We began reading and annotating Nixon’s “Checkers” speech in class today as an introduction to ethos. We’ll continue in the coming days, but I’m excited for something a bit different tomorrow: you are to bring in an argument of your choosing in any form. It can be a print advertisement, an essay, a commercial, a speech, a blog post, or anything else you find, as long as it is argumentative. We’ll talk about them in class tomorrow.

As always, if you have any questions, please send me an email or comment below.

Great discussions over the past few days. Here are a few sources we’ll get to tomorrow:

The Forest of Rhetoric will be our go-to site for information about rhetorical devices, techniques, and history. A wonderful rabbit hole.

Etymonline should be bookmarked on all of your devices; knowing the etymology of a word can make it more memorable, and a working familiarity with roots and such makes figuring out the meaning of words much more precise.

From the board today:

The following contribute to the tone of a work. Know them. We’ll discuss more tomorrow.

• Diction
• Imagery
• Detail
• Figurative language
• Syntax
• Metonymy
• Synechdoche
• Euphemism/dysphemism

If you lost your copy of David Foster Wallace’s speech to the graduates at Kenyon College, I found another transcript here. ((Please note that his language is occasionally not school appropriate; I edited the copies handed out in class, but (of course) these sources are not so edited. We’ll continue to discuss his language, as it is vital to understanding.))

Audio of the speech:

An interpretation:

The argument:

The counterargument:

Roger Ebert: “Video Games Can Never Be Art”

Actually, Santiago’s argument is a counterargument to an earlier assertion by Ebert. But who’s counting.

Thoughts?

Here’s our schedule for the final project:

In which you change the world’s view of an issue near and dear to your heart.

In this essay you will be writing an original argument, but without the pesky required topic of your previous one.

You will be keeping a journal of your progress, so start now. In addition to this, you will be meeting with me daily to explain your progress, so set aside some time each night for your work.

Your first step in this process is to find a topic or issue that you are interested in. Journal your ideas and bring them to class tomorrow. Together we’ll be brainstorming possible approaches to the different topics and offering resources or knowledge.

We’ll work out a calendar and other guidelines in class tomorrow.