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MS. ROSEY’S
AP ENGLISH
LANGUAGE AND
COMPOSITION
HIGHLIGHTED
SUMMER READING
PACKET
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MS. ROSEY’S
AP ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION
HIGHLIGHTED SUMMER READING PACKET
Table of Contents:
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Passage #1: Analyzing Diction in “The Declaration of Independence” by
Thomas Jefferson
Passage #2: Analyzing Imagery in “Once More to the Lake” by
E.B. White
Passage #3: Analyzing Detail in “Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts” by
Bruce Catton
Passage #4: Analyzing Syntax in “Ain’t I a Woman” by Sojourner Truth
Passage #5: Analyzing Tone in Chief Joseph’s “I Am Tired of Fighting”
Passage #6: Analyzing Logos, Pathos, and Ethos in “Letter from
Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Passage #7: Analyzing Visual Text Using Margaret Bourke White’s
Photograph Entitled “The Louisville Flood”
Passage #8: Analyzing Visual Text Using Vintage Advertisements
Questions on Summer Reading Books
What to Do:
1. Read all of passages found in this packet and highlight each one according
to the instructions. You will turn in your highlighting to me at the beginning
of the period the first day your class meets. (Please keep in mind that it is not
necessary to fill out the answers in this packet, as you will only get credit for
what is turned in to www.turnitin.com. They are merely listed here since
some students are still more comfortable writing answers on paper, then
typing them, if they do not have access to a computer.) This will be worth 20
points.
2. In addition, respond to questions using my template available for
download at: http://highmail.highlands.k12.fl.us/~rosenbac/. You will turn
in the answers to these questions under the assignment titled
“RESPONSES TO Ms. Rosey’s Summer Reading Packet” on
www.turnitin.com by August 21, 2014 at 11:59 pm. This will be worth
65 points.
3. You also need to read two books and be prepared to have a quiz on these
books plus the readings in this packet on your first day of class. The books
you need to read are:
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
Thank You for Arguing by Jay Heinrichs
4. Be sure to complete your work independently.
5. Be sure to give yourself plenty of time to complete this assignment.
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Instructions for Submitting Papers to www.turnitin.com:
Once you go to www.turnitin.com, you can sign up for Advanced Placement
English Language and Composition by entering:
Class ID: 7809275
Password: awesome
Remember you can submit papers via Google Docs, Open Office, or any version
of Word.
If you have any questions about the assignment, please contact me at:
rosenbac@highlands.k12.fl.us.
* Please be aware that ideally you
should turn in your responses by the
time your class starts since you will
have questions on your quiz on this
assignment.
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Passage #1: Analyzing Diction in “The Declaration of Independence” by Thomas
Jefferson
Directions: Diction is the author’s choice of words or phrases (usually that support the
author’s purpose). With this in mind, read “The Declaration of Independence” and
highlight ten significant words or phrases that reflect Jefferson’s purpose in writing it. I
have already highlighted two examples, which do not count toward your overall ten you
need to highlight.
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve
the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among
the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature
and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind
requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. —
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the
consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it
is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on
such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their
Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be
changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more
disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they
are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object
evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such
Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance
of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of
Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and
usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove
this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in
their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend
to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people
would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable
to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository
of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the
rights of the people.
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He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the
Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the
State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions
within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for
Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the
conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary
Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and
payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat
out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged
by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the
Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an
Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument
for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of
our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in
all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
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He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death,
desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the
most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country,
to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our
frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of
all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our
repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked
by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of
attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the
circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and
magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations,
which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the
voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our
Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled,
appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by
Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies
are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the
British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to
be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude
Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent
States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of
Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
Note: Answer ALL QUESTIONS using the template on Ms. Rosenbaum’s website,
which can be found at: http://highmail.highlands.k12.fl.us/~rosenbac/. They are
merely listed here since some students are still more comfortable writing answers on
paper then typing them, if they do not have access to a computer.
Here are the questions:
Questions on “The Declaration of Independence”:
1. Give five examples of words in “The Declaration of Independence” that are rarely
used today:
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
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2. Rewrite one sentence that contains a word that is rarely used today in the way you
would say it to your friends.
Original sentence:
My sentence:
3. Give five examples of words from “The Declaration of Independence” that carry
negative connotations. (A connotation is what is suggested by the word apart from what
is explicitly named. The word “beast” used to have a negative connotation, for example,
but some students call each other a “beast” now and it has a positive connotation.)
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
4. Pick out TWO of the ten words you highlighted. After that, describe the type of
diction you think that word embodies. The following are examples of words that can be
used to describe diction:
jargon
vulgar
scholarly
insipid
precise
esoteric
connotative
plain
literal
colloquial
artificial
detached
emotional
pedantic
euphemistic
pretentious
sensuous
exact
learned
symbolic
simple
figurative
bombastic
abstruse
grotesque
concrete
poetic
moralistic
slang
idiomatic
concrete
cultured
picturesque
homespun
provincial
trite
obscure
creative
exact
The following is an example:
The word “unalienable” displays exact diction since Jefferson is stating that these are
rights that cannot be taken away; the word unalienable is a reflection of that precise
God-given right.
Your answers:
A. The word “_____” displays _________ diction since Jefferson is stating that______
_______________________________________________________________________.
B. The word “_____” displays _________ diction since Jefferson is stating that______
_______________________________________________________________________.
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5. One of the major issues some young writers have is coming up with an interesting
opening line for writing an essay. Therefore, use the following formula as a template if
you have trouble coming up with an interesting opening line in a rhetorical analysis essay
(or any other type of essay):
In (author’s) __(adjective)___ and ___(adjective)_____ (type of writing, for ex.—essay,
speech, editorial) (he/she) describes _________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________.
With this in mind, complete the following “interesting opening line” as practice for a
rhetorical analysis essay on “The Declaration of Independence.”
Your answer:
In Thomas Jefferson’s __________ and ___________ “The Declaration of
Independence,” he describes________________________________________________.
Passage #2: Analyzing Imagery in “Once More to the Lake” by E.B.White
Directions: Imagery is the verbal representation of sensory experience. In literature all
five senses may be represented: sight (visual imagery), sound (auditory imagery), touch
(tactile imagery), taste (gustatory imagery), and smell (olfactory imagery). With this in
mind, read “Once More to the Lake” and highlight five significant sentences that contain
imagery. I have already highlighted two examples, which do not count toward your
overall five you need to highlight.
One summer, along about 1904, my father rented a camp on a lake in Maine and took us all there for the
month of August. We all got ringworm from some kittens and had to rub Pond's Extract on our arms and
legs night and morning, and my father rolled over in a canoe with all his clothes on; but outside of that the
vacation was a success and from then on none of us ever thought there was any place in the world like that
lake in Maine. We returned summer after summer--always on August 1st for one month. I have since
become a salt-water man, but sometimes in summer there are days when the restlessness of the tides and
the fearful cold of the sea water and the incessant wind which blows across the afternoon and into the
evening make me wish for the placidity of a lake in the woods. A few weeks ago this feeling got so strong I
bought myself a couple of bass hooks and a spinner and returned to the lake where we used to go, for a
week's fishing and to revisit old haunts.
