Class Assignments

Today's class went quickly. One minute we are talking about appositives, the next, we shift to write our definition of "happiness," share with a classmate, then shift to talking about Gretchen Rubin's THP venture and time is up.

Many students had not read the book yet, so catch up. Next meeting we have finished January - June. The following week, we are finished with the book and completing, Writing Assignment 9 (116-117). This will be a short essay (250 words). The topic is of course, "happiness" per Rubin.

Fallacies

Next week we will look at Fallacies or flawed thinking, both material and formal fallacies (Tuesday-Thursday, April 16 and 18). Material fallacies have to do with the evidence (inductive), formal fallacies have to do with the way the argument is written or one of its elements (deductive: major premise, minor premise, conclusion).

See Hacker (102-110). Students can also look at 84-101. We will review the exercises on page 110. I have more exercises which seem to be missing from this edition.

Student Presentation

Each student group will make a class presentation on an agreed on fallacy. Students are encouraged to be creative. You can write a skit, make a comic book, a movie, give us an activity, use a slide presentation. The presentations should be no longer than 5-7 minutes.

We will have the performances the week of April 22.

Week of April 22-26, we will also look at another argumentative form: Aristotelian (handout)  We will write an argument using this form this week. The topic for the last three arguments is Happiness. 


Week May 6-9

The final essay discussed will be Toulmin (handout). The topic --happiness takes its theme from the book you are reading. After we finish Rubin, students need to find a book they would like to read for this final essay.

Final class meetings: May 13-16

Finals week: May 20-24, 2013

Student portfolios due. Poster presentations.