Kevin Wong Demo Lesson: June 27, 2016

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

To establish three ways that a college personal statement can be improved, first by analyzing the rhetoric in a rough draft, and then by analyzing the rhetoric in a final draft of the same essay.

DO NOW

Group yourselves into Triads (A Triad should have a Group Leader, who ensures that every voice is heard, a Presenter, who will share any of the group's findings with the class, and a Recorder, who will write down the group's responses. Each Triad should have 2 laptops (3 laptops, if there are enough).

Please read the Model College Essay Rough Draft, individually and silently.

Then, Think/Pair/Share in a Triad:

A) What was your emotional reaction to reading the essay? Cite examples from the essay in your discussion.

B) What could the speaker possibly do to enhance that emotional reaction, and make it more intense?

C) The Presenter should be ready to present their findings to the class.

DIRECT INSTRUCTION

PowerPoint of Today's Lesson

A college personal statement is a 650 word encapsulation of YOU.

Speaker: The high school student who is applying to several reach colleges/universities

Audience: The college admissions officer, who is making difficult decisions on 'cusp' students

Purpose: To demonstrate positive character traits, an adult maturity, and a reflectiveness towards one's future.

Three hallmarks of a strong college essay are:

Specific Storytelling: Making the mundane unique

Concrete Details: Creating visual clarity

Use of Dialogue and Personal Voice: Forging emotional intimacy

GROUP WORK

Read the Model College Essay Final Draft individually.

When you are done, fill out the following Google Form. Have the recorder submit the answers for the entire group.

If you do not have a Gmail account, I have reproduced the questions below. Please send an email to kevinjameswong@gmail.com. Include the names of your group members in the subject line.

1. Identify TWO specific stories the speaker tells in the final draft that she does not tell in the first draft. What is the effect of having these stories in the final essay?

2. Identify and discuss TWO instances where the use of concrete detail enhanced the final draft.

3. Discuss the author's use of dialogue. What is its purpose, and what effect does it have on the speaker?

4. Based on what you have seen in these drafts, what is something specific that you need to work on in your writing? (This is an individualized question. Each person in your triad should answer this question individually (John: TKTKTKTK Jane: TKTKTKTKTK Joe: TKTKTKTKTK).

5. (Extension) How could the final draft continue to be improved from its current form?

INDIVIDUAL WORK / HOMEWORK

If you are done with your Group Assignment, please open/take out what you are working on for your college personal statement. You can find a copy of the Common Application Prompts here. You have three options:

A) If you have not yet begun brainstorming, read this essay I wrote about what NOT to write about.

B) If you are ready to begin brainstorming, or are in the middle of brainstorming, complete the following Graphic Organizer for Common Application Prompts.

C) If you have chosen a topic, and know what you want to write about, watch this video I created about plot structure and Freytag's Pyramid.

I will leave these materials up on this website. You can access them over the summer to continue working on your college personal statements. Good luck!

Two Kinds of Slaves - By Malcolm X

Follow the following link to listen to a clip of Malcolm X's famous speech, "Two Kinds of Slaves."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zUIjP4KWok

After listening to the clip, answer the following questions:

1) Is this a subject by subject or a point by point comparison? Create a purpose statement for this speech that you could use on the AP Exam. Pay attention to audience, speaker, and rhetorical devices used.

2) Describe how Malcolm X uses repetition and dialect to achieve his purpose. Cite an example of each one from the speech.

3) What are the positives of using a subject by subject C&C? How would this speech have been different if it was a point by point C&C? Would it be less or more effective? Explain.

Dexter Opening Sequence

http://www.artofthetitle2.com/media/tv/2006/dexter/dexter_480p.mov

Watch the above link. This is the opening sequence to Dexter, a television drama about a forensic expert for the Miami police department. Unbeknownst to his colleagues and friends, Dexter leads a secret double life as a killer. When it first debuted, this opening sequence won many awards, including an Emmy for Best Opening Sequence.

Respond to this video sequence in your journal, keeping in mind the context explained above. What is the purpose of this opening sequence, and how does the director achieve his purpose through visual rhetoric? Give examples of contrasting imagery.

Excerpt from In Cold Blood - By Truman Capote

2nd Rhetorical Essay Final Draft is due NEXT week for this passage. Please speak to Mr. Wong is you want to individually conference about your final draft.

Excerpt From In Cold Blood, By Truman Capote

The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call “out there.” Some seventy miles east of the Colorado border, the countryside, with its hard blue skies and desert-clear air, has an atmosphere that is rather more Far West than Middle West. The local accent is barbed with a prairie twang, a ranch-hand nasalness, and the men, many of them, wear narrow frontier trousers, Stetsons, and high-heeled boots with pointed toes. The land is flat, and the views are awesomely extensive; horses, herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain elevators rising as gracefully as Greek temples are visible long before a traveller reaches them.

Holcomb, too, can be seen from great distances. Not that there is much to see—simply an aimless congregation of buildings divided in the center by the main-line tracks of the Santa Fe Railway, a haphazard hamlet bounded on the south by a brown stretch of the Arkansas (pronounced “Ar-kan-sas”) River, on the north by a highway, Route 50, and on the east and west by prairie lands and wheat fields. After rain, or when snowfalls thaw, the streets, unnamed, unshaded, unpaved, turn from the thickest dust into the direst mud. At one end of the town stands a stark old stucco structure, the roof of which supports an electric sign—“DANCE”—but the dancing has ceased and the advertisement has been dark for several years. Nearby is another building with an irrelevant sign, this one in flaking gold on a dirty window—“HOLCOMB BANK.”

