Day One: Prior to instruction, I asked
students to list as many rhetorical verbs as they could think of. A few outliers came up with 20 or so words,
but for the most part, kids were in the 8-10 range. I gave them a list of 54 to memorize for
Monday. I also gave them a few study tips.
I recommended counting up how many words began with the letter “a”, how
many with the letter “c”, etc. So that
when they came in next Monday to list the verbs, they would know they were
missing one if they didn’t have 7 that began with “a” etc. I also recommended chunking the list and studying a little bit each night so they might not have an insurmountable task to accomplish on Sunday Night.
Day Two: Yesterday, during sixth hour, I heard a student talking with another about his difficulties with memorizing. There aren't a lot of things that I ask kids to memorize in AP Lang. But I do believe it is a useful exercise to memorize a list of words for easy retrieval during argument and analysis. But, I appreciate the difficulty that memorization presents for some students. So, I made a decision to devote a little bit of time during each hour to work on getting this list into the memories of my students. I also extended the due date so that we could get a manageable chunk into each school day.
So, today, I began with another quiz. "List all of the rhetorical verbs that begin with the letter "a". A few students were able to list them all because they had taken my advice yesterday. The majority, however, listed three or four. We listed the "A" verbs on the board: Acknowledge, Affirm, Agree, Allege, Argue, Assert, Attack. We recited them several times while looking at the board and then while looking away. During out "Establishing Norms" activity today, students experienced a little wait time as we waited for other groups to finish up. So, during their wait time, they were instructed to study the "A" Verbs. I need to find something fun and effective to do with the "C" verbs tomorrow.
