FRQ #1: Intro to the Synthesis Essay// Philosophical Chairs
Overview
I want to state at the outset that although this page is primarily intended for AP teachers who are looking for an approach to the AP synthesis essay, students (and parents) are welcome to read whatever is here. Teaching isn't a big secret, and you'll see below that I've acknowledged (or tried to acknowledge) the many influences I've had in developing this teaching plan. Other teachers are free to adapt, adopt, and modify this material as they choose, and the only thing I would respectfully request is that you give credit to the originators of the ideas. I give major credit to the outstanding Timm Frietas for a great deal of this information. See Timm's Garden of English videos on YouTube.
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Standards
4C. Qualify a claim using modifiers, counterarguments, or alternative perspectives.
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Lecture Points: What Is the Synthesis Essay?
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Introductory Student Activity: Philosophical Chairs*
Philosophical Chairs is an in-class debate activity in which students are presented with deliberately ambiguous position statements on aspects of the central issue addressed by the synthesis essay. Students begin by individually answering a series of questions agreeing or disagreeing with the deliberately ambiguous position statements, but then are put in small groups of about five to six students. There, the entire group must come to an absolute consensus ---- no "majority rules," no "give in because everyone else disagrees." Encourage students to keep fighting for their position and giving explanations and reasons why. The purpose of the group is to sway the other members to consensus.
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Philosophical Chairs Example: The 2014 Attending College Prompt
Open-Ended Questions Debate
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Let Them Argue
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Once groups have come to a consensus -- a process which may take a substantial amount of time, possibly as much as an entire regular-length period -- then students should be directed to go to one side of the room or the other depending on the question. (Using the example above, all students should go to the right side of the room if they agree that the purpose of college is to prepare one for a career and to the left if they disagree.) There are a number of different rules for conducting philosophical chairs that should be explained and put on the board for reference:
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Philosophical Chairs Rules
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Students are to keep an open mind and listen to the speaker's statements without rushing to judgment. Students are to divide into Yes/No groups based on their answers to the questions.
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Your Role as a Teacher
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Further Reading About the College Topic
A comparison I find helpful to let my students understand the differences among the three AP essays is to compare them to challenges on a cooking show. If the rhetorical analysis asks, "What ingredients did this chef use and how did those ingredients contribute to the effect of the taste?" and the ADQ essay is asking student writers to, "Make a specified dish using whatever ingredients are in your own pantry right now," the synthesis essay essentially states, "Here are some ingredients -- now put dinner together from them." Many students come to AP with full pantries, as it were -- a substantial background in reading literature, watching groundbreaking film or TV, traveling extensively throughout the U.S. and the world, studying history, science, and other challenging coursework, or acquiring life-changing experiences as a part of their growing up --but that's not all students.
In the college debate, students need to have read a variety of texts laying out arguments for and against attending college. They also need to be taught that texts are not just blocks of prose. "Text," a term I use very loosely, can refer not just to blocks of prose, but also to cartoons, pictures, photos, charts, graphs, or other visual presentations of information. Students need to understand that like all other texts, these too need to be decoded. The College Debate Homework Packet for Reading
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Discussing the Texts
After reading and annotating the packet (or at least 3-4 articles to start), students are ready to start discussion, and at least for me, the discussion is focused on four major components: WHAT, WHERE, WHY, HOW.
During discussion and as the need arises, I'll focus students on issues such as the bias of the sources (Is an article from Fox News or the New York Times? What are the typical biases of these media outlets? How do the authors' use of words such as "Elite" or "Manifesto" suggest the author's bias?) Visual Text: Charts and Cartoons
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To Teachers
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* Many thanks for the Philosophical Chairs activity to CCSD teachers Sydney Venable and Julia Temple.