Second Six Weeks Unit of Study - Our Struggling Planet: Environmental Rhetoric in the United States AP ENGLISH III. Overview.

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1 AP ENGLISH III Overview Second Six Weeks Unit of Study - Our Struggling Planet: Environmental Rhetoric in the United States The discussion over environmental issues will only grow in importance over the course of our lifetime, as we navigate the global crises of climate change, extinction of species, genetic modification of life, and water and energy shortages. Often limited to the realm of science and technology, these issues must also begin to be recognized as social justice and moral issues. The sustenance of life on earth relies not just on chemistry and biology but on cultural values and belief systems that define who we are and what we care about. Rhetoric is fundamental to constructing our values and relationships with the natural world and defining and framing issues, culprits, and solutions as well as inspiring change. Students will study environmental issues via the rhetoric of media and film, journalism, public relations, and advertising. Students will then analyze texts for rhetorical structure, effectiveness, and any logical fallacies. We will explore the historical, uniquely American roots of environmental rhetoric through Transcendentalism and Romanticism. Students will review the various players and discourses struggling to define major environmental topics, such as: climate change and pollution, energy, water, food and agriculture, biodiversity and extinction, ocean life, wilderness habitat, environmental racism/justice, human population growth, war, and consumerism/ commerce. National Issue The Environment AP Focus Rhetorical Analysis Essays Multiple choice Beginning steps toward Synthesis Essays Writing Focus Rhetorical Analysis Timed Writing Contemporary Controversial Issues o Précis composition o Argument development American Literature Focus Focus will be on physical, social, and moral environments of as presented in text Enrichment Texts Excerpts from a variety of environmental writers, including but not limited to Carson, McKibben, Williams, and Wilson. Students will also analyze texts supporting their Contemporary Controversial Issues. Vocabulary Focus Sadlier-Oxford Vocabulary Workshop, Level G: Units 4 6 Grammar Focus Sentence combining for syntactical maturity

2 According to student need and teacher discretion, writing conferences will cover selected grammar, syntax, and mechanical competencies from Sentence Composing for College by Don Killgallon Viewing/Representing Focus Current Events Visual Rhetoric of the Environment: clips from various documentaries dealing with environmental issues, including but not limited to An Inconvenient Truth, Gasland, Tapped, and Fuel Speaking/Listening Focus Speech techniques, continued from first grading period s PBL In-class debates over Contemporary Controversial Issues Essential Facts From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: What we now know as transcendentalism first arose among the New England Congregationalists, who departed from Calvinism. They emphasized the unity of God (hence the term Unitarian, originally a term of abuse that they came to adopt). The Unitarians' leading preacher, William Ellery Channing ( ), in his sermon Unitarian Christianity (1819) denounced the conspiracy of ages against the liberty of Christians (P, 336) and helped give the Unitarian movement its name. In Likeness to God (1828) he proposed that human beings partake of Divinity and that they may achieve a growing likeness to the Supreme Being (T, 4). The Unitarians were modern. They attempted to reconcile Locke's empiricism with Christianity by maintaining that the accounts of miracles in the Bible provide overwhelming evidence for the truth of religion. It was precisely on this ground, however, that the transcendentalists found fault with Unitarianism. For although they admired Channing's idea that human beings can become more like God, they were persuaded by Hume that no empirical proof of religion could be satisfactory. In letters written in his freshman year at Harvard (1817), Emerson tried out Hume's skeptical arguments on his devout and respected Aunt Mary Moody Emerson, and in his journals of the early 1820's he discusses with approval Hume's Dialogues on Natural Religion and his underlying critique of necessary connection. An important source for the transcendentalists' knowledge of German philosophy was Frederic Henry Hedge ( ). Hedge's father Levi Hedge, a Harvard professor of logic, sent him to preparatory school in Germany at the age of thirteen, after which he attended the Harvard Divinity School. Ordained as a Unitarian minister, Hedge wrote a long review of the work of Samuel Taylor Coleridge for the Christian Examiner in Noting Coleridge's fondness for German metaphysics and his immense gifts of erudition and expression, he laments that Coleridge had not made