• Myth:
• traditional story accepted as history; serves to explain the world view of a people
• A myth is often thought to be a lesson in story form which has deep explanatory or symbolic resonance for preliterate cultures, who preserve and cherish the wisdom of their elders through oral traditions by the use of skilled story tellers.
  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth

AP English 11

Mr. Cunningham

The synthesis essay asks students to use sources to support an argument. It is the informed use of sources to synthesize, evaluate, cite and comment on source material.

Using a minimum of four sources from the packet and one source of your own choice, discuss what myths about the September 11^th, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center are being developed by fiction, essays, films and art.  Included in your argument should be a synthesis of what the documents suggest about the role art, fiction, media and people should play in constructing these myths.

Remember myths are “stories that explain national or individual realities, how a nation came to be….or what fate might have in store for us, .a peculiar hybrid of truth and falsehood, resentments and ambitions, dreams and dread.” (Thomas, Romano)

Do not evaluate or argue the politics of 911. That is not our role in the synthesis essay.  Rather it is to examine critically the writers’ points of view and determine what the sources’ audience and purpose are.  From there determine what the pieces have in common, or what the differences suggest about the impact of 911 on our national and personal myths.

Essays should have a clear, focused thesis, concrete examples in the form of quotations from the texts, commentary on those examples and a cohesive, meaningful organization appropriate to the writer’s purpose.

 MLA format, parenthetical references and a works cited page are required.

Modern Language Association Style:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/01/