AP English Language and Composition Synthesisteachers.sduhsd.net/jconn/Synthesispennyguidedpractice.pdfThe creators of the AP* English Language and Composition Exam want you to succeed

AP* is a trademark of the College Entrance Examination Board. The College Entrance Examination Board was not involved in the production of this material.

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AP* English Language

and Composition

Synthesis Evaluating Sources: Planning the

Synthesis Response

Student Packet

Synthesis Evaluating Sources: Planning the Synthesis Response

(References the AP* Language Exam Question 1) Student Packet

Introduction: Often the hardest part of writing any essay is beginning. The first of the five canons of rhetoric is called inventio, or invention. This is the point where you brainstorm, pre-write, use graphic organizers, etc. to plot out ideas for your essay. Once you know the evidence you are going to use, the essay is much easier to write because the hardest part is done—thinking of what to write and how to convince your audience. The second canon is dispositio, or arrangement. In the Classical (with a capital ‘C’) Age, rhetoric was performed before an audience that anticipated a particular order to the speeches. Speakers, or rhetors, studied a set pattern, wrote and practiced their speeches, and performed them in public in something approaching the way we think of trained actors performing today. Arguably, this should be the easiest of the five canons because it is a set pattern, yet structuring the essay trips up more than its fair share of students. Fortunately for you, the Advanced Placement English Language and Composition exam’s synthesis question invents the evidence for you. It then becomes your job to arrange the examples in such a way as to best support your assertions on the issue.

But which sources should you choose? This lesson will walk you through the process of evaluating your set of given sources and arranging them for maximum effect. Review: The Rules of the Game

1. Synthesize the sources into an argument that responds to the prompt.

2. Refer to the sources to develop your position; use them to explain both sides of

the issue.

3. Cite the sources accurately.

4. The sources are only examples; your idea about the topic is the reason for the

essay.

5. Do not rely on summaries of the sources to make your argument—the AP* have

read the sources ahead of time.

A Word about the Topic The creators of the AP* English Language and Composition Exam want you to succeed if you meet college standards. As such, they will never give you a topic that a high school student would not be able to address. In the past few years, the synthesis has run the

AP* is a trademark of the College Entrance Examination Board. The College Entrance Examination Board was not involved in the production of this material.

Copyright © 2009 Laying the Foundation®, Inc., Dallas, TX. All rights reserved. Visit: www.layingthefoundation.org 1

Student Packet—Evaluating Sources

gamut from television advertising to museum building—topics which, while unusual, were not beyond the reach of “an average AP* student,” especially when that student was provided with a summary of the issue and evidence to support either side. That having been said, some students have made the mistake of thinking that a more accessible topic meant that a less-than-serious approach was the appropriate vehicle for addressing the prompt.

• Cynical (adj): contemptuously suspicious and distrustful of human nature; displaying an attitude that every man’s conduct is self-centered and self-serving; distrustful.

• Skeptical (adj): non-judgment until all of the facts have been revealed; displaying an attitude of neutral and unprejudiced inquiry; doubtful.

It is okay for your response to the topic to be skeptical—technically, it is okay for your response to be cynical—but be sure that your essay does not devolve into cheap jokes and sarcasm at the expense of your argument. If you can be funny and make a point, good for you, but it would be an awful shame if your essay was the ninety-eighth paper your scorer had read that day that had made the same failed joke about a legitimate issue. Three Skeptical Questions to Ask From what is the type of source does this source come?

• Newspaper? Television? Blog? Novel? • Is the source well-known (famous)? • Does the source have a face or is it anonymous? • Is the source professional or amateur?

What is the stated purpose of this source?

• Inform? • Entertain? • Persuade? • Satirize (or simply ridicule)?

What possible bias could this source have in making this statement?

• Openly biased or a hidden agenda? • Objective but leaning to one side of the issue? • Neutral

While it is true that you cannot judge a book by its cover alone, it is not a bad place to start. This is true of the synthesis sources as well. Do not forget to review any bibliographic information offered for your consideration; after all, the test writers are trying to give you every chance possible to succeed.