I took along my son, who had never had any fresh water up his nose and who had seen lily pads only from
train windows. On the journey over to the lake I began to wonder what it would be like. I wondered how
time would have marred this unique, this holy spot--the coves and streams, the hills that the sun set behind,
the camps and the paths behind the camps. I was sure that the tarred road would have found it out and I
wondered in what other ways it would be desolated. It is strange how much you can remember about places
like that once you allow your mind to return into the grooves which lead back. You remember one thing,
and that suddenly reminds you of another thing. I guess I remembered clearest of all the early mornings,
when the lake was cool and motionless, remembered how the bedroom smelled of the lumber it was made
of and of the wet woods whose scent entered through the screen. The partitions in the camp were thin and
did not extend clear to the top of the rooms, and as I was always the first up I would dress softly so as not
to wake the others, and sneak out into the sweet outdoors and start out in the canoe, keeping close along the
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shore in the long shadows of the pines. I remembered being very careful never to rub my paddle against the
gunwale for fear of disturbing the stillness of the cathedral.
The lake had never been what you would call a wild lake. There were cottages sprinkled around the shores,
and it was in farming although the shores of the lake were quite heavily wooded. Some of the cottages were
owned by nearby farmers, and you would live at the shore and eat your meals at the farmhouse. That's what
our family did. But although it wasn't wild, it was a fairly large and undisturbed lake and there were places
in it which, to a child at least, seemed infinitely remote and primeval.
I was right about the tar: it led to within half a mile of the shore. But when I got back there, with my boy,
and we settled into a camp near a farmhouse and into the kind of summertime I had known, I could tell that
it was going to be pretty much the same as it had been before--I knew it, lying in bed the first morning,
smelling the bedroom, and hearing the boy sneak quietly out and go off along the shore in a boat. I began to
sustain the illusion that he was I, and therefore, by simple transposition, that I was my father. This
sensation persisted, kept cropping up all the time we were there. It was not an entirely new feeling, but in
this setting it grew much stronger. I seemed to be living a dual existence. I would be in the middle of some
simple act, I would be picking up a bait box or laying down a table fork, or I would be saying something,
and suddenly it would be not I but my father who was saying the words or making the gesture. It gave me a
creepy sensation.
We went fishing the first morning. I felt the same damp moss covering the worms in the bait can, and saw
the dragonfly alight on the tip of my rod as it hovered a few inches from the surface of the water. It was the
arrival of this fly that convinced me beyond any doubt that everything was as it always had been, that the
years were a mirage and there had been no years. The small waves were the same, chucking the rowboat
under the chin as we fished at anchor, and the boat was the same boat, the same color green and the ribs
broken in the same places, and under the floor-boards the same freshwater leavings and debris--the dead
helgramite, the wisps of moss, the rusty discarded fishhook, the dried blood from yesterday's catch. We
stared silently at the tips of our rods, at the dragonflies that came and wells. I lowered the tip of mine into
the water, tentatively, pensively dislodging the fly, which darted two feet away, poised, darted two feet
back, and came to rest again a little farther up the rod. There had been no years between the ducking of this
dragonfly and the other one--the one that was part of memory. I looked at the boy, who was silently
watching his fly, and it was my hands that held his rod, my eyes watching. I felt dizzy and didn't know
which rod I was at the end of.
We caught two bass, hauling them in briskly as though they were mackerel, pulling them over the side of
the boat in a businesslike manner without any landing net, and stunning them with a blow on the back of
the head. When we got back for a swim before lunch, the lake was exactly where we had left it, the same
number of inches from the dock, and there was only the merest suggestion of a breeze. This seemed an
utterly enchanted sea, this lake you could leave to its own devices for a few hours and come back to, and
find that it had not stirred, this constant and trustworthy body of water. In the shallows, the dark, watersoaked sticks and twigs, smooth and old, were undulating in clusters on the bottom against the clean ribbed
sand, and the track of the mussel was plain. A school of minnows swam by, each minnow with its small,
individual shadow, doubling the attendance, so clear and sharp in the sunlight. Some of the other campers
were in swimming, along the shore, one of them with a cake of soap, and the water felt thin and clear and
insubstantial. Over the years there had been this person with the cake of soap, this cultist, and here he was.
There had been no years.
Up to the farmhouse to dinner through the teeming, dusty field, the road under our sneakers was only a
two-track road. The middle track was missing, the one with the marks of the hooves and the splotches of
dried, flaky manure. There had always been three tracks to choose from in choosing which track to walk in;
now the choice was narrowed down to two. For a moment I missed terribly the middle alternative. But the
way led past the tennis court, and something about the way it lay there in the sun reassured me; the tape had
loosened along the backline, the alleys were green with plantains and other weeds, and the net (installed in
June and removed in September) sagged in the dry noon, and the whole place steamed with midday heat
and hunger and emptiness. There was a choice of pie for dessert, and one was blueberry and one was apple,
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and the waitresses were the same country girls, there having been no passage of time, only the illusion of it
as in a dropped curtain--the waitresses were still fifteen; their hair had been washed, that was the only
difference--they had been to the movies and seen the pretty girls with the clean hair.
Summertime, oh summertime, pattern of life indelible, the fade proof lake, the woods unshatterable, the
pasture with the sweet fern and the juniper forever and ever, summer without end; this was the background,
and the life along the shore was the design, the cottages with their innocent and tranquil design, their tiny
docks with the flagpole and the American flag floating against the white clouds in the blue sky, the little
paths over the roots of the trees leading from camp to camp and the paths leading back to the outhouses and
the can of lime for sprinkling, and at the souvenir counters at the store the miniature birch-bark canoes and
the post cards that showed things looking a little better than they looked. This was the American family at
play, escaping the city heat, wondering whether the newcomers at the camp at the head of the cove were
"common" or "nice," wondering whether it was true that the people who drove up for Sunday dinner at the
farmhouse were turned away because there wasn't enough chicken.
It seemed to me, as I kept remembering all this, that those times and those summers had been infinitely
precious and worth saving. There had been jollity and peace and goodness. The arriving (at the beginning
of August) had been so big a business in itself, at the railway station the farm wagon drawn up, the first
smell of the pine-laden air, the first glimpse of the smiling farmer, and the great importance of the trunks
and your father's enormous authority in such matters, and the feel of the wagon under you for the long tenmile haul, and at the top of the last long hill catching the first view of the lake after eleven months of not
seeing this cherished body of water. The shouts and cries of the other campers when they saw you, and the
trunks to be unpacked, to give up their rich burden. (Arriving was less exciting nowadays, when you
sneaked up in your car and parked it under a tree near the camp and took out the bags and in five minutes it
was all over, no fuss, no loud wonderful fuss about trunks.)
