- What are each author's thesis?
- What is one rhetorical move each author uses in creating his argument? Explain it's significance within the overall argument.
- Using the method described in the YouTube video we watched in class, develop two research questions inspired by the topics discussed in the your two homework texts.
After you finish the reading and the viewing, complete the following three part blog by Sunday night:
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In the midst of your Halloween activities and research (I just discovered the History Channel online), take a little break and read the assigned except from America Now, which you can find on the Blackboard under Writing Materials. With the reading at your side, you can get started on Blog Post #4. The first part of your blog post is to post an opinion you hold about something, anything! It doesn't even have to be about health, although if it is, that's okay. It should, however, be something worth consideration. For example, "I secretly like Miley Cyrus" is not really worth consideration, but "I like Miley Cyrus because she makes people uncomfortable and inspired a lot of interesting conversation" or "It's good that Miley Cyrus makes us questions what it means to be a young woman in an oversexualized society." Get the idea? These opinions could use some fleshing out, but they are expressing an opinion that someone could disagree with. Once you've decided on your opinion, then, using the section on pages 7 and 8 titled "How Do We Form Opinions?," write which category you think your opinion falls into. This should be completed by Thursday night. For the second part, which is to be completed by Friday night, your task is to reflect on the rhetorical tools in the box on on page 15 titled "How to Support Opinions," as well as the comments following the three sample essays, and choose two rhetorical tools that could be used to support two of your peers opinions. Everyone will respond to two people's posts, and don't load up responses on one post; everyone should have at least one response to their initial post. To clarify, you will not comment on your own post and you will not offer two rhetorical tool suggestions on the same post. Instead, you will offer one rhetorical tool on one peer's opinion post and one on a differnt peer's opinion post. During the second round of comments, be sure to think about the type of support that opinion would need. For example, it would be inappropriate for me to support the opinion ""I like Miley Cyrus because she makes people uncomfortable and inspired a lot of interesting conversation" by providing statistics about how many people like Miley Cyrus. Statistics aren't going to help support my point. Examples, on the other hand might. I might talk about how in one day I heard a girl in the airport wondering what had happened to good old Hannah Montana, hypothesizing that she just couldn't handle the pressure of being good all the time. On that same day, the MSNBC was discussing whether outcries over Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke VMA's performance wasn't highlighting a double standard on who is allowed to cross the line of sexual crudeness. The goal of this exercise is to get everyone thinking about applicable support. Side note: I think it's interesting that when I tried to find an image for this blog post, I started typing in "What happened to" and by the time I typed the first half of "happened," Google's first auto-finish option was "Miley Cyrus." I wonder if any of you have opinions on Google... The first person in your group to post will start the thread for your group. That person will explain why your group's article is relevant as a counterargument and why it is credible (this will probably be done in class, so this person will merely have to type it up). Second, everyone read it carefully, taking notes. Third, discuss the questions that it brings up, and fourth, describe your reaction. One-Four are due by Tuesday at noon. Respond to at least two other posts within your group by class time on Wednesday.
Feel free to refer to the documentary or bring in information you've found on your own; the goal is to have a discussion--to help each other challenge your thoughts on this matter and form your own opinions. Remember, respectful disagreement is often more fruitful than encouraging agreement when forming your opinions on topics. So far this semester, we've read a second person narrative (The Spirit Catches you") and a first person narrative ("A Life in Smoke"). In a couple of classes we've reflected on our own addictions, and in one class we talked about the "thing behind the thing." Hopefully, through discussion, everyone has come up with a couple interesting ideas that they might like to explore in a narrative essay. This blog post should help you brainstorm further so when it comes time to write your narrative essay, you'll have plenty of ideas to draw from.
One of the options for Paper One will be to write a memoir; you will use this blog to help brainstorm for this paper. Here are the directions:
This does not have to be formal writing, but remember, your classmates are your audience, so they should be able to understand what you’re talking about. Again, if you would like to share anonymously, that's a-okay; please email me your code name at the time of posting. This assignment shadows the techniques used in "The Spirit Catches you and you Fall Down." In class we will discuss the effects of writing from many different points of view (Anna Fadiman writes from her point of view, the doctors' points of view, and Lia's family's point of view). First, ponder the various effects this had on you/might have had on a reader, then try out the technique by completing the following prompt: Remember the last time you witnessed a health event and write about it from two points of view. One of these will be yours, but the other will have to well-informed conjecture. For example, if you are recalling a time you took your brother in to get his broken arm looked at, try to imagine what he felt like, what the doctors felt like, or what someone else close (physically or emotionally) to the situation felt like. Record your event in your own comment, and then read (and comment on) other people's posts before class. |
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November 2013
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