Activity 1: Evaluate the Sources Read the following excerpts and answer the questions that follow. Source A: Mark Lewis’ “Ban the Penny” from Forbes.com

Type of Source:

Stated purpose:

Possible Bias:

New York—Almost a year has passed now since U.S. Rep. Jim Kolbe made headlines by introducing his anti-penny bill, yet these pesky one-cent coins continue to jingle uselessly in people’s pockets. Can nobody rid America of this copper-coated scourge? Alliteration (n): the repetition of initial consonant sounds at the beginning of successive words

1. Mark each instance of alliteration in the first paragraph. What effect does the alliteration have on the speaker’s tone?

Kolbe, an Arizona Republican, is doing his best, although his proposed Legal Tender Modernization Act is languishing in a subcommittee. The bill would not ban pennies, but merely discourage their use by establishing a system under which cash transactions would be rounded up or down. That would render the penny unnecessary.

2. In context, what does “languishing” mean?

3. What possible issues might arise from rounding cash transactions? “It’s practically useless in everyday life,” complains Neena Moorjani, Kolbe’s press secretary. But the penny has its fans, especially in Tennessee, which is rich in zinc. Up until 1982, pennies were made mostly of copper; since then they have been 97.5% zinc with a little copper mixed in for appearance’s sake.

4. Why would Tennesseans in particular be fans of the penny?



Just last week, two lawmakers from the Volunteer State introduced a resolution commemorating the 20th anniversary of the zinc-based penny. Fans of this coin note snidely that Kolbe’s home state of Arizona is rich in copper—which makes up a bigger percentage of the larger-denomination coins that might be more heavily used if the penny were discontinued. Kolbe also favors replacing paper dollar bills with longer-lasting $1 coins—and as it happens, the Sacagawea “golden dollar” introduced two years ago is made mostly of copper…. Irony (n): an incongruity between the result of an action and the intent; the opposite of the expected

5. What is ironic about the penny fans’ indictment of Kolbe and Arizona? Perhaps the University of Pennsylvania’s prestigious Wharton School could take the lead in studying this issue and determining which course makes the best economic sense. That would only be appropriate, because this school originally was endowed by Gilded Age industrialist Joseph Wharton, who got rich by cornering the marked for nickel and then persuading Congress to create a new coin made exclusively of metal from his mines.

6. What is the connection between Kolbe and Wharton?

7. What is the author’s intent in bringing up this connection?

8. Does this source support or challenge the use of the penny?



Source B: Ric Kahn’s “Penny Pinchers” from Globe.com

Type of Source:

Stated Purpose:

Possible Bias:

This source is much longer than the others which could intimidate you. Fortunately, the meaning is relatively easy to decode. There are actually three parts to this source:

A. Coinstar’s penny statistics B. Gore’s penny calculations C. Knowles’ penny collection

We will examine each in turn. Read each set of boxed texts and answer the questions that follow. Part 1: Coinstar’s penny statistics Pity the poor penny. Once, it had swagger. With a pedigree dating back to 1787, it was feted as the first currency authorized by the United States. As a money symbol, it was deemed as rock solid as the presidential jaw of Abraham Lincoln, which first appeared on it in 1909. Boston’s own Paul Revere, resident silversmith, supplied some of the copper for those bygone pennies.

1. Why should the audience “pity” the penny based solely on the second paragraph?

2. What words in the text indicate a change in fortune for the penny?



Now, everywhere you turn around town, the zinc-and-copper one-cent piece is taking it on the chin. Shoved out of the economic picture by charge cards. Flung into the trash by people who think it’s mucky and worthless. Hijacked by cashiers who assume you’re among the 27 percent of Americas who don’t even keep track of their loose change, according to a May 2005 survey conducted by Coinstar, providers of the self-service machines that help convert coins into paper money….

3. What factors have led to the penny’s decline in status?

4. What possible motivation could Coinstar have in publishing this survey? Part 2: Gore’s penny calculations On the Internet, you were introduced to a group called ''Citizens for Retiring the Penny," which advocates rounding off prices to the nearest nickel, as have some members of Congress. The group was founded by a 1999 MIT graduate named Jeff Gore. ''The point of currency is to facilitate transactions," Gore, 27, told you by phone. ''People fishing in their pockets. The cashier has to open a new bag of pennies. For me, it's the waste of time I object to." Gore is a busy guy. As a graduate student in physics at the University of California at Berkeley, he has tackled topics such as ''Single Molecule Investigations of the Mechanochemical Cycle of DNA Gyrase."

