e-mail: jmcmahon@elcamino.edu; Office: PE4
Classes meet in H301; 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.
Open-Ended Option for Essay #1:
In the context of the book, analyze the causes of happiness and unhappiness and use examples from people you know. Same research requirements as above.
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.
Open-ended Option for Essay #2:
Defend or refute the author's main arguments using a refutation essay model. Same research requirements above.
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.
Open-Ended Option for Essay #3:
Using no fewer than two stories, compare the pathology or dysfunction of at least two characters from Cheever's stories. Same research methods apply.
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.
Open-Ended Option for Essay #4:
Analyze the dangers of "Nutritionism" in the context of Pollan's book. Same research methods apply.
