We began by looking at the first question for the new article of the week. Early in the piece, there is a challenging sentence that we went over:

I have become consumed with an alarming possibility: that neither the polls nor the actual outcome of the election really matter, because to a great many Americans, digital communication has already rendered empirical, observable reality beside the point.

We broke it into several smaller chunks, noting that:

• colons operate like directional arrows: what comes after them is an example or elucidation of what came before
• commas often serve to separate the sentence into smaller chunks:
  • that neither the polls nor the actual outcome of the election really matter, because
  • to a great many Americans,
  • digital communication has already rendered empirical, observable reality beside the point

We’ll be using these skills a lot in the coming weeks as we work on Shakespeare.

After working through the AOW a while, we turned to the day’s learning target: using tenor and vehicle to interpret metaphors.