DAY 04 - CYCLE 03 - SEMESTER 02: 01-28-10

HANDOUTS FROM TODAY:
Today, you received an article about the history of the State of the Union Speech. 
You also recieved a handout of the material posted below, but which you may get here, too.

IN CLASS TODAY:

Together, we discussed the logical arguments in Martin Luther King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail."  We began by listing the essay's Major Premises and Enthymemes. We then looked at Minor Premises.  The goal is for you to become increasingly comfortable determining premises, stated and unstated, and to be able to state them crisply and clearly. It will take practice!

At this point, you should feel somewhat comfortable doing the following when reading an essay, looking at an ad, or hearing a speech:

• Recognizing the author's basic assumptions (the major premises and unstated beliefs, or enthymemes), i.e. what does the author believe is true about human nature and the world we live in?
• Identifying the specific cases used in the argument (the minor premises or samples), i.e. what does the author believe about specific people or specific situations? What evidence is the author providing?
• Determining how ethos is established, i.e. how is the author seeking to gain your trust?
• Discerning appeals to your emotions, i.e. how does the author want you to feel? Why? How does the author seek to create this emotional response?
• Understanding the author's purpose, i.e. what does the author want you to do, feel, or think? Are you being asked to change anything about yourself or your actions?
• Understanding the author's sense of audience, i.e. who does the author think he or she is speaking to? Is his or her understanding of the audience accurate?

CLASS NOTES:

Class notes for today may be found here.

HOMEWORK:

• 1. Listen to the State of the Union Speech (8:00 central statndard time), the Republican response, and apply the above principles and questions to these speeches. Be ready to discuss your answers in class with J.S. tomorrow.  I know that some of you have late practice, but you should be able to find links to the speech or to the text of the speech at http://www.whitehouse.gov/, and check out the Republican response at http://www.gop.com/, or through any major newspaper site.
  
  2. Apply these same questions to “College Pressures” and be ready to discuss that essay further on Friday.
  
• 
  
• COMING UP:
  

After the "College Pressures" essay, we will read George Will's "Virtue Versus Values."  Mr. Stephens will be your sub on Thursday and Friday of this week.  At the end of next week, you will be turning in a written analysis of an essay from the book OR of the State of the Union address (televised tonight).  In that analysis, you will be asked to answer the questions posed above in an essay of several paragraphs.  This assignment will be given to you on Monday, but you have enough information here to get started.

DAY 03 - CYCLE 03 - SEMESTER 02: 01-25-10

HANDOUTS FROM TODAY:


Today, you received a handout with questions for analyzing "Letter from Birmingham Jail."

IN CLASS TODAY:

Together, we diagrammed the following sentences from the book:
Have you met my friend Mary?
The renters altered, that is, nearly destroyed, the apartment
They have strength, speed, and mental toughness--the right qualities.
We then started to go over "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," studying the different types of appeals and answering questions about the essay.  We practiced identifying major premises and fallacies, too.

CLASS NOTES:

Class notes for today may be found here.

HOMEWORK:

• Read "College Pressures" by William Zinsser on page 396 of the Essays book.  Using the handout from today's class, use colored pencils or highlighers to identify passages employing logos, pathos and ethos.  Do the entire essay.  On Wednesday, we will discuss this essay and do an analysis of it.

COMING UP:
After the "College Pressures" essay, we will read George Will's "Virtue Versus Values."  Mr. Stephens will be your sub on Thursday and Friday of this week.  At the end of next week, you will be turning in a written analysis of an essay from the book OR of the State of the Union address (televised later this week).  In that analysis, you will be asked to:
- Identify and explain the logical, ethical and pathetic appeals.
- Determine the intended audience.
- Expose the presence of any fallacies.
- Justify your agreement or disagreement with the argument using your own appeals.

DAY 02 - CYCLE 03 - SEMESTER 02: 01-21-10

HANDOUTS FROM TODAY:
There were no handouts for today.

IN CLASS TODAY:

Today, we began with a review of the first five words from unit 6 and added five more: effigy, equity, inane, indictment, and indubitable.

We then brought out our sheets observing classroom behavior from other classes, and in small groups, I had you complete the following statements based on your own observations and conjectures:

In classes, girl students tend to ______________________, while boy students tend to _______________.  This is because ___________________________________.  Meanwhile, male teachers tend to ___________________________, while female teachers tend to _______________________.

We then reconvened as a group to start picking apart Katha Pollitt's essay, looking at her major premises.  We went back and looked at Tannen's essay, revisiting her major premises.

Pollitt says the major differences between genders are created by society and we should move past them.  Deborah Tannen says our major differences are hard-wired and we should cater to them.  What are their biases? The strengths and weaknesses of their arguments? You've done your own observations, enough to form an opinion of your own.  What do you think?  What are your biases?

The purposes of reading these two essay were:

1. To start practicing assessing arguments and analyzing the parts of them.
2. To engage you to the point of having an opinion of your own.

That's what good analysis can do--drive you to have new ideas and beliefs that make life (and class) more interesting.

Incidentally, American Heritage Dictionary defines "doll" as follows:
doll (dŏl): n. A child's usually small toy having the likeness of a human.

Just sayin...


CLASS NOTES:

No class notes for today.

HOMEWORK:

• Read Martin Luther King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" in your Essays book. List ALL of the major premises (stated or enthymemes) you can find on a separate piece of paper and bring it with you to class.
• Review the unit 7 of Sentence Diagramming.
• Bring your vocabulary book with you to class Monday.

DAY 01 - CYCLE 03 - SEMESTER 02: 01-20-10

HANDOUTS FROM TODAY:
Worksheet on Deborah Tannen's Premises and Arguments in "Conversational Styles"
Worksheet on classroom dynamics for your other classes.

Worksheet on Katha Pollitt's "Why Boys Don't Play with Dolls."

IN CLASS TODAY:

You took a quiz on the elements of rhetoric.

We then started our discussion of Deborah Tannen's article, "Conversational Styles." I opened with the question, "How true is this essay?"  After you debated about the essay in general for a while, I had you take a look at her specific premises and state your agreement or disagreement with them on a case-by-case basis, and then revisit the debate.  I asked you to focus your comments on specific premises rather than the overall thrust of the essay and to seek an alternative view to your own; in other words, to conduct conversation like you're shopping for a new opinion.

I then passed out a worksheet so you can put her theories and your own to the test by oberving what happens in other classrooms.  We'll discuss this tomorrow and see whose theories hold up under testing.

CLASS NOTES:

Class notes for today may be found here.

HOMEWORK:

• Read Katha Pollitt's "Why Boys Don't Play with Dolls" in your Essays book.  Complete the worksheets (links to both are at the top of this post):
• Worksheet on classroom dynamics for your other classes.
• Worksheet on Katha Pollitt's "Why Boys Don't Play with Dolls."
• Bring your vocabulary book with you to class tomorrow.

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.