Letter to you preshus lil chillins

Oh man, AP english. It's gonna take some work to get through the year, but it's definitely possible. You're gonna run into a couple assignments you haven't seen before. First are the TOWs (standing for text of the week), which happen every week. You must post one 300 word rhetorical analysis by sunday night at ten. You get to pick an essay or other text to analyze, so pick stuff that interests you to analyze, because if you don't, it's not gonna be fun. TOWs aren't that bad once you get used to them, so get used to them.

Next are the timed essays. They're rough. You get a solid forty minutes to read a text or prompt and then write an essay about it. It requires you to work fast, and think fast, and takes a lot of getting used to. However, you get plenty of opportunities to practice them, so by the end of the year, timed essays aren't really too bad. lol jk.

When you think APELC gets bad, just remember - you could have ebola. In all seriousness, the course isn't that hard if you put in the time and effort that Mr. Yost and Ms. Pronko ask of you. You've got this. Welcome to APELC.

TOW #28 - Reflection

Throughout the year, having looked back upon three TOWs that I have completed as the year progressed, I can see a definite change as I, as a writer, developed with this course. At the beginning of the year, in my first TOW, everything was very clunky - the writing was clearly compartmentalized as I went through the checklist of things I was supposed to do in a TOW - it had no flow. As I went through to TOW #14, everything meshes far more smoothly - the introduction of the author made sense as it transitioned into the rhetorical analysis, and into the effects of the rhetoric, and into the conclusion, asking myself if it was effective. In one of my last TOWs, #24, the writing seems so relaxed and comfortable, as I had truly become familiar with the idea of rhetorical analysis - I could understand how much context I should give, how much effective analysis should follow, et cetera. A funny note - as I progressed through the year, I began choosing texts that I liked more and more, because I realized that I could analyze things that I also found interesting at the same time, a concept that was new to me, who had only correlated schoolwork with tedium and boredom. I think the one thing I've truly mastered over the year of TOWs is the ability to read a text and to know what rhetorical devices were in effect. At the beginning of the year, I didn't know what the hell rhetoric was, and now I can figure out the subtle ways that an author tries to turn ones opinion to a certain direction. I can still work on making sure I flesh everything out to its fullest extent. One issue I faced was trying to keep things concise, but accidentally underanalyzing as a result. I still need to find that balance within my writing. TOWs served as a regular practice assignment that really helped me get comfortable with the ability to understand on a deeper level the little things that people use to convince their audiences. The only issue with TOWs is that they sometimes feel like a chore, and not enrichment, but schoolwork is bound to feel that way sometimes, so it can't quite be helped..

TOW #26 - Still, I rise, Maya Angelou - written

Maya angelou is one of the most important pets and writers of the 20th century. She was one of the earliest black female writers to rise to fame in the world. She has written many influential works on the themes of individuality and race, such as "I know why the caged bird sings". In her poem "Still, I rise", she makes many statements about race and self. She begins the poem with a somewhat pessimistic view, accusing a presumably white audeicne of potentially writing her down in history as less than she is. This demonstrates the struggle of black people in the era that Maya Angleou was relevant, the animosity that existed bewteen black and white people. She then asks the question, "Does my sassiness upset you?" this shows that she, as a person, is not afraid to be herself and question if it upsets other people. This makes a very strong statement about angelou's opinions on being oneself - that one should not let the opinions of others change who one is. She then asks the question, "Does my haughtiness upset you?" this also shows that she, as a person, is not afraid to be herself and question if it upsets other people. This makes a very strong statement about angelou's opinions on being oneself - that one should not let the opinions of others change who one is. She repeats this question once more with "Does my sexiness upset you?" all of these questions reinforce that she believes that one should not bow their own personality in the face of adversity from others. All in all, angelou makes an effective argument about her opinions on race and self in "Still, I rise".

