Essay #4 Options (Needs 5 sources for Works Cited) Due July 27

One. Support, refute, or complicate the argument that the presence of trolls on Twitter compel us to delete our Twitter account. Consult Lindy West's "I've Left Twitter," Joel Stein's "How Trolls Are Ruining the Internet," Kathy Sierra's "Why the Trolls Will Always Win," Andrew Marantz's and "The Shameful Trolling of Leslie Jones." You can also refer to the documentary Lo and Behold by Werner Herzog.

Two. Support, refute, or complicate Alfie Kohn’s assertion from “Degrading to De-grading” that grading is an inferior education tool that all conscientious teachers should abandon.

Three. Support, refute, or complicate the inferred lesson from bell hooks’ essay, “Learning in the Shadow of Race and Class” that upward mobility requires a betrayal of one’s economic class and even family.

Four. In the context of one or more essays we’ve read about standardized testing, support, refute, or complicate the assertion that standardized testing is a money-making canard sodden with incompetence, corruption, and moral bankruptcy, and therefore must be abolished.

Five. Support, refute, or complicate the argument that “Against School” and any other essays we’ve covered persuasively evidence that American education is more about protecting private business interests, maintaining class bias, and asserting mass control than it is about promoting real empowerment such as critical thinking, independence, and freedom.

Six. In the context of John Taylor Gatto’s “Against School,” support, refute, or complicate the argument that that American education is more about protecting private business interests, maintaining class bias, and asserting mass control than it is about promoting real empowerment such as critical thinking, independence, and freedom.

Seven. Bell Hooks sees the self-destruction from extreme self-abasement on one hand and extreme privilege on the other. She is on a quest for a healthy middle ground. These components of toxic self-abasement and toxic privilege, and the sick symbiotic relationship between the rich and poor, are evident in Hooks' essay, "Learning in the Shadow of Race and Class" (287). Toxic abasement and the sick symbiotic relationship between the rich and the poor is also evident in "The Consequences--Undoing Sanity" (342), "How the Poor Are Made to Pay for Their Poverty," and Linda Tirado's online essay "Why I Make Terrible Decisions." Develop a thesis that compares the toxic symbiotic relationship between the rich and the poor in the aforementioned essays and show that human redemption is from a sense of healthy, well-balanced privilege that doesn't exclude social conscience. (This prompt has the thesis embedded in it.)

Eight. Addressing Cathy Young's online essay "Linda Tirado's Poverty Tale: Not Quite Fake, Far from Accurate," develop an argumentative thesis that addresses the charge that Tirado is guilty of committing a "poverty hoax."

Final 4 Days:

July 24 "Against School" (271) "How the Poor Are Made to Pay for Their Poverty" (380)

July 25 "The Consequences--Undoing Sanity" (342); online essay: Linda Tirado's "This Is Why Poor People's Bad Decisions Make Perfect Sense"; Cathy Young's "Linda Tirado's Poverty Tale: Not Quite Fake, Far from Accurate"

July 26 Blue Book In-Class Writing Exam Part 1

July 27 Blue Book In-Class Writing Exam Part 2; Typed Essay 2 due on turnitin

Essay Option That Addresses Standardized Testing

In the context of one or more essays we’ve read about standardized testing, support, refute, or complicate the assertion that standardized testing is a money-making canard sodden with incompetence, corruption, and moral bankruptcy, and therefore must be abolished.

Essay Outline

Paragraph 1: Summarize John Oliver video or the essay "Why Poor Schools Can't Win at Standardized Testing." 250 words.

Paragraph 2: Thesis: Defend or refute the above assertion. 150 words.

Paragraphs: 3-7 Supporting paragraphs, 150 each, 750 and 400 is 1,150 subtotal.

Paragraph 8: Counterargument-rebuttal. 150 for 1,300 subtotal.

Paragraph 9: Conclusion 100-200 words for 1,400-1,500 total.

Refutation of Standardized Testing:

One. "Gotta do something" fallacy: In response to our low international ranking, "Well, now we're doing something."

Two. Test makers are not accountable.

Three. Test makers making billions.