Kant and the post-kantians more accessible to an English-speaking audience. This is the task to introduce the transcendental philosophy of Kant, (T, 87) that Hedge takes up. In particular, he explains Kant's idea of a Copernican Revolution in philosophy: [S]ince the supposition that our intuitions depend on the nature of the world without, will not answer, assume that the world without depends on the nature of our intuitions. This key to the whole critical philosophy, Hedge continues, explains the possibility of a priori knowledge (T, 92). Hedge organized what eventually became known as the Transcendental Club, by suggesting to Emerson in 1836 that they form a discussion group for disaffected young Unitarian clergy. The group included George Ripley and Bronson Alcott, had some 30 meetings in four years, and was a sponsor of The Dial and Brook Farm. Hedge was a vocal opponent of slavery in the 1830's and a champion of women's rights in the 1850's, but he remained a Unitarian minister, and became a professor at the Harvard Divinity School. James Marsh ( ), a graduate of Andover and the president of the University of Vermont, was equally important for the emerging philosophy of transcendentalism. Marsh was convinced that German philosophy held the key to a reformed theology. His American edition of Coleridge's Aids to Reflection (1829) introduced Coleridge's version much indebted to Schelling of Kantian terminology, terminology that runs throughout Emerson's early work. In Nature, for example, Emerson writes: The Imagination may be defined to be, the use which the Reason makes of the material world (O, 25). Piety towards nature was also a main theme of William Wordsworth, whose poetry was in vogue in America in the 1820s. Wordsworth's depiction of an active and powerful mind cohered with the shaping power of the mind that his collaborator in the Lyrical Ballads, Samuel Taylor Coleridge,

3 traced to Kant. The idea of such power pervades Emerson's Nature, where he writes of nature as obedient to spirit and counsels each of us to Build your own world. Wordsworth has his more receptive mode as well, in which he calls for a heart that watches and receives (in The Tables Turned ), and we find Emerson's receptive mode from Nature onward, as when he recounts an ecstatic experience in the woods: I become a transparent eyeball. I am nothing; I see all; The currents of the universal being circulate through me. (O, 6). Emerson's sense that men and women are, as he put it in Nature, gods in ruins, led to one of transcendentalism's defining events, his delivery of an address at the Harvard Divinity School graduation in Emerson portrayed the contemporary church that the graduates were about to lead as an eastern monarchy of a Christianity that had become an injuror of man (O, 58). Surveying the scene in his 1842 lecture, The Transcendentalist, Emerson begins with a philosophical account, according to which what are generally called new views are not really new, but rather part of a broad tradition of idealism. It is not a skeptical idealism, however, but an antiskeptical idealism deriving from Kant: It is well known to most of my audience, that the Idealism of the present day acquired the name of Transcendental, from the use of that term by Immanuel Kant, of Konigsberg [sic], who replied to the skeptical philosophy of Locke, which insisted that there was nothing in the intellect which was not previously in the experience of the senses, by showing that there was a very important class of ideas, or imperative forms, which did not come by experience, but through which experience was acquired; that these were intuitions of the mind itself; and he denominated them Transcendental forms (O, 101 2). Emerson shows here a basic understanding of three Kantian claims, which can be traced throughout his philosophy: that the hum an mind forms experience; that the existence of such mental operations is a counter to skepticism; and that transcendental does not mean transcendent or beyond human experience altogether, but something through which experience is made possible. Emerson's idealism is not purely Kantian, however, for (like Coleridge's) it contains a strong admixture of Neoplatonism and post-kantian idealism. Emerson thinks of Reason, for example, as a faculty of vision, as opposed to the mundane understanding, which toils all the time, compares, contrives, adds, argues. (Letters, vol. 1, 413). For many of the transcendentalists the term transcendentalism represented nothing so technical as an inquiry into the presuppositions of human experience, but a new confidence in and appreciation of the mind's powers, and a modern, non-doctrinal spirituality. The transcendentalist, Emerson states, believes in miracles, conceived as the perpetual openness of the human mind to new influx of light and power (O, 100). Emerson keeps his distance from the transcendentalists in his essay by speaking always of what they say or do, despite the fact that he