TOW #24 - The Most Important things in life, violence, by Harlan Ellison - written

Harlan Ellison was, at the time of the anecdote he references in this essay, a "Nice quiet Jewish kid from Ohio... a published author... well into terminal destitution. Poverty would have been, for me, a sharp jump into a higher-income bracket."  He is also one of the best known writers of the 20th century, namely for his amazing humor and ability to put you in a situation. In this essay he writes about the prominence of violence in life. He illustrates this through the entire section of the essay being an anecdote, in which he uses humor and great description to put you in the scene and make it believable. He outlines a story about him and his friend seeing a movie at four in the morning with a bunch of food when a fight breaks out amongst the few people in the theater aside from them. He uses great humor in sentences like '"Oh shit," I murmured, slumping down even deeper in the seat, till my knees were up around my ears like a grasshopper. Beside me, my Texican buddy was praying in High Church Latin, Yiddish and Sufi, all at the same time.' This humor opens up readers to accept the reality of the story more and to let the reality of the anecdote convince them more truly of his point. He describes everything down to the smallest details, which, along with the humor, serves to immerse the readers even deeper in the world that Ellison creates. Overall, Ellison crafts another great essay in "Violence".

TOW 23 - Feeding Kids Meat is Child Abuse by PETA - visual

Seen above is a visual rhetorical text brought to you by our favorite Animal Rights group, PETA. PETA is well known for their borderline militant views on animal rights, going farther than anyone else has or wants them to in order to make their points, even when there is no real backing to what they are saying. This one is particularly bad, having next to no rhetorical validity to it, though there are many strategies in effect in an attempt to get people's attention. First of all, there is the image in the top part of the advertisement. It shows an abnormally large child about to bite into what is presumably a ham or cheeseburger of some sort. This, in tandem with the message at the lower portion of the advertisement, saying "Fight the Fat", is an attempt to convince people that eating meat will make them fat - something that has been backed by no evidence, placed in the ad or in existence otherwise. Next, they make the gutsy claim that "feeding kids meat is child abuse", a very large and controversial claim that has no support in the advertisement or out of it. Just like any of their other terrible ads, this is just another attempt by PETA to shock people into listening to their message without presenting any information with depth in it. At all. PETA fails again.

TOW #22 - ON A MOTHER'S LOVE by T. Augustus Forbes Leith - Written

T. Augustus Forbes Leith was an ornithologist and ethnologist in Australia during the 1800s. His manuscript is held at the National Library of Australia. In this essay, titled "On a Mother's Love", he ruminates on, well, the nature of the love that mothers have for their children. This essay is beautifully written, and ephemerally short, a style and form that match very well the subject matter at hand. He argues that a mother's love is the purest of them all, that no love can ever be as unbiased, unwavering, or unselfish. He cites how it lasts from your birth to your mother's death. This is a rhetorically sound example because in the data that he presents, from the birth of the child to the death of the mother, the entanglement between mother and child is highlighted. It is not the birth and death of just one party that determines the love, it requires the birth of one and the death of another. This demonstrates the almost destiny-like entanglement of souls that Leith argues is present in motherly love. He argues that a mother's love never leaves you, and in that respect, it is the truest, most unbiased love of all. Because it does not discriminate between rich and poor or good and bad, it is true and absolute, and this brings it to rise above all other loves as the purest. Although Leith's evidence is primarily speculative, it is quite effective due to the beautiful and concise form in which he presents it. Leith's views on motherly love are valid and believable.

TOW #20 - Isaac Asimov on New Ideas - Written

Isaac Asimov is widely considered to be one of the greatest science fiction writers of all time. Having written many great classics like I, Robot and the colored Mars series, Asimov is undoubtedly one of the ost important writers in the entire genre. Like many short essays published by popular authors, On New Ideas is a large departure from his normal writing material. Isaac argues that creativity is the act of flying in the face of reason in order to create something new and beautiful. He argues this with manny examples an anecdotes from his own personal experience, and supports these anecdotes with beautifully simple prose. He references many of the works of 19th centruy naturalists and their view on creativity and beauty in combination with their views on nature. He speaks about how they, in the face of a looming and inevitable industrial revolution, write their ideas about the beauty of nature. This fits in well with his thesis of flying in the face of reason and inevitablitiy in order to create something amazing. He references Thomas Huxley's saying upon completing the origion of the species, "Why didn't I think of that?" The reason he gives is because Huxley was not one to fly in the face of what was at the time known as reason, the ideas of fundamentalist religious ideas on the nature of man and biology. Darwin was a dude who was like "I have some ideas about how this works, and I'm going to go up against what most of you view as reason to present them." This, Asimov argues, was the epitome of creativity, the O.G. of new ideas. All in all, On Ideas is a great meditation on the nature of how one gets new ideas and how creativity is spawned in humanity. It is a very effective rhetorical text.