AP English Language- Synthesis

1.

The Decline of Handwriting Instruction in Schools

Handwriting instruction used to be a staple in American schools. Both print and cursive writing were taught universally to students from the 19th century through most of the 20th century. However, in recent decades, the time spent on handwriting lessons has dwindled to nearly nothing.

Some argue handwriting still holds value and should remain in education curriculums. Others claim digital technologies have made handwriting obsolete, rendering its instruction pointless in modern classrooms. While views differ on its current merits, handwriting instruction has undoubtedly shifted from a core component to an afterthought in today’s schools compared to its prominent place in previous generations.

Carefully read the following six sources, including the introductory information for each source. Write an
essay that synthesizes material from at least three of the sources and develops your position on the place, if any,
of handwriting instruction in today’s schools.

Source A (Gillis)
Source B (worksheet)
Source C (Trubek)
Source D (Kysilko)
Source E (Pot)
Source F (graph)

 

Source A

Gillis, Carly. “Schools Debate Cursive Handwriting Instruction Nationwide.” HuffPost, 30 Mar.
2011, www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/30/cursive-handwriting-instr_n_842069.html.

The following is excerpted from an article on a news Web site.

Cursive handwriting instruction is disappearing.

Students and teachers alike have swapped pencils for keyboards, baselines for blinking cursors, and have all but
written off the traditional route of writing.

Although standardized tests may not pick up the flourish of a cursive capital “T” or grade against floaters and
sinkers, proponents of cursive handwriting maintain that there is value in teaching the craft and hope to save it from
being erased from educational relevancy.

ABC News reports that 41 states have adopted the Common Core State Standards for English, which omits cursive
handwriting from required curriculum. Now that it’s not mandatory, schools around the country are debating
whether or not to spend valuable teaching resources on penmanship.

In New York, some schools are considering cutting it altogether. Deb Fitzgerald, a second-grade teacher at Van
Schaick Elementary in Cohoes, told CBS 6 Albany that she’d rather “move on” and focus class time on other topics.
Colorado schools are also engaged in a similar debate. Some teachers believe that cursive is archaic and that
students should be prepared for contemporary communication. Susana Cordova, chief academic officer Denver
Public Schools, told the Denver Post:

“In many respects, it’s only inside our schools where we see such emphasis on paper and pencil,” she says. “The
move outside our schools, and in innovative schools, is toward technology. There will always be a role for the
written word by hand on paper. But the experiences most of us have, with 30 minutes a day practicing cursive in
class, has gone by the wayside.”

Source B

“Lowercase Cursive Letter Practice Worksheet.” TLSBooks,
www.tlsbooks.com/pdf/cursivepractice.pdf.

The following is adapted from a free printable worksheet available on a Web site created as a resource for
parents and teachers of students from preschool to sixth grade.

 

Source C

Trubek, Anne. “Handwriting Just Doesn’t Matter.” The New York Times, 20 Aug. 2016,
www.nytimes.com/2016/08/21/opinion/handwriting-just-doesnt-matter.html

The following is excerpted from an opinion piece published in a national newspaper.

These arguments [in favor of learning cursive handwriting] are largely a side show to the real issues, which are
cultural. In April, when the Louisiana State Senate voted to put cursive back into the public school curriculum,
senators yelled “America!” in celebration, as though learning cursive were a patriotic act.

A month later, Alabama required the teaching of cursive in public schools by the end of third grade by way of
“Lexi’s Law,” named for the granddaughter of the state representative Dickie Drake; Mr. Drake believes “cursive
writing identifies you as much as your physical features do.” In other words, our script reveals something unique and
ineluctable about our inner being.

For most of American history, cursive was supposed to do the opposite. Mastering it was dull, repetitive work,
intended to make every student’s handwriting match a standardized model. In the mid-19th century, that model was
Spencerian script. It was replaced by the Palmer Method, which was seen as a more muscular and masculine hand
suitable for the industrial age—a “plain and rapid style,” as Austin Palmer described it, to replace the more
effeminate Spencerian. Students who learned it were taught to become “writing machines,” holding their arms and
shoulders in awkward poses for hours to get into shape for writing drills.

It was also believed that mastering the Palmer Method would make students better Christians, immigrants more
assimilated Americans (through its “powerful hygienic effect”), “bad” children better (“the initial step in the reform
of many a delinquent”) and workers more industrious (because the script had fewer curlicues and strokes than
Spencerian).

Our 19th- and 20th-century counterparts grafted their values onto handwriting, just as we do with our conceptions of
individualism, patriotism and the unique self. These are projections we make onto squiggles and loops.
We have seen similar debates over the meaning of handwriting during other moments of historic transition. In the
early medieval era, monks were told to stop using a Roman-based script because it looked too pagan and to adopt a
more Christian-looking one. In the 16th century, Erasmus wrote a dialogue in which characters writing in the
Renaissance-infused Humanist script complain about the “barbarous” look of Gothic script which they deem less
civilized. They also complain that women have messy, impatient handwriting. (Today, women are perceived as
being naturally better at penmanship than men, largely because handwriting is now taught at a younger age, when the
fine motor skills of girls are more developed.)

Cursive has no more to do with patriotism than Gothic script did with barbarism, or the Palmer Method with
Christianity. Debates over handwriting reveal what a society prizes and fears; they are not really about the virtues or
literacy levels of children.

Finally, current cursive advocates often argue that students who don’t learn cursive won’t be able to read it—“they
won’t be able to read the Declaration of Independence”—but that is misleading. Reading that 18th-century
document in the original is difficult for most people who know cursive, as the script is now unfamiliar. A vast
majority of historical manuscripts are illegible to anyone but experts, or are written in languages other than English.

In fact, the changes imposed by the digital age may be good for writers and writing. Because they achieve
automaticity quicker on the keyboard, today’s third graders may well become better writers as handwriting takes up
less of their education.

Source D

Kysilko, David. “The Handwriting Debate.” National Association of State Boards of Education,
20 Sept. 2012, www.nasbe.org/latest-news/handwriting-debate/.

The following is excerpted from a report published on the Web site of a nonprofit organization that represents
state boards of education in the United States.

Handwriting encompasses two distinct forms: manuscript or printed writing using block letters that are not
connected when forming words, and cursive writing, where successive letters are joined and angles are rounded. In
the United States, printed writing is generally taught beginning in preschool or kindergarten and continuing through
2nd grade, while cursive is taught beginning in the 3rd grade and continuing through 5th grade. . . .

Those who favor handwriting instruction . . . have “common sense” points: there are and will likely always be times
when handwriting notes or lists will be necessary or more convenient—and cursive is faster than printing;
handwritten correspondence to individuals has a greater impact on the receiver than emails or digitally printed
communications; students, especially in elementary school, still turn in handwritten assignments; there is still a need
to be able to read cursive, especially in the case of primary source documents; and cursive is a powerful cultural and
historical link to human development, since the drive and ability to draw symbols with our hands is one of the
defining characteristics of our species.

But the strongest arguments in favor of teaching cursive are emerging from a growing body of research from the last
10 to 15 years that points to the educational benefts of learning to write by hand—benefts that go well beyond just
the ability to write and read cursive. Following are some of the fndings.

* Cognitive and Motor Skills Development: Because handwriting is a complex skill that involves both cognitive
and fne motor skills, direct instruction is required to learn handwriting (it is not good enough to just give a
workbook to students and hope for the best). However, the result of good instruction is that students are benefted
both in their cognitive development and in developing motor skills.

* Literacy Development: Handwriting is a foundational skill that can influence students’ reading, writing, language
use, and critical thinking. Students without consistent exposure to handwriting are more likely to have problems
retrieving letters from memory; spelling accurately; extracting meaning from text or lecture; and interpreting the
context of words and phrases.

* Brain Development: The sequential hand movements used in handwriting activate the regions of the brain
associated with thinking, short-term memory, and language. In addition, according to Virginia Berninger, Ph.D.,
professor of educational psychology at the University of Washington, cursive in particular is linked with brain
functions around self-regulation and mental organization. “Cursive helps you connect things,” Dr. Berninger said in
an interview.

* Memory: The act of handwriting helps students (and adults) retain information more effectively than when
keyboarding, mostly likely because handwriting involves more complex motor functions and takes a bit longer. One
study comparing students who took notes by hand versus classmates who took notes by computer found that the
handwriters exhibited better comprehension of the content and were more attentive and involved during the class
discussions.

Source E

Pot, Justin. “Cursive Writing Is Obsolete; Schools Should Teach Programming Instead.” Make
Use Of, 17 Feb. 2015, www.makeuseof.com.

The following is excerpted from an editorial published on a Web site that provides information about technology.
Hardly Anyone Uses Cursive

Almost everyone reading this article was taught cursive in school, but most of you don’t use it. “Much of our
communication is done on a keyboard, and the rest is done with print,” says Morgan Polikoff, assistant
professor of education at the University of Southern California. “While both research and common sense
indicate students should be taught some form of penmanship, there is simply no need to teach students both
print and cursive.” There’s only so much time in the day, and which skills we decide to teach has a dramatic
impact on the lives of students. Does it really make sense to prioritize an obsolete ability?