was regarded then and is regarded now as the leading transcendentalist. He notes with some disdain that the transcendentalists are 'not good members of society, that they do not work for the abolition of the slave-trade (though both these charges have been leveled at him). He closes the essay nevertheless with a defense of the transcendentalist critique of a society pervaded by a spirit of cowardly compromise and seeming, which intimates a frightful skepticism, a life without love, and an activity without an aim (O, 106). This critique is Emerson's own in such writings as Self-Reliance, and The American Scholar ; and it finds a powerful and original restatement in the Economy chapter of Thoreau's Walden. Language of Instruction Rhetorical Analysis Theory Knowledge of Early American Letters Knowledge of Global Issues Mastery of main idea Analysis of great American fiction and Transcendental Letters Guiding/Essential Questions 1. How does rhetoric construct and maintain our worldviews on humanity, other animals, nature, and the environment?

4 2. Do common worldviews cause material problems for all species? Do they discursively define and prioritize what gets recognized as a problem? 3. How can rhetoric serve as the solution to create a more just and sustainable world? 4. How do our physical, social and moral environments shape who we are as a society and as individuals within that society? Support Materials/ Resources ACTS of Teaching: How to Teach Writing APSI Materials The AP Vertical Teams Guide for English Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation: Rhetorical Tools for Literate Uses of Language, Soter The Language of Composition: Reading, Writing, Rhetoric Sentence Combining for College Errand Into the Wilderness Applied Practice Study of Walden AP Connections Students must understand that, in English III AP, they will study rhetoric, a complex and vast enterprise, one wrought with intrigue, guile, wit, brilliance, and ultimately knowledge. Rhetoric does not deal in absolutes but rather divisive issues on which humanity has perennially disagreed. The ancient philosopher Aristotle outlines this theory in his Rhetoric, in which he defines rhetoric as the art of making, crafting, and actualizing an argument over such issues of human interest. Students will engage in a variety of writing modes, analytical readings, argumentative research assignments, and complex grammar competencies. A major goal for this course is the year-end English Language and Composition Exam administered by The College Board: this exam will assess all outlined skills through: 60 minutes of multiple-choice questions on a variety of university-level readings and three separate 40-minute timed essays. Students will receive a final score that mirrors a corresponding final grade in a similarly structured college composition course, of which may result in receiving college credit. TEKS Listening and Speaking Reading Writing and Research (24) Listening and Speaking/Listening. Students will use comprehension skills to listen attentively to others in formal and informal settings. Students will continue to apply earlier standards with greater complexity. Students are (1) Reading/Vocabulary Development. Students understand new vocabulary and use it when reading and writing. Students are (B) analyze textual context (within a sentence and in larger sections of text) to draw conclusions about the nuance in word meanings; (C) infer word meaning through the identification and analysis of analogies and other word relationships; (13) Writing/Writing Process. Students use elements of the writing process (planning, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing) to compose text. Students are (A) plan a first draft by selecting the correct genre for conveying the intended meaning to multiple audiences, determining appropriate topics through a range of strategies (e.g., discussion, background reading, personal interests, interviews), and developing a thesis or controlling idea;

5 (A) listen responsively to a speaker by framing inquiries that reflect an understanding of the content and by identifying the positions taken and the evidence in support of those positions; and (B) evaluate the clarity and coherence of a speaker's message and critique the impact of a speaker's diction and syntax on an audience. (25) Listening and Speaking/Speaking. Students speak clearly and to the point, using the conventions of language. Students will continue to apply earlier standards with greater complexity. Students are expected to give a formal presentation that exhibits a logical structure, smooth transitions, accurate evidence, well-chosen details, and rhetorical devices, and that employs eye contact, speaking rate (e.g., pauses for effect), volume, enunciation, purposeful gestures, and conventions of language to communicate ideas effectively. (26) Listening and Speaking/Teamwork. Students work productively with others in teams. Students will continue to