Peace and goodness and jollity. The only thing that was wrong now, really, was the sound of the place, an
unfamiliar nervous sound of the outboard motors. This was the note that jarred, the one thing that would
sometimes break the illusion and set the years moving. In those other summertimes, all motors were
inboard; and when they were at a little distance, the noise they made was a sedative, an ingredient of
summer sleep. They were one-cylinder and two-cylinder engines, and some were make-and-break and
some were jump-spark, but they all made a sleepy sound across the lake. The one-lungers throbbed and
fluttered, and the twin-cylinder ones purred and purred, and that was a quiet sound too. But now the
campers all had outboards. In the daytime, in the hot mornings, these motors made a petulant, irritable
sound; at night, in the still evening when the afterglow lit the water, they whined about one's ears like
mosquitoes. My boy loved our rented outboard, and his great desire was to achieve single-handed mastery
over it, and authority, and he soon learned the trick of choking it a little (but not too much), and the
adjustment of the needle valve. Watching him I would remember the things you could do with the old onecylinder engine with the heavy flywheel, how you could have it eating out of your hand if you got really
close to it spiritually. Motor boats in those days didn't have clutches, and you would make a landing by
shutting off the motor at the proper time and coasting in with a dead rudder. But there was a way of
reversing them, if you learned the trick, by cutting the switch and putting it on again exactly on the final
dying revolution of the flywheel, so that it would kick back against compression and begin reversing.
Approaching a dock in a strong following breeze, it was difficult to slow up sufficiently by the ordinary
coasting method, and if a boy felt he had complete mastery over his motor, he was tempted to keep it
running beyond its time and then reverse it a few feet from the dock. It took a cool nerve, because if you
threw the switch a twentieth of a second too soon you would catch the flywheel when it still had speed
enough to go up past center, and the boat would leap ahead, charging bull-fashion at the dock.
We had a good week at the camp. The bass were biting well and the sun shone endlessly, day after day. We
would be tired at night and lie down in the accumulated heat of the little bedrooms after the long hot day
and the breeze would stir almost imperceptibly outside and the smell of the swamp drift in through the
rusty screens. Sleep would come easily and in the morning the red squirrel would be on the roof, tapping
out his gay routine. I kept remembering everything, lying in bed in the mornings--the small steamboat that
had a long rounded stern like the lip of a Ubangi, and how quietly she ran on the moonlight sails, when the
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older boys played their mandolins and the girls sang and we ate doughnuts dipped in sugar, and how sweet
the music was on the water in the shining night, and what it had felt like to think about girls then. After
breakfast we would go up to the store and the things were in the same place--the minnows in a bottle, the
plugs and spinners disarranged and pawed over by the youngsters from the boys' camp, the fig newtons and
the Beeman's gum. Outside, the road was tarred and cars stood in front of the store. Inside, all was just as it
had always been, except there was more Coca Cola and not so much Moxie and root beer and birch beer
and sarsaparilla. We would walk out with a bottle of pop apiece and sometimes the pop would backfire up
our noses and hurt. We explored the streams, quietly, where the turtles slid off the sunny logs and dug their
way into the soft bottom; and we lay on the town wharf and fed worms to the tame bass. Everywhere we
went I had trouble making out which was I, the one walking at my side, the one walking in my pants.
One afternoon while we were there at that lake a thunderstorm came up. It was like the revival of an old
melodrama that I had seen long ago with childish awe. The second-act climax of the drama of the electrical
disturbance over a lake in America had not changed in any important respect. This was the big scene, still
the big scene. The whole thing was so familiar, the first feeling of oppression and heat and a general air
around camp of not wanting to go very far away. In mid-afternoon (it was all the same) a curious darkening
of the sky, and a lull in everything that had made life tick; and then the way the boats suddenly swung the
other way at their moorings with the coming of a breeze out of the new quarter, and the premonitory
rumble. Then the kettle drum, then the snare, then the bass drum and cymbals, then crackling light against
the dark, and the gods grinning and licking their chops in the hills. Afterward the calm, the rain steadily
rustling in the calm lake, the return of light and hope and spirits, and the campers running out in joy and
relief to go swimming in the rain, their bright cries perpetuating the deathless joke about how they were
getting simply drenched, and the children screaming with delight at the new sensation of bathing in the
rain, and the joke about getting drenched linking the generations in a strong indestructible chain. And the
comedian who waded in carrying an umbrella.
When the others went swimming my son said he was going in too. He pulled his dripping trunks from the
line where they had hung all through the shower, and wrung them out. Languidly, and with no thought of
going in, I watched him, his hard little body, skinny and bare, saw him wince slightly as he pulled up
around his vitals the small, soggy, icy garment. As he buckled the swollen belt suddenly my groin felt the
chill of death.
Questions on “Once More to the Lake”:
6. List three specific changes that have taken place on the lake. Does White emphasize
these changes or play them down? Explain.
7. What images does White repeat throughout his essay? What is the purpose of this
repetition?
8. How does White’s conclusion echo the first paragraph of the essay?
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9. Pick out TWO of the sentences you highlighted. After that, describe the type of
imagery you think that word embodies. (You can use the same words that were
suggested under Question #4 on diction.) Keep in mind analysis of imagery does not
include the phrasing “The reader can picture is his or her mind…”
The following is an example:
The sentence “I guess I remembered clearest of all the early mornings, when the lake was
cool and motionless, remembered how the bedroom smelled of the lumber it was made of
and of the wet woods whose scent entered through the screen” displays emotional
imagery as the author recollects on his childhood memories. The use of specific words-such as “rememberest clearest” and “the bedroom smelled of the lumber”—only
increase his nostalgia towards this memory.
Your answer should be formulated as such:
A. The sentence “_____________________________ ” displays__________
imagery as____________________________________________________.
B. The sentence “_____________________________ ” displays__________
imagery as____________________________________________________.
10. Create another interesting opening line to practice great ways to start an essay using
the following formula:
In E.B. White’s __________ and ___________ essay, he focuses on the description of
___________________________________________________________to explain ____
_______________________________________________________________________.
Passage #3: Analyzing Detail in “Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts” by Bruce
Catton
Directions: Detail is the author’s use of aspects such as facts, observations, and incidents
to develop a subject and impart voice. With this in mind, read “Grant and Lee: A Study
in Contrasts” and highlight five significant sentences that reflect Catton’s purpose in
writing it. I have already highlighted two examples, which do not count toward your
overall five you need to highlight.
When Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee met in the parlor of a modest house at Appomattox
Court House, Virginia, on April 9, 1865, to work out the terms for the surrender of Lee's Army of Northern
Virginia, a great chapter in American life came to a close, and a great new chapter began.
