English 5/211 develops the ability to analyze, criticize, and advocate ideas. Critical thinking looks at the relationship between language and logic, introduces rhetoric or persuasive writing and tools students can use to evaluate information based on facts, perceptions, assumptions, evidence, reasons, inferences, judgments, induction, deduction and conclusions.
1. Today your first argument is due. We will use the breakout rooms for private meetings to answer questions and review your essays. You can revise them, so don't worry.
I sent you an email with a link to online writing support at Purdue OWL. I hope some of you took advantage of the resource and can tell us what your experience was.
Here it is again: "Greetings Everyone:
I read your WA6 which all of you shared last week. All the essays were promising. Suggestion, when you finish writing, read the essay out loud to yourself to make sure it makes sense and it says what you want it to say.
If you use the free editing help at Purdue OWL, let us know in class, your experience."
2. Homework due tonight was to revise or complete WA7 and read TMCCT pp. 7-23.
Discussion March 31, 2021:
Critical Thinkers (9-10), Intellectual Standards (12), Character (13), Elements or Thought (14-15), Reasoning Checklist (16-17), The Figuring Mind (18); Universl Intellectual Standards (19-22).
Essential Intellectual Traits and Virtues (23-24-26, 27).
Homework: Read each section and find an example for egocentric, sociocentric thinking.
Template for analyzing the Logic of an Article (29). Criteria for Evaluating Reasoning (30). Peer to Peer.
A Template for Problem Solving (31).
The Problem with Egocentric Thinking (39). Feelings that accompany ego-centric thinking (40).
The Problem of Sociocentric Thinking (41). Primary forms of Sociocentric Thought (42-43).
Read: 1. Unethical Pursuit of Group Agendas (44).
2. Watch this video with Senator Booker with Hon. Does it illustrate unethical group agenda? Why or why not? Read: Envisoning Critical Societies (45-48). What is the authors point here in this small volumn? Please put a few of the aguments (3-5) into Standard Form.
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson wiped away tears as Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., delivered a passionate speech on how she earned her spot to become the first Black woman nominated to the Supreme Court.
“You are worthy. You are a great American,” he told Jackson. In lieu of asking questions, Booker later told Jackson that “I know what it’s taken for you to sit in that seat.”
As the Senate Judiciary Committee continued its Supreme Court confirmation hearings March 23, Booker also railed against GOP senators pulling out specific cases from Jackson’s past and said it would not steal his joy.
The senator referenced abolitionist Harriet Tubman and Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman to serve as a federal judge in 1966, as role models in his life and who paved the way for Jackson’s historic path.
“Today, you’re my star. You are my harbinger of hope,” Booker told Jackson.
Wednesday was senators’ final day to question Jackson, who was nominated by President Joe Biden in February to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. If confirmed, she will be the first Black woman on the high court. On the final day of the hearings March 24, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hear from friends and colleagues of Jackson about her temperament and approach to the law.
III. Definition Essay (WLTC Chapter 5)
Our next essay is a a definition essay. Think about a topic.
Complete all the exercises and WA.
A lot has happened since we last met. The State of the Union Address is high on my list, not to mention the nomination of a Black woman judge for the Supreme Court. Did you watch the address, read it later of even know it happened?
I watched it and wondered how much promised was expected to pass given the Republican mood for all things Democratic. I liked the bills to reduce perscription drug costs, lower child care costs, increase the length of time children can benefit from parental medical coverage which now ends at age 26. I liked the plan to put money into research for cancer, alheimers and one other disease that kills lots of Americans. However, I got lost in the legislation. What is proposed and what is fact and what can the president do without a vote.
He spent a lot of time on Ukraine and I hear the Africans who are trying to leave are not getting a lot of assistance from ally forces on the ground. I wondered what was going on with Russian citizens who like all people on the ground during a war, get lost in the politics of oligarts who rail and rant and think of the nation as if the living breathing people do not matter more.
If the nation does not want to be a part of the former USSR, why force it? I think the president even commited resources in the millions. Where is this coming from when Americans are without shelter? Did he commit military support? Can someone help me here?
I couldn't believe when he endorsed more funding for police. I mean really with not acknowledgment of the abuse of force that continues to threaten the lives of Black people. He should watch the film: "Who Are We in America."
I did like seeing the two women in charge. They were looking good, strong, yet unfortunately silenced. I wonder what the VP thought about funding the police?
If you watched, what did you think of the faces of democracy highlighted as he spoke, the child with diabetes, etc. I thought it quite effective even though my screen didn't keep up with the cameos. I also liked the captioned spotlights-- I didn't know everyone's name.
I wonder where Congressman Clyburn is re: a National hymn, "Lift Ev'ry Voice?
I also liked the fact that the government is commited to using products made here and that manufacturers in technology and commerce -- electric cars, are being developed in the midwest and areas like Michigan again.
1. Freewrite on the topic "power" what it means, who has it, how do you get more, do you have any to spare? Is it visible? Where can I pick up some? How do you take it away from those people or institutions that abuse it? When is power dangerous or is it always dangerous? Is it something you grow, like hair? What happens when you are bald? Are there power wigs?
