April 1, 2009

Today’s Agenda

For today, you had to do the following:

Your homework for Wednesday is to identify five of the fifteen sources that you think will be useful for you. You have to 1) begin with a paragraph that introduces me to your subject and thesis,  and then you must, in at least 5 separate well-developed paragraphs, introduce me to each of these important sources and define the thesis for each – the thesis statement should be actually quoted. Then you need to write one paragraph on how you imagine that you will organize your argument. You must e-mail this to me and bring a copy to class.

Let’s get out our copies of this assignment. Flip it over, and describe to me how your understanding of your subject and the thesis you want to argue has changed as a result of your work on this project.

Okay, now let’s get into small groups. In your groups you need to do the following: Read paragraph one to the group, and then you need to explain the five sources you want to use and to the group, and identify the thesis.

Your group will then attempt to formulate an ALTERNATIVE argument to yours, and you will have to defend your argument against this alternative argument.

Once we have done this, we will talk about our topics as a class, and bounce our ideas off one another.

You will be taking this draft and using it as a basis for your first draft, which we are going to begin working on today.

1) Look at your first paragraph. We are going to re-write it so that we separate the information a little bit. Your NEW first paragraph will simply introduce the reader to your subject. You can and should feel free to include or otherwise specific information about your subject from your sources into this paragraph.

2) In your second paragraph, you will begin by introducing the reader to your thesis statement, and then will generally summarizing the three or four major reasons you have FOR your thesis. These reasons can be drawn from the sources you have looked at. It is good to include quotes here.

3) You will next begin to work through your paper with a series of paragraphs that accomplish the following:

a. Begin by introducing the topic you will be covering in the paragraph

b. Introduce, present, and explain a quote that relates to this topic

c. Conclude by making a meaningful connection for the reader regarding how the quote supports your thesis.

4) We will begin working on this in class.

Complete final draft of Hertsgaard argument, e-mail to me directly before class.

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