Wednesday, February 4, 2008

Today’s Agenda

Introduction to Unit Two:

Arguments in Action: An Overview of Argumentative Types and Structures

In this unit we are going to cover a number of issues, including but not limited to:

Oral presentation skills (presenting evidence)

An awareness of logical fallacious reasoning

Critical thinking skills (esp. synthesis)

An awareness of the conventions of essay structure

The ability to perform thesis and paragraph development

Proper documentation of source material (works cited)

Argument as Exploration: Using Argument to Uncover

Our project for this unit is going to be: a 3-5 page argument, using a variety of sources as material.  In the argument, you will analyze and evaluate the source material and synthesize it into a coherent whole.

So, let’s begin down that path:

Last time, I asked you about “Protecting Freedom of Expression at Harvard.” It was apparent many of you had not read it, but I told you that you needed to be ready to discuss it today.

Groups: In your groups, I want you to identify the thesis of this argument, Bok’s major claims, and the evidence he uses to back up these claims.

Okay, now that we have broken that down, let’s discuss which of these claims relate to Logos, Ethos, or Pathos.

Okay, now that we have done that, we need to think about how we would summarize this information, let’s open to pages 538-546

Homework

You job now is to write a précis for this short piece, you will need to look up the author on-line. However, I am going to ask you to add a new section to the end of this précis, which is this:

ANALYSIS: In the analysis section, you are free to give your own opinion on the article. However, keep in mind that giving your opinion and giving your opinion on an article are TWO VERY DIFFERENT THINGS. When we give our opinion on an article, we are responding to what we have written before us, and are thus staying specific to what is in the writing. What do you agree with, what don’t you agree with? And why?

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