Notes

Reflection on Comp I: challenges, accomplishments
Expectations for Comp II:


Ch. 1
Writing:
-Is critical thinking
-Helps develop questioning, analyzing, and arguing skills, which are transferable to vast areas of life
-Exercises your curiosity, creativity, and problem solving ability
-Connects you to others and helps you discover and express ideas you may otherwise never think or say
-Gives you time to think deep and long about an idea
-Isn’t just a way to express a thought but a way to do the thinking itself
-Stimulates, challenges, and strengthens your mental powers, and when done well, is extremely satisfying

Good writers are question askers and problem posers rather than followers of rigidly prescribed rules and must work out answers to two sorts of questions: questions about their subject matter and questions about their audience and purpose.

Closed vs. Open Form


Ch. 2
Rhetoric: the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing

“Wallow in Complexity”
-wrestle with problems by applying concepts, data, and thought processes
-Critical Thinking Skills Needed for “Wallowing in Complexity”
-The ability to pose problematic questions
-The ability to analyze a problem in all its dimensions—to define its key terms, determine its causes, understand its history, appreciate its human dimension and its connection to one’s own personal experience, and appreciate what makes it problematic or complex.
-The ability (and determination) to find, gather, and interpret facts, data, and other information relevant to the problem (often involving library, Internet, or field research)
-The ability to imagine alternative solutions to the problem, to see different ways in which the question might be answered and different perspectives for viewing it
-The ability to analyze competing approaches and answers, to construct arguments for and against alternatives, and to choose the best solution in light of values, objectives, and other criteria that you determine and articulate.
-The ability to write an effective argument justifying your choice while acknowledging counterarguments

Critical thinkers are actively engaged with life…They appreciate creativity, they are innovators, and they exude a sense that life is full of possibilities.”

Good writers use exploratory strategies to think critically about subject-matter questions
-Freewriting
-Focused Freewriting
-Idea Mapping
-Dialectic Talk
-Playing the Believing and Doubting Game (Ch. 2 p. 37)

What is a good argument?
What is a good thesis?

A strong thesis statement surprises readers with something new or challenging

You're trying to change your readers view of your subject

New: Don’t tell us something we already know: if it’s common knowledge, why are you writing about it?
True: Can you prove it?
Important: Why is this topic worth writing about?
One Sentence
Clear
Concise
“So What?”

Use because clauses to help revise your thesis (p. 383)


Ch. 3
Angle of Vision:
What influences your angle?
How do you construct your angle based on audience, purpose, and genre?

Logos: reason; logic
Ethos: credibility; ethics--trustworthy, thoughtful, fair
Pathos: emotional appeal, persuasion (passion)

How does the author logically present his/her view, support with credible sources, and persuade with emotional appeal?

Q: How do visual images make implicit arguments (logos) while also appealing to our values and emotions (pathos) and causing us to respond favorably or unfavorably to the artist (ethos)?
(Think of advertisements to help guide you in this process)


Ch. 6
Listen carefully to the text, recognize parts and functions, summarize ideas
Formulate strong response by interacting with text through agreement, interrogation, or opposition.
-Play Devil's Advocate

Reading WITH the Grain
• Listen to the text, read with the author, and withhold judgments.
• Extend and support the author’s thesis with your own points and examples.
• Apply the author’s argument in new ways.
o see world through author's perspective
o open yourself to the argument
o apply insights to new contexts
o connect to your own experiences and knowledge

Reading AGAINST the Grain
• Challenge, question, and resist the author’s ideas.
• Rebut the author’s ideas with counterreasoning and counterexamples.
• Point out what the author has left out or overlooked, and note what the author has not said.
o resist ideas by questioning points
o raise doubts
o analyze limits of perspective
o refute argument

Read Rhetorically
o Be aware of the effect a text is intended to have on you
o Critically consider that effect
o Enter into or challenge intentions

Strong Response
Rhetorical Critique: analyzes a text's rhetorical strategies and evaluates how effectively the author achieves his/her own goals; focus on how text is constructed, rhetorical strategies, effectiveness of appeals to logs, ethos, and pathos; closely analyze the text itself; read both with and against the grain and discuss what is effective and ineffective

Ideas Critique: focuses on the ideas; treat as a voice in a conversation you are involved in; one perspective on an issue, how does it compare with your own and others; RESEARCH is key, combined with personal experiences and critical thinking; challenge ideas, point out flaws, provide research to refute and extend argument; speak back to the text

Reflection: avoid this one for now as you primary focus; too open-ended, too abstract; better once you are further into the argument; WOULD work with a blend, but it should be a very small part

Strong Response should be written on a Single Source but you must consult many before making your final selection; I want to see at least three highlighted and noted sources at your conference and would expect you to read many abstracts before making your final selection.

