Assignment 2 Lecture

English 1301 ONL / Skrabanek

Assignment 2 Lecture

In Assignment 2, you get to pick your poison. Choose one of the two possible assignments.

Assignment 2A is an exercise in persuasive thinking on both sides of an issue. To better understand your own side of an issue, you should understand the strong points of the opposing viewpoint.

Assignment 2B is an exercise in literary description and narration. You will observe a classic painting closely and then describe the painting and provide a narrative account of the action in the painting.

Choose Assignment 2A or Assignment 2B. You do not need to complete both.

Assignment 2A Lecture

Assignment 2A is an exercise in persuasive thinking on both sides of an issue. To better understand your own side of an issue, you should understand the strong points of the opposing viewpoint.

To prepare for this assignment:

Estimated time needed to complete: 2-3 hours

Review Purposes and Patterns Primer: Persuasive Purpose.

Also review Purposes and Patterns Primer: Evaluation.

Contents
About Persuasion
Sample Assignment 2A
ASSIGNMENT 2A REQUIREMENTS

Guidelines for Submitting Your Assignment Files

About Persuasion

People argue over lots of silly things, and by argue I don't mean in the classical debate style of argument. They snip at one another with boastful claims without solid evidence or factual support. For example, they might argue whether Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan is more interesting. In the end, who cares?

Persuasion is a bit different. In persuasion, you will deal with issues. Issues are points of contention that have both a pro side and a con side. Issues are usually not resolved completely or even satisfactorily.

Persuade comes from the Latin and means "to urge" or "to advise thoroughly." When you persuade, you attempt to convince your reader that your viewpoint on an issue is the best one. To convince your reader, you must have a clear persuasive claim and strong support points. If your persuasion is supported solely by "Well, that's just what I think," you likely won't be very convincing.

Consider a political campaign. You are asked to believe that Candidate So-and-So is the best person for the job. The campaign might provide the candidate's educational or business background, legislative record, arrest record, or other pertinent information to persuade you that So-and-So is the best candidate.

When you persuade, write a clear, simple, direct claim. A claim delivers your stance on the issue. Often the claim will include words such as is or is not, should or should not.
- A tax increase is the best remedy for an revenue shortfall.
- Using a cell phone while driving should be outlawed in the United States.
- Bob Jones should not be elected Dogcatcher.
Do not add qualifiers or explanations to your claim. If your claim includes the word because or since, you are probably off target and will likely need to revise.
You need three good support points that directly address the claim.
- Your readers want support for your points. They want facts and logical conclusions--not opinions and unsubstantiated claims.
- To find three good support points, think about the claim for five or ten minutes. Think of several reasons why the claim is valid. Why should your reader accept your claim? You should be able to think of ten reasons, maybe. From those ten reasons, choose the three best.
- All support points should directly address the claim.
- Order your support points from weakest to strongest. You want the reader to go away thinking about your strongest support point.
You should be able to identify the appeals you are using to deliver the support points. The names of the appeals generally identify their function.
- The personal appeal uses the writer's personality or charisma to sway the reader. (Think of the celebrity endorsement or the expert testimony.) The personal appeal does not have anything to do with how a certain act or opinion might affect a person. The personal appeal uses the writer's good intentions, trustworthiness, knowledgeability, and candidness to convince the reader. Personal appeals usually include first-person pronouns such as I or we. (For example: As a teacher, I believe that standardized testing is not a good method to assess student performance.)
- The emotional appeal manipulates the reader's emotions--fears, loves, dislikes, desires, dreams, etc. (For example: If you vote for So-and-So for President, he will let all the criminals out of prison and they will kill you while you sleep.)
- The logical or rational appeal usually only appears rational; often it is not. This appeal uses statistics, surveys, scientific evidence, deduction and induction, or other so-called proof to convince the reader. (For example: 9 out of 10 dentists recommend StinkX mouthwash.)
- The stylistic appeal makes use of the style of writing or the language employed to convince the reader. This appeal may use anecdotes, stories, symbolism, or poetic or powerful language to sway the reader. Good writing alone is not necessarily the use of the stylistic appeal. The use of another writer's book or information is also not typically the use of the stylistic appeal. In the stylistic appeal, the writer deliberately uses a more figurative language to manipulate the reader. The stylistic appeal often includes repetition, alliteration, humor, or unusual typefaces to sway the reader. (For example: The charming peals of laughter have been replaced by sobs, and the tinkling giggles of a precious child can be heard no more because a murderous drunken driver has destroyed the life of another little darling.)

In persuasion, you should be aware of the strong points of the opposing viewpoint, but you don't really need to acknowledge that opposition.

Sample Assignment 2A

Note: Your Assignment 2A must be double-spaced. This sample illustrates only the second and third steps in the assignment. It does not include a sample of the persuasive essay in the fourth step.

