FINAL MEETINGS....

081---Dec. 2----- Dec 7------- Dec 9----------- Dec 14th----------------

.5.40.......Xavier..........Melanie.........Jorge.....................Liliana

.6.00......Destanie.......Karl.................Ross........................Vanessa

..6.20.....Marina..................................Holguin....................Giselle

...6.40....Bishnu....................................Joel............................Francisco


______________________________________________________________________

091.....DEC 2..............DEC 7..............DEC 9...................Dec 14

.710..........Anna................Susie................Cynthia...............Dawna

.730..........Jorge.................Lee..................Marta................Thomas

.750.........Ester............Melissa...............Abreanna.........Yoseni

..810.....Jerardo.........Bernice................Teymur...........Thanna

Portfolio Cont.

1. Journal-- Gather all your portfolio entries...

2. How many should you have?

3. Check to make sure you have completed all pieces except for one.

4.Composing in Electronic Environments

Use electronic environments for drafting, reviewing, revising, editing, and sharing texts

Locate, evaluate, organize, and use research material collected from electronic sources, including scholarly library databases; other official databases (e.g., federal government databases); and informal electronic networks and internet sources

Understand and exploit the differences in the rhetorical strategies and in the affordances available for both print and electronic composing processes and texts

5. Pick one and begin your last entry....don't forget, Definition, Example, Explanation.


6. Portfolio overview....

Coventions

Knowledge of Conventions

• Learn common formats for different kinds of texts
• Develop knowledge of genre conventions ranging from structure and paragraphing to tone and mechanics
• Practice appropriate means of documenting their work
• Control such surface features as syntax, grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

WPA guidelines Cont.

Here is the second section from which you will choose two:

Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing

By the end of first year composition, students should

• Use writing and reading for inquiry, learning, thinking, and communicating
• Understand a writing assignment as a series of tasks, including finding, evaluating, analyzing, and synthesizing appropriate primary and secondary sources
• Integrate their own ideas with those of others
• Understand the relationships among language, knowledge, and power

Let's, as a journal, define all four....



Then, let's, as practice, complete our entries for two....



Remember:

Define,

Example,

Explanation.....

PORTFOLIO WORK CONT>>>

1. JOURNAL--

• Focus on a purpose
• Respond to the needs of different audiences
• Respond appropriately to different kinds of rhetorical situations
• Use conventions of format and structure appropriate to the rhetorical situation
• Adopt appropriate voice, tone, and level of formality
• Understand how genres shape reading and writing
• Write in several genres

Pick the three that you will choose for your portfolio and define them in your own words.

2. Portfolio Practice--

Using the second two learning objective from the bulleted points above, complete a draft of your portfolio entry.

Show me, and if you are finished, you may leave unless you have further questions.


1.5 Class overview....

Meetings...

Tues, Oct. 19th................ 5:40-6:55........................ Thurs, Oct 21st

Bishnu ..............................................................................Marina

Ross................................................................................ Liliana

George............................................................................... Xavier

Ibrahim............................................................................... Francisco

Destanie........................................................................... Amanda

Melanie................................................................................ Karl

Jorge................................................................................... Gisele

Vanessa


TUESDAY.................. 7:10- 8:30.......................... THURSDAY

Lee.............................................................................. Maria

Tommy........................................................................ Anna

Cynthia..................................................................... Bernice

Jorge............................................................................. Jerardo

Ester.............................................................................. Susie

Dawna......................................................................... Teymur

Yoseni....................................................................... Michael

Vanessa .......................................................................Thanna

Practice Portfolio Entry

Using the previous post and one of your own essays, complete a sample entry for your portfolio.



1. Choose a bullet point from the Rhetorical Knowledge section of the WPA guidelines.



2. Prove, using examples from your own work, that you know what you claim you know.


3. BRING YOUR COMPLETED EXAMPLE TO CLASS ON TUESDAY, OCT. 25th.





Here is a Rhetorical Knowledge Example as a Model for you to follow:

EXAMPLE ENTRY FOR PORTFOLIO:

I. Rhetorical Knowledge
a. Write in several genres.

This year in English 900, I learned how to write in several genres. Below are two examples, one from my narrative essay, and one from my argumentative that show how I am able to write in different genres.

Ex: "When I looked over the field I saw the flying blue bonnets dancing and smiling in the wind while they played the banjo and cried."

You can see from this example that I am describing the scene in a story, and since I used "I" it is easy to tell that the story is narrated, or told, by me.