It’s Not About The Extra Benefits

Learning cursive does offer some benefits: it helps develop fine motor skills, for example, and stimulates
certain regions of the brain. You could make similar arguments about almost anything. Playing the original
Super Mario Bros helps develop fine motor skills, for example, but requiring school children to play that game
15 minutes a day would be an (admittedly awesome) waste of time. If cursive is taught, it should be taught not
as an essential life skill but as an art—like calligraphy—or as an interesting relic of the past. Modern people
don’t use it, and education systems should stop pretending they do.

Bad Reasons To Learn Useless Skills

Cards on the table: penmanship was my least favourite class as a kid (with the possible exception of math). I
shudder to think of the time I spent learning cursive: 15 minutes of schooling, every day. It’s a staggering
waste—but even worse, in retrospect, were the reasons my teachers said it was important. “You’re going to use
this every day,” I was told. I don’t. “In college, if you can’t write cursive, you won’t be able to take notes fast
enough.” I didn’t use cursive; I kept up just fine. Of course, teachers gave me lots of bad reasons for learning
things—that doesn’t mean learning them isn’t important. I hated learning multiplication tables, but was told it
was important because when I grow up I “won’t be carrying a calculator with me everywhere.” That prediction
didn’t turn out, but I’m not bitter about learning multiplication tables—I use that skill multiple times every day.
So while I hated both penmanship and math class, I’m not upset about multiplication tables. The problem with
cursive is I never use it. Surveys show most adults feel the same way. Typing is faster, and print is fast enough
when you happen to need to use paper (and it’s increasingly possible to avoid paper entirely).

Education Should Focus On The Future

Just because you learned something in school doesn’t mean your kids should: the world is changing, quickly.
And while it’s hard to make predictions about where technology is headed, it’s safe to say the future won’t
involve a lot of cursive handwriting (unless some kind of disaster sends us back to 14th-century technology, in
which case handwriting will be the least of our problems). There’s only so many hours in a day, so it’s
important education systems prioritize. Every hour spent learning an obsolete skill like cursive is time they’re
not learning the programming skills needed for great jobs, or other essential life-skills like managing your
money.

Source F

“Time Spent in Classroom Handwriting versus Technology.” Learning Without Tears, 5 Nov.
2013, www.lwtears.com/files/Research%20Bulletin_Nov%202013_For%20WEB_Nov5.pdf.

The following is a graph of the results of a 2013 national survey of 450 elementary school teachers in the United
States that asked how much of their time students spent writing on paper and how much of their time they spent
using technology.

2.  

Write an essay stating your position on the most important factors to consider when deciding whether to establish a wind farm. Use evidence from at least 3 of the provided sources to support your argument.

Guidelines:

• Develop an argumentative essay focused on your perspective on the prompt. Avoid merely summarizing sources.
• Incorporate direct quotes, paraphrases, or summaries from a minimum of 3 sources as evidence. Cite them as Source A, Source B, etc. or by the descriptions in parentheses.
• Analyze how the evidence from sources supports the reasoning for your position.
• Maintain clear attribution of sources throughout the essay, whether cited directly or referenced indirectly.

The goal is to take a stance and utilize the provided sources to craft a persuasive argument essay defending your view. Synthesize relevant information from sources as evidence to reinforce your focused position.

Source A (photo)
Source B (Layton)
Source C (Seltenrich)
Source D (Brown)
Source E (Rule)
Source F (Molla)

Source A

Winchell, Joshua. “Wind Turbines.” U. S. Fish and
Wildlife Service National Digital Library,

Source B

Layton, Julia. “How Wind Power Works.”
HowStuffWorks, 9 Aug. 2006,
science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/
green-science/wind-power.htm.

The following is excerpted from a popular Web site dedicated to explaining various processes.
On a global scale, wind turbines are currently generating about as much electricity as eight large nuclear power
plants. That includes not only utility-scale turbines, but also small turbines generating electricity for individual
homes or businesses (sometimes used in conjunction with photovoltaic solar energy). A small, 10-kW-capacity
turbine can generate up to 16,000 kWh per year, and a typical U.S. household consumes about 10,000 kWh in a
year.

A typical large wind turbine can generate up to 1.8 MW* of electricity, or 5.2 million KWh annually, under ideal
conditions—enough to power nearly 600 households. Still, nuclear and coal power plants can produce electricity
cheaper than wind turbines can. So why use wind energy? The two biggest reasons for using wind to generate
electricity are the most obvious ones: Wind power is clean, and it’s renewable. It doesn’t release harmful gases like
CO2 and nitrogen oxides into the atmosphere the way coal does . . . and we are in no danger of running out of wind
anytime soon. There is also the independence associated with wind energy, as any country can generate it at home
with no foreign support. And a wind turbine can bring electricity to remote areas not served by the central power
grid.

But there are downsides, too. Wind turbines can’t always run at 100 percent power like many other types of power
plants, since wind speeds fluctuate. Wind turbines can be noisy if you live close to a wind plant, they can be
hazardous to birds and bats, and in hard-packed desert areas there is a risk of land erosion if you dig up the ground to
install turbines. Also, since wind is a relatively unreliable source of energy, operators of wind-power plants have to
back up the system with a small amount of reliable, non-renewable energy for times when wind speeds die down.
Some argue that the use of unclean energy to support the production of clean energy cancels out the benefits, but the
wind industry claims that the amount of unclean energy that’s necessary to maintain a steady supply of electricity in
a wind system is far too small to defeat the benefits of generating wind power.

Potential disadvantages aside, the United States has a good number of wind turbines installed, totaling more than
9,000 MW of generating capacity in 2006. That capacity generates in the area of 25 billion kWh of electricity, which
sounds like a lot but is actually less than 1 percent of the power generated in the country each year. As of 2005, U.S.
electricity generation breaks down like this:

• Coal: 52%
• Nuclear: 20%
• Natural Gas: 16%
• Hydropower: 7%
• Other (including wind, biomass, geothermal and solar) 5%
The current total electricity generation in the United States is in the area of 3.6 trillion kWh every year. Wind has the
potential to generate far more than 1 percent of that electricity.
*
1 MW (megawatt) = 1,000 kWh (kilowatts)

Source C

Seltenrich, Nate. “Wind Turbines: A Different Breed of
Noise?” Environmental Health Perspectives,
vol. 122, no. 1, Jan. 2014. National Institute for
Environmental Health Sciences,
ehp.niehs.nih.gov/wp-content/uploads/122/1/
ehp.122-A20.pdf.

The following is excerpted from an article in a peer-reviewed journal published by a federally funded research
institute. The numbered notes refer to source information that has been omitted from this excerpt for length.
Large-scale wind turbines are a relatively recent innovation, so the body of peer-reviewed research addressing the
potential impacts of their unique brand of sound is sparse and particularly unsettled. Anecdotal evidence strongly
suggests a connection between turbines and a constellation of symptoms including nausea, vertigo, blurred vision,
unsteady movement, and difficulty reading, remembering, and thinking.24

The polarizing issue of wind-turbine noise is often framed one of two ways: Turbines are either harmless,
or they tend to have powerful adverse effects, especially for sensitive individuals.

According to Jim Cummings, executive director of the nonprofit Acoustic Ecology Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico, most of the reports to date that have
concluded turbines are harmless examined “direct” effects of sound on people and tended to discount “indirect”
effects moderated by annoyance, sleep disruption, and associated stress. But research that considered indirect
pathways has yielded evidence strongly suggesting the potential for harm.

Multiple recent studies, including one coauthored by Daniel Shepherd, senior lecturer at New Zealand’s Auckland
University of Technology, have demonstrated that sleep interference gets worse the nearer residents are to
turbines.

“Sleep is absolutely vital for an organism,” he says. “When we lose a night’s sleep, we become
dysfunctional. The brain is an important organ, and if noise is disturbing its functioning, then that is a direct health
effect.”

In another recent study, Shepherd made a case for approaching the debate from a social or humanistic standpoint,
taking perceived effects seriously even if the potential mechanisms through which they occur remain unclear. Many
reasons exist for taking this approach with wind-turbine noise, he wrote.

First is that turbine noise (that is, the aerodynamic noise produced by air moving around the spinning blades as
opposed to any mechanical noise from the motor itself) is often deemed more annoying than the hum or roar of
transportation noise because of its repetitive nature and high variability in both level and quality—from “swoosh” to
“thump” to silence, all modulated by wind speed and direction. This pulsing, uneven quality enables the noise to
repeatedly capture the attention and become more difficult to ignore.

In addition, unlike vehicle traffic, which tends to get quieter after dark, turbines can sound louder overnight. As
Cummings explains, “Often at night, wind shear sets in. This creates conditions with moderate winds at hub height
and a sharp boundary layer below which winds are much lower, or even near still.” The absolute noise level of the
wind farm may be no more than during the day, but it can be 10–20 decibels louder than the quieter nighttime
ambient sound levels. This detail has important implications for sleep disruption.