Four. Test makers run the whole show, tests, grading, preparation. If you don't buy their textbooks, you're out of luck.

Five. Teachers' salaries tied to student performance, which can result in cheating.

Six. Test questions are often invalid.

Seven. Our ranking has gotten worse since No Child Left Behind.

Eight. Test overkill is feeding the business beast while the children suffer.

Nine. Expecting standard results when there are no across-the-board standards for school resources is asinine and absurd.

Ten. Teaching to the test does not prepare students for real world or new economy.

In Defense of Standardized Testing

See New York Times' "In Defense of Annual School Testing"

Essay Prompt for John Gatto's "Against School"

In the context of John Taylor Gatto’s “Against School,” support, refute, or complicate the argument that American education is more about protecting private business interests, maintaining class bias, and asserting mass control than it is about promoting real empowerment such as critical thinking, independence, and freedom.

Outline

Paragraph 1: Summarize "Against School."250 words.

Paragraph 2: Write about an experience in which you felt school betrayed all its promises of critical thinking, independence, and freedom and instead proved to be a controlling business or glorified baby-sitting service. Or if you disagree with Gatto, write about your amazing school experience. 250 words.

Paragraph 3: Your thesis should address the above. 150 words.

Paragraphs 4-7 are your supporting paragraphs. 150 words for 4 paragraphs is 600; 1,150 subtotal.

Paragraph 8: Counterargument-rebuttal. 150 words. 1,300 (two counterargument paragraphs would give you 1,550 words total)

Paragraph 9: Conclusion 100 words for 1,400

Developing Your Thesis

A thesis statement is one sentence that articulates the central idea of your essay.

A thesis statement is one sentence that tells readers your position or argument.

A thesis statement often outlines your essay’s body paragraphs with mapping components.

A thesis statement is born out of your assigned topic.

A thesis statement can never be merely a statement of your topic. Rather, it must be the point you are making about your topic.

Example

Topic

Standardized testing is part of the No Child Left Behind program.

Argumentative Thesis Statement

Standardized testing is a sham that we need to replace with more reliable measures of student learning outcomes.

Standardized testing is a sham that we need to replace with more reliable measures of student learning outcomes because the evidence shows that _______________, ___________________, ________________, and _________________.

Topic

In high numbers, upper class educated Anglos are not vaccinating their children from measles and other diseases.

Cause and Effect Thesis Statement

Many upper class educated Anglos are not vaccinating their children because their pride, paranoia, and pseudo-science have intoxicated them into embracing all the myths de jour of the anti-vaccine movement.

Argumentative Thesis Statement

There should be harsh penalties incurred against parents who don’t vaccinate their children because ________________, ________________, _______________, and _______________________.

Topic Is Not a Thesis

Unlike other first-world countries, the United States spends close to 18 percent of its GDP on healthcare while other countries spend closer to 10 percent.

Cause and Effect Thesis Statement

The United States is resigned to spending 18 percent of its GDP on healthcare because __________________, __________________, _________________, and _______________________.

Argumentative Thesis Statement

The United States needs to get its healthcare GDP down to about 10 percent because _______________, _______________, ______________, and ___________________.

Topic

The manner in which John Gatto would respond to teachers committing plagiarism in the classroom is a writing topic.

Definition Thesis

Reading "How We Learn," we see that plagiarism is not all kinds of imitation, but imitation characterized by ____________, _____________, _____________, and _______________.

Cause and Effect Thesis

Reading "How We Learn," we can imagine John Gatto being outraged by the link between teaching hypocrisy and student boredom when we analyze ________________, __________________, ______________, and ___________________.

A strong case can be made that John Gatto, when faced with the hypocrisy mentioned in Toor's essay, would use this hypocrisy as ammunition to support his thesis evidenced by _______________, _______________, ________________, and ___________________.

As The Geography of Bliss teaches us however implicitly, it is imperative that we embrace strong moral cultural norms to create happiness evidenced by _________________, __________________, ________________, and ____________________.

Your Essay Must Have a Thesis Statement That Is the Engine of Your Essay's Body Paragraphs

A thesis statement is an assertion that can be demonstrated with logic, reasoning, and examples.