These men were bringing the Civil War to its virtual finish. To be sure, other armies had yet to
surrender, and for a few days the fugitive Confederate government would struggle desperately and vainly,
trying to find some way to go on living now that its chief support was gone. But in effect it was all over
when Grant and Lee signed the papers. And the little room where they wrote out the terms was the scene of
one of the poignant, dramatic contrasts in American history.
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They were two strong men, these oddly different generals, and they represented the strengths of
two conflicting currents that, through them, had come into final collision.
Back of Robert E. Lee was the notion that the old aristocratic concept might somehow survive
and be dominant in American life.
Lee was tidewater Virginia, and in his background were family, culture, and tradition. . . the age
of chivalry transplanted to a New World which was making its own legends and its own myths. He
embodied a way of life that had come down through the age of knighthood and the English country squire.
America was a land that was beginning all over again, dedicated to nothing much more complicated than
the rather hazy belief that all men had equal rights and should have an equal chance in the world. In such a
land Lee stood for the feeling that it was somehow of advantage to human society to have a pronounced
inequality in the social structure. There should be a leisure class, backed by ownership of land; in turn,
society itself should be keyed to the land as the chief source of wealth and influence. It would bring forth
(according to this ideal) a class of men with a strong sense of obligation to the community; men who lived
not to gain advantage for themselves, but to meet the solemn obligations which had been laid on them by
the very fact that they were privileged. From them the country would get its leadership; to them it could
look for the higher values--of thought, of conduct, of personal deportment--to give it strength and
virtue.
Lee embodied the noblest elements of this aristocratic ideal. Through him, the landed nobility
justified itself. For four years, the Southern states had fought a desperate war to uphold the ideals for which
Lee stood. In the end, it almost seemed as if the Confederacy fought for Lee; as if he himself was the
Confederacy . . . the best thing that the way of life for which the Confederacy stood could ever have to
offer. He had passed into legend before Appomattox. Thousands of tired, underfed, poorly clothed
Confederate soldiers, long since past the simple enthusiasm of the early days of the struggle, somehow
considered Lee the symbol of everything for which they had been willing to die. But they could not quite
put this feeling into words. If the Lost Cause, sanctified by so much heroism and so many deaths, had a
living justification, its justification was General Lee.
Grant, the son of a tanner on the Western frontier, was everything Lee was not. He had come up
the hard way and embodied nothing in particular except the eternal toughness and sinewy fiber of the men
who grew up beyond the mountains. He was one of a body of men who owed reverence and obeisance to
no one, who were self-reliant to a fault, who cared hardly anything for the past but who had a sharp eye for
the future.
These frontier men were the precise opposites of the tidewater aristocrats. Back of them, in the
great surge that had taken people over the Alleghenies and into the opening Western country, there was a
deep, implicit dissatisfaction with a past that had settled into grooves. They stood for democracy, not from
any reasoned conclusion about the proper ordering of human society, but simply because they had grown
up in the middle of democracy and knew how it worked. Their society might have privileges, but they
would be privileges each man had won for himself. Forms and patterns meant nothing. No man was born to
anything, except perhaps to a chance to show how far he could rise. Life was competition.
Yet along with this feeling had come a deep sense of belonging to a national community. The
Westerner who developed a farm, opened a shop, or set up in business as a trader could hope to prosper
only as his own community prospered--and his community ran from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from
Canada down to Mexico. If the land was settled, with towns and highways and accessible markets, he could
better himself. He saw his fate in terms of the nation's own destiny. As its horizons expanded, so did his.
He had, in other words, an acute dollars-and-cents stake in the continued growth and development of his
country.
And that, perhaps, is where the contrast between Grant and Lee becomes most striking. The
Virginia aristocrat, inevitably, saw himself in relation to his own region. He lived in a static society which
could endure almost anything except change. Instinctively, his first loyalty would go to the locality in
which that society existed. He would fight to the limit of endurance to defend it, because in defending it he
was defending everything that gave his own life its deepest meaning.
The Westerner, on the other hand, would fight with an equal tenacity for the broader concept of
society. He fought so because everything he lived by was tied to growth, expansion, and a constantly
widening horizon. What he lived by would survive or fall with the nation itself He could not possibly stand
by unmoved in the face of an attempt to destroy the Union. He would combat it with everything he had,
because he could only see it as an effort to cut the ground out from under his feet.
So Grant and Lee were in complete contrast, representing two diametrically opposed elements in
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American life. Grant was the modem man emerging; beyond him, ready to come on the stage, was the great
age of steel and machinery, of crowded cities and a restless burgeoning vitality. Lee might have ridden
down from the old age of chivalry, lance in hand, silken banner fluttering over his head. Each man was the
perfect champion of his cause, drawing both his strengths and his weaknesses from the people he led.
Yet it was not all contrast, after all. Different as they were--in background, in personality, in
underlying aspiration--these two great soldiers had much in common. Under everything else, they were
marvelous fighters. Furthermore, their fighting qualities were really very much alike.
Each man had, to begin with, the great virtue of utter tenacity and fidelity. Grant fought his way
down the Mississippi Valley in spite of acute personal discouragement and profound military handicaps.
Lee hung on in the trenches at Petersburg after hope itself had died. In each man there was an indomitable
quality. . . .the born fighter's refusal to give up as long as he can still remain on his feet and lift his two fists.
Daring and resourcefulness they had, too; the ability to think faster and move faster than the
enemy. These were the qualities which gave Lee the dazzling campaigns of Second Manassas and
Chancellorsville and won Vicksburg for Grant.
Lastly, and perhaps greatest of all, there was the ability, at the end, to turn quickly from war to
peace once the fighting was over. Out of the way these two men behaved at Appomattox carne the
possibility of a peace of reconciliation. It was a possibility not wholly realized, in the years to come, but
which did, in the end, help the two sections to become one nation again . . . after a war whose bitterness
might have seemed to make such a reunion wholly impossible. No part of either man's life became him
more than the part he played in this brief meeting in the McLean house at Appomattox. Their behavior
there put all succeeding generations of Americans in their debt. Two great Americans, Grant and Lee--very
different, yet under everything very much alike. Their encounter at Appomattox was one of the great
moments of American history.
Questions on “Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts”:
11. Catton’s purpose in contrasting Grant and Lee is to make a general statement about
the differences between two currents in American history. Summarize these differences.
Do you think these differences still exist today?
12. Is Catton’s purpose in comparing Grant and Lee the same as his purpose in
contrasting them? That is, do their similarities also make a statement about U.S. history?
Explain.
13. Catton uses transitions skillfully in his essay. Identify the transitional words or
expressions that link each paragraph to the preceding one. Explain their effectiveness.
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14. Pick out TWO of the sentences you highlighted. After that, describe the type of detail
you think that word embodies. (You can use the same words that were suggested under
Question #4 on diction.)
The following is an example:
The sentence “Lee embodied the noblest elements of this aristocratic ideal” displays an
idealistic detail about the character of Lee. The use of specific words such as “noblest”
and “aristocratic” to define Lee show just how esteemed his reputation is.
