Those analyses just keep comin’, don’t they? Well, fret not my friends: you’ll be rocking the rhetoric in no time.

Your assignment for the evening is to analyze the “Usemonopoly” section of Jonathan Lethem’s article on copyrights, plagiarism, and intellectual property ((Full text)).

If you’re a bit unsure after your first analytic go-round (and subsequent meeting with me), I’ve penned a handout for your edification. To access it:

1. Go to Google Docs
2. Log in with the email you gave me ((If you didn’t fill out the form, do that then send me an email from the address you want to use. I’ll share lots of handouts this way.)) in the “Tell Me About Yourself” form
3. Find the document entitled “How To Write an Article Analysis”
4. Rejoice

We’ll discuss your analyses tomorrow.

You received your first graded article analyses today ((Unless you’re in fifth hour, in which case some of this post will refer to your future….)). I was glad to see some very strong writing samples–this will be a good year.

You may have noticed that there were no grades on them–only corrections and suggestions. I want to emphasize that nearly everything you do in this class is practice, so don’t hesitate to take a chance. I won’t hesitate to let you know when you rocked it.

We’ll discuss an excerpt from Jonathan Lethem’s “The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism” tomorrow, but feel free to click the link to read the whole article.

We looked at a few commercials today:

And learned some new words:

Ethos

Pathos

Logos

Email me (or comment below) if you come across a commercial we should discuss. Don’t forget the questionnaire below!

Glad you made it. Check back here often; I update this blog with announcements, lecture notes, supplementary material, and cool things that may or may not be related to what we’re discussing. Check out “Stay in Touch” above for RSS feeds. ((or an explanation of RSS feeds for those unfamiliar))
The “Things Worth Doing” link is an aggregation of the things I consume and think worth sharing. The links on the left side are interesting articles, the links on the right are arguments (AP students take note). The middle column contains books I’ve read recently and music I’ve been listening to. If you find my tastes to be outdated, please share what you know!
Please fill out the form below. In addition to this website I’ll upload any handouts to Google Documents for safekeeping. If you want access, I need your email address.