Scientist Politicians

The author of the article here (Why Don't We Elect More Scientists?") says, "To avoid receiving the candidates’ canned responses on these and other issues, I sometimes wish that a debate moderator would forgo a standard question about immigration or jobs and instead ask the candidates to solve a simple puzzle, make an elementary estimate, perform a basic calculation."

Read the article and then respond in the comment section, please. You may be askd to join the NYT subscription list...it's free...just do it.

Write down your intellectual response to Paulos' proposition that we would be better off if more scientists were in government.

In your writing, make good points...show off your writing style...present yourself as bright and interesting!

Given what you know about the book, where do your sympathies lie: with Fingal, who says the essayist may not alter facts or with D'agata, who says "it's art, d***head."

Post in less than 4000 characters.

Faith and Reason

Reason should be illuminated by faith and faith must be undergirded by reason.

Identify two tropes and one sentence level figure. Then should how that use of language makes the idea more convincing.

AP juniors, please post here...

jrb

La Mort de La Dissertation

An article at the Times summarizes arguments for and against the assignment of formal, sustained arguments with sources, namely the term paper.  Since no one writes term papers anymore (most college students report that they never write a paper over fifteen pages) I guess the argument is, in terms of practice, settled. But the emergence of the "synthesis" essay on the AP exam is just one of the signs that some people are at least troubled by, if not in actual mourning for, the old fashioned assignment.

I'm not as bothered by the inability of students to use sources as I am their disinclination to reason carefully in writing. In that sense, I think the term paper asks for two linked but distinct skills.

Please read the Times article (you may need to log in) and then write a short comment in which you take a side. Give at least one good reason for your stance.

Poetics of Consciousness

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/james-schuyler

We made the point that Elizabeth's Bishops poems seek to map the mind as it works (indeed the map is one of her favorite tropes). James Schuyler takes this imulse to a more intense level in his discursive poems that seem to work as the mind works, shifting from one idea to the next.

But Schuyler's pomes are craftier than they look and the best ones are anything but loosely structured. The best way to find the underlying structure is to look for motifs and think about how they mean in the larger context of the poem.

Reading Dining Out Doung and Frank (page 692) and write about 500 words in which you find one motif that interests you. Tie it into your reading of the poem's theme. Cut and paste your response inot the comment column below. Limit to 4000 characters.

Michael Chabon's first book of essays covers a topic most critical to BC and the college prep program there: what does it mean to be a man?

Chabon's insightful, often playful, always beautifully written essays frame a series of autobiographical stories within the idea of contemporary manhood. In Honors 10th grade, we listened to Chabon read and we have written drafts of our own responses to the fascinating question.

Short AP Essays

AP Language students:

Now that we have done one in class paragraph, completed one at-home draft, and peer edited in class, it's time to post drafts here.

Post at this entry!.