Third, wind turbines generate lower frequencies of sound than traffic. These lower frequencies tend to be judged as
more annoying than higher frequencies and are more likely to travel through walls and windows.31
Infrasound, or sound frequency lower than 20 Hz—inaudible to the human ear—has been associated in some studies with
symptoms including fatigue, sleeplessness, and irritability as well as with changes to the physiology of the inner
ear that have poorly understood implications.

Source D

Brown, Hal. “Blowin’ in the Wind: Texas Ranchers Turn to Turbines.” E: The Environmental Magazine,
vol. 19, no. 1, 2008. Academic Search Premier, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct
=true&db=aph&AN=28052795&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

The following is excerpted from an article in a magazine that features articles on environmental issues.
In sun-seared West Texas, oil and gas producers have driven the regional economy since the mid-1920s. Now
there’s a new player in town—electricity-generating wind turbines. The turbines are sprouting by the hundreds on
the low mesas that dot the desert landscape.

Wind turbines came to the small West Texas town of McCamey with the millennium. Construction began in 2000,
and the first machines came on line in 2001. Florida Power and Light (FPL) now runs 688 area turbines.
“There are three things you’re going to have to find,” says Neil James, production manager for the FPL wind
operations around McCamey. “That’s the wind, the transmission lines and the land. The McCamey area is very
abundant in those three things.”

McCamey, population 1,600, has always been blessed with petroleum resources, but the oil business boom-and-bust
cycles have taken their toll. Oil production in Upton County dropped almost 25 percent from 1972 (when it was
12.5 million barrels) to 1999 (9.4 million barrels).

Wind power has restored McCamey’s economy. It now bills itself as the “Wind Energy Capital of Texas.” “It was
dying there for a little bit,” admits Alicia Sanchez, who heads McCamey’s economic development office. “Now
taxes have increased 30 percent from 2004 to 2007. All we can see is positive.” Texans apparently agree. An FPL-
commissioned study released earlier this year said 93 percent support further development of wind energy in the
state.

Federal tax credits, coupled with a Texas mandate requiring that a percentage of electricity come from green power
producers, have spurred development. Rick Doehn manages rights of way and surface lands leasing for the state’s
Permanent University Fund, which supports the University of Texas and other Texas institutions, and also owns
2.1 million acres, chiefly in West Texas. Doehn says wind turbine leases and oil and gas leases often involve the
same land. “The electric companies didn’t see any problems with oil rigs,” he says. “They’re towers, but they’re
only up for a month or two, unless it’s a very deep well.”

Texas’ other historic industry, ranching, loves the turbines. Rancher Ernest Woodward said he can’t imagine any
harm coming to his livestock from nearby turbines. “Windmills are very clean,” Woodward said. “There’s nothing
that’s harmful to the environment that I know of.” Bird kills, he says, are not a problem because West Texas fowl
have little problem avoiding the slow-moving (20 revolutions per minute) turbine blades.
For some ranchers, wind turbines bring with them an economic incentive that oil and gas do not. “Wind power is a
surface activity,” Doehn says. “With oil and gas the minerals are underneath, and a lot of ranchers don’t own the
mineral rights. Many of them sold off the minerals in order to get enough money to retain the surface rights when
times were tough.”

Woodward, who has both wind leases and oil leases on his ranch between McCamey and Fort Stockton, says there’s
room enough for both. There are 243 of the big wind turbines turning on Woodward Mesa. He gets a six to eight
percent royalty payment on the power the turbines make. “We’re just living off the land and whatever else we can
do. We’re glad to have them,” he says.

Source E

Rule, Troy A. Solar, Wind and Land: Conflicts in
Renewable Energy Development. Routledge, 2014.

The following is excerpted from a recent scholarly book.

Without question, the gargantuan wind turbines installed in today’s commercial wind farms can materially alter a
landscape’s appearance. Modern utility-scale wind turbines commonly exceed 400 feet in height, towering well
above any other buildings or structures in their vicinities and tall enough to be seen from several miles away. Even
in rural areas where population densities are relatively low, turbines can impose significant costs by disrupting
territorial views for local residents who may have grown attached to an area’s existing natural backdrop. The
presence of turbines continues into the night, when turbine safety lighting often required under federal aviation laws
flashes across an otherwise pristine evening sky.

Unfortunately, only so much can be done to disguise commercial wind turbines from view. Because the colors
naturally occurring in the sky and on land tend to change with the seasons and time of day, it is often impossible to
successfully camouflage turbines with paint such that they blend in with their surroundings. Painting designs on
turbines or painting them multiple colors tends to only make them more distracting, and painting them gray can
make them seem “dirty” or “associated with an industrial, urban, or military character.” Consequently, most
commercial wind turbines are painted white—a color choice based partly on a belief that bright white turbines
“convey a positive image” and are “associated with cleanliness.”

Installing smaller, shorter turbines to make them less conspicuous to neighbors is also rarely a viable option. The
energy productivity of natural wind tends to increase significantly with altitude, so turbines are purposely designed
to stand high above the ground to capture those more productive wind currents. By towering well above the earth’s
surface, modern commercial wind turbines also avoid turbulence from nearby buildings and trees that might
otherwise diminish their productivity. And the sheer size of a commercial wind turbine’s rotor, which directly
affects its generating capacity, requires that the turbine be mounted upon a tall tower.

Unable to camouflage or shrink the size of utility-scale wind turbines, wind energy developers must often find ways
to assuage locals’ concerns about the potential visual impacts of these enormous devices. Developers’ ability to do
so depends in part on local residents’ subjective views about the attractiveness of the turbines themselves. Indeed,
wind turbines are no different from any other structure in that their beauty or ugliness ultimately rests in the eye of
their beholder. Some scholars have suggested that wind farms could and should be more commonly viewed as works
of art. Citing the widespread depiction of windmills in notable seventeenth-century Dutch paintings and the large-
scale environmental art projects of famous artists such as Christo Javacheff, they argue that commercial wind energy
projects should be perceived as artistic creations rather than industrial blight.

Source F

Molla, Rani. “What Is the Most Efficient Source of Electricity?” Wall Street Journal, 15 Sept. 2014,
blogs.wsj.com/numbers/what-is-the-most- efficient-source-of-electricity-1754/.

The following is excerpted from a blog on a news site that examines the mathematics behind common events.

3. Write an argumentative essay stating your position on whether monolingual English speakers are at a disadvantage today, given the global spread of English along with the decline of foreign language learning in English-speaking countries.

Guidelines:

• Develop an essay focused on arguing a clear stance on the prompt. Avoid merely summarizing sources.
• Incorporate direct quotes, paraphrases or summaries from at least 2 of the provided sources as evidence to support your position. Cite them as Source A, B. or C or by the descriptions in parentheses.
• Analyze how the evidence from sources relates to the reasoning for your argument.
• Indicate through attribution when sources are used as evidence. Do not plagiarize.

The goal is to take a position on the prompt and craft a well-developed, persuasive argument essay supporting your view. Synthesize relevant information from the sources to reinforce your focused argument.

Source A (Berman)
Source B (Thomas)
Source C (Oaks)
Source D (table)

Source A

Berman, Russell A. “Foreign Language for Foreign
Policy?” Inside Higher Ed. Inside Higher Ed,
23 Nov. 2010. Web. 8 May 2013.

The following is excerpted from an article on a Web site devoted to higher education.

These are troubled times for language programs in the United States, which have been battered by irresponsible
cutbacks at all levels. Despite the chatter about globalization and multilateralism that has dominated public discourse
in recent years, leaders in government and policy circles continue to live in a bubble of their own making, imagining
that we can be global while refusing to learn the languages or learn about the cultures of the rest of the world. So it
was surely encouraging that Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a fixture of the
foreign policy establishment, agreed to deliver the keynote address at the American Council on the Teaching of
Foreign Languages Annual Convention in Boston on November 19.

Haass is a distinguished author, Oberlin- and Oxford-educated, and an influential voice in American debates. The
good news is that in his talk, “Language as a Gateway to Global Communities,” Haass expressed strong support for
increased foreign language learning opportunities. He recognized the important work that language instructors
undertake as well as the crucial connection between language and culture: language learning is not just technical
mastery of grammar but rather, in his words, a “gateway” to a thorough understanding of other societies. . . .

Haass claims that in an era of tight budgets, we need convincing arguments to rally support for languages. Of course
that’s true, but—and this is the bad news—despite his support for language as a gateway to other cultures, he
countenances only a narrowly instrumental defense for foreign language learning, limited to two rationales: national
security and global economy. At the risk of schematizing his account too severely, this means: more Arabic for
national security and more Mandarin, Hindi, and, en passant, Korean for the economy. It appears that in his view the
only compelling arguments for language-learning involve equipping individual Americans to be better vehicles of
national interest as defined by Washington. In fact, at a revealing moment in the talk, Haass boiled his own position
down to a neat choice: Fallujah or Firenze. We need more Arabic to do better in Fallujah, i.e., so we could have been
more effective in the Iraq War (or could be in the next one?), and we need less Italian because Italy (to his mind) is a
place that is only about culture.

