DAY 05 - CYCLE 02 - SEMESTER 02: 01-19-10

HANDOUTS FROM TODAY:

There were no handouts for today.

IN CLASS TODAY:

We covered the material in the rest of the introduction, except the fallacies for pathetic and ethical arguments.  You'll find examples in the power point.

CLASS NOTES:

You took your own, but you must review the Power Point for more.

HOMEWORK:
Quiz on introductory material will be on Wednesday. Review the Power Point and prepare for the quiz on that material tomorrow. Read "Coversational Styles" and annotate by Deborah Tannen on page 253 of the Seagull Reader: Essays book (if you are using the first edition, the essay appears on 231). Try to determine areas of strength and weakness in her argument using the information you learned in the introduction.

DAY 04 - CYCLE 02 - SEMESTER 02: 01-18-10

HANDOUTS FROM TODAY:

There were no handouts for today.

IN CLASS TODAY:

We began the day by diagramming the following sentence: Do you know your friend Adam's email address? Do you remember how? (HINT: There's an appositive!)

Then, we looked at a Power Point presentation starting to cover the following:

LOGOS: LOGICAL ARGUMENTS
Deductive
major premise
minor premise
conclusion
valid
sound
true
false
enthymemes

Inductive
sufficiently large
Accurate
Representative

Tomorrow, we will cover the following:
Deductive Fallacies
Invalid
Non sequitur
Red herring
false-cause fallacy (post hoc, ergo propter hoc)
Begging the question
either-or fallacy

Inductive Fallacies
Hasty generalizations
Anecdotal evidence
Flase analogy
Special Pleading

ETHOS: ETHICAL ARGUMENTS
What defines them?
Ad hominem

PATHOS: PATHETIC ARGUMENTS
What defines them?
bandwagon
appeal to tradition
appeal to pity


CLASS NOTES:

You took your own, but check out the Power Point for more.

HOMEWORK:
Quiz on introductory material will be on Wednesday. For Tuesday, read "Coversational Styles" and annotate by Deborah Tannen on page 253 of the Seagull Reader: Essays book (if you are using the first edition, the essay appears on 231). Try to determine areas of strength and weakness in her argument using the information you learned in the introduction.

DAY 03 - CYCLE 02 - SEMESTER 02: 01-14-10

HANDOUTS FROM TODAY:

There were no handouts for today.

IN CLASS TODAY:

First, we resumed unit 7 in the Sentence Diagramming workbook.  Tricky stuff, but we did a few sentences together and you have answers to the rest.

Then we (barely) talked about the introduction to the Seagull Reader: Essays book and just tried to clarify the material covered by the introduction, which included some basic terms:

LOGOS: LOGICAL ARGUMENTS
Deductive
major premise
minor premise
conclusion
valid
sound
true
false
enthymemes

Inductive
sufficiently large
Accurate
Representative

Deductive Fallacies
Invalid
Non sequitur
Red herring
false-cause fallacy (post hoc, ergo propter hoc)
Begging the question
either-or fallacy

Inductive Fallacies
Hasty generalizations
Anecdotal evidence
Flase analogy
Special Pleading

ETHOS: ETHICAL ARGUMENTS
What defines them?
Ad hominem

PATHOS: PATHETIC ARGUMENTS
What defines them?
bandwagon
appeal to tradition
appeal to pity


CLASS NOTES:

No notes today.

HOMEWORK:
Review the introductory essay to make sure you understand its elements.  We will cover it in depth on Monday.  Really.  Even if I have to use a cattle prod. You will have a quiz on Tuesday on the material.  And then we will start judging the arguments of others: wheeeeee!  For Tuesday, read "Coversational Styles" and annotate by Deborah Tannen on page 253 of the Seagull Reader: Essays book (if you are using the first edition, the essay appears on 231). Try to determine areas of strength and weakness in her argument using the information you learned in the introduction.

DAY 02 - CYCLE 02 - SEMESTER 02: 01-13-10

HANDOUTS FROM TODAY:

Today, you received a copy of several advertisements from a magazine.  Because I photocopied the pages, they are not available for download from the class wikisite. Please see me if your need a copy.

You also received a handout about appositives in sentence diagrams. 

IN CLASS TODAY:

Today, we worked on Unit 7 in the Sentence Diagramming Workbook, and you received an additional handout on appositives.  Remember that an appositive (a word, phrase or clause) renames another word phrase or clause in the sentence.  Wondering if something is an appositive?  Take out a word and see if it still works:
- Those flowers are pretty.
- Those flowers are pretty. Yup. This makes sense.
- Those Flowers are pretty. And this makes sense too.
So... Those (flowers) | are \ pretty
We also looked at possessives used as nouns, and expletives.  Today's lesson was tricky.  We'll practice these concepts tomorrow, too, before moving on.
After that, we spoke about yesterday's video clip and started to analyze HOW he tried to persuade the judges.  We looked at appeals to reason, to emotion, and how he tried to present himself as being worthy of listening to.  We also looked at his intentions.

Afterward, we analyzed a few advertisements, and the hidden assumptions behind them.  We used a chart to help:
               REASON                  EMOTION                 AUTHORITY

THINK



DO




FEEL

HOMEWORK:
Read and annotate the introduction in your Seagull Reader: Essays (2nd Ed.), Edited by Joseph Kelly.
The introduction appears on pages 3-21 of the 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 Thursday. 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 tomorrow!

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!

DAY 05 - CYCLE 01 - SEMESTER 02: 01-11-10

HANDOUTS FROM TODAY:

There were no handouts for today.

IN CLASS TODAY:

1. You wrote your verdicts judging Wes innocent or guilty of being liable for Frank's death. You were to base your arguments in a reasonable appeal, and appeal to emotion, and a demonstrated knowledge of the book.

CLASS NOTES:

There were no notes for today's class.

HOMEWORK:
Find and print (or copy) ONE advertisement and ONE newspaper opinion-editorial that you would describe as "effective" for whatever reason (the ad doesn't even need to have words).  Bring your vocabulary book to class tomorrow; we will begin unit 6.  You will find links to op-ed sections below (listed alphabetically).
The Boston Globe
The Chicago Tribune
The Financial Times
The Los Angeles Times
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The New York Post
The New York Times
The Wall Street Journal
The Washington Post (you have to create a free account to get to their material)

DAY 04 - CYCLE 01 - SEMESTER 01: 01-08-10

HANDOUTS FROM TODAY:

There were no handouts for today.

IN CLASS TODAY:

1. We opened by discussing rules for discussion so that everyone gets a change to make his or her case fully. 
   
2. Then, we discussed!

CLASS NOTES:

Notes for today may be found here.

HOMEWORK:
Using Wednesday's and Friday's notes to help you, you are to write a full summary of both the case for and the case against Wes. That means you will have two summaries. Each should outline both the argument and the key pieces of evidence. No matter which side you agree with, do both sides justice, and represent them as fairly and thoroughly as possible.


These documents will be extremely useful in the in class writing assignment on Monday in which you issue a verdict for or against Wes, making a case for your decision. Your goal is to convince me that your verdict is the right one because it is reasonable given the facts of the case, inspires in me an appropriate emotional response to Wes's character, and demonstrates a firm command of the novel's evidence. You may use the 12-sentence format, or deviate from it as your argument requires, but your final product must have three pieces of evidence.

You will turn in both your summaries and your verdicts at the end of the period.