Reading Period 23: April 13 - 19: Metamorphoses

Long Read: 

Metamorphoses by Ovid, books 1 and 2.

Poetry:

"The Creation" by James Weldon Johnson

From Genesis, chapter 1 of the Holy Bible (King James Version)

1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Creative Assignments:

One of the most ambitious and impossible acts of the imagination is to conceive of the nothingness that would have been before any act of creation of the world. Having read "The Creation" and the beginning of Genesis, and the beginning of the Metamorphoses, take a whack at describing in a poem, with metaphor or simile, or with sensory description, or with pure philosophy, the void that predated creation in a mythology where creation was a moment in time. Your poem can be as long or as short as you like.

OR

Find a lump of clay. Playdough is fine, or terracotta clay, or plasticine, whatever. Form your clay into a rock, such as Pyrrha would have thrown over her shoulder as the oracle instructed her. Take a picture. Now form it into a human shape, taking three or four pictures along the way, from the same angle in the same location. Post your series of photographs. You might even create an animation of the series, so that it looks like the rock is transforming into a human.

Writing Assignment:

Using ALL of the logical fallacies we studied in class, write an essay taking either side of the claim you have chosen for the team debate. You MUST label the fallacies, 1-12, either within the text of your essays with numbers in parentheses, or with a pencil after you print it out. Here's the list:

1. Slippery Slope
2. Hasty Generalization
3. Post hoc ergo propter hoc
4. Genetic Fallacy
5. Begging the Claim
6. Circular Argument
7. Either/or
8. Ad hominem
9. Ad populum/Bandwagon Appeal
10. Red Herring
11. Straw Man
12. Moral Equivalence

AP Lang: Finish the multiple choice sections in practice test C in the green book, taking 12 minutes for each reading with its associated questions. You can go through and look at the answers given in the answer key, and mark any problematic ones as well as any easy ones. We will discuss the answers in class.

Quiz:

1. Which god created the world?
2. Why did Jove not use his thunderbolts to destroy the wicked world?
3. Why were Deucalion and Pyrrha the only two people on earth?
4. What metamorphosis occurs as a result of Apollo's (Phoebus') obsessive love?
5. What metamorphosis did Jove create to hide his misdeeds from Juno?
6. Why was Argus an awesome guardian for Io and how does Mercury get him to fall asleep?
7. Why does Phaethon go to the palace of the sun and what gift does he ask from Apollo?
8. List one effect of Phaethon dropping the reins.
9. What metamorphosis results from the death of Phaethon?
10. What metamorphosis does Juno force on Callisto and why?