devil in White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that
Changed America. Copyright © 2003 by Erik Larson. Fair Use.
Ellen Meloy. Excerpt from The Anthropology of Turquoise: Meditations of Landscape, Art, and Spirit.
New York: Pantheon Books. Copyright © 2002 by Ellen Meloy. Fair Use.
Jon Mooallem. Excerpt from Wild Ones: A Sometimes Dismaying, Weirdly Reassuring Story About
Looking at People Looking at Animals in America. New York: Penguin Press. Copyright © 2013 by Jon
Mooallem. Fair Use.
Michael Moss. Excerpt from Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us. New York: Random
House. Copyright © 2013 by Michael Moss. Fair Use.
Siddhartha Mukherjee. Excerpt from The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer. New York:
Scribner. Copyright © 2010 by Siddhartha Mukherjee. Fair Use.
Michael Pollan. Excerpt from In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto. New York: Penguin Press.
Copyright © 2008 by Michael Pollan. Fair Use.
Steven Rinella. Excerpt from American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon. New York: Spiegel and Grau.
Copyright © 2008 by Steven Rinella. Fair Use.
Luis Alberto Urrea. Excerpt from The Devil’s Highway: A True Story. New York: Little, Brown, and
Company. Copyright © 2004 by Luis Alberto Urrea. Fair Use.
Sarah Vowell. Excerpt from Assassination Vacation. New York: Simon and Schuster. Copyright © 2005
by Sarah Vowell. Fair Use.
AP® is a registered trademark of the College Board. The College Board was not involved in the production of and does not endorse
this product. Copyright © 2014 National Math + Science Initiative, Dallas, Texas. All rights reserved. Visit us at www.nms.org or at
www.nmsiteachers.org.
139
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