Analyzing a ‘life well spent’
AP English Language students had the chance to channel their creative sides through the “A Life Well Spent” project.
October 17, 2018
AP English Language students are stepping out of bounds. Instead of analyzing various speeches, students got the chance to create a video on what does it means to live a life well spent.
Students had three days in class to work on the project to get the inspiration flowing. They first answered a questionnaire on someone who they think lived a life well spent.
“I think students will have the chance to demonstrate their understanding of rhetorical analysis in a new way,” AP Language teacher Chad Doty said. “Instead of writing an analysis of someone else’s idea, there able to use strategies that demonstrate their understanding.”
AP Language is normally a rather focused class where students analyze a lot of non-fiction, however students got to put a personal touch on classwork as they practiced the skills assessed in the past.
“I’ve enjoyed being able to put myself in a motivational speakers shoes and use my own ideas to help me convey what I believe,” junior Celia Abdallah said. “What I think I’ll be able to gain from this project is learning how to use rhetorical appeals in order to gain a certain reaction from any audience I will be speaking or writing to.”
Despite the fact that students had a lot of freedom with this project, they still found it challenging as they were supposed to come up with everything on their own.
“Being able to craft a script that fully answers the question asked, and presenting ethos, pathos, and logos was pretty challenging,” junior Tristan Maravilla said. “It will help me analyze ethos, pathos, and logos strategies which will help prepare me for the AP test.”
Although the prompt is unexpected in an AP language classroom, teachers thought students would be able to show their understanding of rhetorical devices in a creative way.
“The prompt was picked by Mrs.Gardner, we were looking at some of the texts that we’ve read this year by Thoreau and looked at Joe Biden eulogy for John McCain and thought that was kind of a theme in both of those works,” Doty said. “We thought that’s would be appropriate for the video.”