We read in US & World News Report that, "Among millennials ages 25 to 32, earnings for college-degree holders are $17,500 greater than for those with high school diplomas only, a new study finds."

The above is not a thesis; it is a fact. We could use such a fact or study to support a thesis.

A thesis from the above would look like this:

While college costs are punitive and oppressive, especially to those with modest financial means, going to college for most people is worth its steep investment when we consider gains in lifetime income, networking with diverse populations, developing literacy, and creating a legacy of higher income for future generations.

Thesis statements or claims go under four different categories:

One. Claims about solutions or policies: The claim argues for a certain solution or policy change:

America's War on Drugs should be abolished and replaced with drug rehab.

Two. Claims of cause and effect: These claims argue that a person, thing, policy or event caused another event or thing to occur.

Social media has turned our generation into a bunch of narcissistic solipsists with limited attention spans, an inflated sense of self-importance, and a shrinking degree of empathy.

Three. Claims of value: These claims argue how important something is on the Importance Scale and determine its proportion to other things.

Global warming poses a far greater threat to our safety than does terrorism.

Four. Claims of definition. These claims argue that we must re-define a common and inaccurate assumption.

In America the notion of "self-esteem," so commonly taught in schools, is in reality a cult of narcissism. While real self-esteem teaches self-confidence, discipline, and accountability, the fake American brand of self-esteem is about celebrating the low expectations of mediocrity, and this results in narcissism, vanity, and sloth.

Sample Thesis

John Taylor Gatto accurately diagnoses the corruption of school by pointing out that it is not designed to educate us to be our better selves; rather, public education is about indoctrinating us to be malleable slaves to mediocrity and conformity evidenced by _____________, _____________, _____________, and ______________.

“Against School” by John Taylor Gatto (271)

Here is the essay online.

One. In the essay’s opening, we see that boredom is not a benign condition. Rather, boredom is a malignancy. This becomes clear when we see that boredom is a synonym for all sorts of horrible things. Give a list of things boredom stands for.

Learned helplessness

Resentment or mutual loathing (everyone blames everyone else for the problems at school)

Recurring cycles of futility, which brings up Einstein’s definition of insanity

Monotony

Lethargy, the fatigue and enervation from being mired in a problem with no apparent solution for so long

Lowered expectations

Dysfunction, settling into the idea that “this is how it is” and “nothing can be done,” so I’ll just “ride this out.”

Ennui

Acedia

Two. Who does Gatto blame?

All of us. We are all responsible, according to Gatto’s grandfather, to entertain and amuse ourselves.

We have all been responsible for the apathy and tolerance to brain-dead mediocrity.

Three. For Gatto, what is the difference between education and forced schooling?

He argues that “mass compulsory schooling” is not associated with success if we look at history.

The goals of “mass compulsory schooling” were defined, we read during 1905 and 1915 and they focused on the following:

One. To make good people.

Two. To make good citizens.

Three. To make each person his or her personal best.

For Gatto and H.L. Mencken who Gatto quotes, education is a form of indoctrination in which we brainwash students to fit with the system, be mediocre, and conform into the same type of safe person. This conformity is to the model of the mindless consumer who is obedient to marketing and advertising in order to insure a robust economy.

From Gatto's essay:

Mass schooling of a compulsory nature really got its teeth into the United States between 1905 and 1915, though it was conceived of much earlier and pushed for throughout most of the nineteenth century. The reason given for this enormous upheaval of family life and cultural traditions was, roughly speaking, threefold:
1) To make good people.
2) To make good citizens.
3) To make each person his or her personal best.

These goals are still trotted out today on a regular basis, and most of us accept them in one form or another as a decent definition of public education's mission, however short schools actually fall in achieving them. But we are dead wrong. Compounding our error is the fact that the national literature holds numerous and surprisingly consistent statements of compulsory schooling's true purpose. We have, for example, the great H. L. Mencken, who wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not

to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. . . . Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim.. . is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States . . . and that is its aim everywhere else.

We further read that schools base their operations on indoctrination, not critical thinking.

