Journaling: Spring
Semester
Each week during the spring semester, you will
be taking a position (either agreeing or disagreeing)
with a statement from a pre-20th century writer. In
your response, you should demonstrate use of your
rhetorical analysis skills, as well as skills being learned
in the rhetoric of argument. As you identify the
author’s/your use of a rhetorical device, underline it in
your writing and identify the device being used. You
are also expected to demonstrate use of higher-level
vocabulary in your writing by using the assigned
vocabulary words for the week (see AP vocabulary
handout). You must use the five (5) vocabulary words
for the week and a minimum of two (2) devices of
argumentation to receive full credit for the journal.
As per last semester’s journals, your weekly
reflection should be a minimum of 300 words.
Sample Journal:
The swiftest traveler is he that goes by foot
Henry David Thoreau

Although some might believe Thoreau is being
ambivalent about how to traverse life’s ups and downs
with his quote, I maintain (concession/counterargument)
that he is stating that the slower and more carefully one
goes about the journey of life, the less angry, anxious,
or acerbic one will be. Why? (rhetorical question) For
myself, the great depth and meaning that can be found
when one looks at the details along the path of my life
thus far gives meaning to all of the hardships I have had
to endure over the years. For example (anecdote)…
Journal Week One
The swiftest traveler is he that
goes by foot”
Henry David Thoreau
Journal Week Two
Whoso would be a man must be a
nonconformist.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Journal Week Three
There are some defeats more triumphant
than victories.
Michel de Montaigne
Journal Week Four
Happiness is as a butterfly which, when
pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but
which if you will sit down quietly, may
alight upon you.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Journal Week Five
Having the fewest wants, I am nearest to
the gods.
Socrates
Journal Week Six
Wealth is the parent of luxury and
indolence, and poverty of meanness and
viciousness, and both of discontent.
Plato
Journal Week Seven
Gratitude is not only the greatest of
virtues, but the parent of all others.
Cicero
Journal Week Eight
Study without desire spoils the memory,
and it retains nothing that it takes in.
Leonardo da Vinci
Journal Week Nine
You cannot teach a man anything; you
can only help him find it within himself.
Galileo Galilei
Journal Week Ten
I have always thought the actions of men
the best interpreters of their thoughts.
John Locke
Journal Week Eleven
They wonder much to hear that gold, which in
itself is so useless a thing, should be everywhere
so much esteemed, that even men for whom it
was made, and by whom it has its value, should
yet be thought of less value than it is.
Thomas More
Journal Week Twelve
Everything that I understand, I
understand only because I love.
Leo Tolstoy
Journal Week Thirteen
If we had no winter, the spring would not
be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes
taste of adversity, prosperity would not be
so welcome.
Anne Bradstreet
Journal Week Fourteen
I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning
how to sail my ship.
Louisa May Alcott
Journal Week Fifteen
It's a man's world, and you men can have it.
Katherine Anne Porter
Journal Week Sixteen
Good communication is as stimulating as
black coffee and just as hard to sleep
after.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Journal Week Seventeen
Truth is the only safe ground to stand on.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Journal Week Eighteen
I do not want the peace which passeth
understanding, I want the understanding
which bringeth peace.
Helen Keller