Plato and Aristotle (384-322 BCE)
Internet English 105: Advanced First Year Composition Assignments
Unit One: Conjectures| Unit Two:Analysis & Eval| Unit Three: Position| Unit Four: Research Log & Online Portfolio
Writing Project One: Conjectures
Plato and Aristotle (384-322 BCE)
Assignment Goals:
The point of this assignment is
1) to use reading and writing 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, not only for this essay but for all essays, you will be introducing your sources, and stating why they are credible or may be biased. (The work with the Tompkin's summary is directly related to this idea).
2) Use summary and concision to aid your scholarship
3) Brush up/learn to correctly use MLA documentation form both within the essay and the summaries.
Writing Project One: The Conjectures Assignment
In this assignment, I ask you to pinpoint an issue within your topic 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.
The 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.
In this essay, you simply characterize or categorize three available positions and describe their similarities and/or differences. A successful paper will illustrate the complexity of the issue you study by mapping out and contextualizing three available positions and reflecting on the parties' investment in those positions.
Do not over-think or over-write this assignment. Your job is to find three articles about your topic, each article representing a different view/conjecture of the situation. You will be summarizing each source you find, so this assignment simply asks you to find a controversial issue within your topic, represent at least three separate points of view as found in the articles, and finish with a simple conclusion. Three views about one thing. For another example, the wall in Israel. A Palestinian may give their reasons against the wall, an Israli worker may give hir reason for approving of the wall, and a third party, another Palestinian but this one a farmer, may have reasons for approving the wall. You would point out possible credibiiity or bias of each sources, and then give thier position.
In brief, you will write an intro to the problem, lay out the three summaries with appropriate transitions, and come to a conclusion. Simple! (Simple if you find three substantial articles each representing a different view—and add a forth article to give an overview). For this essay, your Works Cited (see sample of a works cited page on pg. 650-51) should have no more than four sources listed.
.
Again, your response to the assignment should, at minimum:
State the issue;
show why it is controversial;
lay out the three positions/conjectures taken on the issue by three interested parties;
and in closing suggest changes that might be made in order to bring interested parties into agreement. Or the conclusion might suggest, for example, that one party or side has more or better evidence or reasons for their conjecture and briefly show why the evidence or reasons are superior.
Essay Length:
3-3 1/2 pages. (This does not mean 4 or 5). Part of your work with summary should help you condense, and this practice should be reflected in your concise but informative conjecture essay.
The Works Cited page is a separate page that follows your essay.
Sources (Note: A journal article is required for at least one essay, but you may use more).
You are required to
1) find at least three sources for each essay assignment(except WP2 where you will need only two sources).
2) Sources required to be at least four pages in length, (the more comprehensive your articles, usually the better your final essay).
3) Each source must be accompanied by a short (one to two paragraph) rhetorical evaluation of the source which contextualizes it and discusses its credibility and possible bias.
4) Source must be recent and relevant to your issue.
5) Each source must be summarized
Summary (Note: Summaries are required for each article that you use in all three essays).
Each article you use for your essay must be summarized.
The summary must include the MLA citation at the top of the page.
The summary must include in-text documentation.
Invention Work for Assignment One
1. Investigate the "big" current issues within your country/topic. Use your book (Chapter 21 & 22) to get ideas about where to find sources and how to document them properly. (If you have chosen to do a country, you can get background information from cia.org)
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 a) what the current Iraqi government thinks should be done to resolve some particular issue, b) what the U.S. thinks should be done, and c) what another country, let's say France, thinks should be done. Three views of the situation. Your job is simply to present the views as given in the articles; not to interpret them, second guess them, or to make predictions about them
Unit Due dates (subject to change slightly. See weekly syllabus)
-“Indians . . .” summary
-Two summaries with MLA Citations and in-text documentation (You will need three summaries but the third is due with the essay).
-Peer Edit Draft of Writing Project One
-Final version: Writing Project One (Final Essay and all three (or four) summaries).
-Log detailing your research method and what sites you visited in compiling your research.
(All work must be completed to pass the course).