Obedience to authority, conformity to norms, learning the “correct” social role, labeling the students according to perceived rank (tag the “unfit”; promote the desirables), pass on elite power to younger generation of the elite and to hell with the rest of them (276).

In contrast, a teacher serves his students well if he gives them critical thinking skills:

Learn how to think for yourself by establishing informed or considered opinions, not habitual or peer-driven ones.

Learn how to read critically.

Learn the difference between causation and correlation.

Identify logical fallacies.

Grow and flourish as you become an adult and independent thinker.

Four. What are the functions of school?

Inglis breaks down the purpose - the actual purpose - of modem schooling into six basic functions, any one of which is enough to curl the hair of those innocent enough to believe the three traditional goals listed earlier:

1) The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things.

2) The integrating function. This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force.

3) The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in "your permanent record." Yes, you do have one.

4) The differentiating function. Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best.

5) The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what he called "the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That's what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.

6) The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor.

That, unfortunately, is the purpose of mandatory public education in this country. And lest you take Inglis for an isolated crank with a rather too cynical take on the educational enterprise, you should know that he was hardly alone in championing these ideas. Conant himself, building on the ideas of Horace Mann and others, campaigned tirelessly for an American school system designed along the same lines. Men like George Peabody, who funded the cause of mandatory schooling throughout the South, surely understood that the Prussian system was useful in creating not only a harmless electorate and a servile labor force but also a virtual herd of mindless consumers. In time a great number of industrial titans came to recognize the enormous profits to be had by cultivating and tending just such a herd via public education, among them Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller.

“How the Poor Are Made to Pay for Their Poverty” by Barbara Ehrenreich

Study Questions

One. How are the poor robbed?

They are exploited and robbed in thousands of tiny cuts that leave them eviscerated, bereft, and hopeless.

They pay more for cars.

They pay higher interest rates on loans, up to 600%, which is legal in some states.

They pay in terms of stolen wages (employers can program computers to shave a few dollars off each paycheck).

They pay in terms of being preyed upon by police for civil forfeiture laws in which police can take money, cars, valuables of any kind, by saying it was money “seized in a drug deal” with no need for evidence, no need for arrest, and no need for any kind of trial.

They have to pay for family members’ incarceration or else be fined and subject to arrest and imprisonment themselves.

The sub-prime market preys upon the poor.

The poor can go to prison if they don’t show up to court to address a debt to a landlord or collections agency.

The government will confiscate the drivers’ licenses of the poor in the event they owe child support (which can’t be paid because they’re, well, poor) and now they can’t drive to work to earn their minimum wage.

If the poor cannot pay their overdue traffic fines in Las Cruces, New Mexico, they will be fined by having their water, gas, and sewage turned off.

Once the poor, who are more likely to get into trouble with the law, have a criminal record, they cannot find work for they now suffer a permanent stigma.

At this point, the poor are more likely to be homeless at which point they may “get busted for an offense like urinating in public or sleeping on a sidewalk.” (I keep thinking of the metaphor “squeezing blood from a turnip.)

Essay Option:

Bell Hooks sees the self-destruction from extreme self-abasement on one hand and extreme privilege on the other. She is on a quest for a healthy middle ground. These components of toxic self-abasement and toxic privilege, and the sick symbiotic relationship between the rich and poor, are evident in Hooks' essay, "Learning in the Shadow of Race and Class" (287). Toxic abasement and the sick symbiotic relationship between the rich and the poor is also evident in "The Consequences--Undoing Sanity" (342), "How the Poor Are Made to Pay for Their Poverty," and Linda Tirado's online essay "Why I Make Terrible Decisions." Develop a thesis that compares the toxic symbiotic relationship between the rich and the poor in the aforementioned essays and show that human redemption is from a sense of healthy, well-balanced privilege that doesn't exclude social conscience. (This prompt has the thesis embedded in it.)

More Simplified Version

Addressing Barbara Ehrenreich's "How the Poor Are Made to Pay for Their Poverty" and Linda Tirado's famous blog post, write a 4-page essay with 3 sources with a thesis that supports or refutes the argument that poverty is not a "lifestyle choice" but a self-perpetuating trap.

