The Scholar Pack

A guide on the Scholar Pack, how it works and why it works.

By Phoebe Kelleher

The Scholar PackThe scholar pack was designed to help students develop a

repository of knowledge that they can draw upon to write argumentative essays, especially in timed circumstances such as the A.P test.

It helps students understand a complex text through using not only their own summarization but also analyzing the text at hand.

The scholar pack requires that students select and memorize four quotes from each text. These quotations should be selected because the student feels they reflect some of the most important ideas in the text.

The Scholar Pack Note cards

Each Note card contains:

Side One Title Author Important Quote

Side Two summary of central

arguments Brief analysis of text

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave-Frederick Douglass

“Mistress, in teaching me the alphabet, had given me the inch, and no precaution could prevent me from taking the ell.”

“That cheerful eye, under the influence of slavery, soon became red with rage; that voice, made all of sweet accord, changed to one of

harsh and horrid discord; and that angelic face gave place to that of a demon.”

-When he was denied education, he was unaware of what he lacked. But once he begun to learn and use his mind to it’s full potential, his determination to learn was stronger than any oppression from his master. Once the mind has sampled literacy and education, it desires it most of all.

- Slavery is the most cruel of practices; it poisons the kindest of persons with cruelty. Where there is slavery, there is both ignorance and injustice.

Scholar Pack Assignment Each student must complete 12 scholar note

cards per quarter. Students are required to memorize the quotes

and have a strong knowledge of the central arguments in the text.

The nonfiction books students choose to read must be approved in advance by the teacher. Approval will be based upon the book’s appropriateness for the Advance Placement Language and Composition curriculum.

Examples of Useful Texts for the Scholar Pack Include:

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Tips for remembering note card quotes and summaries.

Recite material out loud.

Sing it. Read (aloud) in

context. Write it.

Assume different roles while reciting material

aloud. Read it before you

sleep.

Type/write material in big letters and post it in the shower so you can

read or recite it in a relaxed state.

Make the beginning letter of each.

argument/quote/note to the first letter of each

word in the title. Ask someone to quiz

you.

Scholar Note Card Examples

Civil Disobedience

-Henry David Thoreau

“Government is best which governs least or not at all.”

“The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think is right.”

- The best kind of government is one which exercises the least amount of control and intervenes only when necessary.-Only one person is needed to initiate change in a corrupt society,

-It is every person’s responsibility to critique the government’s actions and laws and take action against any that are unjust. If the punishment for doing this is imprisonment, then jail is the proper place for a responsible honorable person to be.

- Only when a person denounces the government’s unjust laws and accepts the punishment willingly is he or she free.- The wealthier a man, the less virtuous he is.

From: Civil Disobedience

Letter from Birmingham Jail-Dr. Martin Luther King jr.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice anywhere.”

“Freedom is never voluntarily given up by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

“It is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends.”

-Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.

-When a people, such as African Americans during this time, suffer intense oppression for a long enough time and their government refuses to amend society’s discrimination, these people must take direct action to peacefully protest.

-It is a person’s responsibility to disobey unjust laws for they are not true laws.

From: Letter From Birmingham Jail

The Allegory of the Cave-Plato

“He would rather suffer anything than entertain these false notions and live in this miserable manner.”

“Will they rule who are truly rich, not in silver and gold, but in virtue and wisdom, which are the true blessings of life.”

-Many people are in a state of mental captivity. They have not been shown the true ways of humanity–the light.-After people have reached an enlightened intellectual state, they will find it difficult to return to their previous land of intellectual darkness and pity others who have never ventured out of this darkness. When they argue with others who have not reached this enlightened state, the others will think the enlightened ones to be crazy and worthless because their ideas seem alien and bombastic.-People are born with the knowledge and ability to understand enlightened ideas of the soul and self, they need only to be educated to find this enlightened understanding.-Wisdom is divine, but people do use it for both good and evil.-Enlightened people of the government must descend to serve the lower people, as well as the more the fortunate enlightened and wealthy, because it is their duty to serve all classes equally.

From: The Allergory of the Cave

Meditation: The Path to Enlightenment-Thoughts from the Tao-te Ching

Lao-Tzu

“Because he believes in himself, he doesn’t try to convince others. Because he is content with himself, he doesn’t need

other’s approval. Because he accepts himself, the whole world accepts him.”

“The World is sacred.It can’t be improved.

If you tamper with it, you’ll ruin it.If you treat it like an object, you’ll loose it.”

