AP English Literature & Composition

All SW work is now due Tuesday–no exceptions. Show and Tell day for projects is also Tuesday. For Show and Tell, be prepared to do the following:

• Show us what you did and describe it
• Tell us why you chose the project you did. What were you hoping to accomplish with this project?
• Give us some highlights. We don’t need you to read us each page or show us each slide, but show a few things in depth.
• Let us know what problems you faced, if any.
• Finally, tell us about what you learned by doing this project (besides knowing the philosophers and philosophic periods better).

If there are two people in your group, share the presentation.

I may have confused some of you when I posted earlier my frustration that this forum didn’t work. What I meant what that it didn’t work as I had hoped. I didn’t mean that “oh well, not many people posted comments, so I won’t grade that part.” If you’ve got a comment or two left in you, please do post. I can leave the grade on that part open until….. Let’s talk in class tomorrow. I can be flexible, but I want scholarship above all.

Lilly asked some good questions. Here they are with my answers.

Question:
I know that when we write about a novel, we talk about the characters in present tense. But when we refer to things in history and things that the philosophers said, should we talk about them as we would a character in the book, or like we would talk about them as a historical figures. That kind of confusing to ask but for example, would I write,

Hegel points out that human knowledge corresponds to the historical context that it is in.
or
Hegel pointed out that human knowledge and thinking correspond to the historical context that it is in.

Answer:
Use your first example. If we’re referring to a literary text, we use present tense because the ideas in the text are “happening” now. Actual historic events happened in the past.

Question:
Is it okay for us to use on line sources to help us with our projects (obviously we would site them), or would you like us to use just the information in the book?

Answer:
Yes, use online sources for help. I have links to some on the regular AP site. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy is great and I use that. And yes, you do have to cite your sources.

Question:
When we’re answering is it okay to use “I” or “me” when referring to opinions?
So like saying…
The first of Hegel’s ideas I agree with is his claim of historical reality.
I know we were taught to never use “I”s but I’m not sure how to agree/disagree with philosophers without them.

Answer:
Good point. You have to use “I” in this case. You will get good at using both first and third person in your writing this year. That is something we will talk about and work on.

Heather said
“I have a question about the “questions” we are suppose to answer. Questions 1 and 2 say to choose a philosophy I agree and disagree with but I do not fully understand what you mean by philosophy. If you could give me an example of a philosophy that would be great.

My response:
A philosophy would be, for example, Hegel’s concept of a World Spirit. Do you agree or or disagree? Think of a philosophy as a concept or an idea. Another is Decartes’ method of proving the existence of God, with the phrase Cogito Ergo Sum. Don’t choose something that would have been someone struggling with science. For example, we now now that atoms do exist, and we have science that tells us about their qualities. In other words, it’s useless to disagree with something that

Jamie asked me to create this list, so here it is. I hope it helps.

So the online discussion didn’t work that well, but we will try again during the year. Right now, you should be focused more on your project and your written assignment. Please feel free to use this space to communicate with your partner about your project. It’s here for you to use.

This is not to imply that you should just abandon the forums altogether. If you have time or have not made any posts, you might want to attend to that. But, if you have to choose between this or that, more points lie in the other two components.

I am very excited for our year ahead. I know we’ll have many excellent face to face talks about the big questions and ideas. You seem to be a group of students who really cares about the world, about others, about ideas.

Email me or send me a message here if you have ANY questions. I am here for you!!

Please remember to post new comments and/or questions for SW in the Sophie’s World forum. If you forget, it’s not that big of a deal. One easy way to manage the discussion is to click on the Activity tab on the main page, which will show you who posted what lately. The most important thing you can do is check in daily and join in the chatter.

It is time to start thinking about your project. Remember, you can work with a partner. The purpose of the project is to show what you’ve learned as well as creatively summarizing the main philosophers and time periods.

Elizabeth sent me the following this morning:

I have a question about about the content of our discussion topics we are supposed to post. Should the topics be something where we can solely support our statement with a page number from the book? Or should they be more opinion based? Or a combination of both? I’m just wondering what types of discussions you are hoping we will have.

Great question! I apologize for not being more specific about this. I’m going to list a couple of options below.

• You want to make a comment about the plot, characters, setting, point of view, etc. in the novel. As the initial poster, you’d need to be specific and give a page number. As a responder, you would definitely need to support any comments you make with text references. [This is a skill you still need to improve this year.]
• Something Alberto tells Sophie (or vice versa)  has really made you think. As the initial poster, you’ll want to be specific about what he or she said, what page (or chapter, as we don’t all have the same text). You can quote the book (full or partial) or paraphrase, but give us a good idea of what it was that first made you think. Then of course, write what it was you did think. Then ask your question. As a responder to this post, you can do a couple of things. You can support your ideas with something else Alberto or Sophie says (so, cite the book) or you can support your ideas with what you know from your general observations of life and your experiences.

I hope that helps and I look forward to reading (maybe sometimes chiming in on) your discussions.