Sample Thesis

Ehrenreich and Tirado's essay refute the rhetoric that any person, no matter how poor, can lift herself out of poverty with strong character, determination, and hard work by showing that poverty is a self-reinforcing cycle evidenced by _______________, ______________, _______________, and _____________________.

Thesis That Disagrees with the Above

While Ehrenreich and Tirado do a good job of highlighting the risk factors for cycles of poverty, they do little to offer the poor strategies to free themselves from their impoverishment and as such their rigid liberal political agendas do more harm than good because their vision paints the poor as helpless victims who must rely on policy changes before they find relief from their interminable economic hell.

PEEL Paragraph Method

Point: Your topic sentence

Evidence: Your supporting details

Explanation: Your analysis of the supporting details

Link: You are linking or connecting your explanation back to your main point

Sample PEEL Paragraph

Subordination and Coordination (Complex and Compound Sentences)

Complex Sentence

A complex sentence has two clauses. One clause is dependent or subordinate; the other clause is independent, that is to say, the independent clause is the complete sentence.

Examples:

While I was tanning in Hermosa Beach, I noticed the clouds were playing hide and seek.

Because I have a tendency to eat entire pizzas, inhaling them within seconds, I must avoid that fattening food.

Whenever I’m driving my car and I see people texting while driving, I stop my car on the side of the road.

I have to workout every day because I am addicted to exercise-induced dopamine.

I feel overcome with a combination of romantic melancholy and giddy excitement whenever there is a thunderstorm.

We use subordination to show cause and effect. To create subordinate clauses, we must use a subordinate conjunction:

The essential ingredient in a complex sentence is the subordinate conjunction:

after
although
as
because
before
even if
even though
if
in order that

once
provided that
rather than
since
so that
than
that
though
unless

until
when
whenever
where
whereas
wherever
whether
while
why

I workout too much. I have tenderness in my elbow.

Because I workout too much, I suffer tenderness in my elbow.

My elbow hurts. I’m working out.

Even though my elbow hurts, I’m working out.

We use coordination to show equal rank of ideas. To combine sentences with coordination we use FANBOYS (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so)

The calculus class has been cancelled. We will have to do something else.

The calculus class has been cancelled, so we will have to do something else.

I want more pecan pie. They only have apple pie.

I want more pecan pie, but they only have apple pie.

Using FANBOYS creates compound sentences

Angelo loves to buy a new radio every week, but his wife doesn’t like it.

You have high cholesterol, so you have to take statins.

I am tempted to eat all the rocky road ice cream, yet I will force myself to nibble on carrots and celery.

I want to go to the Middle Eastern restaurant today, and I want to see a movie afterwards.

I really like the comfort of elastic-waist pants, but wearing them makes me feel like an old man.

Both subordination and coordination combine sentences into smoother, clearer sentences.

The following four sentences are made smoother and clearer with the help of subordination:

McMahon felt gluttonous. He inhaled five pizzas. He felt his waist press against his denim waistband in a cruel, unforgiving fashion. He felt an acute ache in his stomach.

Because McMahon felt gluttonous, he inhaled five pizzas upon which he felt his waist press against his denim waistband resulting in an acute stomachache.

Another Example

Joe ate too much heavily salted popcorn. The saltiness made him thirsty. He consumed several gallons of water before bedtime. He was up going to the bathroom all night. He got a bad night’s sleep. He performed terribly during his job interview.

Due to his foolish consumption of salted popcorn, Joe was so thirsty he drank several gallons of water before bedtime, which caused him to go to the bathroom all night, interfering with his night’s sleep and causing him to do terribly on his job interview.

Another Example

Bob dropped his peanut butter sandwich in the tiger’s enclosure. He leaned over the fence to reach for his sandwich. He fell over the fence. A tiger approached Bob. The zookeeper ran between the stupid zoo customer and the wild beast. The zookeeper tore his rotator cuff.