Issue:
Is equality achieved through preferential policies such as affirmative action?

Pro Claim
Equality is achieved through policies such as affirmative action.

1. Affirmative action helps people obtain jobs or scholarships who come from less fortunate backgrounds and do not have the resources to do so otherwise. It is very hard to compete with someone for a scholarship when you are at a disadvantage because you don't have a computer, reliable transportation, etc. (emotional)

2. Unfortunately, women are viewed as "at risk" employees that may abandon their job once they have children. Affirmative action helps ensure that woman cannot be discriminated against and will still have the same job opportunities that men have. (emotional)

3. Through affirmative action, companies and schools will consist of diverse groups of people which will ensure that all demographics are participating in the growth of our nation. (rational)

Con Claim
Equality is not achieved through policies such as affirmative action.

1. I believe there are too many variables involved in determining if somebody came from a less fortunate background. It is impossible to set parameters on who is underprivileged and should receive special consideration. I think I should be considered underprivileged because I have to sit in traffic every day for an hour. (personal)

2. I want to know when and who will determine when total equality has been obtained and the policy is no longer needed. If this is not watched closely, we could experience an overcorrection of the original issue. (personal)

3. Affirmative action makes the hiring process more difficult for employers if they are unable to find a qualified candidate that meets certain race or gender requirements. It is also not fair for an individual that is more qualified to be denied the job because he or she does not belong to a minority group. (emotional)

Thanks to former student B. McCormack

IMPORTANT:
After you complete the parts above in the sample, choose one of your claims and its support points to write the persuasive essay in the fourth step of the assignment.

meanteacher
ASSIGNMENT 2A REQUIREMENTS

First, choose one of the issues below.

1. Should college students in Texas be given free tuition?

2. Should English Composition I be a required course in college?

3. Should the military draft be reinstated?

4. If the military draft was reinstated, should women be drafted along with men?

5. Should concealed weapons be allowed on college campuses in Texas?

6. Should casino gambling be legalized in Texas?

7. Should tax dollars be used to support the arts?

8. Should the use of cell phones or text messaging while driving be banned?

9. Should historical images that offend some, such as American Indian names or the Confederate Stars and Bars, be allowed as public school mascots?

10. A famous poem by Robert Frost, "Mending Wall," includes the recurring statement that "Good fences make good neighbors." (You can read the poem if you like.) Do good fences make good neighbors?

Second, write two claims, one for each side of the issue--pro and con. Write complete sentences.

Write one claim under the heading Pro Claim (should, are, do, or is).
Write the other claim under the heading Con Claim (should not, are not, does not, or is not).
Each claim should be one sentence long. Each claim must directly address the issue you have chosen. See the sample above.
Your two claims must be directly opposed. Both claims should use the same wording, but the Pro claim must include should, and the Con claim must include should not. See the sample above.
In each claim, present only the stance on the side of the issue the claim represents [should/should not].
Do not elaborate or add reasons to your claim itself. If your claims include the word because or since, your assignment will need revision.

Third, under each claim, provide three reasons (each in complete sentences) that support the claim.

After each support reason, identify the appeal (personal, emotional, rational, stylistic) used in that reason. Put the identification of appeal in parenthesis following the support statement. I prefer that the support be in a list form.
Each support point can be more than one sentence long. Try to be concise, though. Shorter support points are usually more effective.
For each claim, order your support points from weakest to strongest.

Fourth, choose one of the claims. Write a persuasive essay using that claim.

The persuasive essay must contain at least five paragraphs and at least 500 words.
Provide an introduction to the issue that contains your claim. Underline your claim.
Use each support point as the topic sentence for a body paragraph.
Include a brief conclusion that recaps your claim and support points.
Write using complete sentences.
Indent all paragraphs at least five spaces.

You may use first-person and second-person pronouns in your support points and your essay.

Submit this assignment using the Assignment 2 Submissions button in Blackboard.

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Assignment 2B Lecture

To prepare for this assignment:

Estimated time needed to complete: 2-3 hours

Review the literary purpose and the description and narration patterns in the Purposes and Patterns Primer.

Study the painting used in the Assignment 2B sample essay: Young Man with a Skull by Frans Hals

Contents
About Description
About Narration
Sample Assignment 2B
ASSIGNMENT 2B REQUIREMENTS

About Description

Description, by providing details of time, place, character, mood, or social atmosphere, establishes the "world" of the painting. Good description appeals to all senses and not just to sight.

General description attempts to capture a whole scene with a minimum of words, such as a brief description of a landscape. Specific description gives particular details about the whole scene, a specific part of it, or the overall impression. You should try to use both general and specific description in your Assignment 2B essay.

When you write a physical description of a person, place, or thing (as you will do in Assignment 2B), first give an overall impression and then describe the parts.