Think about Mrs. Jarena Lee, a woman called to preach, did she have power? How do you know? If you have power, how do you use it? Do you share your power with others tangibly? How?
Is powerlessness a form of paralysis? Is being a woman seen as weakness? Is weakness and powerlessness seen as the same thing?
2. Summary practice with instruction (WLTC)
3. Standard Form (WLTC)
4. Homework: Read Religious Experience and Journal of Mrs. Jarena Lee Introduction, My Call to Preach the Gospel, My Marriage, The Subject of My Call to Preach Renewed p. 62
or (April, 1827. My health having been bad, I have not traveled. . . Hymn book poetry . . . 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 And far exceed your hope.")
Much of this section ends up being stories of her gospel travels, contention with men who do not believe a woman should preach and with layity who are not according to her familiar with her lord. She travels a lot and sometimes I am confused with who she is preaching too. There is slavery and though Black people in some places are free; I think her congregation in many cases is white.
I find it interesting that she is pastoring to people who do not see her people as human beings. She clearly identifies her people by name and description. In this section she also pastors to Indigenous people. I wonder about her son whom she left with her mother and how he is faring.
There are no paragraphs used, so the text is dense. I think the impact and import of this work is her dedication and faith. I love the stories of her dreams and wrestling with the devil and how she finds comfort and strength in her faith. It is tangible. ?
I look forward to hearing what you think.
Watch:
Listen is you like to the recitation of her work.
Writing Logically, Thinking Critically Reading and Writing Chapter 4 Recap:
From WLTC: Read the Chapter. Pay attention to the parts of an argument: "Issue" (72); "The Question at Issue" (72); "The Thesis" (73-74). Complete Ex. 4A.
Pay attention to the parts of the essay: The Introductionor how to frame your issue (76) and The Development of Your Argument (76). Read the examples of a single and multiple premise paragraph (77).
What is a dialectic approach to argument? (79). When you think of Mrs. Lee's conversion, calling and reception in the Methodist church there were counterarguments or contrasting views to her acceptance into the clergy. What were some of these reasons or viewpoints?
She was called, yet was stopped by internal naysayers. What were some of these voices saying to her?
Look at Refutation and Concession (80-82), then look at Rogerian Strategy (81-82). The key to the Rogerian Argument is establishing "empathy." The goal in such negotiations is not to "win" rather to reach a compromise, a place where the interested parties can find common ground , so that the discourse or comunication remains open.
Complete exercises: 4B, 4C, Read 4D (we will complete in class). Read the article in pp. 87-88.
WA 6 is not due nor is WA 7. If you do not understand Key Terms (93), ask.
Other Videos on Mrs. Jarena Lee.Women of Faith: Jarena Lee. This one is a nice biography. It was featured during International Women's Day.
PBS Portrait of Jarena Lee. Click the links to scholarly commentary. It is quite enlightening and expansive on the courageous work of this woman of God.
God In America link (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/godinamerica/people/jarena-lee.html)
Jarena Lee was likely one of the first African American female preachers in America. Born in February 1783 to free but poor black parents, she was sent to work as a live-in servant at the age of 7. After hearing a sermon by Richard Allen, the founder of the African Methodist Church (AME), Lee underwent an intense and protracted conversion. Yet she had doubts. She later wrote:
But to my utter surprise there seemed to sound a voice which I thought I distinctly heard, and most certainly understand, which said to me, "Go preach the Gospel!" I immediately replied aloud, "No one will believe me." Again I listened and again the same voice seemed to say "Preach the Gospel; I will put words in your mouth and will turn your enemies to become your friends."
But women weren't allowed to preach. Lee sought permission from Allen to preach. First he refused, then changed his mind, granting her permission to preach on an itinerary circuit and to hold prayer meetings in her own home. For a woman of any race to be granted such authority was highly unusual.
Accompanied by a female companion, Lee later wrote that she "traveled two thousand three hundred and twenty-five miles, and preached one hundred and seventy-eight sermons" to mixed gatherings of blacks and whites. Vulnerable and subject to danger, she seemed confident that God was with her. That confidence took her to Maryland, a slave state. Her diary records one camp meeting where slaves had walked 20 miles and more to hear her preach.
For Lee, slavery was a sin -- one that God would one day punish. In the years leading up to the Civil War, she seemed to share the apocalyptic hope of Nat Turner and Frederick Douglass.
Her date and place of death is unknown, but her spiritual autobiography remains an important record of a woman whose faith allowed her to break and defy the social conventions and racial barriers of her day.
A portrait of Jarena Lee, the first woman to preach from the pulpit of Richard Allen's Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, was painted from life for the frontispiece of her autobiographical book, Religious Experience and Journal of Mrs. Jarena Lee...
The portrait shows Lee seated and simply dressed, with a quill in her hand and papers and books, including the Holy Bible, on the table before her. The composition of the image was meant to convey that Lee was not only a religious woman, but a literate one as well. The caption below reads: "Mrs. Jarena Lee. Preacher of the A,M,E, Church. Aged 60 years on the 11th day of the 2nd month 1844. Philad 1844."
Image Credit: From the collections of the Library of Congress
