English 102 Assignments

Unit One: Conjectures| Unit Two: Evaluation| Unit Three: Position|Unit Four: Portfolio Analysis


Plato and Aristotle (384-322 BCE)

Assignment One: The Conjectures Assignment
  In this assignment, I ask you to study an issue in order to discover how people who are interested in the issue depict it.   Rhetoricians call depictions of a state of affairs “conjectures”.  The issue may be a matter about which people disagree, and on which it is possible to take several positions. If parties to an argument hold different conjectures about the way the world works, this difference may contribute to their inability to agree.  For example, a conservative politician might conjecture that people are poor because they don't want to work, while a liberal politician might conjecture that people are poor because for some reason beyond their control they have been unable to find or get work.  A socialist, on the other hand, might conjecture that people are poor under capitalism because capitalism mandates that wealth be unequally distributed. As you can see from this example, conjectures do not establish the truth or fact of the issue under discussion;  rather, they represent an educated guess about what might be, or what might have occurred.  And since reality may be perceived very differently by people who occupy different social and political positions, people may paint very different pictures of that reality.

Goals:
The point of this assignment is 1) to use reading and writing to help you to understand that it is possible for events and objects in the world to be depicted differently by people who are advancing their own interests.  These differing positions arise from their different positions in culture, from their individual histories, and from the history of the culture they inhabit. And thus your sources must be contextualized, within your essay. In other words, you will be introducing your sources, and stating why they are credible, or if it may be biased. 2) Use summary to aid your scholarship 3) Brush up/learn to correctly use MLA documentation form both within the essay and the summaries.

Composition:
The audience for this paper is the class.  Your response to this assignment should enlarge our understanding of how the issue is perceived by the people who are involved in its discussion, and it should also help us to evaluate the various positions taken by persons who are concerned with the issue.  In some cases, your study of the various ways in which the issue is depicted may actually contribute to the argument, if you can demonstrate that disagreement stems from the differing depictions of the issue made by various parties to it.

You may wish to take a position on the issue; or you may wish simply to characterize or categorize the available positions and describe their similarities and differences. Or, you may wish to list key themes that appear in the discourse of those who discuss this issue.  Whichever sort of response you choose, a successful paper will illustrate the complexity of the issue you studies by mapping out the available positions and reflecting on the parties' investment in those positions.

Your response to the assignment should, at minimum:
state the issue; show why it is controversial; lay out the positions taken on the issue by interested parties; develop the conjectures that are made by competing parties;  and suggest changes that might be made in order to bring interested parties into agreement.  You might suggest, for example, that one party or side has more or better evidence for their conjecture and show why that evidence is superior.

Invention Work for Assignment One
1. Investigate the "big" cuurent issues within your country/topic.
2. Pick an issue about which you can find at least three conflicting ideas. For example there is currently a war between Iraq and the U.S. Say Iraq is your country. You would want to find out 1) what the current Iraqi government thinks should be done to resolve some particular issue, 2) what the U.S. thinks should be done, and 3) what another country, let's say France, thinks should be done. Three views of the situation. Your job is simply to present the views. Not interpret them.


Unit Two: Evaluating Arguments
Writing Project 2: Evaluating Arguments
Overview

This assignment has two parts. Part one is an analysis of each side of the argument. You should submit a page with a line drawn down the center. Claim one goes in the first column, and claim two in the second column. Continue in this way through all the parts of argument. This will be submitted as supporting material for the the evaluation argument you make in the essay which is Writing Project 2..
The second part of the assingment is the essay which uses the information you have found in part one, to evaluate and compare the merits of the arguments.

In the last project, you examined an issue from multiple sides while making as few actual value judgments on the conjectures as possible. In this project, you will evaluate the merit of an argument, or conjecture, or more appropriately, the relative merits of the arguments.  You will say which argument you believe best proves a point, and why.  You will be evaluating, among several positions which is the most persuasive and telling why. Notice that within the word evaluate, you find embedded, the word, "value."  What are the value positions inherent within the reasons these authors give in support of their argument?

Background and Goals:
One of the most critical thinking skills, and perhaps one of the most underdeveloped is analysis.  To analyze means to break down into it's separate parts so you can see the whole more clearly.  After analyzing an argument it is much easier to know not only the claim of the argument, but your response to it.  We see arguments all around us everyday, but how often do we closely analyze them?