apply earlier standards with greater complexity. Students are expected to participate productively in teams, offering ideas or judgments that are purposeful in moving the team towards goals, asking relevant and insightful questions, tolerating a range of positions and ambiguity in decisionmaking, and evaluating the work of the group based on agreedupon criteria. (2) Reading/Comprehension of Literary Text/Theme and Genre. Students analyze, make inferences and draw conclusions about theme and genre in different cultural, historical, and contemporary contexts and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding. Students are (A) analyze the way in which the theme or meaning of a selection represents a view or comment on the human condition; (B) relate the characters and text structures of mythic, traditional, and classical literature to 20 th and 21 st century American novels, plays, or films; and (C) relate the main ideas found in a literary work to primary source documents from its historical and cultural setting (6) Reading/Comprehension of Literary Text/Literary Nonfiction. Students understand, make inferences and draw conclusions about the varied structural patterns and features of literary nonfiction and provide evidence from text to support their understanding. Students are expected to analyze how rhetorical techniques (e.g., repetition, parallel structure, understatement, overstatement) in literary essays, true life adventures, and historically important speeches influence the reader, evoke emotions, and create meaning. (7) Reading/Comprehension of Literary Text/Sensory Language. Students understand, make inferences and draw conclusions about how an author's sensory language creates imagery in literary text and provide evidence from text to support their understanding. Students are expected to analyze the meaning of classical, mythological, and biblical allusions in words, phrases, passages, and literary works. (8) Reading/Comprehension of Informational Text/Culture and History. Students analyze, make inferences and draw conclusions about the author's purpose in cultural, historical, and contemporary contexts and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding. Students are expected to analyze how the style, tone, and diction of a text advance the author's purpose and perspective or stance. (9) Reading/Comprehension of Informational Text/Expository Text. Students analyze, make inferences and draw conclusions about expository (B) structure ideas in a sustained and persuasive way (e.g., using outlines, note taking, graphic organizers, lists) and develop drafts in timed and open-ended situations that include transitions and rhetorical devices to convey meaning; (C) revise drafts to clarify meaning and achieve specific rhetorical purposes, consistency of tone, and logical organization by rearranging the words, sentences, and paragraphs to employ tropes (e.g., metaphors, similes, analogies, hyperbole, understatement, rhetorical questions, irony), schemes (e.g., parallelism, antithesis, inverted word order, repetition, reversed structures), and by adding transitional words and phrases; (D) edit drafts for grammar, mechanics, and spelling; and (15) Writing/Expository and Procedural Texts. Students write expository and procedural or workrelated texts to communicate ideas and information to specific audiences for specific purposes. Students are (16) Writing/Persuasive Texts. Students write persuasive texts to influence the attitudes or actions of a specific audience on specific issues. Students are expected to write an argumentative essay (e.g., evaluative essays, proposals) to the appropriate audience that includes: (A) a clear thesis or position based on logical reasons supported by precise and relevant evidence, including facts, expert opinions, quotations, and/or expressions of commonly accepted beliefs; (B) accurate and honest representation of divergent views (i.e., in the author's own words and not out of context); (C) an organizing structure appropriate to the purpose, audience, and context; (D) information on the complete range of relevant perspectives; (E) demonstrated consideration of the validity and reliability of all primary and secondary sources used; and (F) language attentively crafted to move a disinterested or opposed audience, using specific rhetorical devices to back up assertions (e.g., appeals to logic, emotions, ethical beliefs). (17) Oral and Written Conventions/Conventions. Students understand the function of and use the conventions of academic language when speaking and writing. Students will continue to apply earlier

