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

If your opinion surfing hasn’t led you yet to one of her articles, let me introduce one of my favorite columnists, Maureen Dowd.  She’s smart, funny, irreverent, and her awareness of language is keen: you can bet the house that she got a “5″ on her AP language exam.

Today’s submission is so good that I could teach a whole unit of analytical vocabulary with it (irony, colloquialism, metonymy, metaphor, cliche, connotation, euphemism, pejoration…on and on).

But for now, just enjoy her voice and her ideas.  See if she doesn’t become one of your favorites too!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/opinion/25dowd.html?_r=1&oref=slogin