The point of view (or the location from which the person, place, or thing is viewed) is important in a description. If the point of view is changed, then necessarily the description will change. You can use different orientations to describe your subject: front to back, right to left, up to down, far to near, etc.

When describing a place or painting, be sure to use a logical spatial movement so that your reader can easily follow your description.

Mood can also be important in a description of a painting or place. Try to give your feelings about the painting or place. Provide details to support that mood. Review the Charles Dickens description of the schoolroom in the Description Pattern section of the Purposes and Patterns Primer.

About Narration

Narration gives details about a sequence of events in time. A how-to uses a narration of process, and a story uses a narration of events. For Assignment 2B, you will want to use a narration of events.

A narration of events can be complicated or simple. A short story or novel might have a very complex sequence of events. This complex sequence will have a beginning, a middle, and an end. An anecdote or personal experience might have a simple sequence of events. What I did this morning would likely be a simple sequence. In Assignment 2B, your narration does not need to be very complicated. Simply relate the story the painting suggests to you.

Sample Assignment 2B

Note: Your Assignment 2B must be double-spaced.

The following essay deals with the painting mentioned above: Young Man with a Skull by Frans Hals. (Thanks to former students J. Randall and S. Cantu.)

When looking at Frans Hals' painting, Young Man with a Skull, I am entranced by the face of the young man. From the shoulders down, the painting seems dark and a bit morbid, yet the face seems to portray a kind of innocence, even happiness. The image of a young man holding a skull brings instantly to mind Shakespeare's Hamlet. So I think that the young man in the painting might have been a popular actor preparing to play Hamlet.

The young man wears a red hat that has a velvety looking texture. It is worn to one side where it covers most of his hair down to his ear. On the same side that the hat is prevalent, a long feather extends out to the side of the young man's head and then droops past his shoulders, almost forming a ninety degree angle. The feather is an red-orange that complements his hat. The color in the hat and feather enrich and draw attention to the full red lips of the young man.

His hair appears messy and yet carefully fixed and positioned. There are many different layers that frame the face. The top layers are teased and voluminous, curling in and cupping the face, while the bottom layer flips out toward the end of the hair, reaching up to meet the top layer. His bangs are short, falling along the middle of his forehead, and towards the feather, where the hat is angled down, his bangs also seem to angle, meeting his eyebrows, shaping to the angle of the hat.

His face is bright and healthy in appearance. He has a rounded face, with full red lips and rosy cheeks. The nose is slightly bulbous but perfect for the face. His eyebrows are not thin or thick and do not meet in the middle. They curve slightly to shape his eyes, which are strange in appearance. One is larger than the other, but both are droopy and uneven. The larger eye seems to protrude buggily, and the other is smaller and inset. His eyes have bags underneath that produce a dark shadowy look. It contrasts the rest of his bright face to give him an eerie demeanor. He is also looking out of the corner of his eyes, towards the feather.

A white collar of his shirt is visible, along with bits of a red suit that match the velvety hat, but he is mostly covered by a black and drab cloak that is draped across his shoulders and chest and falls to his sides. It is large and has many folds in it, like waves cascading down his chest.

One of his hands is extended out from the cape, fingers apart, and it is vertical with his thumb and index finger pointed upwards. The hand seems to be extended, as in gesture, when telling a story to someone or conveying a point. His other hand is cradling a skull that is missing the bottom portion of its jaw and its top front teeth. Several of his fingers seem to be inside of the skull while two fingers grasp the outside edge to keep it from falling. The eyes of the skull are hollow and dark, and it is overall a typical skull, creepy and morbid.

To me, this painting contains keen contrast. The young man is fastidious in appearance, healthy, with an air of confidence and joy in his face. His eyes carry a darkness, though, that matches the morbidity of the skull he is holding in his hand, and are a stark contradiction to the health and life found in his face. His one hand is extended and seems to bear confidence and he seems to be telling a story, but in the other hand the skull he is holding and the dark cloak that he is wearing again contrast the picture, bringing a dark and dreary look to his otherwise bright and cheerful appearance. Another contrast is that all of the beauty and confident features of the young man seem to be focused on one side of his body, while all of the dim and dismal features are on the other. It is also notable that the side he is looking towards is the dark side, the one with the skull, insinuating that he is looking towards death.

The picture is beautiful and to me represents the extreme contrast between life and death. On one hand you have confidence and an assertion of pride, and on the other you have death and the reality of mortality. The bright colors of red represent blood and life while the dark cloak and the skull represent death. There is vitality and beauty found in his face and his dress, yet his eyes convey his inescapable future--death. In the end, this exuberant and healthy young man will be this decaying and empty skull.

meanteacher
ASSIGNMENT 2B REQUIREMENTS

First, click on a link to each of the five paintings listed below. Choose one of the paintings and observe it for a while, noting the particulars and nuances of the work. I recommend you try to use Link 1 to view each painting.