Ex: "Scientists claim that eating candy corn will cause ulcers and AIDS. This is only one reason that you should stay away from candy corn, but there are more. Some doctors claim that eating candy in the guise of real food is doubly bad. Your body might think it is gaining some nutrient from corn based on the misleading name, but it is not. Candy corn, despite its pleasing name, is extremely dangerous for your body."

This passage is convincing, since I used words like "Since" and "Claim" and "is extremely dangerous." My language is different in the persuasive, and you can see that I wasn't speaking like I was telling a story, but like I was trying to convince.

Since I can write a narrative and an argumentative essay, I can write in several genres.

PORTFOLIO PROJECT (FINAL EXAM)

PORTFOLIO PROJECT

1. Using the bulleted WPA guidelines, prove that you have learned what you are supposed to have learned by identifying the FYC objectives for students and then explaining, using your work from class, that you completed those objectives.

2. Some students choose to follow the WPA outline and just write their paragraphs explaining their knowledge beneath the bullets. Others choose to create a power-point or a graphic novel. Presentation is up to you, as long as you prove you learned what you say you learned.

EXAMPLE ENTRY FOR PORTFOLIO:

I. Rhetorical Knowledge

a. Write in several genres.


This year in English 900, I learned how to write in several genres. Below are two examples, one from my narrative essay, and one from my argumentative that show how I am able to write in different genres.

Ex: "When I looked over the field I saw the flying blue bonnets dancing and smiling in the wind while they played the banjo and cried."

You can see from this example that I am describing the scene in a story, and since I used "I" it is easy to tell that the story is narrated, or told, by me.

Ex: "Scientists claim that eating candy corn will cause ulcers and AIDS. This is only one reason that you should stay away from candy corn, but there are more. Some doctors claim that eating candy in the guise of real food is doubly bad. Your body might think it is gaining some nutrient from corn based on the misleading name, but it is not. Candy corn, despite its pleasing name, is extremely dangerous for your body."

This passage is convincing, since I used words like "Since" and "Claim" and "is extremely dangerous." My language is different in the persuasive, and you can see that I wasn't speaking like I was telling a story, but like I was trying to convince.

Since I can write a narrative and an argumentative essay, I can write in several genres.

Argument Groups

1. Journal: Where do you stand on the abortion issue?


2. Groups Cont.


3. Class Update... THURSDAY ON LINE ONLY!


4. WPA guidelines cont...


5. Conferences.... Tues/Thurs next week...

Argument

1. Journal:

Should public schools allow religious clubs on campus?

2. Argument structure here

3. Sample Arguments here, here and here.

4. WPA guidelines cont...

Fallacies Continued!

Three more fallacies to talk about tonight--but first, a journal:

1. Should parents spank their children? Why or why not?

2. Fallacy review...

3. New Fallacies (see below)

4. PORTFOLIO PROJECT REMINDER....CLASS UPDATE...




Description of Ad Hominem

Translated from Latin to English, "Ad Hominem" means "against the man" or "against the person."

An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Typically, this fallacy involves two steps. First, an attack against the character of person making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is made (or the character, circumstances, or actions of the person reporting the claim). Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making (or presenting). This type of "argument" has the following form:

Person A makes claim X.
Person B makes an attack on person A.
Therefore A's claim is false.

The reason why an Ad Hominem (of any kind) is a fallacy is that the character, circumstances, or actions of a person do not (in most cases) have a bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made (or the quality of the argument being made).

Example of Ad Hominem

Bill: "I believe that abortion is morally wrong." Dave: "Of course you would say that, you're a priest." Bill: "What about the arguments I gave to support my position?" Dave: "Those don't count. Like I said, you're a priest, so you have to say that abortion is wrong. Further, you are just a lackey to the Pope, so I can't believe what you say."



Description of Ad Hominem Tu Quoque

This fallacy is committed when it is concluded that a person's claim is false because 1) it is inconsistent with something else a person has said or 2) what a person says is inconsistent with her actions. This type of "argument" has the following form:

Person A makes claim X.
Person B asserts that A's actions or past claims are inconsistent with the truth of claim X.
Therefore X is false.

The fact that a person makes inconsistent claims does not make any particular claim he makes false (although of any pair of inconsistent claims only one can be true - but both can be false). Also, the fact that a person's claims are not consistent with his actions might indicate that the person is a hypocrite but this does not prove his claims are false.

Examples of Ad Hominem Tu Quoque

Bill: "Smoking is very unhealthy and leads to all sorts of problems. So take my advice and never start." Jill: "Well, I certainly don't want to get cancer." Bill: "I'm going to get a smoke. Want to join me Dave?" Jill: "Well, I guess smoking can't be that bad. After all, Bill smokes."

