whitman’s sampler

Carefully read and examine this ad from Americans for the Arts. Then compose a thoughtful, thorough, well-organized analysis of the rhetorical strategies used to make its argument, considering both visual and verbal techniques. You must post your analysis by the end of the period. Keep in mind the rhetorical situation and the strategies for composition we’ve discussed.

PS- I’ll be very surprised if the .pdf doesn’t open (I just checked it), but in case it doesn’t: please ask someone to print it off for you, and then pass it around. In this scenario, if it takes too much time to print, complete the assignment for homework.

lifeboat ethics

Read Hardin’s essay, and write a brief post (250 words) in which you describe how Hardin uses the lifeboat metaphor to describe s question policies such as foreign aid, immigration, and food banks.

Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor, by Garrett Hardin, Psychology Today, September 1974

relativity essay

Einstein’s theory of relativity made many common sense concepts of time and space relative. In the absence of “frames of reference” in interstellar space, up down, right left, fast slow, bigger smaller, and even night and day could only be determined from a particular point on the globe. Popular reactions to these revolutionary ideas have been expressed in science fiction, time travel movies, and even limericks like the Young Lady Named Bright. However, a more profound impact has been felt in the social sciences which along with the radical critiques of Marx and Freud, have given the twentieth century another kind of relativism of shifting perspectives. As physics professor Robert Cohen says, “What was true to one perspective might be false to another and even meaningless to a third” (Landau and Rumer 20). Using any one of these texts as an example, write an essay that gives an account of an encounter you’ve had with someone where differences of gender, age, class, ethnicity, or any other frame of reference has caused misunderstanding.

Your essay, due Monday, should be 3-4 pages. I will look for clarity, concision, and an engaging, meaningful reading experience.

Lightman Post 1

14 April 1905 (8): “Suppose time is a circle…”

In this chapter, most people aren’t aware that “they will live their lives over” and that everything they do “will be repeated again and again, exactly as before.” But those who are aware of the nature of time are the ones who lead miserable lives. Why?

16 April 1905 (10): “In this world, time is like the flow of water, occasionally displaced by a bit of debris, a passing breeze.”

In this segment, time is a river in which some people get stuck and are redirected to the past. These people from the future are call “wretched” and are “left alone and pitied.” Why are these time “exiles” said to have “lost their personhood”? Why aren’t they sought after and admired instead?

Choose one of the prompts above and respond in a post to your blog class tomorrow. Your post must exceed 250 words.

what/where

Read the following articles and write a 300 word, informal reflection on what you live for (or what you will live for). Will that shape where you live? Reference all three readings (Walden and the articles below) in your post. While  your reflection is informal, please make specific references to the readings.  The post is due by class Wednesday.

• The Year Without Toilet Paper
• Freakonomics

economy/affluenza

visual argument?

Read the following articles and write a 300 word, informal reflection on how the notion of affluenza may relate to Thoreau’s ideas in Walden. While  your reflection is informal, please make specific references to the readings.  The post is due by class Monday.

Wikipedia entry

New York Times Blog

modest proposal

Read Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” over the weekend, and respond to the following questions by class on Monday:

1. At what point in the opening paragraphs might a contemporary reader begin to suspect Swift’s insincerity; in other words, at what point might one suspect that Swift’s speaker does not represent the author’s real views?
2. What is Swift’s actual argument?

spirited rhetoric – vote!

antimetabole

Check out this article on Slate.com: “The Hottest Rhetorical Device of Campaign ’08.”

And because it involves an issue of language-here, a common colloquialism-and because it led to interesting discussion today, also check out Obama’s response to the lipstick on a pig “controversy.”  For fun, here are some other politicians using the phrase, as reported by CBS news:

• “I think they put some lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.” – John McCain, in reference to Hillary Clinton’s health care plan, last year.
• “George Bush has given a mission to General Petraeus, and he has done his best to try to figure out how to put lipstick on a pig.” – Barack Obama, last year.
• “Or as we say out in our home state of Wyoming, you can put all the lipstick you want on a pig, but it’s still a pig.” – Dick Cheney, 2004.
• “It’s all about withdrawal or not withdrawal, okay? I mean that’s what it’s all about. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.” – John McCain, last year.
• “You can put lipstick and earrings on a hog and call it Monique, but it’s still a pig.” – Texas Gov. Ann Richards.
• “John Kerry tries to put a bunch of fancy, fancy talk…but there is nothing you can do to really — to really obscure that record. You can try, though. And in Wyoming, we’ve got a saying for what it is when you keep trying to make something that’s not so good look good, we call it putting lipstick on a pig.” – Lynne Cheney, 2004.
• “It gets down to whether you support what’s being done in this new strategy or you don’t. You can put lipstick on a pig. It’s still a pig in my view.” – John McCain, last year.

I invite your responses to this post, if you’d like to continue the discussion online.

everything’s an argument p59/q4

Humor has been used in arguments since the classical period. But modern humorous arguments are more likely to make use of visual media. Take for example this cartoon from the now defunct humor magazine Punch:

From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 8, 1920, by Various

Punch was a magazine of humour and satire that ran from 1841 until its closure in 2002. A very British institution with an international reputation for its witty and irreverent take on the world, it published the work of some of the greatest comic writers (Thackeray, P G Wodehouse and P J O’Rourke among others) and gave us the cartoon as we know it today. The use of ridicule and humor to make arguments is even more prevalent in 2008 than 1920 thanks, in part, to publications such as Punch;in fact, we might look to Punch for ideas on how ridicule might make effective statements without alienating audiences:

from the Punch cartoon library

Follow the assignment for prompt #4 on page 59, and look for examples of aguments that use humor or ridcule to make their point. Post a repsonse to the prompt along with the examples you find on your blog, and bring a printed copy to class. Your blog post should incorporate visuals and multimedia representations where necessary (if you use a cartoon, advertisement, etc., post the image on your blog; if you reference film or television, post the video.) Your posts are due by class on Wednesday, 10 Septmeber.

NB: Palin speech; McCain speech