Second, in an essay of 600 words minimum (750 words maximum), identify the painting and its artist, describe the painting with considerable detail, and tell the story that the painting directly suggests to you. You may use first-person and second-person pronouns to write your essay. Be sure you identify the painting and artist in your essay, not just in a title or heading for your essay. Italicize the titles of paintings.

In this assignment, I am interested in your descriptive and interpretive abilities, not someone else's. DO NOT use secondary research sources to write this assignment.

Choose one of the following paintings to write Assignment 2B.

The Blind Girl by Sir John Millais
Link 1
Link 2

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by Pieter Brueghel
Link 1
Link 2

The Scream by Edvard Munch
Link 1

A Boy and a Girl with a Cat and an Eel by Judith Leyster
Link 1

Weapons For Liberty by Joseph Christian Leyendecker
Link 1

Guidelines for Submitting Your Assignment Files

Be sure you have your identifying information in the upper left corner of your document:

your name,
your section-synonym number (5 digits long),
the assignment number,
and the date of submission.

Make sure your document is double-spaced. Please do not use the Enter or Return key to create double spacing. (Unless otherwise instructed, you should double space all your typed college writing submissions.)

Indent all paragraphs at least five spaces.

Your document must use Times Roman or Arial or Courier New font, and it must be 12 point type. Do not use Calibri or Cambria font. Make your writing easy for your reader to read.

Do not use boldface. I will use boldface in my response to your submissions.

Proofread your document to make sure everything follows these directions.

Now save the document to the file you will submit in Blackboard. For this course, I accept files in only two formats: rtf or doc. I do not accept wps or docx or odt or txt or any other formats.

In the File Name box, name your file. You will always name your file based on the policies included in the How to Save and Name a File section of the Course Guidelines document. In short, you will use your last name, the assignment number, and the extension .rtf or .doc in your file name. For example, my file name for Assignment 2 would be skrabanek2.rtf or skrabanek2.doc. Obviously, your file name would use your last name. Find the Save In window. You should create a specific folder to hold your English 1301 work. Then click Save.

Important Note: If you are using Open Office, be aware that this word processor does not deal with rtf format very well. Use doc format instead. When you get ready to save your file, choose Save As from the File menu. Open the dropdown menu that appears and choose Word 97/2000/XP format. Another query box should open. Choose Keep Current Formatting. If you follow this process in Open Office, I should be able to read your file. If not, I will let you know.

Now log in to Blackboard. Click on the Submissions button in the left sidebar. Find the assignment, revision, or exam you need to submit. For this assignment, you will use the Assignment 2 link. Click on the link. It will take you to a submission page. Clicking on the name of the assignment takes you to the same submission page.

On the submission page, you will find three sections. The first section, Assignment Information, repeats the earlier page. The Assignment Materials section contains a big comment box and a window to attach your properly named coursework file. In the Comments box, include:

your last name
the coursework being submitted: Assignment 1; Assignment 2 revised; B exam, etc.

Under the Comments box, click the Browse button to locate your coursework file on your computer.

In section 3, Submit, choose the appropriate button. Use the Submit button to send your coursework to me. If you don't correctly submit your file, a pen and paper icon may show up in your grade list for that assignment. You have to correct the problem by completing the submission process. I can't get to your submission page if the pen and paper icon is showing.

Right after you submit your file, you should go to your grade list under the Student Tools button. If your file has been properly submitted, an ! (exclamation mark) will show as your grade for that assignment.

After 2-3 or so days (not including weekends or holidays), you should use the same link to check on your work. (The later assignments in the course will take longer to grade than the earlier assignments.) I will attach the graded file, provide a few comments, and indicate a score.

If the gradebook shows a !, the submission has not yet been graded.
If the score is 1, the submission has been graded and accepted.
If the score is 0, some correction needs to be made before the submission will be graded or accepted. The problem may be an incorrect file name or file format. It may be a more serious problem, such as your need to revise the submission.
If a pen and paper icon shows, the submission is "in progress" and has not been properly completed. You must return to the submission page and be sure you submit the file properly.

To download your graded file to your computer, right-click on the name of the attached file and save it to your chosen location. You should rename the graded file to keep it separate from your original submission file.

Retrieve your file, read my notes, and take the appropriate action. If the submission is accepted, move on to the next work. If the submission is not accepted, make any necessary corrections and resubmit the work promptly using the revision link for that assignment. I do not grade following submissions until a preceding assignment is accepted. You should submit a revision within five days of my return of your graded submission. If you do not submit a revision within ten days of my return of your graded submission, you will be withdrawn from the course. This revision deadline does not apply to Assignment 5, which has its own revision deadline.

Submit this assignment using the Submissions button in Blackboard.

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