Down by the depot, the postmistress, a gaunt woman who wears a rawhide jacket and denims and cowboy boots, presides over a falling-apart post office

And that, really, is all. Unless you include, as one must, the Holcomb School, a good-looking establishment, which reveals a circumstance that the appearance of the community otherwise camouflages: that the parents who send their children to this modern and ably staffed “consolidated” school—the grades go from kindergarten through senior high, and a fleet of buses transports the students, of which there are usually around three hundred and sixty, from as far as sixteen miles away—are, in general, prosperous people.

Until one morning in mid-November of 1959, few Americans—in fact, few Kansans—had ever heard of Holcomb. Like the waters of the river, like the motorists on the highway, and like the yellow trains streaking down the Santa Fe tracks, drama, in the shape of exceptional happenings, had never stopped there.

Excerpt from The Most Dangerous Game - By Richard Connell

The entire short story can be found at the following link:

http://fiction.eserver.org/short/the_most_dangerous_game.html

Directions: Carefully read through the following excerpt from The Most Dangerous Game, by Richard Connell. At this point in the story, a hunter named Rainsford is on a yacht cruise. The yacht shipwrecks, and Rainsford swims to the nearest island. On the top of a cliff, he sees a large mansion and approaches it, hoping to find help. While reading this passage, consider the following points:

- What rhetorical devices does Connell use when describing General Rainsford?

- Demonstrate evidence from the text that depicts General Zaroff as both a 'civilized gentleman' and a 'savage.' What is the effect of this contrasting description upon the audience?

He lifted the knocker, and it creaked up stiffly, as if it had never before been used. He let it fall, and it startled him with its booming loudness. He thought he heard steps within; the door remained closed. Again Rainsford lifted the heavy knocker, and let it fall. The door opened then--opened as suddenly as if it were on a spring--and Rainsford stood blinking in the river of glaring gold light that poured out. The first thing Rainsford's eyes discerned was the largest man Rainsford had ever seen--a gigantic creature, solidly made and black bearded to the waist. In his hand the man held a long-barreled revolver, and he was pointing it straight at Rainsford's heart.

Out of the snarl of beard two small eyes regarded Rainsford.

"Don't be alarmed," said Rainsford, with a smile which he hoped was disarming. "I'm no robber. I fell off a yacht. My name is Sanger Rainsford of New York City."

The menacing look in the eyes did not change. The revolver pointing as rigidly as if the giant were a statue. He gave no sign that he understood Rainsford's words, or that he had even heard them. He was dressed in uniform--a black uniform trimmed with gray astrakhan.

"I'm Sanger Rainsford of New York," Rainsford began again. "I fell off a yacht. I am hungry."

The man's only answer was to raise with his thumb the hammer of his revolver. Then Rainsford saw the man's free hand go to his forehead in a military salute, and he saw him click his heels together and stand at attention. Another man was coming down the broad marble steps, an erect, slender man in evening clothes. He advanced to Rainsford and held out his hand.

In a cultivated voice marked by a slight accent that gave it added precision and deliberateness, he said, "It is a very great pleasure and honor to welcome Mr. Sanger Rainsford, the celebrated hunter, to my home."

Automatically Rainsford shook the man's hand.

"I've read your book about hunting snow leopards in Tibet, you see," explained the man. "I am General Zaroff."

Rainsford's first impression was that the man was singularly handsome; his second was that there was an original, almost bizarre quality about the general's face. He was a tall man past middle age, for his hair was a vivid white; but his thick eyebrows and pointed military mustache were as black as the night from which Rainsford had come. His eyes, too, were black and very bright. He had high cheekbones, a sharpcut nose, a spare, dark face--the face of a man used to giving orders, the face of an aristocrat. Turning to the giant in uniform, the general made a sign. The giant put away his pistol, saluted, withdrew.

"Ivan is an incredibly strong fellow," remarked the general, "but he has the misfortune to be deaf and dumb. A simple fellow, but, I'm afraid, like all his race, a bit of a savage."

"Is he Russian?"

"He is a Cossack," said the general, and his smile showed red lips and pointed teeth. "So am I."

"Come," he said, "we shouldn't be chatting here. We can talk later. Now you want clothes, food, rest. You shall have them. This is a most-restful spot."

Ivan had reappeared, and the general spoke to him with lips that moved but gave forth no sound.

"Follow Ivan, if you please, Mr. Rainsford," said the general. "I was about to have my dinner when you came. I'll wait for you. You'll find that my clothes will fit you, I think."

It was to a huge, beam-ceilinged bedroom with a canopied bed big enough for six men that Rainsford followed the silent giant. Ivan laid out an evening suit, and Rainsford, as he put it on, noticed that it came from a London tailor who ordinarily cut and sewed for none below the rank of duke.

The dining room to which Ivan conducted him was in many ways remarkable. There was a medieval magnificence about it; it suggested a baronial hall of feudal times with its oaken panels, its high ceiling, its vast refectory tables where twoscore men could sit down to eat. About the hall were mounted heads of many animals--lions, tigers, elephants, moose, bears; larger or more perfect specimens Rainsford had never seen. At the great table the general was sitting, alone.

"You'll have a cocktail, Mr. Rainsford," he suggested. The cocktail was surpassingly good; and, Rainsford noted, the table apointments were of the finest--the linen, the crystal, the silver, the china.

They were eating borsch, the rich, red soup with whipped cream so dear to Russian palates. Half apologetically General Zaroff said, "We do our best to preserve the amenities of civilization here. Please forgive any lapses. We are well off the beaten track, you know. Do you think the champagne has suffered from its long ocean trip?"

"Not in the least," declared Rainsford. He was finding the general a most thoughtful and affable host, a true cosmopolite. But there was one small trait of the general's that made Rainsford uncomfortable. Whenever he looked up from his plate he found the general studying him, appraising him narrowly.