Don’t Do Subordination Overkill

After Bob dropped his peanut butter sandwich in the tiger’s enclosure, he leaned over the fence to recover his sandwich and fell into the enclosure during which time he was approached by a hungry tiger forcing the nearby zookeeper to run between Bob and the wild beast in such a manner that the zookeeper tore his rotator cuff, which resulted in a prolonged disability leave and the loss of his job, a crisis that compelled the zookeeper to file a lawsuit against Bob for financial damages.

McMahon Grammar Lesson: Comma Rules (based in part by Diana Hacker’s Rules for Writers)

Commas are designed to help writers avoid confusing sentences and to clarify the logic of their sentences.

If you cook Jeff will clean the dishes. (Will you cook Jeff?)

While we were eating a rattlesnake approached us. (Were we eating a rattlesnake?)

Comma Rule 1: Use a comma before a coordinating conjunction (FANBOYS) joining two independent clauses.

Rattlesnakes are high in protein, but I’d rather eat a peanut butter sandwich.

Rattlesnakes are dangerous, and the desert species are even more so.

We are a proud people, for our ancestors passed down these famous delicacies over a period of five thousand years.

The exception to rule 1 is when the two independent clauses are short:

The plane took off and we were on our way.

Comma Rule 2: Use a comma after an introductory clause or phrase.

When Jeff Henderson was in prison, he developed an appetite for reading.

In the nearby room, the TV is blaring full blast.

Tanning in the hot Hermosa Beach sun for over two hours, I realized I had better call it a day.

The exception is when the short adverb clause or phrase is short and doesn’t create the possibility of a misreading:

In no time we were at 2,800 feet.

Comma Rule 3: Use a comma between all items in a series.

Jeff Henderson found redemption through hard work, self-reinvention, and social altruism.

Finding his passion, mastering his craft, and giving back to the community were all part of Jeff Henderson’s self-reinvention.

Comma Rule 4: Use a comma between coordinate adjectives not joined with “and.” Do not use a comma between cumulative adjectives.

The adjectives below are called coordinate because they modify the noun separately:

Jeff Henderson is a passionate, articulate, wise speaker.

The adjectives above are coordinate because they can be joined with “and.” Jeff Henderson is passionate and articulate and wise.

Adjectives that do not modify the noun separately are cumulative.

Three large gray shapes moved slowly toward us.

Chocolate fudge peanut butter swirl coconut cake is divine.

Comma Rule 5: Use commas to set off nonrestrictive (nonessential) elements.

Restrictive or essential information doesn’t have a comma:

For school the students need notebooks that are college-ruled.

Jeff’s cat that just had kittens became very aggressive.

Nonrestrictive:

For school the students need college-ruled notebooks, which are on sale at the bookstore.

Jeff Henderson’s mansion, which is located in Las Vegas, has a state-of-the-art kitchen.

My youngest sister, who plays left wing on the soccer team, now lives at The Sands, a beach house near Los Angeles.

Comma Rule 6: Use commas to set off interrupters or interjections between sentences.

Keith Manderlin, a close friend of mine, went on the buttermilk fried chicken diet and lost 45 pounds.

I looked down at my thumb, a flat grape in the aftermath of me hitting it with a hammer, and realized I had better have my wife drive me to the emergency room.

Green tea, which is believed to be rich in anti-oxidants, varies in quality depending on your supplier.

I sat down and wrote a song on the piano, a lugubrious homage to my angst-ridden adolescent years, which became my all-time selling hit single.

Peanut butter, known to contain significant amounts of rat and cockroach parts, continues to be a brisk seller in spite of its reputation for containing impurities.

Commas and Other Punctuation for MLA Citations

The following needs commas:

When Zombies Became a Worldwide Pestilence, Circa 2012

I’ve been teaching college composition and critical thinking for thirty years. If I had to pick a year that defined a radical change in my students I’d have to point to 2012. That was the year things started to go downhill. It was the year when smartphone users in the United States topped 100 million. It was the year a growing number of Americans and people worldwide began to see the smartphone as a necessity more important than having a toothbrush or wearing underwear. The smartphone became an external organ an external amygdala with Wi-Fi.

