DAY 01 - CYCLE 02 - SEMESTER 02: 01-12-10

HANDOUTS FROM TODAY:

There were no handouts for today.

IN CLASS TODAY:

Today, we began with the first five words of Unit 6 in the Vocabulary Book: abject, agnostic, complicity, derelict, and diatribe.

We also officially began the Argument Unit, in which we will:

• learn methods of persuasion,
• analyze a variety of arguments presented to us in a variety of media,
• evaluate some examples of argument for effectiveness,
• and attempt our own written argument in response to an issue raised in our studies.

In having you incorporate an argument based in reason, an argument based on emotions, and a demonstration of mastery of the material in your essay on Montana 1948, I was giving you a bit of a pre-test for this unit.

Today, we wrestled a bit more with the concepts that in the next few days we'll be naming: logos, pathos and ethos.

To begin, I had you talk to a partner about the ad and the article you brought in, answering the following questions about each.

1. Does the article/ad want you to DO something or THINK something or FEEL something (or a combination of these)? Name its intention.
2. You chose these articles and advertisements because you thought them effective.  Justify that choice.  (Be aware that with the article, part of your motivation may be "Because it reaffirms what I already think.")  What are the sources of their effectiveness?
3. For whom is the article/ad intended? What makes you think that?
4. From the prespective of both the article and the ad, I asked you to complete the following statement: "You,     describe intended audience member here    , should        do/think/feel  what?           because                                           ."   For example, an ad for an athletic shoe might read You, an athlete who takes his/her workout seriously, should wear our brand of shoe because its precisely engineered for intense athletics.

Tomorrow, we'll be talking more about just HOW articles and ads get you to think this way, but for today, we're still just getting our feet wet.

To continue, we looked at the following sample of an argument taken from the television series Boston Legal (included here with thanks to Mr. Daniel Sharkovitz of Martha's Vineyard Regional High School).  We watched the clip twice.  The first time, I just had you watch.  The second time, you watched with pen in hand, and I asked you to look at how the protagonist tried to score points with his arguments.  We discussed his approaches and tried to see some patterns in our ideas.




CLASS NOTES:

There were no notes for today.

HOMEWORK:
For Wednesday:Write up an explanation of HOW the lawyer in the clip above seeks to changethe minds of the judges. Consider not only his message, but how he delivers it.  Your analysis will form the basis of our discussion tomorrow, sobe thorough.  I will check homework again.  For tomorrow night, you will need to use the book that appears below.  Please make sure that you own it.  Bring your Sentence Diagramming workbooks to class. 

COMING UP ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT (DUE THURSDAY):
Read the introduction which appears on pages 3-21 of the Essays text.  It is not an easy read throughout, since it presents information in much the same way a textbook does.  The toughest part will be understanding "logical arguments," but the rest should go fairly smoothly.  Take notes, concentrate, read it AWAY from the computer/cell phone/TV/anything with an on switch and do your best.  We'll start talking about the ideas tomorrow, and you'll have a quiz on the introduction on Monday.  Why a quiz? Because the material presented in the introduction constitutes the set of tools we will be using in the rest of the unit to build a better understanding of the art of persuasion: if you don't fully understand the tools and how they work, you can't build much.  If you have questions about what you read or are having trouble, feel free to post a comment here. That way, I'll have a good idea of where we need to focus our efforts on Thursday!