For this summer, we are asking you to read what we’ve found, find some things to read and share on your own, and write some ideas down to use later. Your reading and finding assignment: In order to prepare you for Part Two of the curriculum, you will read print text to help you set some parameters for your thinking. You might find the ​
SOAPStoneS a​
cronym (found on our Schoology group) to be helpful in knowing what to look for as you read and think. Additionally, ​
10 Structural Features That Create Meaning in Political Ads​
​
by Esther Thorson will be helpful as well. It, too, is found on our Schoology group. Feel free to use it and/or respond to it in your informal writing. We have also posted an ​
excerpt from ​
Mass Media and American Politics by Doris A. Graber and Johanna Dunaway. Use it as you wish as you respond to your own texts. Respond to your understanding of it in your informal writing as well. In keeping with the theme, you are also asked to find texts about presidential elections. All things considered, your choices will be abundant. While they should share this similar subject, they should express different points of view – not just one candidate but different speakers, varied audiences, distinct styles and multiple text types. What you should do: 1. Find and read/view ​
five ​
print or online texts about the presidential elections. At least ​
three (3)​
of the texts should include visual elements like photographs, videos, or charts. Your selection of texts should represent at least ​
three (3) ​
different forms of media. (A “text” as anything from which you can extract information.) 2. Some acceptable text types (forms of media) are as follows. This list is not all inclusive, but it is representative of the text types we will work with for the first part of the year. ●
Blog posts ●
Twitter hashtags ●
Videos ●
Magazine/journal articles (print or online) ●
Memes ●
Political cartoons ●
Essays ●
OpEd pieces ●
Song lyrics ●
Advertisements (print or non­print) ●
Infographics ●
News reports (newspaper articles, TV/radio, podcasts, etc.) 4. Put together a Google Doc that contains links to all five texts. Use this as a template​
. If some of your texts are print texts (like a physical newspaper or magazine), indicate that on your GDoc and give as much information about the text as possible ­­ a scan or photo would be most helpful! Additionally, save the hard copy of the text so you can bring it in for our discussion. 5. Share your GDoc with your English teacher on the first day of classes in September. Your writing assignment: Since writing is a process of thinking, you are to complete at least 1,000 words of informal writing in reaction to any or all of your reading. This writing can be in any form you like: 3­minute freewrite responses to reading assignments, reflective journal entries about personal experiences that you are reminded of by any of the readings, personal responses to what you’ve read, notes on your understanding of what you are finding and reading. We recommend that you write your 1,000 words periodically rather than all at once, as we will expect you write regularly during the school year. You can write your 1,000 words on your own thread on any format (GoogleDoc, blog,) as long as it allows you to share your work with your teacher and provides some sort of history/timestamp as well as the capacity for word count. Your 1,000 words of informal writing will be marked not for quality but for relevance and completion. The first step of any writing process is to allow yourself to write “junk.” Please write at least 1,000 words of junk this summer. As you write, you may want to consider the formal writing options for first trimester. You will have about 2,700 words of formal writing due before the end of first trimester next year. Feel free to use your informal writing to try out any of the options below: Draft responses to reading as Written Tasks “answering” these IB questions: How could the text be read and interpreted differently by two different readers? If the text had been written in a different time or place or language or for a different audience, how and why might it differ? How and why is a social group represented in a particular way? Which social groups are marginalized, excluded or silenced within the text? How does the text conform to, or deviate from, the conventions of a particular genre, and for what purpose? How has the text borrowed from other texts, and with what effects? Compose a comparative look at two pieces of media (perhaps the one assigned and one you found) using some of the questions above as guidelines. * Your formal tasks will be more clearly defined in September. Just consider these ideas as possibilities to spark the informal writing you do. Complete both the reading and writing assignments by ​
September 6, 2016​
. Directions for submission will be supplied the first day of class. Please have the ability to access and submit your template of findings and document of informal writing that day.