e-mail: jmcmahon@elcamino.edu; Office: PE4
Office on
essay consultations day: Humanities 121; extension 5673
Website for
students: http://herculodge.typepad.com/breakthrough_writer/
Required
Texts: The Geography
of Bliss by Eric Weiner; Animal
Liberation by Peter
Singer; The Stories of John Cheever; In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan; Rules for Writers by Diana Hacker
Students with
Disabilities:
If you have a
documented disability and wish to discuss academic accommodations, please
contact me as soon as possible.
Student Learning Objective
Students will compose an
argumentative essay that shows an ability to
support a claim using analysis,
elements of argumentation, and
integration of primary and
secondary sources. This essay will
be well
organized, follow proper MLA
format, and be technically correct in
paragraph composition, sentence
structure, grammar, spelling, and
usage.
Course Objectives
The student will be able to:
1. Read expository prose critically to distinguish
between perception and inference, surface and implied meanings, fact and
opinion.
2. Analyze the way arguments are presented in readings
and the media.
3. Demonstrate the ability to organize and develop
written arguments and compositions.
4. Refine writing skills developed in English 1A:
focusing a topic, formulating a thesis, providing support, and developing unity
and coherence.
5. Evaluate the accuracy and cogency of arguments by
identifying logical fallacies and drawing inferences from readings and media
presentations.
6. Formulate and develop arguments and critical
theories about issues, argumentative prose, and literary interpretations.
Major Topics
|
Structures
of argument: Thinking, reading, discussing. Evaluate data, credibility, and
relevance. |
|
Understanding
and evaluating claims: Reasons, purposes, support, ambiguity, vagueness,
complexity. Assessing credibility: Causal arguments, moral reasoning. |
|
Evaluating
arguments and explanations: Relevance, clarity, testability, and consistency.
Identifying assumptions, developing counter arguments and justifications. |
|
Writing
argumentative, evaluative, and analytic essays: Prewriting, writing, and
rewriting. Topic selection: Narrowing, evaluating validity and relevance.
Developing parts of the argumentative essay: Strategies for organizing an
argument or evaluation, including evidence, inductive and deductive
reasoning. Avoiding logical fallacies. |
|
Literary
analysis: Evaluating point of view, inferences, and assumptions.
Understanding diction, identification, aesthetic distance, and focus.
Exploring rhetorical devices: Satire, irony, paradox, over-statement and
understatement, evaluating authority. |
|
Comparative
analysis: Analyzing symbols, analogy, ambiguity, and imagery. |
|
Deductive
reasoning in expressive or expository literature: Recognizing assumptions in
literary criticism and theory. |
|
Political
and advertising rhetoric: Slanders, euphemisms, innuendo, loaded questions,
downplaying, avoidance, stereotyping, hyperbole, persuasive definitions.
Information tailoring and the news media: Loaded language in reporting and
advertising. |
|
(Major
writing assignments will consist of approximately 6 essays totaling 6000
words.) |
Success in
McMahon’s Class Is Predicated on Three Major Components:
One. Turn in 4
five-page research papers with correct MLA format ON TIME. Research Papers (all
4 of your essays) have a minimum of 4 sources, which can include Signs of Life
in the USA, my lecture notes, interviews, and online sources.
Two. Do the
reading assignments so that you can write a one-paragraph response that is
cohesive, coherent and well developed in the five surprise closed-book reading
tests.
Three. Show up on
time to 90% of the classes. Missing 3 out of 30 classes is 90%.
Grading (based
on mandatory 24 pages):
Four Research
5-Page Research Papers (1,250 words): 210 for 840 points, 84% of your grade
Four In-Class
Reading Exams that are a 250-word paragraph, 40 each, 160 points, 160% of your
grade
Grand Total:
1,000 points.
Policies:
You can’t make-up
reading exams. Points are irretrievably lost. This policy encourages class
attendance.
Late Papers: I
don’t accept late papers more than one week after the original due date and I
reduce a full grade; no late papers accepted once new set of essays is due.
Research Papers
should be approximately 1,200 words, 12 font, Times New Roman, page numbers,
name, and essay title in upper right hand corner (headers in Microsoft View) and
Works Cited should have minimum 3 sources and spacing using MLA format.
Revisions: You
may revise ONE paper for 10-30 pts. depending on the quality of the rewrite.
Revision must be turned in ONE WEEK after original due date.
Plagiarism
Policy: If you plagiarize, steal previously written material and attempt to
make it appear as if you wrote it, you will get ZERO points on the essay. For a
rewrite, the HIGHEST POSSIBLE GRADE WILL BE A C MINUS.
(20 points deducted for not having headers (your last name and
page number in the upper right corner of every page and 40 points deducted for
not having a correct Works Cited page)
Attendance
Policy: For 16-week semesters, students may be dropped after missing 6 classes
for ANY REASON, including medical. For Summer and Winter sessions, students may
be dropped after missing 4 classes for whatever reason, including medical.
Riding Policy:
You cannot “ride” my class. A “rider” is a student who does nothing and tries
to turn in papers all at once during the end of the semester. If by the eighth
week of the semester you have not turned in your first two essays or are
failing the class, I will drop you.
Etiquette Policy:
If you’re text-messaging, receiving phone calls, privately conversing or
studying for other courses during my class, you will be asked to leave the
class.
