TGIF!!!!!

Today AP Studs did the following:

Wrote a synthesis essay on a museum.  Copied below in red is a sample essay.

You also picked up a synthesis essay on the penny that is due to turnitin.com on May 7th.  If you missed class today, you must come pick one up next week.

We also announced the shirt winner - we will have baseball shirts as shown on design 4B.  I will place the order on Monday.  If you would like one, you must see me Monday BEFORE school or e-mail me this weekend.

Please earn 40,000 points on vocabulary.com between 4/27 and 5/8.  The new list is entitled "Letter from a Birmingham Jail."

Please complete Practice Test One in your AP workbook (pages 154 - 176) and submit it on Monday, May 11, 2015.

Okay below in red is a sample synthesis essay; below that in blue is a sample Flamingo rhetorical analysis.

Synthesis

While many of us don’t visit museums on a frequent basis, virtually all of us benefit from the riches that museums contain, whether it be a memory of gazing at a mesmerizing piece of art or wondering what life was like for the T-Rex, whose bone catches our attention in the museum’s foyer.  Moreover, most of us only sample the exhibits from the perspective of a guest, oblivious to the work and decisions that must occur behind the scenes.  Stepping into the shoes of a person responsible for securing objects for a museum, however, may not prove to be difficult; we all experience decisions regarding the accumulation of goods for various purposes, almost on a daily basis:  do I spring for a artisanal latte at my corner coffee shop or do I make an inferior cup of joe at home?  With these thoughts in mind, the most important considerations facing a person responsible for securing objects for a museum include:  finances and the tenuous balance between client attraction and education.

First, money- it makes the world go ‘round, right?  A bankrupt museum is a closed museum with no value to the public.  David Rockefeller notes this challenge by describing his museum’s “fragile financial condition” and the struggles produced by their “financial woes” (Source A).  Of course, Rockefeller’s wife created the MoMA in New York, a famous and prestigious museum.  If the MoMA has “critical business problems” with “money and management” that “[threaten} the institution,” one may safely assume that finances are a chief concern for museums throughout the world (Source A).

Of course, not only do artifacts cost money, but a museum needs visitors to make money.  Since most of us in the general public are hardly visual artists or Nobel Prize winning scientists, museums arguable must cater to a lower denominator so that they can stay financially afloat.  How to attract guests?  A popular draw, such as Marilyn Monroe’s halter dress or Jimi Hendrix’s Woodstock headscarf, may or may not be the most historically significant items, but they sure are crowd pleasers.  Charles Peale seems to be aware of the need to attract visitors with his display of “biological oddities such as a two-headed pig, [and] a root resembling a human face” (Source B).   I am sure that I am not the only one who wouldn’t mind a peek at these sideshow marvels, even if I had to pay a few bucks to do so.   While I would hardly gain much insight from seeing these weird sights, I would be entertained, and there’s nothing wrong with that, right?  Peale’s museum has its income, and I have some stories to tell at the dinner table about the incredible “five-legged cow” (Source B).

If enough of us lowbrows frequent Peale’s museum, his establishment will be a success because he will have money.   This financial success benefits everyone because Peale’s museum also has a “large and scientifically classified specimens” (Source B).  In some ways, Peale’s museum may be compared to watching a sexy anchorwoman read the news.  While her leather dress may have gotten us to switch on the program, once attracted to the program, we may actually learn something about the turmoil in Syria or Hillary’s second bid for the presidency.   Therefore, sexy or bizarre sights may attract us, but we may just stay long enough to become enlightened.   In short, a “museum’s legitimate concern [should be] not money or education but money and education” (Source D).

A looming concern, however, is not to carry the “attraction” aspect too far.  For example, Colonial Williamsburg depicts life in the 18^th century excluding the “filth and stench that would have been commonplace” and may even avoid “historical unpleasantness like slavery, disease, and class oppression” (Source E).  While we may love this “sanitized” version of American history, it is hardly accurate and likely does not inform us of our past in a profoundly valuable way.  We are
entertained, but not enlightened.

Our desire for authenticity permeates our life.  Just last night, I watched one of my favorite films, Hoosiers, which is loosely based on a small Indianan basketball’s team road to the state championship in 1952.  In the film, the coach, played by Gene Hackman, is middle aged and recently fired from a college for hitting a player in anger, much like basketball legend Bobby Knight once did.  The film depicts the final championship game as a last chance for redemption for the coach – a highly dramatic theme.  Unfortunately, real life was nothing like that in in the film.  The real coach was 26 years old at the time of the state title game and had no such demons in his past.   The film’s writer just added some drama to attract viewers.

Once I learned the truth behind this story, I was disappointed, much as if I had gone to Willkiamburg, munched on my sausage on a stick, and later discovered that the very place where I sat had once been the site of slave quarters.  Accordingly, a museum must be aware and reflective of the balance between client attraction and education.  If not, we might as well as go to Splash Town.

Pink Flamingo

In her article, “The Plastic Pink Flamingo:  A Natural History,’ Jennifer Price reveals her view of United States culture that is hardly flattering.  Specifically, she calls Americans lazy, ignorant, insensitive, and wealth obsessed.

Price begins her essay by noting her view that Americans tend to travel and perhaps think in packs (“flocking”).  Price also quickly introduces her idea of American wealth obsessions with her claim that, to Americans, the flamingo was “synonymous with wealth and pizazz.”  Price further insults Americans by mentioning our penchant for “boldness” and “bright” colors – nothing elegant or subtle for Americans, according to Price. 

In her second paragraph, Price’s sarcasm becomes caustic when she notes that “Americans had hunted flamingos to extinction,” revealing an alleged ignorance and maybe even insensitivity with three little words, “But no matter.”  Moreover, Price implies another dig at American wealth obsession with her reportage that Americans were impressed by the “flamboyant oasis of instant riches [of Las Vegas] that the gangster … ‘Bugsy’ Siegel” created with his “Flamingo Hotel.”  Who cares that Siegel was a notorious bootlegger?  He had bank!

Returning to the theme of “boldness” in her third paragraph, Price reiterates her view that Americans form herds in which to group think, as she describes ‘sassy pinks’ that were the ‘hottest color of the decade.’  In a pre-Kardashian era, Price pokes at the American obsession with celebrities with her comment that “Elvis Presley bought a pink Cadillac.”  At this point in the article, Price confirms her criticism of American culture in a way that even we ignorant Americans can understand.

Price strongly hints at this perceived ignorance when she calls us to task for our insistence that the bird’s name include “pink” “as if they could be blue or green?”  Then Price digs deeper into cultural appropriation (thanks Monica) and American chauvinism when she recites the religious and cultural significance of the flamingo to cultures in “Ancient Egypt,” and “Mexico, and the Caribbean.”  Ignorant of these rich traditions, Americans, according to Price, “reproduced [the flamingo], brightened it, and sent it wading across an inland sea of grass.”  Therefore, not only are we ignorant of cultural and religious significances, but also apparently we Americans lack even a rudimentary knowledge of the flamingo’s natural habitat as we “sent [the flamingo] wading across an inland sea of grass.” 
By the conclusion of this piece, Americans become painfully aware of Price’s disdain for United States culture, which is ironic as so many other cultures strive to emulate us (thank you Sylvia).

Have a GREAT weekend!