In this argument, Italian—like other European languages—is a luxury. There was no mention of French as a global
language, with its crucial presence in Africa and North America. Haass even seems to regard Spanish as just one
more European language, except perhaps that it might be useful to manage instability in Mexico. Such arguments
that reduce language learning to foreign policy objectives get too simple too quickly.

And they run the risk of
destroying the same foreign language learning agenda they claim to defend. Language learning in Haass’s view
ultimately becomes just a boot camp for our students to be better soldiers, more efficient in carrying out the projects
of the foreign policy establishment. That program stands in stark contrast to a vision of language learning as part of
an education of citizens who can think for themselves.

Haass’s account deserves attention: he is influential and thoughtful, and he is by no means alone in reducing the
rationale for foreign language learning solely to national foreign policy needs. . . .Yet even on his own instrumental
terms, Haass seemed to get it wrong. If language learning were primarily about plugging into large economies more
successfully, then we should be offering more Japanese and German (still two very big economies after all), but they
barely showed up on his map.

The much more important issue involves getting beyond instrumental thinking altogether, at least in the educational
sphere. Second language acquisition is a key component of education because it builds student ability in language as
such. Students who do well in a second language do better in their first language. With the core language skills—
abilities to speak and to listen, to read and to write—come higher-order capacities: to interpret and understand, to
recognize cultural difference, and, yes, to appreciate traditions, including one’s own. Language learning is not just
an instrumental skill, any more than one’s writing ability is merely about learning to type on a keyboard. On the
contrary, through language we become better thinkers, and that’s what education is about, at least outside
Washington.

Source B

Thomas, David. “Why Do the English Need to Speak a Foreign Language When Foreigners All Speak
English?” MailOnline [UK]. Associated
Newspapers Ltd, 23 Jan. 2012. Web. 8 May 2013.

The following is excerpted from an online article in a British newspaper.

Department for Education figures show that fewer and fewer of us are learning a foreign language, while more and
more foreigners are becoming multi-lingual. This, say distraught commentators, will condemn us pathetic Little
Englanders to a life of dismal isolation while our educated, sophisticated, Euro-competitors chat away to foreign
customers and steal all our business as a result.

In fact, I think those pupils who don’t learn other languages are making an entirely sensible decision. Learning
foreign languages is a pleasant form of intellectual self-improvement: a genteel indulgence like learning to
embroider or play the violin. A bit of French or Spanish comes in handy on holiday if you’re the sort of person who
likes to reassure the natives that you’re more sophisticated than the rest of the tourist herd. But there’s absolutely no
need to learn any one particular language unless you’ve got a specific professional use for it.
Consider the maths. There are roughly 6,900 living languages in the world. Europe alone has 234 languages spoken
on a daily basis. So even if I was fluent in all the languages I’ve ever even begun to tackle, I’d only be able to speak
to a minority of my fellow-Europeans in their mother tongues. And that’s before I’d so much as set foot in the
Middle East, Africa and Asia.

The planet’s most common first language is Mandarin Chinese, which has around 850 million speakers. Clearly,
anyone seeking to do business in the massive Chinese market would do well to brush up on their Mandarin, although
they might need a bit of help with those hundreds of millions of Chinese whose preferred dialect is Cantonese.
The only problem is that Mandarin is not spoken by anyone who is not Chinese, so it’s not much use in that equally
significant 21st century powerhouse, India. Nor does learning one of the many languages used on the sub-Continent
help one communicate with Arab or Turkish or Swahili-speakers.

There is, however, one language that does perform the magic trick of uniting the entire globe. If you ever go,
as I have done, to one of the horrendous international junkets which film studios hold to promote their latest
blockbusters, you’ll encounter a single extraordinary language that, say, the Brazilian, Swedish, Japanese and
Italian reporters use both to chat with one another and question the American stars.

This is the language of science, commerce, global politics, aviation, popular music and, above all, the internet. It’s
the language that 85 per cent of all Europeans learn as their second language; the language that has become the
default tongue of the EU; the language that President Sarkozy of France uses with Chancellor Merkel of Germany
when plotting how to stitch up the British.

This magical language is English. It unites the whole world in the way no other language can. It’s arguably the major
reason why our little island has such a disproportionately massive influence on global culture: from Shakespeare to
Harry Potter, from James Bond to the Beatles.

All those foreigners who are so admirably learning another language are learning the one we already know. So our
school pupils don’t need to learn any foreign tongues. They might, of course, do well to become much, much better
at speaking, writing, spelling and generally using English correctly. But that’s another argument altogether.

Source C

Oaks, Ursula. “Foreign-Language Learning: What
the United States Is Missing Out On.”
Blog.NAFSA.org. NAFSA: Association of
International Educators, 20 April 2010.
Web. 8 May 2013.

The following is excerpted from a Weblog maintained by NAFSA, a leading professional association based in the
United States and dedicated to international education.

It seemed a notably strange coincidence that the day after the Chronicle of Higher Education’s fascinating article
about foreign-language acquisition and its remarkable contributions to the human mind and to society, Inside Higher
Ed reported that George Washington University’s arts and sciences faculty had voted by an “overwhelming” margin
not only to remove its foreign languages and cultures course requirement, but also to set up the new requirements in
such a way that introductory foreign language courses can no longer count toward fulfilling any degree requirement
in the college. At the same time, GW’s curricular reform is apparently “designed to promote student learning in
areas such as global perspectives and oral communications.”

One wonders how “global perspectives” can happen without foreign language. But Catherine Porter (a former
president of the Modern Language Association), writing in the Chronicle, puts it rather more bluntly. The lack of
foreign-language learning in our society, she states, is “a devastating waste of potential.” Students who learn
languages at an early age “consistently display enhanced cognitive abilities relative to their monolingual peers.” This
isn’t about being able to impress their parents’ friends by piping up in Chinese at the dinner table—the research is
showing that these kids can think better. Porter writes: “Demands that the language-learning process makes on the
brain . . . make the brain more flexible and incite it to discover new patterns—and thus to create and maintain more
circuits.”

But there’s so much more. Porter points out, as many others have, that in diplomatic, military, professional and
commercial contexts, being monolingual is a significant handicap. In short, making the United States a more
multilingual society would carry with it untold benefits: we would be more effective in global affairs, more
comfortable in multicultural environments, and more nimble-minded and productive in daily life.

One of Porter’s most interesting observations, to me, was about how multilingualism enhances “brain fitness.” My
own journey in languages is something for which I cannot claim any real foresight or deliberate intention, but by the
age of 16, I spoke English, Hungarian, and French fluently. I’ve managed, through travel and personal and family
connections, to maintain all three. One thing I know for sure is that when I get on the phone with my mother and talk
to her in Hungarian for 20 minutes, or if I have to type out an email to a friend in Paris, afterwards I feel like I’ve
had a mental jog on the treadmill: strangely energized, brain-stretched, more ready for any challenge, whether it’s
cooking a new dish or drafting an op-ed. And the connective cultural tissue created by deep immersion in another
language cannot be overstated.

When I went to Hungary during grad school to research my thesis, I figured: no
problem, it’s my native tongue. Yes, but I first learned it when I was a toddler, and never since then. The amount
of preparation I had to do to be sure I didn’t miss nuance or cultural cues and didn’t draw conclusions based on
erroneous translation, was significant, but well worth it. Time and again, I’ve realized how language can transform
our interactions with one another. Porter’s article is a wake-up call that neglecting foreign-language learning is
hurting our country in more ways than we realize.

Source D

“Population 5 Years and Older Who Spoke a Language
Other Than English at Home by Language Group
and English-Speaking Ability: 2007.” Table in
“Language Use in the United States: 2007.”

United States Census Bureau. United States
Census Bureau, April 2010. Web. 8 May 2013.

The following is adapted from a table in a report from the 2007 American Community Survey (United States Census
Bureau) on language use in the United States.

Population 5 Years and Older Who Spoke a Language Other Than English at Home by Language
Group and English-Speaking Ability: 2007

 

4. On June 11, 2004, Margaret Thatcher, the former prime minister of Great Britain, delivered the following eulogy to
the American people in honor of former United States president Ronald Reagan, with whom she had worked closely.
Read the eulogy carefully.

In a well-developed essay, analyze the rhetorical strategies that Thatcher uses to
convey her message.

We have lost a great president, a great American,
and a great man, and I have lost a dear friend.
In his lifetime, Ronald Reagan was such a cheerful
and invigorating presence that it was easy to forget
what daunting historic tasks he set himself. He sought
to mend America’s wounded spirit, to restore the
strength of the free world, and to free the slaves of
communism.