Your answer:
A. The sentence “_____________________________ ” displays__________ detail
as_____________________________________________________________________.
B. The sentence “_____________________________ ” displays__________ detail
as_________________________________________________________________.
15. Another aspect most young writers are challenged by is writing a thesis statement.
To aid us in this matter, the following is a template for how to formulate a thesis
statement when writing a comparison/contrast essay:
While author ___________ focuses on ____________, author __________ analyzes
____________.
Now practice writing a thesis statement using this formula that compares and contrasts
the two generals in this essay:
While Bruce Catton focuses on General __________’s traits by emphasizing _________,
Catton also emphasizes General _____________’s qualities by explaining ___________.
Passage #4: Analyzing Syntax in “Ain’t I a Woman” by Sojourner Truth
Background on Speech: The following speech was given by Sojourner Truth in 1851 at a
convention for women’s rights. Truth had been a slave in 1797, but became an antislavery speaker after gaining her freedom in 1827.
Directions: Syntax is the way the author uses word order, sentence length, sentence
focus, and punctuation (usually to support the author’s purpose). With this in mind, read
“Ain’t I a Woman?” and highlight three significant sentences that reflect Truth’s purpose.
I have already highlighted one example, which does not count toward your overall three
you need to highlight.
Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the
negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix
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pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have
the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best
place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into
barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and
seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me!
And ain't I a woman?
Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers,
"intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't
hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure
full?
Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a
woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman!
Man had nothing to do with Him.
If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women
together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the
men better let them.
Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.
Questions on “Ain’t I A Woman?”:
16. In your opinion, what is Sojourner Truth’s strongest point?
17. What is the purpose of her repeating the question “Ain’t I A Woman?”
18. Pick out TWO of the sentences you highlighted. After that, describe the type of
syntax you think that word embodies. (You can use the same words that were suggested
under Question #4 on diction.)
The following is an example:
The sentence “And ain’t I a woman” displays colloquial syntax. Sojourner Truth, an
emancipated slave, speaks from her heart to express her strengths as a woman.
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Your answer:
A. The sentence “_____________________________ ” displays__________ syntax
as_____________________________________________________________________.
B. The sentence “_____________________________ ” displays__________ syntax
as_________________________________________________________________.
19. In AP English Language and Composition, many students also initially struggle with
coming up with a strong clincher statement. Imagine now you are concluding an essay
you just wrote on Sojourner Truth’s speech. Use the following template to aid you in
creating your clincher:
Sojourner Truth’s words are still impactful today as ___________________________
_____________________________________________________________________.
Passage #5: Analyzing Tone in Chief Joseph’s “I Am Tired of Fighting”
Background on Passage: Chief Joseph, pictured below, surrendered to the U.S. Army in
1877. He was the chief of the Nez Pierce people and had spent several years defending
his land. His words were originally published in Harper’s Bazaar magazine.
Directions: Tone is the writer’s (or narrator’s) attitude toward the subject and audience.
With this in mind, read “I Am Tired of Fighting” and highlight five significant words or
phrases that reflect Chief Joseph’s tone. I have already highlighted one example, which
do not count toward your overall five you need to highlight.
Tell General Howard I know his heart. What he told me before, I have it in my heart. I am tired of fighting.
Our Chiefs are killed; Looking Glass is dead, Ta Hool Hool Shute is dead. The old men are all dead. It is
the young men who say yes or no. He who led on the young men is dead. It is cold, and we have no
blankets; the little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and
19
have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are - perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to
look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear
me, my Chiefs! I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more
forever.
Questions on “I Am Tired of Fighting”:
20. Pick out THREE of the words or phrases you highlighted. After that, describe the
type of tone you think that word embodies. The following are examples of words that
could be used to describe tone:
angry
sharp
upset
silly
boring
afraid
happy
hollow
joyful
allusive
sweet
vexed
tired
bitter
dreamy
restrained
proud
dramatic
sad
cold
urgent
joking
poignant
detached
confused
childish
peaceful
mocking
objective
vibrant
frivolous
audacious
shocking
somber
giddy
provocative
sentimental
fanciful
complimentary
condescending
sympathetic
contemptuous
apologetic
humorous
horrific
sarcastic
nostalgic
zealous
irreverent
benevolent
seductive
candid
pitiful
The following is an example:
The word “tired” displays Chief Joseph’s resigned tone; he repeats the message at the
beginning and end of the passage that he is tired of fighting and feels he must surrender.
Your answer:
A. The word “_______” displays a/an_________tone since _______________________
_______________________________________________________________________.
B. The word “_______” displays a/an_________tone since _______________________
_______________________________________________________________________.
C. The word “_______” displays a/an_________tone since _______________________
_______________________________________________________________________.
21. One of the aspects some students struggle with in argument essays is finding
examples from history to support what they are writing. (When you write an argument
essay, to make a high score you should have examples from history, literature, and your
personal experience.)
In order to practice this right now, find TWO articles from REPUTABLE SOURCES that
describe a circumstance from history in which a minority was unjustly persecuted. One
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example should be from the twentieth century. One example should be from the 21st
century.
A. Example of Unjust Persecution from 20th Century: PUT HYPERLINK HERE
This article discusses __________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________.
This atrocity caused ___________________________________________________.
I know this is a reputable source since _____________________________________.
B. Example of Unjust Persecution from 21st Century: PUT HYPERLINK HERE
This article discusses __________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________.
This atrocity caused ___________________________________________________.
I know this is a reputable source since _____________________________________.
Passage #6: Analyzing Logos, Pathos, and Ethos in “Letter from Birmingham Jail”
by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Background of Letter: Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote this letter while in jail after being
arrested during a non-violent protest he led against the segregationist policies in
Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. This letter was written in response to eight white
clergymen who encouraged Reverend King to allow the courts to take care of the issue of
segregation rather than leading protests.
Directions: Logos is the writer’s use of a logical appeal. Pathos is the writer’s use of an
emotional appeal. Ethos is the writer’s use of an appeal to authority or reputation. (If you
need additional information on logos, pathos, and ethos the website
http://courses.durhamtech.edu/perkins/aris.html is a good place to start.)
Since this letter is long, you are going to need to pick the following to highlight:

Pick out ten sentences or phrases that contain logos and highlight them.

Pick out ten sentences or phrases that contain pathos and underline them.

Pick out ten sentences or phrases that contain ethos and circle them.

I have two sample sentences or phrases of each appeal, which do not count toward
the overall ten sentences on logos, pathos, and ethos that you need to identify.
You also need to be sure to either highlight, underline, or circle at least one time
on every page of this article.
21
16 April 1963
My Dear Fellow Clergymen:
While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present
activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought
to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than
such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I
feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to
answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.
