Number Five: Study Current Events

   

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Watch the news, read the Washington Post, or even follow CNN on twitter so you can read their tweets. Any event happening in our world today can be used as evidence for papers you need to write in the future. It is better to have too much evidence then to little, and current events or historical references are great ways to prove ones thesis.

For example for our 1st quarter argumentative essay, my class was required to write an essay on whether dissent is beneficial to society by using evidence from readings we completed that quarter, personal experiences, and current events. By being informed about the Egyptian revolution, my partner and I were able to use that as evidence to support the claim that dissent is the catalyst of beneficial societal transformation. We pointed out that dissent by citizens of Egypt actually helped the country as a whole, as it was the citizen's dissent that has allowed for a more democratic government to be formed. Simple knowledge of worldwide events makes research easier and better validates your claim as such events are indisputable facts.

When analyzing a piece of writing, which is done often in AP Lang, students are asked to fill out “THINKsheets” referred to as SOAPSTIME’s. The purpose of the worksheet is to get students to think about more than just the explicit words in any piece of writing by asking student’s to identify the speaker, occasion, audience, tone, purpose of the writing, and meaning of the writing. In order to fully understand the meaning and purpose of the writing it is essential to establish the occasion, or the when, where, and why of an argument. To identify the occasion one must have a general background knowledge of history and current events in order to understand what was going on at the time the piece was written, and why those events caused the writer to express their specific thoughts at that specific time. For example, in his short essay Once More to the Lake, E.B. White writes, “But now the campers all had outboards. In the daytime, in the hot morning, 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 mosquitos.” White is discussing exactly what it sounds like, the motorboats he encounters while vacationing at the lake. However, by knowing that in the year 1941, when the essay was written, WWII was occurring, we come to realize that the boats represent a greater historical event. The motor boats are symbolic of the boats full of Jewish refugees that floated along the United States border, as America was not permitting any of the Jewish people access into the country during this time in the war. Without extended knowledge of historical events, it would have been impossible to recognize the simple motor boats discussed in this essay as the ships carrying Jewish runaways. In summary, by studying current events and past historical eras you will not only develop a plethora of evidence for essays, but will also be able to comprehend the meaning behind the arguments you read advancing your analysis and therefore your grade.

I understand at night, when you finally finish homework, watching the news is not on the top of your to do list. However, while surfing YouTube, it is extremely easy to simply search "Top News" or "World Wide Events" and see what comes up.  When searching for my own current events I found this video, "Year in 60 seconds". Although, it does not go into detail about each event it is a good reminder of past occurrences, such as the tsunami in Japan, which can then be used as evidence in an essay or even a reminder of the hardships faced in 2011 allowing me to better analyze the meaning behind writing regarding that year.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHhiKN_wG2A >  

Whether you like it or not current and historical events are important pieces of evidence necessary to not only prove effective arguments, but to also understand the meaning behind others arguments. It is important to study these events so as to not seem incompetent in support of a claim, but to also understand the environment/world in which you live. Therefore, to claim success in AP Lang I suggest watching the news.