These were causes hard to accomplish
and heavy with risk, yet they were pursued with
almost a lightness of spirit, for Ronald Reagan also
embodied another great cause, what Arnold Bennett
once called “the great cause of cheering us all up.”
His policies had a freshness and optimism that won
converts from every class and every nation, and
ultimately, from the very heart of the “evil empire.”1

Yet his humour often had a purpose beyond
humour. In the terrible hours after the attempt on his
life, his easy jokes gave reassurance to an anxious
world. They were evidence that in the aftermath of
terror and in the midst of hysteria one great heart at
east remained sane and jocular. They were truly
grace under pressure. And perhaps they signified
grace of a deeper kind. Ronnie himself certainly
believed that he had been given back his life for a
purpose. As he told a priest after his recovery,

“Whatever time I’ve got left now belongs to the big
fella upstairs.” And surely, it is hard to deny that
Ronald Reagan’s life was providential when we look
at what he achieved in the eight years that followed.
Others prophesied the decline of the West. He
inspired America and its allies with renewed faith in
their mission of freedom.

Others saw only limits to growth. He transformed a
stagnant economy into an engine of opportunity.
Others hoped, at best, for an uneasy cohabitation
with the Soviet Union. He won the Cold War, not
only without firing a shot, but also by inviting
enemies out of their fortress and turning them into
friends.

I cannot imagine how any diplomat or any
dramatist could improve on his words to
Mikhail Gorbachev at the Geneva summit. “Let me
tell you why it is we distrust you.” Those words are
candid and tough, and they cannot have been easy to
hear. But they are also a clear invitation to a new
beginning and a new relationship that would be rooted
in trust.

We live today in the world that Ronald Reagan
began to reshape with those words. It is a very
different world, with different challenges and new
dangers. All in all, however, it is one of greater
freedom and prosperity, one more hopeful than the
world he inherited on becoming president.

As Prime Minister, I worked closely with
Ronald Reagan for eight of the most important years
of all our lives. We talked regularly, both before and
after his presidency, and I’ve had time and cause to
reflect on what made him a great president.

Ronald Reagan knew his own mind. He had firm
principles and, I believe, right ones. He expounded
them clearly. He acted upon them decisively. When
the world threw problems at the White House, he was
not baffled or disorientated or overwhelmed.

He knew almost instinctively what to do.
When his aides were preparing option papers for
his decision, they were able to cut out entire rafts of
proposals that they knew the old man would never
wear.

When his allies came under Soviet or domestic
pressure, they could look confidently to Washington
for firm leadership, and when his enemies tested
American resolve, they soon discovered that his
resolve was firm and unyielding.

Yet his ideas, so clear, were never simplistic. He
saw the many sides of truth. Yes, he warned that the
Soviet Union had an insatiable drive for military
power and territorial expansion, but he also sensed
that it was being eaten away by systemic failures
impossible to reform. Yes, he did not shrink from
denouncing Moscow’s evil empire, but he realized
that a man of good will might nonetheless emerge
from within its dark corridors.

So the president resisted Soviet expansion and
pressed down on Soviet weakness at every point until
the day came when communism began to collapse
beneath the combined weight of those pressures and
its own failures. And when a man of good will did
emerge from the ruins, President Reagan stepped
forward to shake his hand and to offer sincere
cooperation.

Nothing was more typical of Ronald Reagan than
that large-hearted magnanimity, and nothing was
more American.

Therein lies perhaps the final explanation of his
achievements. Ronald Reagan carried the American
people with him in his great endeavours because there
was perfect sympathy between them. He and they
loved America and what it stands for: freedom and
opportunity for ordinary people.

1
A phrase used by Reagan to describe the Soviet Union
2
The leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985
to 1991

5. The United States Postal Service (USPS) has delivered communications for more than two centuries. During the
nineteenth century, the USPS helped to expand the boundaries of the United States by providing efficient and
reliable communication across the country. Between 1790 and 1860 alone, the number of post offices in the
United States grew from 75 to over 28,000.

With this growth came job opportunities for postal workers and a boom in the cross-country rail system.
The twentieth century brought substantial growth to the USPS, including large package delivery and airmail.
Over the past decade, however, total mail volume has decreased considerably as
competition from electronic mail and various package delivery companies has taken business away from the USPS.
The loss of revenue has prompted the USPS to consider cutting back on delivery days and other services.

Carefully read the following six sources, including the introductory information for each source. Then synthesize
information from at least three of the sources and incorporate it into a coherent, well-developed essay that argues a
clear position on whether the USPS should be restructured to meet the needs of a changing world, and if so, how.
Make sure your argument is central; use the sources to illustrate and support your reasoning.

Avoid merely summarizing the sources. Indicate clearly which sources you are drawing from, whether through direct quotation,
paraphrase, or summary. You may cite the sources as Source A, Source B, etc., or by using the descriptions in
parentheses.

Source A (Stone)
Source B (graph)
Source C (O’Keefe)
Source D (McDevitt)
Source E (Cullen)
Source F (photo)

Source A

Stone, Daniel. “Flying Like an Eagle?” Newsweek.
Newsweek, 5 Oct. 2009. Web. 24 Sept. 2010.

The following is excerpted from an online article in a national news magazine.

Anyone who’s waited, and waited, in line at the old letter hub knows the service could probably be run better.

NEWSWEEK asked a variety of management consultants and business futurists how to turn the old pony express
into a sleek, 21st-century moneymaker—or, at the very least, a breaker-even. Listen up, Postal Service (and
Congress): for this advice, we’ll let you cut in line.

1) Get into the e-business. More people are e-mailing? So meet their needs. “Give every American an e-mail address
when they’re born,” suggests futurist Watts Wacker. Might they look elsewhere for a different one? Sure, but at least
you’ll maintain relevance in their mind. Plus, you can sell lucrative advertising on those accounts.

2) Increase service. Don’t drop from six- to five-day delivery; go the other way, says Kellogg School marketing prof
Richard Honack—to all seven. It seems counterintuitive to add service when you’re losing money, but people have
less faith in the system precisely because of spotty service. Consider tightening hours, but the USPS could be the
first carrier to reliably deliver all week.

3) Advertise with coupons. It sounds like an archaic way to attract customers in a new era, but if people are flocking
to the Internet, give them an incentive to come back. “We’re a coupon-cutting society,” says futurist and business
strategist Marlene Brown. “Make people feel like there’s value added.”

4) Make a play for control of government broadband [Internet access]. With Congress considering an expansion of
broadband access, why not put it under the USPS, asks futurist David Houle. “That would define the Postal Service
as a communications-delivery service, rather than just a team of letter carriers. Don’t let the service’s tie to Congress
make it fizzle. If used right, why not use it as an advantage?”

5) Rebrand. No one knows what the Postal Service stands for, says Wacker. “Fly like an eagle, what does that even
mean?” A company’s brand is its most valuable tool, or its biggest liability. Contract out to find a new logo and
slogan that actually convey what you do and how you do it. And then use them. (In this week’s NEWSWEEK
magazine, we asked three design firms to get started.)

6) Close branches if you must, but do it strategically. Franchise services by region, posits business strategist
Gurumurthy Kalyanaram. You don’t need a full-service post office every few blocks in New York, for example.
Some centers could be for letters only, others for packages. That way you cut down on staff size and service required
to and from each.

7) Reorganize and motivate staff. Paying high wages with inflated job security isn’t a competitive strategy. Unions
may be fierce, but consultant Peter Cohan thinks management should put employee contracts out to bid. And add
incentives: if a worker saves money, give him a percentage. Inversely, put jobs on the line to avoid losses. In other
words, run it like a real business.

 

Source B

“The Challenge to Deliver: Creating the 21st Century
Postal Service: United States Postal Service 2009
Annual Report.” United States Postal Service.
United States Postal Service, 2009. Web.
24 Sept. 2010.

The following graph is excerpted from the 2009 annual report of the United States Postal Service.

The Delivery Challenge: Less Mail, More Addresses

 

Source C

O’Keefe, Ed. “Postal Service Expected to Announce
‘Significant Changes.’ ” Washington Post.
Washington Post Company, 2 Mar. 2010. Web.
27 Sept. 2010.

The following is excerpted from an online article in a national newspaper.

The U.S. Postal Service will release projections Tuesday that confirm for the first time the suspicion that mail
volume will never return to pre-recession levels. In response, the agency is pushing anew for a dramatic reshaping of
how Americans get and send their letters and packages.

Customers are continuing to migrate to the Internet and to cheaper standard-mail options, and away from the Postal
Service’s signature product—first-class mail, Postmaster General John E. Potter will report in announcing the
projections.

The Postal Service experienced a 13 percent drop in mail volume last fiscal year, more than double any previous
decline, and lost $3.8 billion. The projections anticipate steeper drops in mail volume and revenue over the next
10 years, and mounting labor costs only complicate the agency’s path to firm fiscal footing.

In an effort to offset some of the losses, Potter seeks more flexibility in the coming year to set delivery schedules,
prices and labor costs. The changes could mean an end to Saturday deliveries, longer delivery times for letters and
packages, higher postage-stamp prices that exceed the rate of inflation, and the potential for future layoffs.
“At the end of the day, I’m convinced that if we make the changes that are necessary, we can continue to provide
universal service for Americans for decades to come,” Potter said Monday. “We can turn back from the red to the
black, but there are some significant changes we need to make.”