General Notes:
Single Source/Summary Response/Strong Response: These are all the same thing; different versions of the text have just given them different names.

Analyze the article and the methods the author uses to prove his/her argument. This paper is merely an analytical piece. Not a debate with the author or the issue.

Break down the facts, break down the argument, look at logos, ethos, and pathos, evaluate bias and credibility. You can 100% disagree with a source but that doesn't make it a bad source.

Your thesis then becomes what you are going to say about the article. For example, "Smith's credibility and strong factual backing are weakened by his empty emotional appeals and overshadowing bias."

"Lebo's bias and questionable expertise is eliminated by her well-balanced use of logos, ethos, and pathos and the credibility of her sources."

STEPS:
o Read the article
o Take vigorous notes: question, challenge, agree and complain
o Use those notes to formulate an outline
o Compare the outline with the checklist
o Formulate a response
o Use that response as your working thesis
o Begin writing


Also ask yourself this, if someone else reads your essay, would they have an understanding about what the piece is about? If not, you are too embedded in the argument and have not offered enough analysis or proper summary of the piece.


Ch. 13 Notes
Synthesis: a way of seeing or coming to terms with complexities, is a counterpart to analysis. When you analyze something, you break it down into its parts to see relationships among them. When you synthesize, you take one more step, putting parts together in some new fashion.

Synthesis as a dialectical process…posing a significant question that often forces you to encounter clashing or contradictory ideas.

The synthesis essay, which moves beyond analysis to show how a writer interacts with a group of texts, explores their alternative perspectives on an issue, and presents a new, enlarged perspective on his or her own.

You use synthesis to carve out your own thinking space on a research question while shifting through the writings of others.

The synthesis or focusing question directs you to look for ways that a group of texts are connected and ways that they differ in their approaches to a particular problem or issue.

Your goal is to achieve your own informed view on that question.

Use both with-the-grain and against-the-grain thinking; listen carefully to the text; critique both the rhetorical features and ideas; begin your own independent thinking based on the synthesis question that ties your texts together.

To consider the text rhetorically:
To whom is the author writing and why? Do you see how the genre of each text influences some of the author’s choices about language and structure? What angle of vision shapes each text and accounts for what is included and excluded? Do you share the values of the author or his or her intended audience?

Questions over text:
• What main ideas or themes related to your synthesis question do you see in each text?
• What similarities and differences do you see in the way the authors choose to frame the issues they are writing about? How do their theses (either implied or stated) differ?
• What are the main similarities and differences in their angles of vision?
• What commonalities and intersections related to your synthesis question do you see in their ideas? What contradictions and clashes do you see in their ideas?
• What similarities and differences do you see in the authors’ underlying values and assumptions?
• What overlap, if any, is there in these authors’ examples and uses of terms?
• On what subject of your synthesis question, how would Author A respond to Author B?

Developing your own views:
• What do I agree with and disagree with in the texts I have analyzed?
• How have these texts changed my perception and understanding of an issue, question, or problem?
• What do I see or think now that I didn’t see or think before I read these texts?
• Related to my synthesis question, what new, significant questions do these texts raise for me?
• What do I see now as the main controversies?
• What is my current view on the focusing question that connects my texts and that all my texts explore?
• How would I position myself in the conversation of the texts?
• If I find one author’s perspective more valid, accurate, interesting, or useful than another’s, why is that?
• What discoveries have I made after much thought?
• What are the most important insights I have gotten from these readings?
• What is my intellectual or personal investment with the synthesis question at this point?
• Where can I step out on my own, even take a risk, in my thinking about the ideas discussed in these texts?
• What new perspective do I want to share with my readers?