Jill: "I think the gun control bill shouldn't be supported because it won't be effective and will waste money." Bill: "Well, just last month you supported the bill. So I guess you're wrong now."

Peter: "Based on the arguments I have presented, it is evident that it is morally wrong to use animals for food or clothing." Bill: "But you are wearing a leather jacket and you have a roast beef sandwich in your hand! How can you say that using animals for food and clothing is wrong!"


Description of Straw Man

The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of "reasoning" has the following pattern:

Person A has position X.
Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).
Person B attacks position Y.
Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position simply does not constitute an attack on the position itself. One might as well expect an attack on a poor drawing of a person to hurt the person.

Examples of Straw Man

Prof. Jones: "The university just cut our yearly budget by $10,000." Prof. Smith: "What are we going to do?" Prof. Brown: "I think we should eliminate one of the teaching assistant positions. That would take care of it." Prof. Jones: "We could reduce our scheduled raises instead." Prof. Brown: " I can't understand why you want to bleed us dry like that, Jones."

"Senator Jones says that we should not fund the attack submarine program. I disagree entirely. I can't understand why he wants to leave us defenseless like that."

Bill and Jill are arguing about cleaning out their closets: Jill: "We should clean out the closets. They are getting a bit messy." Bill: "Why, we just went through those closets last year. Do we have to clean them out everyday?" Jill: "I never said anything about cleaning them out every day. You just want too keep all your junk forever, which is just ridiculous."


Also Known as: Circular Reasoning, Reasoning in a Circle, Petitio Principii.

Description of Begging the Question

Begging the Question is a fallacy in which the premises include the claim that the conclusion is true or (directly or indirectly) assume that the conclusion is true. This sort of "reasoning" typically has the following form.

Premises in which the truth of the conclusion is claimed or the truth of the conclusion is assumed (either directly or indirectly).

Claim C (the conclusion) is true.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because simply assuming that the conclusion is true (directly or indirectly) in the premises does not constitute evidence for that conclusion.

Obviously, simply assuming a claim is true does not serve as evidence for that claim. This is especially clear in particularly blatant cases: "X is true. The evidence for this claim is that X is true."

Some cases of question begging are fairly blatant, while others can be extremely subtle.

Examples of Begging the Question

Bill: "God must exist." Jill: "How do you know." Bill: "Because the Bible says so." Jill: "Why should I believe the Bible?" Bill: "Because the Bible was written by God."

"If such actions were not illegal, then they would not be prohibited by the law."
"The belief in God is universal. After all, everyone believes in God."

Interviewer: "Your resume looks impressive but I need another reference." Bill: "Jill can give me a good reference." Interviewer: "Good. But how do I know that Jill is trustworthy?" Bill: "Certainly. I can vouch for her."

FROM http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/begging-the-question.html


AS an Assignment, in class, identify the following arguments as one of the fallacies we have discussed....

Example:

"Animal experimentation reduces our respect for life. If we don't respect life, we are likely to be more and more tolerant of violent acts like war and murder. Soon our society will become a battlefield in which everyone constantly fears for their lives. It will be the end of civilization. To prevent this terrible consequence, we should make animal experimentation illegal right now." (SS)

EXAMPLE:

"Andrea Dworkin has written several books arguing that pornography harms women. But Dworkin is an ugly, bitter person, so you shouldn't listen to her." (AH)



EXAMPLE:


Example: "Feminists want to ban all pornography and punish everyone who reads it! But such harsh measures are surely inappropriate, so the feminists are wrong: porn and its readers should be left in peace." SM


EXAMPLE x 2:

"Active euthanasia is morally acceptable. It is a decent, ethical thing to help another human being escape suffering through death."

"Murder is morally wrong. So active euthanasia is morally wrong."

Thursday, SEPT 30. NO CLASS TONIGHT! VIRTUAL CLASS: LOGICAL FALLACIES

Before you get to the virtual homework, please take time to familiarize yourself with some precepts regarding argumentation here and some common fallacies here.

When reading the second hyperlink, you probably came across the most common logic mistakes that people make, and we will practice understanding two of them.


1. Slippery Slope:

The slippery slope fallacy occurs when a writer says that when one thing happens other things will happen because of that first thing, although they may not necessarily be related.

EX: Once women begin working alongside of men, they will want all other rights too like voting, and pretty soon, women will be running the world.

