SPACE CAT

AP Lang is a class all about creating and analyzing arguments. And whether we're analyzing an argument or creating one, there are some fundamental things we need to think about before getting started. To help us remember those basic essentials, we'll be using the acronym "SPACE CAT."  To learn what each letter stands for, look at the resources below. 

THE RHETORICAL SITUATION

(THE "SPACE" IN "SPACE CAT")

To state the obvious, every person on earth communicates differently in different situations. Thus, we can't truly understand the choices a speaker makes unless we understand some things about the speaker and about the situation they found themself in when they were communicating. Similarly, we can't make good, strategic communication choices ourselves unless we fully understand how different variables might affect the ways that our audience receives our message.

In past classes, your teachers may have referred to this as the "5 Ws" (Who, What, Where, When, Why) or used the acronym "SOAPSTone" (Speaker, Occasion, Audience, Purpose, Subject, Tone). Throughout the year we'll be using "SPACE," but it's totally fine if you prefer some other mnemonic device. In the end, all that matters is that you remember to think carefully about the rhetorical situation. 

THE SPEAKER'S CHOICES

(THE "C" IN "CAT")

People make a lot of strategic choices when they're communicating. In fact, every person earth makes slightly different choices in every different situation in their life. People never say the same thing in quite the same way more than once. For example, if you tell the same story to five different friends, I guarantee that the story will be slightly different each time you tell it. Even if you've memorized what to say word-for-word, there will still be small things--like your tone of voice or the length of the pauses between words and details--that change from one telling to the next. These small changes, although seemingly insignificant, can have a significant effect on  how the listeners react to the story.

When we analyze a speaker's choices, we analyze both what the speaker says (the ideas & details they include) and how they say it (their communication style).  We analyze big, obvious things--like a speaker's decision to tell a fifteen-minute story about a cow named Edgar--and small, inconspicuous things--like a speaker's decision to use a semicolon rather than a period between two clauses.  And, finally, we analyze the things the speaker does consciously and intentionally as well as the things the speaker seems to do unconsciously and unintentionally. All of this means that there is a literal infinite number of things to analyze when it comes to choices.  "Choices" is by far the broadest and most overwhelming category in SPACE CAT.

Because "Choices" encompassess so many possibilities and variables, it should come as no surprise that a lot of our time in AP Lang will be spent exploring the endless variation of choices that speakers make.  In fact, we'll spend almost the entirety of quarter two talking about the many different ways we can analyze a speaker's rhetorical choices.

THE RHETORICAL APPEALS

(THE "A" IN "CAT")

A long time ago, the Greek philosopher Aristotle taught that a speaker’s ability to persuade an audience is based on how well the speaker appeals to that audience in three different areas: ethos, pathos, and logos. 

The three rhetorical appeals are the key to explaining the speaker's choices. Everything that the speaker says and does is, in the end, an attempt to appeal to ethos, to pathos, or to logos. 

TONE

(THE "T" IN "CAT")

"Tone" is the speaker’s attitude toward the subject of the text. If we wanted to, we could include "Tone" in the "Choices" section of SPACE CAT.  After all, speakers strategically choose to develop certain tones for the same reasons they make other choices: to appeal to ethos, to pathos, or to logos.

But tone is a little different than  the other choices that are encompassed by the "C" in SPACE CAT because tone is a choice that is developed through other choices. For example, tone is created by using certain words, certain punctuation marks, and certain figurative language. Thus, we give tone its own letter in the SPACE CAT acronym. (Plus, SPACE CA just doesn't have the same ring to it.)

THE ESSENTIAL INGREDIENTS OF ARGUMENTS

When you first start to write or analyze an argument, you should begin by considering the rhetorical situation (or SPACE--speaker, purpose, audience, context, exigence). If you're the speaker, the next step after that is to make some basic choices about what you're going to say--to decide, in other words, what ingredients (what claims, what evidence, what counterclaims, etc.) you'll include in your argument. On the other hand, if you're part of the audience analyzing the text, the step after thinking about SPACE is to identify the basic choices the speaker made to communicate their message--to identify, in other words, the claims, evidence, counterclaims, etc. the speaker included.

Being able to think and talk intelligently about the stuff that makes up an argument obviously depends on having the vocabulary to describe the different ingredients that arguments include. You probably already know many of the terms that we use to describe the fundamental ingredients of arguments, but there are probably some terms that you're unfamiliar with. Look at the resources below to gain a better understanding of the ingredients that make up arguments.