5. What are Gore’s credentials? Cite the text specifically.

6. What is the essence of the penny problem, according to Mr. Gore?



However, Gore did find the time to come up with this calculation, posted on the group's website: ''The National Association of Convenience Stores and Walgreens drug store chain estimated that handling pennies adds 2 to 2.5 seconds to each cash transaction (remember that we are including the occasional customer who spends 30 seconds looking for the penny in his pocket). Let us estimate that each person goes through three of these transactions per day and that on average there is one person waiting in line (making for a total of three people's time wasted in each transaction). We can then calculate that the presence of pennies wastes (3 transactions/day) × (2.25 seconds/transaction) × (3 people per transaction) = 20 seconds per day. Probably only about half of the wasted time is directly connected with a cash transaction, giving a total of 40 wasted seconds per day per person. This may not seem like a lot, but it translates to 40 × 365 / 3600 = 4 hours per person per year. If each person's time is worth $15/hour then we arrive at the conclusion that each person is losing $60 per year, at a cost to the nation of over $15 billion per year...."

7. Gore’s calculations are based on several assumptions. In your opinion, how accurate is he on:

a. the number of transactions an average person undertakes per day?

b. the amount an average person makes per hour?

8. What concern, if any, would prompt convenience stores and drug stores to commission or endorse Gore’s calculations? And what bias, if any, does this reveal?



Part 3: Knowles’ penny collection On the other side of the coin, Edmond Knowles figures he has saved an average of about 90 pennies a day for the last 38 years: On his counter, in jugs, and finally in 55-gallon drums in his garage. In June, an armored car picked up his 4.5 tons of spare change, and had it recycled through Coinstar. That would be 1,308,459 pennies, or $13,084.59.

9. Does the final pay-out match the effort required to collect that much change? Why or why not?

10. In your opinion, does Knowles’ coin collection defend the penny’s use? Why or why not?



Source C: William Safire’s “Abolish the Penny” from the New York Times

Type of Source:

Stated Purpose:

Possible Bias:

The time has come to abolish the outdated, almost worthless, bothersome and wasteful penny. Even President Lincoln, who distrusted the notion of paper money because he thought he would have to sign each greenback, would be ashamed to have his face on this specious specie. Invective (n): a verbally abusive attack; speech or writing that abuses, denounces or attacks Hyperbole (n): exaggeration; an obvious and intentionally extravagant figure of speech not meant to be taken literally

1. Examine the language of the first paragraph of the excerpt. How could the invective of the first line be read as hyperbole?

2. What effect does the closing alliteration have on the subject of the piece, the penny?

3. Specie is a coin, traditionally made of some precious metal like gold or silver, used to represent money. Specious means both having a false appearance of truthfulness and being superficially attractive. In context, what is the best meaning of “specious specie?”



That's because you can't buy anything with a penny any more. Penny candy? Not for sale at the five-and-dime (which is now a ''dollar store''). Penny-ante poker? Pass the buck. Any vending machine? Put a penny in and it will sound an alarm. There is no escaping economic history: it takes nearly a dime today to buy what a penny bought back in 1950. Despite this, the U.S. Mint keeps churning out a billion pennies a month.

4. How does the price of “penny candy” support Safire’s assertion that the penny should be abolished?

Where do they go? Two-thirds of them immediately drop out of circulation, into piggy banks or -- as The Times's John Tierney noted five years ago -- behind chair cushions or at the back of sock drawers next to your old tin-foil ball. Quarters and dimes circulate; pennies disappear because they are literally more trouble than they are worth.

5. What is a tin-foil ball?

6. What does the image of the tin-foil ball in a sock drawer suggest about pennies? And about the author?

The remaining 300 million or so -- that's 10 million shiny new useless items punched out every day by government workers who could be more usefully employed tracking counterfeiters -- go toward driving retailers crazy. They cost more in employee-hours -- to wait for buyers to fish them out, then to count, pack up and take them to the bank -- than it would cost to toss them out. That's why you see ''penny cups'' next to every cash register; they save the seller time and the buyer the inconvenience of lugging around loose change that tears holes in pockets and now sets off alarms at every frisking-place.

7. In the paragraph above, underline every image or phrase that seems hyperbolic to you. What is the intended effect of these images?



8. What actual effect do these images and phrases have on your (the reader’s) opinion of the penny issue?

Why is the U.S. among the last of the industrialized nations to abolish the peskiest little bits of coinage? At the G-8 summit next week, the Brits and the French -- even the French! -- who dumped their low-denomination coins 30 years ago, will be laughing at our senseless jingling.

