1) The most important piece of advice (in my class, the most important advice is always about your learning, and often has little to do with your grade): Don't limit yourself to headlines. Headlines are both depressing and shallow. You can find news in the features section, the opinion section, and even occasionally in the sports section. You can find news in magazines and on the radio and on the internet. For example, if I were going to write about my experience with the news this week, I'd note the major headlines like the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians and the chaos surrounding the sudden influx of child immigrants, but I'd also write about The Atlantic Monthly articles focusing on the nature of creativity. The purpose of this assignment is to encourage you to broaden your understanding of the world, explore your own curiosity, and read a wide variety of published non-fiction writing. The best approach for this assignment - and for almost all assignments in AP Lang - is to make it as interesting as possible for yourself.
2) The least important piece of advice: Be sure you complete all parts of the assignment, which I'll post for you right here.
Your
e-mails should include the following information:
- What news stories (notice that “stories” is
plural) are you following? What new news stories have caught your eye this
week?
- What sources are you using? Be specific
here: give the name of the newspaper, website, blog, television, or radio
programs you use to gather information. Feel free to consult multiple
sources within a given week and to change sources from week to week. It
will be informative to note different perspectives, voices, and
approaches used by different media and different media outlets.
- Who have you talked with about the news of
the week? What have you learned from your conversations?
