Skills for this Session

I have uploaded the “Skills for this Session” handout to Google Docs, and invited those with on-hand email addresses. If you have any suggestions, please make a comment in the document. If you would like access, just send me an email.

Your Arguments

Today we voted on the topic for our first original arguments: The Oklahoma texting law (link to full text) is beneficial to society. You may agree or disagree with this statement in your argument, and interpret “beneficial” as you see fit.

You’ll need an outline of your position by Monday. We worked out the general steps for research and planning in class, but here are the basic steps:

1. Read the law in full, noting anything that stands out to you.
2. Research driving statistics, enforcement, the opinions of those connected to the law (teens [watch for credibility], police officers, Senators, etc.)
3. Record your position
4. Organize research; repeat steps 2-4 until you have enough evidence to support your case
5. Consider your audience’s values and beliefs. How can you find common ground? What emotional appeals might be effective?
6. Repeat steps as necessary.

Your outline on Monday should include your message, your evidence (and citations), and your appeals. We will share sources and ideas and workshop organization then.

On Tuesday you should bring your revised outline and any progress you make on your rough draft (uploading it to Google Docs would be a good plan)—we’ll be working in the computer lab then.

Recap

We devoted the beginning of this week to an overview of detail, imagery, syntax, and grammar. The following are the highlights.

Detail

• Details make up our facts or observations, and are used to highlight aspects of a situation being described, much like a camera lens focused on one part of a shot.

Imagery

• Imagery in written works is used to bring the reader into the writing through sensory connection. (Think emotional appeal.) If there is a written description of a visual, tactile, olfactory, gustatory, or auditory experience in a piece, it is an image.

• Imagery is vital to many metaphors (Wells’s choice of “vast and cool” to describe Martian minds is an image representing metaphorical tactile experiences).

Syntax

• Sentence length
  • Long sentences are reflective
  • Short sentences are punchy and memorable

• Grammatical structure
  • Loose syntax
  • Periodic syntax

• Punctuation
  • Semicolons separate two independent clauses
  • Colons separate an independent clause from a list or example
  • Em dashes are a more dramatic form of parenthesis.

• Word order
  • The normal word order for an English sentence is Subject, Verb, Object.
  • The normal word order for an English noun phrase is Adjective Noun ((e.g.: “cue the turbulent bugle” becomes “cue the bugle turbulent”))

Grammar

• The subject of the sentence does the action or is described

• The predicate is the action or description

Great first day! We had a solid discussion (one that won’t be over anytime soon) about what it means to be an individual.

Throughout this course we will be exploring characterization in novels ranging from Achebe’s Things Fall Apart to Camus’ The Stranger. The goal is not to establish a universal conception of identity but to understand how each character develops within the work. More on this later.

We read Ursula K. LeGuin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” to stir up some discussion about the individual’s place in society. We’ll discuss more tomorrow.

You should begin Things Fall Apart tonight. To get your journaling started: Why does Okonkwo react to his father the way that he does?