2. Red Herring:

The red herring fallacy occurs when a writer tries to distract the reader from the facts by including irrelevant ideas. We’ll see it occur here in the form of “two wrongs don’t make a right.”

EX: Our household can’t recycle, but that is to be expected. The city doesn’t provide recycling bins, no recycling truck stops by the house, and there is no government effort at all to encourage society to care about recycling.

ASSIGNMENT:

Please read the following fallacious arguments and then use the comment section below this post to explain why the argument is an example of faulty logic. Your 5 answers might look like this:

(FOR THE 1st EXAMPLE ABOVE)

1. The first argument is an example of the Red Herring fallacy. It is a red herring fallacy since the writer says that once women get to vote, they might then get to run the world. The fact that you get to vote doesn’t mean you will run the world.


Below are the assigned arguments.

1.

…[T]he acceptance of abortion does not end with the killing of unborn human life. It continues on to affect our attitude toward all aspects of human life. This is most obvious in how quickly, following the acceptance of abortion, comes the acceptance of infanticide―the killing of babies who after birth do not come up to someone's standard of life worthy to be lived―and then on to euthanasia of the aged. If human life can be taken before birth, there is no logical reason why human life cannot be taken after birth.

Source: Francis A. Schaeffer, "It is Your Life that is Involved", Who is For Life? (1984) ,


2.

We hated the war, but we loved it too. Vietnam made us special, a generation with a mission. Vietnam gave the semblance of moral shape to what was actually a formless hatred of "the system." The war justified every excess, every violent thought and deed. Heaving a rock at some corporation's window, we banished guilt by the thought: This is for the Vietnamese. Trying to set fire to a university library, we said to ourselves: This is for the Vietnamese. If the war gave us license, it also gave us an addictive sense of moral superiority: we were better than the circumstances in which we were forced to live. If we committed small misdemeanors of indecency, they were in the long run justified by the much larger and more obscene crime in
Southeast Asia.

Source: Peter Collier, "Something Happened to Me Yesterday", in Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties, with David Horowitz (Summit Books, 1989), p. 264


3.

At the time that they condemn any Muslim who calls for his right, they receive the highest top official of the Irish Republican Army at the White House as a political leader, while woe, all woe is the Muslims if they cry out for their rights. Wherever we look, we find the US as the leader of terrorism and crime in the world. The US does not consider it a terrorist act to throw atomic bombs at nations thousands of miles away, when it would not be possible for those bombs to hit military troops only. These bombs were rather thrown at entire nations, including women, children and elderly people and up to this day the traces of those bombs remain in Japan. The US does not consider it terrorism when hundreds of thousands of our sons and brothers in Iraq died for lack of food or medicine. So, there is no base for what the US says and this saying does not affect us.…

Source: "CNN March 1997 Interview with Osama bin Laden" (PDF)


4.


[The Mayor] said the biggest problem for the city administration has been fighting people who have protested such things as industrial development.
"We've had people fight highways, the school corporation and county zoning," he said. "I didn't notice any of these people coming up here on horses and donkeys. They all drove cars up here, spewing hydrocarbons all over the place."

Source: Terre Haute Tribune-Star


5.

…[I]f once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once begin upon this downward path, you never know where you are to stop. Many a man has dated his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of at the time.

Source: Thomas De Quincey, "Second Paper on Murder"

C/C peer review.

1st, a journal, here .

2nd, groups.

3rd, peer review

4th Virtual Class Thursday.

C/C OUTLINING!

1. Journal: Please outline/plan your c/c essay using one of the proposed outlines in class.

2. WPA Guidelines...

3. WPA guidelines section one, notes.

Comparing and Contrasting, Cont.

First, a Journal:


Compare your values now with your values 5 years ago. How have you changed?


Second, some transitional practice, here, and here.

For the second one, please pick one culture you are familiar with and one you are not. Contrast.

After you have finished contrasting, you should have a pretty solid list. Please turn in when finished.


Third, your outline for your compare contrast essay. Please show me before you leave...

NOTE: ROUGH DRAFT OF ESSAY DUE in CLASS THURSDAY!

Contrastitive Essay

Welcome! Tonight we will collect descriptive essays, discuss our next essay, and see some examples of how we compare and contrast.


Class Overview... Touch Base...

Journal:

Choose two restaurants that both serve the same meal. How are those meals similar? How are they different?


Compare/Contrast methods, notes...here , here , here , here .

Compare and Contrast examples here... Note Transitional Phrases.

Description Continued

The art of Description involves selecting details carefully.

In tonight's class, I will ask you to read a selected passage and note the details that tell the story, and then we will discuss our descriptive drafts and share our purposes before letting another member in class read our work.

1. Journal:

Do you own something that you treasure? What is it? What does it look like? Why do you treasure it?

2. Reading Selection: CLICK HERE

3. Reading Discussion (focus on detail that tells a story)

4. Reading groups. Descriptive Essay Drafts.

Description Continued

Tonight's class will focus on the individual aspect of description...Each of us brings to bear our own prejudices and histories as we attempt to describe the world around us. The unique words you choose and the way you marshal them is what makes your description unique.

1. Journal: Please click on the links here and here and describe the pictures....

2. Methods of description, Organization....

3. Poem Groups... Killing Time.

Group Questions:

1. Identify 2 sentences that you find most descriptive.
2. What is happening in this poem?
3. What is the poem literally about?
4. What is this poem really about?

4. Narrative Due!
5. Success Center
6. Paper Guidelines Review

Descriptive Essay

1. Journal: Describe a time when you felt or were lost....

2. Descriptive and sentence practice: Reminder Concrete vs. Abstract.

3. Drafts?

4. Descriptive Groups.

5. Next Essay Assigned. Descriptive Student Example: see here

Finding a Purpose

Welcome to Class!

Today we will attempt to nail down that nebulous idea
of the purpose behind writing. Writing that has a purpose is driven,
informed, and readable since the author has a
goal. We will start by defining and describing a quality we admire in
someone we love, then we will examine a poem to discover its purpose, and
lastly, we will have a chance to meet with some other readers to tell our stories
quickly and listen to what they think our purpose is from hearing our stories.


ACTIVITIES:

1. IN CLASS JOURNAL: Describe and define one quality you admire in someone you love.


2. In Class Reading Groups: Discovering Purpose in a POEM: "One Art"


3. In Class Groups: Tell your story and and ask others to guess at your purpose.

Good Writing Notes

Grading:
Conventions/Grammar:
Do you use S.W.E.?

Style—voice:
The way you uniquely sound.

Word Choice:
Do you use the most accurate word?

Sentence Flow:
Is your writing choppy? Too Long? Do you vary sentence length and style?

Organization:
Is your paper logically organized? Do first things come first?
Ideas:
Do you have a purpose? Did you include all of the necessary ideas for us to grasp that purpose?

Narrative Writing

Hi-- Welcome to tonight's class. We will be discussing how writers write through the writing process, the traits of good writers, what makes up a narrative essay, and what features readers expect when they read a narrative.

Also, if you are need some extra practice with computers, I have included some links to typing practice excercises, plus some word processing practice as well.


1. What constitutes a narrative?

2. What are the features of a narrative?

3. Writing Process.

4. Traits of Good Writers: In class notes.

5. Computer K For 81, and here, too.

6. Word Processing Practice for 81

ROLLING ATTENDANCE

Aug 24:

Ester Amaya
Jorge Jimenez
Michael Trevino
Anna Perez
Dawna Curry
Angelica Ontiveros
Azucena Terrazas
Jerardo Hernandez
Abreanna Mesquita
Berenice Campos
Thanna Salgado
Kennedy Patrick
Thomas Herrera
Yoseni Barraza
Vanessa Nevarez
Maria Fonseca
Armando Sanchez
Cynthia Vasquez

Aug 31: 5:40:

Jackie Williams
Melanie Banks
Giselle Dayan
Francisco Zenteno
Destany Monroe
Ross Fuller
George Guzman
Karl King
Joel Lozoya
Dominique Holguin
Marina Iturrios
Bishnu Rai
Xavier Ortiz
Jorge Olivares
Liliana Valdez

AUG 31 7.10:
Esther Amaya
Jorge Jimenez
Michael Trevino
Dawna Curry
Thomas Herrera
Yoseni Barraza
Anna Perez
Jerardo Hernandez
Cynthia Vasquez
Leander Yaiva
Kennedy Patrick
Teymur Mamedov
Abreanna Mesquita
Jose Lopez
Berenice Campos
Melissa Ramirez
Azucena Terrazas
Thanna Salgado
Maria Fonseca
Vanessa Nevarez

Diagnostic Essay

Welcome to our classes diagnostic essay.

A diagnostic essay diagnoses your writing issues and helps me see what we need to cover as a class so we can be the best writers we can be.

Please read the following article here and then answer the question below.

Do you exist? Why or why not?

Welcome!

Day One in ENGLISH~

1. Syllabus HERE

2. Phoenix College writing 411 HERE.

3. Diagnostic HERE