1. Birthdays!  Brandon Eberhardt

2. AP Language and Composition Tuesday, 27 October 2015  Time will pass; will you? 34 school days remain in the fall semester.  Today’s Class:  Satire in the business world.

3. Housekeeping  Tomorrow is a “study hall” (PSAT testing)—bring work, or better yet, reading. If you don’t, I will assign you reading.  Please keep your grades monitored in IC, and alert me immediately to any discrepancies.  The Daily Course Calendar was last updated on October 27  Making up work? Need to see me? Please make an appointment.

4. Coming Due—do not squander time— that’s the stuff life’s made of!  Due Monday:  Vocab Log #5  If you’re smart, and you’re organized, then you’re working on your next set of bibs NOW, due November 9. I suggest a piece of visual rhetoric in this last set…

5. Today’s Class: Grammar and Close Reading Practice  Satire in the business world—the Coke letters  Text: What is stated  Sub-text: What is implied

6. “Dear Grove Press” 1. This letter is six paragraphs. What would you say is the discrete point of each paragraph? Write a brief descriptive phrase for each, labeling them one through six. 2. When Herbert says “We believe you will agree” ‘at the start of the third paragraph, how do you read his tone? What do you think he is really saying there? 3. How persuasive do you find this letter? What do you think is Herbert’s approach? How is he trying to persuade Gove? 4. What is the strongest part of Herbert’s argument? What is the weakest? 5. What would you say is the tone of this letter?

7. “Dear Coca-Cola” 1. What is the purpose of Seaver’s letter? 2. Where does he make assertions that seem ludicrous? Name one or two 3. Is Seaver’s letter to Coke polite? 4. Do you think Seaver implies that Grove is willing to go to court to defend itself? If so, in which lines exactly? 5. What was your reaction to the letter? Do you find it funny?

8. Spotlight on Rhetoric: Text and Subtext  Text and subtext are phrases used when writing seems to have an overt meaning as well as a less obvious, even covert meaning. When we speak of subtext, we speak of what something implies as opposed to states. These letters make heavy use of implication. For example, nowhere does either party state that they are willing to go to court, and in part this is no doubt because not indeed ever does want to go to court. However, Coke’s recitation of their history of use implies a record of ownership. Grove reminds Coke too that they have been in the courts regarding First Amendment, freedom of speech issues. Arguable there are veiled threats on both sides, though in a nascent form. Coke can prove use. Grove goes to court over the First Amendment. The text in both cases seems simply to be some invocation of company history. The subtext is a legal threat (that may, or may not, be sincere).

9. Close Reading  Defining an author’s purpose, and identifying and analyzing the techniques and strategies employed to achieve that purpose.  Vocab and term logs out?  New reading groups

10. What is rhetoric?  The traditional definition of rhetoric, first proposed by Aristotle, and embellished over the centuries by scholars and teachers, is that rhetoric is the art of observing in any given case the “available means of persuasion.”

11. Rhetoric—Whose idea was it?  Socrates: 469-399 B.C.E. Socrates  Father of Western philosophy and Mentor to Plato. Epistemology and logic.  Plato: 424-348 B.C.E. Plato:  Student of Socrates and founder of “The Academy” Philosophy, logic, ethics, rhetoric and mathematics.  Aristotle: 384-322 B.C.E. Aristotle  Student of Plato, and teacher to Alexander the Great.