The postmaster general called for many of these changes last year but failed to convince lawmakers. This time he’s
armed with $4.8 million worth of outside studies that conclude that, without drastic changes, the mail agency will
face even more staggering losses.

Source D

McDevitt, Caitlin. “To Postal Workers, No Mail Is
‘Junk’: With Revenues Falling, the Post Office
Owes Its Future to Stuff We Throw Out.”
Newsweek. Newsweek, 27 Sept. 2008. Web.
28 Sept. 2010.

The following is excerpted from an online article in a national news magazine.
These are tough times for the U.S. Postal Service. It’s being pummeled by high fuel costs. The soft economy is
crimping the overall volume of mail, which fell 5.5 percent in the past year. Its business is also falling as Americans
opt for e-mail over birthday cards and thank-you notes. Now comes another threat: consumers like Colleen Plimpton
of Bethel, Conn. Earlier this year Plimpton became tired of the credit-card offers, catalogs and advertising fliers that
clogged her mailbox. So in February she paid $20 to GreenDimes, a firm that helps consumers reduce their inflow of
“junk mail” by contacting businesses on their behalf. “[Junk mailers] are cutting down trees willy-nilly, and that has
got to stop,” says Plimpton.

To the post office, consumers like her are a serious threat. “Efforts to convince people not to receive mail are really
going to hurt,” says Steve Kearney, a Postal Service senior vice president.
The Postal Service lost $1.1 billion in its latest quarter. That number would be even larger if it weren’t for direct
mailings, which now constitute 52 percent of mail volume, up from 38 percent in 1990. Revenue from direct mail “is
the financial underpinning of the Postal Service—it could not survive without it,” says Michael Coughlin, former
deputy postmaster.

But 89 percent of consumers say in polls that they’d prefer not to receive direct-marketing mail; 44 percent of it is
never opened. That’s why 19 state legislatures have debated Do Not Mail lists, which would function just like the
federal Do Not Call list. But partly due to opposition from postal workers, not a single bill has passed. When
Colorado state Rep. Sara Gagliardi held a public meeting on a bill she was sponsoring, she was surprised when a
crowd of postal workers showed up to express vehement opposition.

Both the Postal Service and the Direct Marketing Association say direct mail is a key source of customers for small
businesses. “Advertising mail is a very valuable product to many consumers,” says Sam Pulcrano, Postal Service
vice president for sustainability, who points to two-for-one pizza coupons as especially welcome surprises. To blunt
opposition, the DMA recently launched the Mail Moves America coalition to lobby against the restrictions.
GreenDimes founder Pankaj Shah isn’t sympathetic. Not only is his company providing a service to consumers, he
says, but it has also used its fees to plant more than 1 million trees. “We’re all about giving consumers choice, not
about bringing down the post office,” he says. Still, as more consumers opt out of junk mail, rain, sleet and gloom of
night may seem like the least of mail carriers’ problems.

Source F

Cullen, Kevin. “Sending, Getting ‘Real’ Mail Still
Magic.” Commercial-News. Commercial-News,
20 Mar. 2010. Web. 28 Sept. 2010.

The following is excerpted from an online article.

E-mail is fast and simple, but to me an old-fashioned, handwritten letter has value in this speed-obsessed world. I
have deleted hundreds of e-mails in one fell swoop, without taking the time to reread them, but I still have a letter
that my Grandpa Cullen sent to me when I was 8.

I like to receive letters, thank-you notes, birthday cards and Christmas cards, and I like to send them too. Even today,
it costs just 44 cents to send one from Danville to Sandybeach, Hawaii, or Frozentoes, Alaska . . . a genuine bargain.
Historians worry about the disappearance of permanent, written records. If there were no “real” letters, diaries,
governmental files, handbills, pamphlets, magazines, newspapers and books—real ink on real paper—what would
be left? Will electronic records even survive for 100 years? And what will happen if they don’t? . . .
The Postal Service has been required to pay its own costs since 1970, and it made a profit until 2006. Since then,
declining mail volume has created major problems. It delivered 17 percent fewer pieces in 2009 than it did in 2006,
and lost $1.4 billion. That money was borrowed from the U.S. Treasury.

More declines in volume, coupled with the soaring cost of retiree health benefits, could create $238 billion in losses
over the next 10 years, Postmaster General John Potter recently said. Approximately half of the present 300,000
postal workers are expected to retire by 2020.

Eliminating Saturday mail delivery would save $40 billion over a decade. Potter also wants to close and consolidate
154 post offices. More and more part-time workers would be hired as full-time workers retire.
Clearly, mail delivery isn’t going away entirely. It’s an essential government function, like feeding the Army. No
private contractor will carry a letter from the Florida Keys to Alaska for 44 cents.
I’m going to do my bit by sending more letters.

Our Christmas card list will be expanded. Birthday cards will go to more friends and family. And I’m going to thank
more people, in writing, for more things. I will send more cards and letters to offer encouragement, interest and
sympathy. It shows good breeding.

I have shoeboxes filled with kind letters sent to me through the years by readers who liked something that I wrote. I
always thanked them by return mail. Many friendships began that way. Those messages weren’t deleted 100 at a
time; they were saved, and they can be reread. . . .

It’s satisfying to write a “real” letter, put it in an envelope and drop it into the mailbox. A day or two later, I know,
someone will hold it and connect with me. Who knows? It may be read by someone I will never meet, 100 years
from now.

Not a bad investment, for 44 cents.

Source F

Ochopee Post Office, Florida, 1970s. N.d. Photograph.
Collection of the United States Postal Service.
USPS.com. Web. 9 May 2011.

The following photo, from the Web site of the United States Postal Service, shows the Ochopee Post Office, the
smallest free-standing post office in the United States.

6. On April 10, 1962, as the United States was emerging from a recession, the nation’s largest steel companies raised
steel prices by 3.5 percent.

President John F. Kennedy, who had repeatedly called for stable prices and wages as part
of a program of national sacrifice during a period of economic distress, held a news conference on April 11, 1962,
which he opened with the following commentary regarding the hike in steel prices. Read Kennedy’s remarks
carefully.

 

Write an essay in which you analyze the rhetorical strategies President Kennedy uses to achieve his
purpose. Support your analysis with specific references to the text.

“Simultaneous and identical actions of United
States Steel and other leading steel corporations,
increasing steel prices by some 6 dollars a ton,
constitute a wholly unjustifiable and irresponsible
defiance of the public interest.

In this serious hour in our nation’s history, when
we are confronted with grave crises in Berlin and
Southeast Asia, when we are devoting our energies
to economic recovery and stability, when we are
asking Reservists to leave their homes and families
for months on end, and servicemen to risk their
lives—and four were killed in the last two days in
Viet Nam—and asking union members to hold
down their wage requests, at a time when restraint
and sacrifice are being asked of every citizen, the

American people will find it hard, as I do, to accept a
situation in which a tiny handful of steel executives
whose pursuit of private power and profit exceeds
their sense of public responsibility can show such
utter contempt for the interests of 185 million
Americans.

If this rise in the cost of steel is imitated by the
rest of the industry, instead of rescinded, it would
increase the cost of homes, autos, appliances, and
most other items for every American family. It
would increase the cost of machinery and tools to
every American businessman and farmer. It would
seriously handicap our efforts to prevent an
inflationary spiral from eating up the pensions of our
older citizens, and our new gains in purchasing
power.

It would add, Secretary McNamara* informed me
this morning, an estimated one billion dollars to the
cost of our defenses, at a time when every dollar is
needed for national security and other purposes. It
would make it more difficult for American goods to
compete in foreign markets, more difficult to
withstand competition from foreign imports, and
thus more difficult to improve our balance of
payments position, and stem the flow of gold.

And it is necessary to stem it for our national
security, if we are going to pay for our security
commitments abroad. And it would surely handicap
our efforts to induce other industries and unions to
adopt responsible price and wage policies.

The facts of the matter are that there is no
justification for an increase in the steel prices. The
recent settlement between the industry and the union,
which does not even take place until July 1st, was
widely acknowledged to be non-inflationary, and the
whole purpose and effect of this Administration’s
role, which both parties understood, was to achieve
an agreement which would make unnecessary any
increase in prices.

Steel output per man is rising so fast that labor
costs per ton of steel can actually be expected to
decline in the next twelve months. And in fact, the
Acting Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor
Statistics informed me this morning that, and I quote:
“Employment costs per unit of steel output in 1961
were essentially the same as they were in 1958.”

The cost of the major raw materials, steel scrap
and coal, has also been declining, and for an industry
which has been generally operating at less than two-
thirds of capacity, its profit rate has been normal and
can be expected to rise sharply this year in view of
the reduction in idle capacity. Their lot has been
easier than that of a hundred thousand steel workers
thrown out of work in the last three years. The
industry’s cash dividends have exceeded 600 million
dollars in each of the last five years, and earnings in
the first quarter of this year were estimated in the
February 28th Wall Street Journal to be among the
highest in history.