Your job is to find one comprehensive article giving two or more opposing arguments/conjectures on your issue, and evaluate their comparative merits.  In other words, which is more persuasive, and why?
These comparative arguments can be point/counterpoint editorials, or just editorials on the same topic, or possibley two political speeches from opposing candidates.  This time find article/s that discuss both sides of the argument.  The two articles can also be from journals (one must be a journal), newspapers, internet sources, interviews, or ?  You can also make suggestions.

Specifics
At a minimum, your project should:
· Present a text with opposing arguments.(In other words an article that includes more than one side).
· Briefly summarize each argument and the rhetorical situation ( give the parts of argument, rhetorical purpose, context).
· Present the persuasive strategies used by each (ethos, pathos, logos).
· Evaluate those strategies for effectiveness.  Are they appropriate to the audience?  Are they persuasive?  Why or why not?
· Compare the rhetorical strategies and effectiveness of the texts. How are they the same? How are  they different?
· What might account for those differences?
· Which is most effective and why?
Paper requirements:
·     3 1/2 to 4 pages
·     Works Cited (MLA)
·     Include photocopy of your article/s.
·     Include copies of all you work (peer edits too!)
____________________________________________________________________________________________

Unit Three: Position Argument and Presentation from Outline.

The assignment asks you to take a position on your topic, and prove it. At a minimum, your paper will include the following elements:
1)  The Classical position argument form: I believe X and you should believe it too, because of S,    R and  T.  The form is to be closed, with a self announcing thesis/claim that acts as a blueprint for the argument. The final project must be in the form of an extended outline with MLA citations that you will use to present your position.
2)** You must answer your opponents best argument.
3)   at least three new articles (include copies).
4) A creative visual that enhances your presentation (if our class does presentations).
5)  MLA style and in text documentation
6)   You must not preach to the choir.  In other words, what point is there in arguing with those who agree with your position?  You must target an audience who has either not made up their mind on the topic, or who disagree with your position.
6) Consider your warrant. Would your audience accept your support? Or does your support assume the audience buys into core assumptions they may not share?

Your packet will include:
1) Essay/Oultine
2) photocopies of 3 new articles
3) any of the other/old articles you cite (this is in addition to the three new articles).
4) works cited page
5) work from Blackbboard that you want me to re-see.
6). Include graphs, charts, or some kind of visual as an appendix to the essay. I encourage Power Point presentations if appropriate to the particular classroom and audience.

Goals:
1) Prepare and present a well concieved and argued position.
2) Prepare convincing visual aids--Many students choose to use Power Point Presentations (see #6 above).
3) Write(outline)a well realized, supported and cited position argument.
4) Demonstrate that the rhetor is comfortable and knowledgeable not only with the topic but with parts of argument.
5) Develop confidence and poise speaking to an audience.

Unit Four Portfolio Analysis

The 102 Writing Portfolio is an evaluative essay supporting a claim you make about your work as a writer in Eng 102, and the materials with which you support this claim.

Your Writing Portfolio contains:

1) Table of Contents/ a list of the contents by section (Essay, articles, drafts, etc.). Your Portfolio should be organized by sections with colored paper or some other device for separating the information..

2) Class-work you select to disucss

Of the work you choose to discuss you should include

3) An Evaluation (argument) Essay. The subject of the evaluation argument is your writing progress during the semester.

a)The subject of the evaluation essay is the examination of your strengths a weaknesses as a writer and as a scholar. In your essay you must advance an evaluative thesis, describe the subject of evaluation, and cite specific evidence in the form of quotes to support the points you make about your work. Remember that this is an Evaluative Essay. You may want to re-read Chapter Fifteen, "Making an Evaluation."

b) the evaluation essay must be at minimum, three pages. An appropriate length is from 4-6 pages.

4) Have Portfolio Spiral Bound at Kinkos, A.S.U. copying, etc.
Print a cover sheet, then have the printer provide a clear plastic sheet for a front cover. **Do not do this the night before the portfolio is due. The copy places have long lines at at the end of the semester.

5) Criteria for evaluating a Portfolio:
a) the overall quality and improvement of the writing, 25%
b) quality of the evaluative claim and argument essay, 25%
c) "style" includes, neatness and any extra features such as graphics you might add to enhance your position or stance regarding your topic, 25%
d) organizational scheme of the portfolio should address the rhetorical concerns of Situation, Occasion, Audience and Purpose, 25%

Goals: