In-class work on "Argumentation as Representation"

Hello, everyone.

For Tuesday's in-class analysis, here are your concepts and questions. Please read ahead and examine your chosen genre samples for concepts listed below. On Tuesday, I will ask you to spend a few minutes with your partner discussing them and locating explicit examples in the text. However, you will spend most of your time talking through and composing your post. We will break for discussion after the "synthesis" questions.

Lung: "A Question of Civility: An Open Letter to Hu, Jintao"

preparation for synthesis:

1. cite the passages that hold Lung's main argument and list them in a logical progression

2. "value" terms (terms or definitions that carry value in the argument)

3. tropes (Killingsworth)

4. identification/association/representation -- use of metaphors, metonymy, or synecdoche (Killingsworth)

5. forwarding -- illustrating, authorizing, borrowing, or extending (Harris 39-48)

6. stasis in which the letter is primarily conducted

synthesis:

Lung originally wrote her open letter in Chinese for a Taiwanese audience, before it was translated into English and circulated widely in other countries. Considering the complexity of her cultural context and her multiple audiences, discuss how you think this letter strikes a balance--if you think it does--between embodied voice and voicelessness. How does it promote complexity in the way that Lazere defines "complexity"? Discuss whether and how the letter demonstrates some kind of reciprocity of ideas, rather than mere opinion or egocentrism.

Linzey: "Why Animals Deserve Special Moral Solicitude"

preparation for synthesis:

1. claim with reason, grounds (evidence), and warrant (the unstated premise that connects the claim with the grounds)

2. Kaufer conflict level (or value pair) that is most visible (58-60)

3. possible competing analogies if it represents a "level 5" disagreement (Kaufer 63-66)

4. relationship of human to the environment on the continuum of perspectives (K/S 171)

5. evidence of or against oversimplification (Lazere)

6. stasis in which the article is primarily conducted

synthesis:

Select up to two passages from the handout and discuss how they resonate with Linzey's principal aim. Discuss whether and how you see Linzey opening up spaces for debate and/or making spaces for a proactive response. What are all of our options for responding?

Ledbetter and Daniels: "Is there a Decline in Literacy?"

preparation for synthesis:

1. Kaufer conflict level (or value pair) that is most visible in the disagreement (58-60)

2. possible competing analogies if it represents a "level 5" disagreement (Kaufer 63-66)

3. "value" terms (terms or definitions that carry value in the argument)

4. embodiment or authenticity of voice (Matalene)

5. forwarding -- illustrating, authorizing, borrowing, or extending (Harris 39-48)

6. stasis in which the debate is primarily conducted

synthesis:

What kind of audience does each writer seem to construct (or to write for), and how could that have impacted their decisions about how to argue? (Please note specific differences where you can.)

The 11th Hour Film (chapter 8 or 10)

preparation for synthesis:

1. claim with reason, grounds (evidence), and warrant (the unstated premise that connects the claim with the grounds)

2. Kaufer conflict level (or value pair) that is most visible (58-60)

3. possible competing analogies if it represents a "level 5" disagreement (Kaufer 63-66)

4. "value" terms (terms or definitions that carry value in the argument)

5. relationship of human to the environment on the continuum of perspectives (K/S 171)

6. identification/association/representation -- use of metaphors, metonymy, or synecdoche (Killingsworth)

synthesis:

Select up to two passages from the handout and discuss how they resonate with the film's principal aim. Discuss whether and how you see the film opening up spaces for debate and/or making spaces for a proactive response. What are all of our options for responding?

Please respond by commenting to this post.

-Professor Graban

Into the Blog-o-Sphere!

Hi, Everyone.

We'll be holding Thursday’s "Levels of Conflict" workshop on the blog, which asks you to post and comment. The main purpose of this workshop is to help you get closer to a critical claim.

Your post: I have included four questions, but you only have to respond to three questions in total. Please create a new post on your own blog, and include your three responses there. Please post by Friday noon.

Your comments: I will ask you to comment (usefully, thoroughly, helpfully, productively) on at least two of your classmates' posts by Saturday noon. Please teach each other. Model for each other. Talk to each other. Challenge each other. If you'd like, consider it a peer review, but please go beyond simply affirming each other or critiquing each other.

Question One (conflict and policy)
Briefly recount a specific disagreement or misunderstanding you have had with someone and analyze it on one of Kaufer’s “5 levels” (pp. 58-59). You’ll want to explain the conflict and then determine whether the source of the conflict was level 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. Please don’t just make something up—the point of this assignment is to reach into your own experience and try to account for it on Kaufer’s terms as accurately as you can. For this to make sense to your classmates, you will need to be clear and detailed with your explanation of what happened during the disagreement or conversation. Unpack any terms that carry assumptions, no matter how small they seem or no matter how much you are sure we would share them.

