The Candidates, Seen From the Classroom

Dr. Stanley Fish from the University of Iliinois, Chicago has an interesting article in the New York Times about how the two presidential candidates fared when he had his English 101 class compare excerpts from their speeches. Thanks to Dr. Hampton for pointing out the article.

Dr. Fish and his students take John Kerry to task for not clearly articulating his ideas. Dr. Fish then goes further, claiming that "if you can't explain an idea or a policy plainly in one or two sentences, it's not yours; and if it's not yours, no one you speak to will be persuaded of it, or even know what it is, or (and this is the real point) know what you are."

Hmmmmmm. . . . That sounds a lot like what I was saying about thesis statements the other day, eh?

Oops and Yippee

A big fat "Oops!" goes out to the lecture yesterday when I said that men were more likely to vote than women. In fact, since 1980 (I think) women are more likley to vote than men.

A hard-earned "Yippee!" because I think I managed to get the links to the blogs for sections 10, 13 and 25 back up on the course blog. (Harley and Riley still need to email me.) If the link to your blog is not working, please let me know.

"Framing" Your Analysis

I wholeheartedly concur with Paperwight's suggestion to read Mixing Memory's discussion of frames. A close look at how people frame their arguments can provide an excellent way to analyze those arguments.

By the way, Paperwight took the time to comment on the initial analyses from folks in sections 15 and 16. (Thanks, Paperwight!) Whether you received a comment or not, you should read everyone's blogs and consider Paperwight's comments as you continue drafting. As always, feel free to comment on any of the blog posts you come across as you are working on your analyses, whether those posts belong to other students, Paperwight, The Poorman, AmericaBlog, etc.

Thursday Reading, Plagiarism and the Course Blog

The link below to Thursday's reading seems to be working again. We will be discussing that reading as a class.

I also got started on links for a discussion of plagiarism and placed them in the left hand column.

Our course blog (this site) crashed this afternoon. I was able to salvage the left hand column and the middle column, but much of the right hand column was lost, including the links to Dr. Rhodes' sections. Please email me with your name, your blogspot address (URL), and the section in which you are enrolled. I will get everything straightened out as soon as possible.

Reading For Thursday

Here's the reading for Thursday. It's in "pdf" format, so you might need Adobe Reader in order to download and view the document.