ThunderReaders

Victor Davis Hanson, a Stanford professor of classics, and author of a recent book about the wars between Athens and Sparta, has fun writing a political piece today exploring an amazing range of figures of speech to compare John McCain and Barack Obama. I just have to publish this for my “Writer of the Day” because of the variety and density of rhetorical devices he plays with in order to make some serious points.

How many different figures can you find in this piece?  Among the analytical terms we’ll study in our AP course, I can find examples of allusion, metaphor, simile, personification, antithesis, paradox, analogy, rhetoric, imagery, pathos, idiom, colloquialism, archetype…it just doesn’t stop!

Professor Hanson has given us a “keeper” that you’ll be able to master later on in our year! Enjoy it now, and comment on which figure of speech he uses you like the best.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/07/imagining_the_election.html

Thanks for stopping by to give this blog a try.  I wanted to start this blog first to create a place to give help for the summer project, but by exchanging insights and ideas, and learning better how to organize the blog, I hope to make it a full fledged tool for communicating throughout the school year.

A bonus for participating in this summer  experiment is that each comment or post you make on Pride and Prejudice counts as one of the journal entries for your summer assignment.  That could be a lot more fun and interesting than doing the double entry journal. If you’ve already started the DEJ, you could use some of your quotes for posts or comments.  I’ll try to find other ways to make this blog helpful and interesting as we develop it more.