Question Two (analogies and conflict levels)
Mario Savio begins his speech with an analogy that “Sproul Hall is to student rights as Mississippi is to civil rights” circa 1964. Explain the relationship between this analogy and one of the following allusions: Brave New World (par. 1), Kafka (par. 2), the university as being “in the world but not of the world” (par. 11), or the “chrome-plated consumers’ paradise” (par. 14). How do the analogy and the allusion work together to support Savio's overall claim? How do they support the conflict levels that you think are at work in his speech (be sure to list those conflict levels as part of your response)?

Question Three (perspectives and ethical style)
Killingsworth and Steffens speculate that Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) could encourage a "narrative paradigm," in spite of the "rationalist" paradigm that they seem to promote (177). Test this assumption by applying it to another piece of public discourse. Locate a very brief article in one of the online journals of opinion linked to our Course Resources page or from another source with which you are familiar. Read through it until you find a key statement that you think is pretty close to what Williams might call an "ethical violation of style" (e.g., obscurity, misdirection, subversive clarity, opacity) (Style lesson 10) or what Killingsworth and Steffens might say is closer to "reification" than to "humanization" or "naturalization" (171). Discuss what makes this statement "unethical" in Williams' scheme, or what makes it seem "reified" in Killingsworth and Steffens' scheme, and whether you agree or disagree with these theorists that it is so bad. As part of your discussion, be sure to help us know the context in which that statement was made and the argument it was being used to support.

Question Four (stasis and ethos construction)
The immediate audience for Robert Bullard's address seems to be the International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes against Humanity, and he uses history (cause) to garner the Commission's attention—a strategy we see already employed by Ida B. Wells-Barnett and by Mario Savio. How could arguing in the stasis of cause (rather than in fact/conjecture, value, or procedure) help Bullard evade possible accusations about his motives, and how could the same strategy help Wells-Barnett and Savio construct an appropriate ethos for their respective audiences?

Good luck and have fun with this!

-Professor Graban

In-class Work on Political Rhetoric and Public Policy

Hi, everyone.

For Tuesday's in-class analysis, here are your concepts and questions. On Tuesday, I will ask you to spend a few minutes with your partner discussing the "general concepts" that are relevant for the genre you have chosen to analyze, and finding explicit examples in the text. However, please spend most of your time talking through and composing your post. We will break for discussion after the "synthesis" questions.

General concepts:

• the writer's main claim and supporting evidence
• Kaufer conflict levels (or value pairs) (58-60)
• use of analogies (Kaufer 62) or possible competing analogies (Kaufer 63-66)
• examples of stylistic objectivism, equal-time, or person-as-function (K/S 158-160, 163-164)
• relationship of human to the environment on the continuum of perspectives (K/S 171)
• important terms or definitions that carry value in the argument
• forwarding -- illustrating, authorizing, borrowing, or extending (Harris 39-48)
  

Synthesis questions:
Wells-Barnett's "Lynch Law in America": How does Wells-Barnett push the limits of journalism by drawing so much on the history of lynching to make her argument? Based on how she uses historical evidence, on what stasis level is most of her argument constructed, and how does this support her whole aim? What are one or two key terms whose definitions you think she means to challenge? To help you develop your response, use 1-2 passages that demonstrate the relevant concepts above.

Savio's “Free Speech Movement”: Savio references names and makes allusions to places, book titles, and current events. What role could these references and allusions play in his argument? How do they help him argue, or achieve his whole aim? (Please answer specifically, and look up any references that are unfamiliar to you.) To help you develop your response, use 1-2 passages that demonstrate the relevant concepts above.

Bullard's "Race Response": How does Bullard's lecture present other possibilities for response than just agree/disagree? Based on how he uses historical evidence, on what stasis level is most of his argument constructed, and how could this support his whole aim? What are one or two key terms whose definitions you think he means to challenge? To help you develop your response, use 1-2 passages that demonstrate the relevant concepts above.

Please post by commenting here.

-Professor Graban

Locating and Citing Documents for AE #2

Hi, Everyone.

When we discuss the analytical essay assignment for the next sphere -- Political Rhetoric and Public Policy -- you will see several options for analysis on the assignment sheet. If you decide to take the last option, you can find both the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report and the 1934 Protection and Conservation of Wildlife Act here. (You would be comparing the "Executive Summary," "Background" and "Introduction" of the 2007 report with any numbered subsection of Title 16, Chap. 5a, Subsection I of the 1934 Protection and Conservation act.) Cite both papers as government documents in MLA style.

-Professor Graban