More than a human appendage, the smartphone became an opium-drip machine that you carried around with you 24/7. You could enjoy validation and dopamine all day long, until your brain dulled and short-circuited rendering you a mindless zombie falling down a rabbit hole of anxiety and depression.

Depression made people turn to their little opium gadgets with even greater intensity as if the very source of their mental disease might save them and put them into states of euphoria the gadget had once provided them.

I talk about the smartphone-induced zombie state with my students all the time. I talk about how this zombie state will make them “bottom feeders” in the new economy. Their time and energy wasted on their opium machine will make them lose their competitive edge to those who have the strength of mind to keep their smartphones in their proper place.

Having a competitive edge has never been more urgent in this age of merciless economic stratification where everything is tiered including our educational caste system. I remind the class that 8000 students walk through the Humanities Building every week and of those students only 3% will pass our college’s Critical Thinking courses which puts my students in the 97 percentile. A staggering 90% of the remedial students won’t even make it to freshman composition.

It’s one thing to struggle at the bottom of the educational ladder with the odds set against you. But it’s a far worse thing to voluntarily keep a smartphone attached to you constantly because now you’re aiding and abetting in your own demise by allowing this insidious contraption to turn you into a dysfunctional zombie.

I tell my students that this zombie state was prophesied in the 1999 film The Matrix in which we see we have a choice to take the Red Pill of knowledge or the Blue Pill of ignorance. Most people in the film’s future dystopia choose ignorance. The Blue Pill prophecy was fulfilled I tell my students in 2012 when everyone in the world believed erroneously they not only did they need a smartphone; they needed to constantly address the smartphone’s voracious appetites.

All of my students have horror stories of friends and family members whose lives have been ruined by smartphone addiction. They’ve traded ambition and caring for being numbed and depressed by their little dopamine device. They talk of older brothers and sisters unemployed college dropouts who malnourished and corpse-like languish in dank, dimly-lit basements where they are shackled to their smartphones day and night.

My students speak of their own battles with social media-induced anxiety and depression. Listening to my vitriolic rants against social media many of them have deleted their Facebook accounts. They all feel better for it. I’ve had students announce to the class that they deleted their Facebook account and it was followed by applause as if they were announcing their many days of sobriety at an A.A. meeting.

I confess to my students that while I rarely use my five-year-old smartphone a dinosaur by today’s standards I have wasted tens of thousands of hours mindlessly relaxing in front of the Internet since the late 1990s when I was deluded like millions of others into believing surfing the Net gave me infinite possibilities and a giddy sense of omnipotence. But thousands of hours wasted on skimming news articles, consuming entertainment, and conducting product research was time I could have spent practicing writing and playing piano. Rather than honing those skills I’ve remained a dilettante.

I too am in need of an intervention I confess to my students. I too am a casualty of the false utopian promises of technology. Looking at twenty years and tens of thousands of hours wasted wallowing in the malaise of the Internet's mind-numbing seductions I must now redeem myself before it's too late.

I make an announcement to my class. I am going to write a book about critical thinking as the antidote to the zombie state, which became a worldwide pestilence in 2012. The process must be reversed. The Red Pill must replace the Blue Pill. I will call my book Critical Thinking for the Zombie Apocalypse.

This sound like futility.

This sounds like a fool’s errand.

This sounds like the desperate play of a washed-up nonentity straining for relevance.

But my quest to save the students in my critical thinking class is like religion when you think about it. Religion tells you the world is a place of darkness and that to surrender to the world results in death—you navigate the Earth like a mindless zombie unaware that you slog across the planet in darkness.

I can shrug my shoulders and say the hell with it. Why fight the current? Why fight this tsunami of social media and smartphone addiction that is eviscerating our brains? Because complete surrender is nihilism the belief that nothing matters.

I cannot be a Priest of Despair and Hedonism.

I cannot tell my twin daughters now in the first grade that life is a meaningless joke.

If George Carlin is right that when you’re born you’re given a free front-row ticket to the freak show then you should know why it’s a freak show. And you should learn to tell the difference between a freak show and a non-freak show.

Knowing the difference means a lot to me.

But George Carlin was only half right.