6 text and provide evidence from text to support their understanding. Students are (A) summarize a text in a manner that captures the author's viewpoint, its main ideas, and its elements without taking a position or expressing an opinion; (B) distinguish between inductive and deductive reasoning and analyze the elements of deductively and inductively reasoned texts and the different ways conclusions are supported; (C) make and defend subtle inferences and complex conclusions about the ideas in text and their organizational patterns; and (D) synthesize ideas and make logical connections (e.g., thematic links, author analyses) between and among multiple texts representing similar or different genres and technical sources and support those findings with textual evidence. (10) Reading/Comprehension of Informational Text/Persuasive Text. Students analyze, make inferences and draw conclusions about persuasive text and provide evidence from text to support their analysis. Students are (A) evaluate how the author's purpose and stated or perceived audience affect the tone of persuasive texts; and (B) analyze historical and contemporary political debates for such logical fallacies as nonsequiturs, circular logic, and hasty generalizations. (12) Reading/Media Literacy. Students use comprehension skills to analyze how words, images, graphics, and sounds work together in various forms to impact meaning. Students will continue to apply earlier standards with greater depth in increasingly more complex texts. Students are (A) evaluate how messages presented in media reflect social and cultural views in ways different from traditional texts; (B) evaluate the interactions of different techniques (e.g., layout, pictures, typeface in print media, images, text, sound in electronic journalism) used in multi-layered media; (C) evaluate the objectivity of coverage of the same event in various types of media; and (D) evaluate changes in formality and tone across various media for different audiences and purposes. standards with greater complexity. Students are (A) use and understand the function of different types of clauses and phrases (e.g., adjectival, noun, adverbial clauses and phrases); and (B) use a variety of correctly structured sentences (e.g., compound, complex, compoundcomplex). (18) Oral and Written Conventions/Handwriting, Capitalization, and Punctuation. Students write legibly and use appropriate capitalization and punctuation conventions in their compositions. Students are expected to correctly and consistently use conventions of punctuation and capitalization. (19) Oral and Written Conventions/Spelling. Students spell correctly. Students are expected to spell correctly, including using various resources to determine and check correct spellings. (20) Research/Research Plan. Students ask openended research questions and develop a plan for answering them. Students are (A) brainstorm, consult with others, decide upon a topic, and formulate a major research question to address the major research topic; and (B) formulate a plan for engaging in in-depth research on a complex, multi-faceted topic. (21) Research/Gathering Sources. Students determine, locate, and explore the full range of relevant sources addressing a research question and systematically record the information they gather. Students are (A) follow the research plan to gather evidence from experts on the topic and texts written for informed audiences in the field, distinguishing between reliable and unreliable sources and avoiding over-reliance on one source; (B) systematically organize relevant and accurate information to support central ideas, concepts, and themes, outline ideas into conceptual maps/timelines, and separate factual data from complex inferences; and (C) paraphrase, summarize, quote, and accurately cite all researched information according to a standard format (e.g., author, title, page number), differentiating among primary, secondary, and other sources. (22) Research/Synthesizing Information. Students clarify research questions and evaluate and synthesize collected information. Students are

7 (A) modify the major research question as necessary to refocus the research plan; (B) differentiate between theories and the evidence that supports them and determine whether the evidence found is weak or strong and how that evidence helps create a cogent argument; and (C) critique the research process at each step to implement changes as the need occurs and is identified. (23) Research/Organizing and Presenting Ideas. Students organize and present their ideas and information according to the purpose of the research and their audience. Students are expected to synthesize the research into an extended written or oral presentation that: (A) provides an analysis that supports and develops personal opinions, as opposed to simply restating existing information; (B) uses a variety of formats and rhetorical strategies to argue for the thesis; (C) develops an argument that incorporates the complexities of and discrepancies in information from multiple sources and perspectives while anticipating and refuting counter-arguments; (D) uses a style manual (e.g., Modern Language Association, Chicago Manual of Style) to document sources and format written materials; and (E) is of sufficient length and complexity to address the topic.