9. Underline the words or phrases that indicate the tone of Safire’s argument. What is that tone, and does it help or harm your (the reader’s) opinion of the issue?

10. Given the tone of the invective and the amount of hyperbole in Safire’s piece, is this valid support for or against the penny?

11. How would you use Safire’s argument to support your position?



Source D: The Harris Poll Results

Type of Source:

Stated Purpose:

Possible Bias:

Question “Would you favor or oppose abolishing the penny so that the nickel would be the lowest denomination coin?”

Income Total

Less than $25K

$25K - $34.9K

$35K - $49.9K

$50K - $74.9K

$75K +

% % % % % %

Favor abolishing the penny 23 16 26 25 24 32

Oppose abolishing the penny 59 62 59 58 57 53

Not sure 18 21 15 17 20 15

1. Reading the results from left to right, what assumptions can you make about

people who make more money? Red herring (n): a distraction; something that pulls attention away from the true issue

2. In the case of this question, what makes household income a red herring? Methodology The Harris Poll® was conducted online within the United States between June 10 and 16, 2004 among a nationwide cross section of 2,136 adults (aged 18 and over). Figures for age, sex, race, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. "Propensity score" weighting was also used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online.



3. From a statistician’s point of view, this poll is valid. Is there anything about the methodology behind the poll that could make a layman (“Joe Average”) question the results?

In theory, with probability samples of this size, one could say with 95 percent certainty that the results have a sampling error of ±2 percentage points of what they would be if the entire adult population had been polled with complete accuracy. Unfortunately, there are several other possible sources of error in all polls or surveys that are probably more serious than theoretical calculations of sampling error. They include refusals to be interviewed (non-response), question wording and question order, and weighting. It is impossible to quantify the errors that may result from these factors. This online sample was not a probability sample.

4. Does the disclosure of possible errors add to or take away this source’s credibility? Why or why not?

5. Bottom line: does this chart support or refute banning the penny, and why?



Activity 2: Recap the Sources Complete the chart using your responses from Activity 1. For the “Pro” and “Con” columns, determine if the source is “for” or “against”(or neutral toward) the continuation of the U.S. penny. In the final column, quickly summarize a strategy for its use in the essay response.

Source Pro Con How to Use This Source

A (Lewis)

X

X

Because much of the diction is tongue-in-cheek, it trivializes the question of abolishing the penny; therefore this source would be good for dismissing potential counterarguments. On the other hand, the exaggerated language, taken out of context, could be used also to dismiss the penny itself.

B1 (Kahn)

X

Clearly, the source is against continuing to issue the penny. Several lines suggest that the penny is past its prime at best and a nuisance to society otherwise. Coinstar even goes so far as to suggest that it is a source of waste and corruption.

B2 (Kahn)

X

B3 (Kahn)

C (Safire)

D (Harris Poll)



Activity 3: Arranging the Sources In order to arrange your essay, you have to take a stand one way or the other. Even if you decide to stay neutral (to “qualify” your argument), the task of writing the synthesis essay demands that you at least lean to whichever side has the more persuasive evidence to support it. Write a thesis statement in which you take a position you will defend with the appropriate evidence. Consider the following:

• What is your position on the topic? • Look at your recap of the sources. For which side do you have the most

evidence? • Remember that the task demands that you examine and evaluate both sides of the

issue. (I believe that) The penny should be

(write your position for or against)

because (give a GENERAL statement of your reasoning)

.

Now that you have taken a stand one way or the other, you can choose your sources to support that stance.

Remember: you must use no less than three sources to support your argument.

First source (write the source letter or author’s last name here) to support claim: (Directly quote the source here)



Explanation of how source ( ) supports claim:

Second source ( ) to support claim:


Third source ( ) to support claim:


Additional source ( ) to support claim (optional):




Activity 4: Writing the Essay

In an essay that synthesizes at least three of the sources from activity 2, take a position that defends, challenges or qualifies the abolition of the U. S. one cent coin, the penny. Refer to the sources as Source A, Source B, etc. or by the author’s last name.


Documents

AP English Language and Composition Synthesisteachers.sduhsd.net/jconn/Synthesispennyguidedpractice.pdfThe creators of the AP* English Language and Composition Exam want you to succeed