Unit Two: Analyzing and Evaluating Arguments
Democratic Candidates Debate 2008
Writing Project 2: Evaluating Arguments
Overview
This assignment has three parts. First, to complete this assignment you will need to find two comprehensive articles from journals or authoritative sources. The credibility and depth of your articles are very important to your success with this assignment, so make sure they are comprehensive and by authors who are authorities on the issue. Each article represents an opposite side of the controversy. This will give you two authors, who disagree with the other position, giving overviews of the issue and their side of the controversy. I advise that you begin immediately to find your articles (see due dates).
Next, analyze both arguments using the Toulmin Schema. In other words break the arguments down into their parts (analysis). This is a simple list. Giving-- Claim, qualifier, reasons, grounds, warrant, backing, conditions of rebuttal for each argument. This is the first part of the assignment and is to be turned in as a separate document—Part One. It is supporting material for the evaluation argument you will make in Part Two. Think of it as invention work for the evaluation essay. ( min. length 2 pages).
Finally, Part Two, the Evaluation essay. This is an evaluative argument-- evaluating which side has argued most persuasively. The essay (Part Two), is four pages in length.
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 two 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? (This might help you find the warrant(s) to the 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 something into separate parts so the whole can be seen 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 two comprehensive articles 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 found in long newspaper articles, or possibly two political speeches from opposing candidates, two think tank authors that tackle the same issue. 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 two texts with opposing arguments (at least four pages in length).
· Briefly summarize each argument and the rhetorical situation (give the parts of argument, rhetorical purpose, context).
. Analyze each argument according to the parts of argument (Toulmin schema).
· 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 persuasive and why?
Paper requirements:
· 4 pages
· Works Cited (MLA)
· Include links to your article/s.
· Include copies of all your work (peer edits too!)
Due Dates:
-Both articles for WP2
-Part One (Analysis of Article # 1)
-Part One (analysis of Article # 2)
-Evaluative Essay.
-Peer Review (maybe two).
-Final WP2 –Parts One and Two.
Unit Three: Position Presentation Argument (Outline)
U.S. Supreme Court, Washington D.C .
Your assignment is to take a position on your topic, and prove it. At a minimum, your presentation 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 (<reasons). 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 visuals, graphics and MLA citations. The presentation does not have to be in Power Point, yet students find that this is often easiest to use and all ASU computers have this software.
2)** You must answer your opponents best argument.
3) at least three new articles.
4) Creative visuals that enhance your presentation ( Don't just include something because you have the notion that pictures “are nice.” Make them count).
5) MLA style and in text documentation The in-text doc can be added to the slide, just as you would add it to the text of your essay. The works cited can be done on a separate PPt. slide.
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 final submission will include:
1) Power Point or other visually enhanced presentation.( If you don't have Power Point you can enhance your documented outline with jpeg's or gif's inserted into a "Word" document).
2) 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). Include graphs, or charts in your Power Point presentation—some kind of visual statistics.
Goals:
1) Prepare and present a well conceived and argued position.
2) Prepare convincing visual aids.
3) Demonstrate that the rhetor is comfortable and knowledgeable not only with the topic but with parts of argument.
Due Dates
Analysis of Visual
Argument Outline
Peer Review
Presentation times TBA but will be during week 11
Unit Four: Research Log and Online Portfolio
The log is an ongoing dated document that records what you do to advance your research. An example entry might look like this . . .
Jan. 22 Topic Israel; narrowed topic Israeli pullout in Gaza
Hayden Library. Initial research on topic.
List sites you visited, urls, or call numbers. Ideas you came up with, ideas about how to further your research. Questions or ideas you may have about what to do next.
Credibility statments for the articles you use
Summaries of the articles.
This is an ongoing document. I will check them periodically and they will be turned in with each essay.
Due: With each essay AND at the final all due date with the Online Portfolio
Online Portfolio: (This online portfolio assignment may change slightly according to class needs and progress).
Your online portfolio is simply a collection of samples of your work that you use as evidence to support a detailed letter/evaluative argument to your Professor arguing the merits of your scholarship during the course. I offer latitude for creativity in this assignment, and advise that you begin working on it early in the semester. This is one reason that I ask you to save all of your work. You can use any method of presentation that you choose but it must be a classical argument with all parts included. The length should be at minimum three pages and no more than five, with all supporting documents attached or added at the end of the essay. What have you learned about writing, about elements of argument, about presentation? This is another chance to demonstrate your pursuasive skills.
Have a great holiday. . .