In short, at a time when they could be exploring
how more efficiency and better prices could be
obtained, reducing prices in this industry in
recognition of lower costs, their unusually good
labor contract, their foreign competition and their
increase in production and profits which are coming
this year, a few gigantic corporations have decided to
increase prices in ruthless disregard of their public
responsibilities.

The Steel Workers Union can be proud that it
abided by its responsibilities in this agreement, and
this government also has responsibilities, which we
intend to meet.

The Department of Justice and the Federal Trade
Commission are examining the significance of this
action in a free, competitive economy.
The Department of Defense and other agencies
are reviewing its impact on their policies of
procurement, and I am informed that steps are
underway by those Members of the Congress who
plan appropriate inquiries into how these price
decisions are so quickly made, and reached, and
what legislative safeguards may be needed to protect
the public interest.

Price and wage decisions in this country,
except for very limited restrictions in the case of
monopolies and national emergency strikes, are
and ought to be freely and privately made, but
the American people have a right to expect in
return for that freedom, a higher sense of business
responsibility for the welfare of their country than
has been shown in the last two days.

Some time ago I asked each American to consider
what he would do for his country and I asked the
steel companies. In the last 24 hours we had their
answer.

* Robert S. McNamara, secretary of defense from 1961 to 1968

7. Write an essay identifying the key issues associated with the locavore movement and examining their implications for a community considering organizing such a movement. Incorporate analysis from at least 3 of the provided sources.

Guidelines:

• Develop an essay focused on critically examining the central issues related to the prompt. Avoid merely summarizing sources.
• Synthesize information from a minimum of 3 sources through direct quotes, paraphrases or summaries to support your analysis. Cite as Source A, B, etc. or by description.
• Clearly indicate when drawing evidence from particular sources. Attribute information properly using citations.
• Craft a coherent, well-developed essay centering your position and reasoning. Use sources to illustrate and reinforce your argument.

The goal is to write an analytical essay identifying and scrutinizing the core issues around the locavore movement and what they would mean for a community looking to adopt it. Effectively synthesize information from sources to support your examination.

Source A (Maiser)
Source B (Smith and MacKinnon)
Source C (McWilliams)
Source D (chart)
Source E (Gogoi)
Source F (Roberts)
Source G (cartoon)

Source A

Maiser, Jennifer. “10 Reasons to Eat Local Food.” Eat
Local Challenge. Eat Local Challenge, 8 Apr. 2006.
Web. 16 Dec. 2009.

The following is an article from a group Weblog written by individuals who are interested in the benefits of eating
food grown and produced locally.

Eating local means more for the local economy. According to a study by the New Economics Foundation in
London, a dollar spent locally generates twice as much income for the local economy. When businesses are not
owned locally, money leaves the community at every transaction.

Locally grown produce is fresher. While produce that is purchased in the supermarket or a big-box store has been
in transit or cold-stored for days or weeks, produce that you purchase at your local farmer’s market has often been
picked within 24 hours of your purchase. This freshness not only affects the taste of your food, but the nutritional
value which declines with time.

Local food just plain tastes better. Ever tried a tomato that was picked within 24 hours? ’Nuff said.
Locally grown fruits and vegetables have longer to ripen. Because the produce will be handled less, locally
grown fruit does not have to be “rugged” or to stand up to the rigors of shipping. This means that you are going to be
getting peaches so ripe that they fall apart as you eat them, figs that would have been smashed to bits if they were
sold using traditional methods, and melons that were allowed to ripen until the last possible minute on the vine.
Eating local is better for air quality and pollution than eating organic. In a March 2005 study by the journal
Food Policy, it was found that the miles that organic food often travels to our plate creates environmental damage
that outweighs the benefit of buying organic.

Buying local food keeps us in touch with the seasons. By eating with the seasons, we are eating foods when they
are at their peak taste, are the most abundant, and the least expensive.
Buying locally grown food is fodder for a wonderful story. Whether it’s the farmer who brings local apples to
market or the baker who makes local bread, knowing part of the story about your food is such a powerful part of
enjoying a meal.

Eating local protects us from bio-terrorism. Food with less distance to travel from farm to plate has less
susceptibility to harmful contamination.

Local food translates to more variety. When a farmer is producing food that will not travel a long distance, will
have a shorter shelf life, and does not have a high-yield demand, the farmer is free to try small crops of various fruits
and vegetables that would probably never make it to a large supermarket. Supermarkets are interested in selling
“Name brand” fruit: Romaine Lettuce, Red Delicious Apples, Russet Potatoes. Local producers often play with their
crops from year to year, trying out Little Gem Lettuce, Senshu Apples, and Chieftain Potatoes.

Supporting local providers supports responsible land development. When you buy local, you give those with
local open space—farms and pastures—an economic reason to stay open and undeveloped.

Source B

Smith, Alisa, and J. B. MacKinnon. Plenty: One Man,
One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally.
New York: Harmony, 2007. Print.

The following passage is excerpted from a book written by the creators of the 100-Mile Diet, an experiment in eating
only foods grown and produced within a 100-mile radius.

Food begins to lose nutrition as soon as it is harvested. Fruit and vegetables that travel shorter distances are therefore
likely to be closer to a maximum of nutrition. “Nowadays, we know a lot more about the naturally occurring
substances in produce,” said [Cynthia] Sass. “It’s not just vitamins and minerals, but all these phytochemicals and
really powerful disease-fighting substances, and we do know that when a food never really reaches its peak ripeness,
the levels of these substances never get as high.” . . .

Yet when I called to confirm these facts with Marion Nestle, a professor and former chair of nutrition, food studies,
and public health at New York University, she waved away the nutrition issue as a red herring. Yes, she said, our
100-mile diet—even in winter—was almost certainly more nutritious than what the average American was eating.
That doesn’t mean it is necessary to eat locally in order to be healthy. In fact, a person making smart choices from
the global megamart can easily meet all the body’s needs.

“There will be nutritional differences, but they’ll be marginal,” said Nestle. “I mean, that’s not really the issue. It
feels like it’s the issue—obviously fresher foods that are grown on better soils are going to have more nutrients. But
people are not nutrient-deprived. We’re just not nutrient-deprived.”

So would Marion Nestle, as a dietician, as one of America’s most important critics of dietary policy, advocate for
local eating?

“Absolutely.”
Why? Because she loves the taste of fresh food, she said. She loves the mystery of years when the late corn is just
utterly, incredibly good, and no one can say why: it just is. She likes having farmers around, and farms, and
farmland.

Source C

McWilliams, James E. “On My Mind: The Locavore
Myth.” Forbes.com. Forbes, 15 Jul. 2009. Web.
16 Dec. 2009.

The following is excerpted from an online opinion article in a business magazine.

Buy local, shrink the distance food travels, save the planet. The locavore movement has captured a lot of fans. To
their credit, they are highlighting the problems with industrialized food. But a lot of them are making a big mistake.
By focusing on transportation, they overlook other energy-hogging factors in food production.

Take lamb. A 2006 academic study (funded by the New Zealand government) discovered that it made more
environmental sense for a Londoner to buy lamb shipped from New Zealand than to buy lamb raised in the U.K.
This finding is counterintuitive—if you’re only counting food miles. But New Zealand lamb is raised on pastures
with a small carbon footprint, whereas most English lamb is produced under intensive factory-like conditions with a
big carbon footprint. This disparity overwhelms domestic lamb’s advantage in transportation energy.

New Zealand lamb is not exceptional. Take a close look at water usage, fertilizer types, processing methods and
packaging techniques and you discover that factors other than shipping far outweigh the energy it takes to transport
food. One analysis, by Rich Pirog of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, showed that transportation
accounts for only 11% of food’s carbon footprint. A fourth of the energy required to produce food is expended in the
consumer’s kitchen. Still more energy is consumed per meal in a restaurant, since restaurants throw away most of
their leftovers.

Locavores argue that buying local food supports an area’s farmers and, in turn, strengthens the community. Fair
enough. Left unacknowledged, however, is the fact that it also hurts farmers in other parts of the world. The U.K.
buys most of its green beans from Kenya. While it’s true that the beans almost always arrive in airplanes—the form
of transportation that consumes the most energy—it’s also true that a campaign to shame English consumers with
small airplane stickers affixed to flown-in produce threatens the livelihood of 1.5 million sub-Saharan farmers.
Another chink in the locavores’ armor involves the way food miles are calculated. To choose a locally grown apple
over an apple trucked in from across the country might seem easy. But this decision ignores economies of scale. To
take an extreme example, a shipper sending a truck with 2,000 apples over 2,000 miles would consume the same
amount of fuel per apple as a local farmer who takes a pickup 50 miles to sell 50 apples at his stall at the green
market. The critical measure here is not food miles but apples per gallon.

The one big problem with thinking beyond food miles is that it’s hard to get the information you need. Ethically
concerned consumers know very little about processing practices, water availability, packaging waste and fertilizer
application. This is an opportunity for watchdog groups. They should make life-cycle carbon counts available to
shoppers.

Source D

Loder, Natasha, Elizabeth Finkel, Craig Meisner, and
Pamela Ronald. “The Problem of What to Eat.”
Conservation Magazine. The Society for
Conservation Biology, July-Sept. 2008. Web.
16 Dec. 2009.

The following chart is excerpted from an online article in an environmental magazine.

 

 

–
Source E

Gogoi, Pallavi. “The Rise of the ‘Locavore’: How the
Strengthening Local Food Movement in Towns
Across the U.S. Is Reshaping Farms and Food
Retailing.” Bloomberg Businessweek. Bloomberg,
20 May 2008. Web. 17 Dec. 2009.

The following is excerpted from an online article in a business magazine.
The rise of farmers’ markets—in city centers, college towns, and rural squares—is testament to a dramatic shift in
American tastes. Consumers increasingly are seeking out the flavors of fresh, vine-ripened foods grown on local
farms rather than those trucked to supermarkets from faraway lands. “This is not a fringe foodie culture,” says
[Anthony] Flaccavento. “These are ordinary, middle-income folks who have become really engaged in food and
really care about where their food comes from.”

It’s a movement that is gradually reshaping the business of growing and supplying food to Americans. The local
food movement has already accomplished something that almost no one would have thought possible a few years
back: a revival of small farms. After declining for more than a century, the number of small farms has increased 20%
in the past six years, to 1.2 million, according to the Agriculture Dept. . . .

The impact of “locavores” (as local-food proponents are known) even shows up in that Washington salute every five
years to factory farming, the Farm Bill. The latest version passed both houses in Congress in early May and was sent
on May 20 to President George W. Bush’s desk for signing. Bush has threatened to veto the bill, but it passed with
enough votes to sustain an override. Predictably, the overwhelming bulk of its $290 billion would still go to
powerful agribusiness interests in the form of subsidies for growing corn, soybeans, and cotton. But $2.3 billion was
set aside this year for specialty crops, such as the eggplants, strawberries, or salad greens that are grown by exactly
these small, mostly organic farmers. That’s a big bump-up from the $100 million that was earmarked for such things
in the previous legislation.

Small farmers will be able to get up to 75% of their organic certification costs reimbursed, and some of them
can obtain crop insurance. There’s money for research into organic foods, and to promote farmers’ markets.
Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said the bill “invests in the health and nutrition of American children . . . by
expanding their access to farmer’s markets and organic produce.”

Source F

Roberts, Paul. The End of Food. New York: Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt, 2008. Print.

The following is excerpted from a book about the food industry.

[T]he move toward local food, for all its trendiness (the more adamant adherents, known as “localvores,” strive to
buy products that have traveled the least “food miles”), highlights one of the problematic pieces of the modern food
economy: the increasing reliance on foods shipped halfway round the world. Because long-distance food shipments
promote profligate fuel use and the exploitation of cheap labor (which compensates for the profligate fuel use),
shifting back to a more locally sourced food economy is often touted as a fairly straightforward way to cut
externalities, restore some measure of equity between producers and consumers, and put the food economy on a
more sustainable footing. “Such a shift would bring back diversity to land that has been all but destroyed by
chemical-intensive mono-cropping, provide much-needed jobs at a local level, and help to rebuild community,”
argues the UK-based International Society for Ecology and Culture, one of the leading lights in the localvore
movement. “Moreover, it would allow farmers to make a decent living while giving consumers access to healthy,
fresh food at affordable prices.”

While localvorism sounds superb in theory, it is proving quite difficult in practice. To begin with, there are dozens of
different definitions as to what local is, with some advocates arguing for political boundaries (as in Texas-grown, for
example), others using quasi-geographic terms like food sheds, and still others laying out somewhat arbitrarily
drawn food circles with radii of 100 or 150 or 500 miles. Further, whereas some areas might find it fairly easy to eat
locally (in Washington State, for example, I’m less than fifty miles from industrial quantities of fresh produce, corn,
wheat, beef, and milk), people in other parts of the country and the world would have to look farther afield. And
what counts as local? Does food need to be purchased directly from the producer? Does it still count when it’s
distributed through a mass marketer, as with Wal-Mart’s Salute to America’s Farmer program, which is now
periodically showcasing local growers?

The larger problem is that although decentralized food systems function well in decentralized societies—like the
United States was a century ago, or like many developing nations still are—they’re a poor fit in modern urbanized
societies. The same economic forces that helped food production become centralized and regionalized did the same
thing to our population: in the United States, 80 percent of us live in large, densely populated urban areas, usually on
the coast, and typically hundreds of miles, often thousands of miles, from the major centers of food production.

Hallatt, Alex. “Arctic Circle.” Comic strip. King Features
Syndicate, Inc. 1 Sept. 2008. Web. 12 July 2009.

The following is a cartoon from an environmentally themed comic strip.

8. Florence Kelley (1859-1932) was a United States social worker and reformer who fought successfully for child labor
laws and improved conditions for working women.

She delivered the following speech before the convention of the
National American Woman Suffrage Association in Philadelphia on July 22, 1905.

Read the speech carefully.

Write an essay in which you analyze the rhetorical strategies Kelley uses to convey her message about child labor to
her audience. Support your analysis with specific references to the text.

“We have, in this country, two million children
under the age of sixteen years who are earning their
bread. They vary in age from six and seven years
(in the cotton mills of Georgia) and eight, nine and
ten years (in the coal-breakers of Pennsylvania), to
fourteen, fifteen and sixteen years in more
enlightened states.

No other portion of the wage earning class
increased so rapidly from decade to decade as the
young girls from fourteen to twenty years. Men
increase, women increase, youth increase, boys
increase in the ranks of the breadwinners; but no
contingent so doubles from census period to census
period (both by percent and by count of heads), as
does the contingent of girls between twelve and
twenty years of age. They are in commerce, in offices,
in manufacturing.

Tonight while we sleep, several thousand little girls
will be working in textile mills, all the night through,
in the deafening noise of the spindles and the looms
spinning and weaving cotton and wool, silks and
ribbons for us to buy.

In Alabama the law provides that a child under
sixteen years of age shall not work in a cotton mill at
night longer than eight hours, and Alabama does
better in this respect than any other southern state.
North and South Carolina and Georgia place no
restriction upon the work of children at night; and
while we sleep little white girls will be working
tonight in the mills in those states, working
eleven hours at night.

In Georgia there is no restriction whatever! A girl
of six or seven years, just tall enough to reach the
bobbins, may work eleven hours by day or by night.
And they will do so tonight, while we sleep.

Nor is it only in the South that these things occur.
Alabama does better than New Jersey. For Alabama
limits the children’s work at night to eight hours,
while New Jersey permits it all night long. Last year
New Jersey took a long backward step. A good law
was repealed which had required women and
[children] to stop work at six in the evening and at
noon on Friday. Now, therefore, in New Jersey, boys
and girls, after their 14th birthday, enjoy the pitiful
privilege of working all night long.

In Pennsylvania, until last May it was lawful for
children, 13 years of age, to work twelve hours at
night. A little girl, on her thirteenth birthday, could
start away from her home at half past five in the
afternoon, carrying her pail of midnight luncheon as
happier people carry their midday luncheon, and
could work in the mill from six at night until six in
the morning, without violating any law of the
Commonwealth.

If the mothers and the teachers in Georgia could
vote, would the Georgia Legislature have refused at
every session for the last three years to stop the work
in the mills of children under twelve years of age?

Would the New Jersey Legislature have passed that
shameful repeal bill enabling girls of fourteen years to
work all night, if the mothers in New Jersey were
enfranchised? Until the mothers in the great industrial
states are enfranchised, we shall none of us be able to
free our consciences from participation in this great
evil. No one in this room tonight can feel free from
such participation.

The children make our shoes in the
shoe factories; they knit our stockings, our knitted
underwear in the knitting factories. They spin and
weave our cotton underwear in the cotton mills.

Children braid straw for our hats, they spin and weave
the silk and velvet wherewith we trim our hats. They
stamp buckles and metal ornaments of all kinds, as
well as pins and hat-pins. Under the sweating system,
tiny children make artificial flowers and neckwear for
us to buy. They carry bundles of garments from the
factories to the tenements, little beasts of burden,
robbed of school life that they may work for us.
We do not wish this. We prefer to have our work
done by men and women.

But we are almost powerless. Not wholly powerless, however, are
citizens who enjoy the right of petition. For myself, I
shall use this power in every possible way until the
right to the ballot is granted, and then I shall continue
to use both.

What can we do to free our consciences? There
is one line of action by which we can do much.
We can enlist the workingmen on behalf of our
enfranchisement just in proportion as we strive with
them to free the children. No labor organization in
this country ever fails to respond to an appeal for help
in the freeing of the children.

For the sake of the children, for the Republic in
which these children will vote after we are dead, and
for the sake of our cause, we should enlist the
workingmen voters, with us, in this task of freeing the
children from toil!