-To get rid of evil, remove good.-The government or leader should lead passively and subtly so that the people are unaware of it’s presence.-Not striving for fail, lawfulness, or righteousness and simply being who you are, is they way to achieve balance through the Tao.-Do not attempt to control nature for it is not an object. Do not attempt to control a person for people are part of nature.

1421-Gavin Menzies

“The emperor. . . has ordered us [Zheng He] and others [Zhou Man, Hong Bao, Zhou Wen and Yang Qing] at the head of several tens of thousands of officers and imperial troops to journey in more than a hundred ships. . . to treat

distant people with kindness. . . We have gone to the western regions . . . altogether more than three thousand countries large and small. We have traversed more than a

hundred thousand li (forty thousand nautical miles) of immense water spaces”

-Europeans did not discover the New World.-Between the years 1421 and 1423 the Chinese built a fleet of 800 massive ships called junks. The fleet’s orders/ goals were to reach every continent and trade peacefully with the natives in the new lands. They accomplished these goals.-Remnants and evidence of their journey can be found on every continent.-The Chinese, during this time, discovered how to accurately measure and navigate by longitude and latitude using the stars.- “[The Chinese fleets] had sailed through sixty-two island archipelagos comprising more than seventeen thousand islands and charted tens of thousands of miles of coastline. Admiral Zheng He’s claim to have visited three thousand countries large and small appeared to be true. The Chinese fleets had voyaged across the Indian Ocean to East Africa, around the Cape of Good Hope to the Cape Verde Islands, through the Caribbean to North America and the Arctic, down to Cape Horn, the Antarctic, Australia, New Zealand and across the Pacific.”

All Africa and Her Progenies-Richard Dawkins

“ The story of African Eve is a parochial, human microcosm of a grander and incomparably more ancient epic.”

“As we follow our genetic river back through remote antiquity, there were probably lots of Eves and lots of

Adams.”

-Mitochondrial Eve is one woman who, through the female’s only gene path, is the most recent common ancestor of every human alive today. She lived between 150 thousand and 1/4 million years ago.-The Focal Ancestor, the most recent common ancestor of all modern people through any gene path, was probably a man.-Both lived in Africa, therefore, all people originated in Africa. Our ancestors were living in Africa only about a few hundred thousand years ago.

The Morals of a Prince-Niccolo Machiavelli

“It is necessary for a prince who wishes to maintain his position to learn how not to be good.”

“ For one can generally say this about men: that they are ungrateful, fickle, simulators and deceivers, avoiders of

danger, greedy for gain.”

-No prince possesses all of the good or necessary qualities a leader should have, but it is his job to appear as though he does. A prince should always appear virtuous.-A prince should not distribute his money to the poor throughout his country for he will be left with empty coffers. Instead, he should steal money from other countries (so it is not his own money he gives away) and publicize his generosity as much as possible.-He should not reveal all of the truth, he should only reveal what he thinks the public should know. But he should convince the public that they know all.-It is better to be a feared leader than a loved leader. No one would cross a cruel leader but they might take advantage of a compassionate one.

The Mystery of Zen

-Gilbert Highet

“Do not try to use words. Do not think. Make no efforts toward withdrawal from the world. Expect no sublime

ecstasies. Live. All that is the ultimate reality, and it can be understood from the motion of a finger...”

- Zen is being present within the space and the world.

- It is not thinking or feeling but letting the thing happen.

- It is not expecting to find success at the end of every struggle.

- It is responding to impulses passively without judging or analyzing actions.

Existentialism

-Jean-Paul Sartre

“They envisage a number of possibilities and when they choose they realize that it has value only because it’s

chosen.”

“Thinks will be as man will have decided they are to be.”

- People control themselves and are fully responsible for every action they take.- People are free because an individual’s personal morals and restrictions do not exist when they are born.- People have the freedom to explore any choice they wish. Any decision an individual makes is the right decision because it was the one he or she ended up making.- People have no responsibility to follow the laws of religion.

Of Youth and Age

-Francis Bacon

“A man that is young in years may be old in hours, if he have lost no time.”

“The errors of young men are the ruin of business.”

-Young people can achieve the wisdom and cautious skill of experienced elders if they waste no time with impulsive decisions and spend all their time learning good judgment. But this rarely happens. In business, the young bring their bold energy and grand ideas but often fail because they are not fit to make decisions with good judgment, serve counsel or advise, or settle business.-Elders have the experience and wisdom but can fail because they are too cautious. Some lack the spontaneity to take risks and so their businesses floats below success.-A successful business is most likely to be built of a collaboration between the young and the experienced. The elders will ground the business with their good judgment and wisdom and the young will provide the catalyst to make the business unique.