I think I should indicate why I am here in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the view which
argues against "outsiders coming in." I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta,
Georgia. We have some eighty five affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the
Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Frequently we share staff, educational and financial
resources with our affiliates. Several months ago the affiliate here in Birmingham asked us to be on call to
engage in a nonviolent direct action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented, and
when the hour came we lived up to our promise. So I, along with several members of my staff, am here
because I was invited here. I am here because I have organizational ties here.
But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century
B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home
towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far
corners of the Greco Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own
home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.
Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in
Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice
everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.
Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow,
provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an
outsider anywhere within its bounds.
You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to
express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of
you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects
and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in
Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city's white power structure left the Negro community
with no alternative.
In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether
injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action. We have gone through all these steps in
Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birmingham
is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely
known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved
bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the
hard, brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the
city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation.
Then, last September, came the opportunity to talk with leaders of Birmingham's economic community. In
the course of the negotiations, certain promises were made by the merchants--for example, to remove the
stores' humiliating racial signs. On the basis of these promises, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the
22
leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to a moratorium on all
demonstrations. As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken
promise. A few signs, briefly removed, returned; the others remained. As in so many past experiences, our
hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us. We had no alternative
except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our
case before the conscience of the local and the national community. Mindful of the difficulties involved, we
decided to undertake a process of self purification. We began a series of workshops on nonviolence, and we
repeatedly asked ourselves: "Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?" "Are you able to endure the
ordeal of jail?" We decided to schedule our direct action program for the Easter season, realizing that
except for Christmas, this is the main shopping period of the year. Knowing that a strong economicwithdrawal program would be the by product of direct action, we felt that this would be the best time to
bring pressure to bear on the merchants for the needed change.
Then it occurred to us that Birmingham's mayoral election was coming up in March, and we speedily
decided to postpone action until after election day. When we discovered that the Commissioner of Public
Safety, Eugene "Bull" Connor, had piled up enough votes to be in the run off, we decided again to postpone
action until the day after the run off so that the demonstrations could not be used to cloud the issues. Like
many others, we waited to see Mr. Connor defeated, and to this end we endured postponement after
postponement. Having aided in this community need, we felt that our direct action program could be
delayed no longer.
You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?"
You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent
direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly
refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be
ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather
shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent
tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as
Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the
bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so
must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise
from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The
purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the
door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved
Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.
One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in
Birmingham is untimely. Some have asked: "Why didn't you give the new city administration time to act?"
The only answer that I can give to this query is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded
about as much as the outgoing one, before it will act. We are sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of
Albert Boutwell as mayor will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is a much more
gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to maintenance of the status quo. I
have hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to
desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must
say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent
pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges
voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as
Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be
demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed"
in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have
heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost
always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long
delayed is justice denied."
23
We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia
and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse
and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have
never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your
mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled
policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your
twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society;
when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six
year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television,
and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see
ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her
personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an
answer for a five year old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?";
when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable
corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out
by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle
name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother
are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact
that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are
plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of
"nobodiness"--then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup
of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs,
you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. You express a great deal of anxiety over
our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to
obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it
may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: "How can you advocate
breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just
and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would
agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."
Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A
just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that
is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a
human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just.
Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation
distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the
segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin
Buber, substitutes an "I it" relationship for an "I thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the
status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is
morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential
expression of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can
urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to
disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.
Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical
or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is
difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow
and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal. Let me give another explanation. A law
is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in
enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state's
segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to
prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though
Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under
such circumstances be considered democratically structured?
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Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a
charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a
permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to
deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.
I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or
defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust
law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual
who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of
imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing
the highest respect for law.
Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the
refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a
higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face
hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the
Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil
disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.
We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the
Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in
Hitler's Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and
comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the
Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country's antireligious laws.
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that
over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached
the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the
White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order"
than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is
the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with
your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's
freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more
convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute
misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright
rejection.
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of
establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams
that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the
present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in
which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men
will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct
action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already
alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured
so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light,
injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and
the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they
precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn't this like condemning a robbed man because his
possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn't this like condemning Socrates because his
unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical inquiries precipitated the act by the misguided
populace in which they made him drink hemlock? Isn't this like condemning Jesus because his unique God
consciousness and never ceasing devotion to God's will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must
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come to see that, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, it is wrong to urge an individual to cease
his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence. Society must
protect the robbed and punish the robber. I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth
concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in
Texas. He writes: "All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is
possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to
accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." Such an attitude stems from a
tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of
time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or
constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than
have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and
actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on
wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and
without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time
creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the
promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now
is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human
dignity.
You speak of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather disappointed that fellow
clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I began thinking about the fact that I
stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of complacency, made
up in part of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression, are so drained of self respect and a sense
of "somebodiness" that they have adjusted to segregation; and in part of a few middle-class Negroes who,
because of a degree of academic and economic security and because in some ways they profit by
segregation, have become insensitive to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and
hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist
groups that are springing up across the nation, the largest and best known being Elijah Muhammad's
Muslim movement. Nourished by the Negro's frustration over the continued existence of racial
discrimination, this movement is made up of people who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely
repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man is an incorrigible "devil."
I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need emulate neither the "do nothingism" of
the complacent nor the hatred and despair of the black nationalist. For there is the more excellent way of
love and nonviolent protest. I am grateful to God that, through the influence of the Negro church, the way
of nonviolence became an integral part of our struggle. If this philosophy had not emerged, by now many
streets of the South would, I am convinced, be flowing with blood. And I am further convinced that if our
white brothers dismiss as "rabble rousers" and "outside agitators" those of us who employ nonviolent direct
action, and if they refuse to support our nonviolent efforts, millions of Negroes will, out of frustration and
despair, seek solace and security in black nationalist ideologies--a development that would inevitably lead
to a frightening racial nightmare.
Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself,
and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright
of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained. Consciously or unconsciously,
he has been caught up by the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow
brothers of Asia, South America and the Caribbean, the United States Negro is moving with a sense of
great urgency toward the promised land of racial justice. If one recognizes this vital urge that has engulfed
the Negro community, one should readily understand why public demonstrations are taking place. The
Negro has many pent up resentments and latent frustrations, and he must release them. So let him march;
let him make prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; let him go on freedom rides -and try to understand why he
must do so. If his repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through
violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history. So I have not said to my people: "Get rid of your
discontent." Rather, I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the
creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now this approach is being termed extremist. But though I
26
was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I
gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your
enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully
use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and
righteousness like an ever flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in
my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do
otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a
butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free."
And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . ." So the
question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists
for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?
In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were
crucified for the same crime--the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell
below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and
thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative
extremists.