Reading and
Writing Schedule
February 16 Introduction
February 18 Weiner Chapter 1
February 23 Weiner Chapters 2
and 3
February 25 Weiner Chapters 4
and 5
March 2 Weiner Chapters 6,7,
and 8
March 4 Quiz 1, Weiner Chapters 9-end
March 9 and 11 Essay 1 due
in my office
March 16 Singer Chapter 1 and
the first half of Chapter 2
March 18 Singer last half of
Chapter 2
March 23 Singer Chapter 3
March 25 Singer Chapter 4
March 30 Singer Chapters 5
and 6
April 1 Quiz 2 on Singer
April 6 and 8 Essay 2 due
in my office
April 20 Cheever “The
Swimmer” 603: The Danger of Grandiosity: Solipsism
April 22 Cheever “Torch Song”
89: Theme same as above
April 27 Cheever “The Country
Husband” 325: Marital symbiosis and its contradictions
April 29 Cheever “Just Tell
Me Who It Was” 370: Theme same as above
May 4 Cheever “Goodbye, My
Brother” 3: Egotism, Puritanism, and Choosing Death over Life
May 6 Cheever Quiz 3, Cheever “The Enormous Radio” 33: Theme same as above
May 11 and 13 Essay 3 due
in my office
May 18 Pollan first half of
Chapter 1
May 20 Pollan second half of
Chapter 1
May 25 Pollan Chapter 2
May 27 Pollan Chapter 3
June 1 Quiz 4 on Pollan
June 3 Consultations in my
office
June 8 and 10 Essay 4 due
in my office
1C Spring 2010 Writing
Assignments
Essay 1 based on Eric
Weiner’s The Geography of Bliss
Your essay will be
essentially two parts. In your first part, summarize Weiner’s analysis of the
major fallacies we have about happiness and how these fallacies lead to the
opposite of happiness, unhappiness. This summary section will take you about
1.5 pages. Then in another page, profile someone you know who embodies these
fallacies and explain how this person’s misery conforms to the types of
unhappiness Weiner describes.
In the second half of your
essay, summarize, in 1.5 pages, Weiner’s conditions for happiness, especially
as happiness is born from the intersection of the individual and culture. Then
in another page, write about a person you know who conforms to this type of
happiness.
Then in your conclusion,
about a page, analyze how convincing Weiner’s claims about happiness are. What
are the strengths and weaknesses of his investigation? How would you define
happiness in the context of Weiner’s book? Is this definition logically sound
and convincing? Why or why not? Be sure to explain your position.
You will need a Works Cited
page that cites Weiner, my blog, any interviews you might do with your
subjects, and any other source material. Remember: Give your essay a catchy,
salient, memorable title.
Essay 2 based on Peter
Singer’s Animal Liberation
For your essay to be
successful, you will have to use a refutation argumentative style. In doing so,
I suggest you begin my summarizing, in about one page, Singer’s major
arguments, especially the morally abhorrent condition of “speciesism,” as the
basis of ethical treatment toward animals. Be sure to include what you think
are the strengths, weaknesses, and fallacies, if any, in his claims and
arguments.
Then begin your thesis
paragraph that will either defend or refute Singer using a REFUTATION ARGUMENT
MODEL. You will find 5 arguments that your opponents rely on to contradict your
position and you show how your opponents’ arguments, point by point, can be
refuted. What if during your thinking about the topic and your research you
find yourself agreeing with your opponents? THEN CHANGE YOUR POSITION.
In your thesis paragraph
write your opponents’ major claims against your position and write how you will
refute those claims.
Your body paragraphs will
correspond to your point by point refutations of your opponents. Your
conclusion will be a restatement of your thesis.
For this essay, you will NEED
MORE RESEARCH THAN YOUR OTHER ESSAYS: A MINIMUM OF 5 SOURCES, BOTH PRIMARY AND
SECONDARY. Remember: Give your essay a catchy, salient title.
Essay 3 based on the
Stories of John Cheever
Write a comparative analysis
of two paired stories focused on one of these themes: The grandiosity of self
resulting in solipsism, warped time, and consummation in “The Swimmer” and
“Torch Song”; marital symbiosis and its contradictions in “The Country Husband”
and “Just Tell Me Who It Was”; egotism, Puritanism (despair disguised as
self-righteous superiority), and choosing death over life in “Goodbye, My
Brother” and “The Enormous Radio.”
Your 4-page literary analysis
should show an ability to make thematic comparisons, find irony, paradox,
symbolism, analogy, and imagery in their function to render the stories’
important themes.
In your final page, your
fifth page, you will write a salient, concrete profile of someone you know who
embodies the characteristics you just described in your literary comparison.
You will need a Works Cited
page that cites Cheever, my blog, any interviews you might do with your
subjects, and any other source material. Remember: Give your essay a catchy,
salient, memorable title.
Essay 4 based on Michael
Pollan’s In Defense of Food
In your first 1.5 pages,
define “Nutritionism” and evaluate its dangers and fallacies. Then in another
1.5 pages, define and evaluate the dangers and fallacies of the Western Diet. In another page,
define the idea of “food literacy.” Then in two pages, critique your eating
habits in the context of Michael Pollan’s “manifesto” and what it means to be
“food literate.” In your final page, describe a meal you make for yourself that
you can defend based on the criteria prescribed in Pollan’s “Eater’s
Manifesto.”
You will need a Works Cited
page that cites Pollan, my blog, any recipes you may have to consult for your
“defended meal,” and any other source material. Remember: Give your essay a
catchy, salient, memorable title.