I had hoped that the white moderate would see this need. Perhaps I was too optimistic; perhaps I expected
too much. I suppose I should have realized that few members of the oppressor race can understand the deep
groans and passionate yearnings of the oppressed race, and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice
must be rooted out by strong, persistent and determined action. I am thankful, however, that some of our
white brothers in the South have grasped the meaning of this social revolution and committed themselves to
it. They are still all too few in quantity, but they are big in quality. Some -such as Ralph McGill, Lillian
Smith, Harry Golden, James McBride Dabbs, Ann Braden and Sarah Patton Boyle--have written about our
struggle in eloquent and prophetic terms. Others have marched with us down nameless streets of the South.
They have languished in filthy, roach infested jails, suffering the abuse and brutality of policemen who
view them as "dirty nigger-lovers." Unlike so many of their moderate brothers and sisters, they have
recognized the urgency of the moment and sensed the need for powerful "action" antidotes to combat the
disease of segregation. Let me take note of my other major disappointment. I have been so greatly
disappointed with the white church and its leadership. Of course, there are some notable exceptions. I am
not unmindful of the fact that each of you has taken some significant stands on this issue. I commend you,
Reverend Stallings, for your Christian stand on this past Sunday, in welcoming Negroes to your worship
service on a nonsegregated basis. I commend the Catholic leaders of this state for integrating Spring Hill
College several years ago.
But despite these notable exceptions, I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the
church. I do not say this as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the
church. I say this as a minister of the gospel, who loves the church; who was nurtured in its bosom; who
has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall
lengthen.
When I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery, Alabama, a few
years ago, I felt we would be supported by the white church. I felt that the white ministers, priests and
rabbis of the South would be among our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents,
refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have
been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained
glass windows.
In spite of my shattered dreams, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of
this community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the
channel through which our just grievances could reach the power structure. I had hoped that each of you
would understand. But again I have been disappointed.
I have heard numerous southern religious leaders admonish their worshipers to comply with a
desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers declare: "Follow this
27
decree because integration is morally right and because the Negro is your brother." In the midst of blatant
injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious
irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and
economic injustice, I have heard many ministers say: "Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no
real concern." And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly
religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the
secular.
I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other southern states. On
sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South's beautiful churches with
their lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive outlines of her massive religious
education buildings. Over and over I have found myself asking: "What kind of people worship here? Who
is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of
interposition and nullification? Where were they when Governor Wallace gave a clarion call for defiance
and hatred? Where were their voices of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to
rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?"
Yes, these questions are still in my mind. In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church.
But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is
not deep love. Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise? I am in the rather unique position of being
the son, the grandson and the great grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But,
oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being
nonconformists.
There was a time when the church was very powerful--in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at
being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a
thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed
the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed
and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside
agitators."' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," called to
obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated
to be "astronomically intimidated." By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as
infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak,
ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being
disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the
church's silent--and often even vocal--sanction of things as they are.
But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the
sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be
dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young
people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.
Perhaps I have once again been too optimistic. Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status
quo to save our nation and the world? Perhaps I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual church, the church
within the church, as the true ekklesia and the hope of the world. But again I am thankful to God that some
noble souls from the ranks of organized religion have broken loose from the paralyzing chains of
conformity and joined us as active partners in the struggle for freedom. They have left their secure
congregations and walked the streets of Albany, Georgia, with us. They have gone down the highways of
the South on tortuous rides for freedom. Yes, they have gone to jail with us. Some have been dismissed
from their churches, have lost the support of their bishops and fellow ministers. But they have acted in the
faith that right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. Their witness has been the spiritual salt that has
preserved the true meaning of the gospel in these troubled times. They have carved a tunnel of hope
through the dark mountain of disappointment. I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of this
decisive hour. But even if the church does not come to the aid of justice, I have no despair about the future.
I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are at present
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misunderstood. We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal
of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with America's
destiny. Before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched the
majestic words of the Declaration of Independence across the pages of history, we were here. For more
than two centuries our forebears labored in this country without wages; they made cotton king; they built
the homes of their masters while suffering gross injustice and shameful humiliation -and yet out of a
bottomless vitality they continued to thrive and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not
stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage
of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands. Before closing I feel
impelled to mention one other point in your statement that has troubled me profoundly. You warmly
commended the Birmingham police force for keeping "order" and "preventing violence." I doubt that you
would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its dogs sinking their teeth into
unarmed, nonviolent Negroes. I doubt that you would so quickly commend the policemen if you were to
observe their ugly and inhumane treatment of Negroes here in the city jail; if you were to watch them push
and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls; if you were to see them slap and kick old Negro men
and young boys; if you were to observe them, as they did on two occasions, refuse to give us food because
we wanted to sing our grace together. I cannot join you in your praise of the Birmingham police
department.
It is true that the police have exercised a degree of discipline in handling the demonstrators. In this sense
they have conducted themselves rather "nonviolently" in public. But for what purpose? To preserve the evil
system of segregation. Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that
the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use
immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more
so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. Perhaps Mr. Connor and his policemen have been rather
nonviolent in public, as was Chief Pritchett in Albany, Georgia, but they have used the moral means of
nonviolence to maintain the immoral end of racial injustice. As T. S. Eliot has said: "The last temptation is
the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason."
I wish you had commended the Negro sit inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime
courage, their willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of great provocation. One day
the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose
that enables them to face jeering and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the
life of the pioneer. They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy two year
old woman in Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not
to ride segregated buses, and who responded with ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired about her
weariness: "My feets is tired, but my soul is at rest." They will be the young high school and college
students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently sitting
in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience' sake. One day the South will know that when
these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is
best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo Christian heritage, thereby
bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in
their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
Never before have I written so long a letter. I'm afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can
assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what
else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts and
pray long prayers?
If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg
you to forgive me. If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that
allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me.
I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for
me to meet each of you, not as an integrationist or a civil-rights leader but as a fellow clergyman and a
29
Christian brother. Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep
fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear drenched communities, and in some not too distant
tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their
scintillating beauty.
Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood, Martin Luther King, Jr.
King, Martin Luther Jr.
Questions on “Letter from Birmingham Jail”:
22. Where does King seek to establish that he is a reasonable person?
23. Where does King address the objections of his audience?
24. As in “The Declaration of Independence,” transitions are important in King’s letter.
Identify the transitional words and phrases that connect the different parts of his
argument.
25. What indicates that King is writing his letter to an audience other than his fellow
clergyman?
26. Do you think King’s remarks go too far? Do you believe they do not go far enough?
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27. After reading many passages, you have now analyzed for diction, imagery, detail,
syntax, tone, pathos, logos, and ethos. With this in mind, use the following formula to
write a thesis statement if you had to write a rhetorical analysis essay on “A Letter from
Birmingham Jail.”
In Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” King __(adverb)___ employs
features --such as __(adjective)_(diction, imagery, detail, syntax, tone, pathos, ethos, or
logos), __(adjective)_ (diction, imagery, detail, syntax, tone, pathos, ethos, or logos), and
__(adjective)___ (diction, imagery, detail, syntax, tone, pathos, ethos, or logos)--to prove
his point that ______________________________________________________.
The following is a sample to show how to model your response:
In Abraham Lincoln’s “The Gettysburg Address,” Lincoln skillfully employs features-such as concrete diction, exact details, and persuasive pathos-- to prove his point that the
Civil War had caused great hardships, yet this war still was necessary to ensure that our
nation remained together and free.
28. Another type of essay you will have to write is an argument essay. In an argument
essay, you usually need to defend (which means agree with), challenge (which means
disagree with), or qualify (which means to agree or disagree with) a short quotation. For
example, in “Letter to Birmingham Jail,” the following quote is significant:
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of
mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who
lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.
Consider the implication of this quote. Then answer the following:
A. I (defend, challenge, or qualify) this quote since _____________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________.
B. Besides the Civil Rights Movement, other examples from history that prove
this quote to be (true or false) are:
1.
2.
3.
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Passage #7: Analyzing Visual Text Using Margaret Bourke White’s Photograph
Entitled “The Louisville Flood”
Background of Photograph: This photograph was taken in 1937. It is a gelatin silver
print mounted on board, originally 9 11/16 X 13 3/8 in.
Directions: After studying the photograph above, answer the following questions.
(Remember if you cannot see the photograph or the ads on the next pages clearly, you
can access this document on Ms. Rosenbaum’s website at:
http://highmail.highlands.k12.fl.us/~rosenbac/.)
29. Find other work this photographer has done by searching for her work online. What
else has she done that is significant? Is this image like the author’s other work or is it
different? What accounts for the difference? Note: Credit the source of where you
found your information by doing the following after you answer the question—(Source:
website name). Keep in mind that you should not use a blog or Wikipedia, but a credible
academic source. Also keep in mind to always credit the sources where you find
information in a college-level class.
32
30. What are the larger historical, political, social, cultural, and economic contexts of this
image?
31. Is this a serious or comic image? How do you know?
32. What does the image remind you of? Have you seen anything like it somewhere
else? Where? How is this image similar to those others? How does it differ?
33. Does the image include words or a caption? How are those words used? Do they
simply identify the image? Are they part of the image? What do they contribute to the
overall meaning?
34. What is your first response after viewing this image?
35. What is juxtaposed in this image? Explain the use of juxtaposition and its effect.
36. How is the image arranged in the visual space? Can you diagram its overall
composition? What effect does this arrangement have on the way you read this image?
37. What strikes you as important, interesting, or emotionally moving in the image?
33
38. Can you identify elements of the image that could be seen as symbolic?
Passage #8: Analyzing Visual Text Using Vintage Advertisements
Directions: Look over the following two advertisements. (One is a Camel cigarette ad
from the 1950s; the other is an ad for Total cereal from the 1970s—and no these are not
made up!) Answer the questions that follow on these advertisements.
39. After looking over Camel’s cigarette ad, what is your overall impression? Explain.
34
40. Pick out at least three words or phrases that stand out as ironic to you as a person
living in the 21st century.
41. After looking over the ad for Total cereal, what is your overall impression? Explain.
42. Pick out at least three words or phrases that stand out as ironic to you as a person
living in the 21st century.
35
Questions on Summer Reading Books:
Directions: These questions are just an overview to keep you on track as you complete
your summer reading books. You should be aware that the questions you will have on
your summer reading quiz will be detailed and analytical in nature, unlike the questions
that appear on this and the following pages that are open-ended. You should also be
aware that we will spend much of the first nine weeks discussing these books, so please
make sure you are annotating as you read.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave
43. Write a two sentence summary of the Preface. (Note: If your version of the book
does not contain the Preface, it can be downloaded at:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23/23-h/23-h.htm)
44. Pick out a quote from the preface that displays William Lloyd Garrison’s tone toward
the issue of slavery using the formula below:
The quote _____________________________ displays William Lloyd Garrison’s
_______ tone towards the horrors of slavery since _________________________
_________________________________________________________________.
45. Pick out a quote from the preface that displays William Lloyd Garrison’s attitude
toward Frederick Douglass using the formula below:
The quote _____________________________ displays William Lloyd Garrison’s
_(adjective)__ attitude toward Mr. Frederick Douglass since ________________
_________________________________________________________________.
46. Write a one sentence summary of the “Letter from Wendell Phillips, Esq.” (Note: If
your version of the book does not contain the Letter, it can be downloaded at:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23/23-h/23-h.htm)
47. Pick out a word from the Letter that could be analyzed for diction using the formula
below:
The word “_____” displays _________ diction since Phillips is stating that
______________________________________________________________.
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48. Write a two sentence summary of Chapter I.
49. Write a two sentence summary of Chapter II.
50. Write a two sentence summary of Chapter III.
51. Write a two sentence summary of Chapter IV.
52. Write a two sentence summary of Chapter V.
53. Write a two sentence summary of Chapter VI.
54. Write a two sentence summary of Chapter VII.
55. Write a two sentence summary of Chapter VIII.
56. Write a two sentence summary of Chapter IX.
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57. Write a two sentence summary of Chapter X.
58. Write a two sentence summary of Chapter XI.
59. Write a two sentence summary of the Appendix.
Thank You For Arguing: What Artistotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach
Us about The Art of Persuasion
60. For Chapter 1, write a one sentence summary of the chapter, then write one sentence
about something you learned (or something you knew but find interesting) in that chapter.
One Sentence Summary-
One Sentence on What I Learned (or What I Find Interesting)61. For Chapters 2-13 (on “Offense”), write five sentences summing up what the chapters
cover, then write five details about something you learned (or something you knew but
find interesting) in those chapters.
Five Sentence Summary of Chapters 2-131.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Five Details You Learned (or Something You Knew But Found Interesting):
1.
38
2
3.
4.
5.
62. For Chapters 14-17 (on “Defense”), write five sentences summing up what the
chapters cover, then write five details about something you learned (or something you
knew but find interesting) in those chapters.
Five Sentence Summary of Chapters 14-171.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Five Details You Learned (or Something You Knew But Found Interesting):
1.
2
3.
4.
5.
63. For Chapters 18-24 (on “Advanced Offense”), write five sentences summing up what
the chapters cover, then write five details about something you learned (or something you
knew but find interesting) in those chapters.
Five Sentence Summary of Chapters 18-241.
2.
3.
39
4.
5.
Five Details You Learned (or Something You Knew But Found Interesting):
1.
2
3.
4.
5.
64. For Chapters 25-28 (on “Advanced Agreement”), write five sentences summing up
what the chapters cover, then write five details about something you learned in those
chapters (or something you knew but find interesting) in those chapters.
Five Sentence Summary of Chapters 25-28:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Five Details You Learned (or Something You Knew But Found Interesting):
1.
2
3.
4.
5.
40
HOORAY! YOU ARE FINISHED! WAY TO GO!