The world is a freak show to be sure but only part of the world is. A freak show by definition means something deformed, grotesque, askew, out of whack. But these conditions are degraded versions of something better.

An informed opinion is a rare thing and it is a good thing to have.

An uninformed opinion one that is held out of habit and reflex more than anything else is a degraded version of the informed opinion. Mobs of people with uniformed opinions wreak hell and havoc on the world.

If they win then let the freak show begin.

"The Consequences--Undoing Sanity" by Louis Uchitelle

One. Is it enough to say unemployment kills self-esteem?

No, it's not. That's an understatement. Unemployment kills the former self. We become a ghost of our former self. Stacy Brown missed her husband, the one who had a job. The new one was insufferable.

Erin suffers from learned helplessness, the sense that he is trapped in a cycle of futility that compels him to give up on getting a job, himself, his wife, and Life.

Studies show after three years without a job we become unemployable.

We read that for men especially, but women also, "incapacitating illness" takes over the mind and soul.

We further read about a close correlation between unemployment and suicide rates.

Even in the face of being a good person and a good worker, the unemployed take a "blow" that "erodes human capital" and eats away at them like a pernicious, ongoing disease.

You've heard the cliche: "I'll define you not how you fall off the horse, but what you do AFTER you fall off the horse."

But for the unemployed, falling off the horse is easy compared to the shame and self-loathing that follows. How do you get back on the horse again when you're hit with a "blow" to the guts?

Two. What happens to the stay-at-home dad?

Rather than connect with his family, a huge barrier separates him and his family as he withdraws into his world of shame and depression.

We read that men don't communicate their feelings of depression well, so they just suffer a slow rot in isolation.

The American Psychiatric Association has officially declared being laid-off has dangerous to your mental health.

The disease spreads from the laid-off parent to the children who too are overcome by shame, depression, and low self-esteem.

Lexicon

Anhedonia: you reach a state of unhappiness from which there is no return. Once you wear this quality on your sleeve, you become unemployable.
What’s harder on a man, begging for love or work? Work. Humiliation results in anhedonia.
Inertia (resistance to change); paralysis that feeds on itself.
Male vs. female hardwiring and their different effects in the workplace: Women are more adaptable, take more risks, and seek change. In contrast, men like routine, comfort, and stability.
Unemployment is referred to as the “acuteness of the blow." One person in the essay is so traumatized he cannot face the anxieties, the rejection, and the sense of insignificance all over again, so he sabotages future prospects.
The double hit of unemployment: The feeling of being worthless coupled with self-blame. Let's add a third hit: You lose your medical coverage.
“Finessing layoffs”: The attempt to “finesse” a layoff is futile.
The layoff is followed by a breaking of emotional bonds with others; it has a rippling effect. The person withdraws into depression.
Despondence and apathy set in.
Ennui (the cycle: despondence, apathy and inertia, ennui, and then anhedonia)
Husband’s unemployment devastates the wife: She has to carry her soul, and his, up the mountain. She can't do it forever. Eventually, she gives up. Divorce is the common result.
“Going postal”
Unemployment spreads shame through the entire family. We read that the rippling effects spread in unforgiving fashion. Children lose confidence that they can achieve. They fear they will fail like their parents.
Shell-shocked: You become so traumatized that you build a defensive wall that is worse than the problem that made you shell-shocked in the first place. (describe the student with the scowl on her face)

Summary of Unemployment Effects

1. family withdraws from one another

2. children are "emotional sponges" and internalize and absorb their parents' emotional trauma.

3. alcoholism increases

4. divorce increases

5. suicide (murder-suicide in Wilmington)

6. long-term stigma

7. long-term low self-esteem and self-blame

8. long-term physical ailments including hypertension, ulcers, chronic fatigue, etc.

9. women reach out for social support more than men so women tend to fare better.

10. Vicious cycle of unemployment: You become depressed, which makes you less employable, which makes you more depressed, and so on and so on. "Layoffs deplete life."

Writing Prompt from Page 352

Some of the psychological or emotional effects of being laid off that Uchitelle lists are low self-esteem, nervousness, inability to form close bonds, and fear of trying new things. Do you think it is reasonable for employers to consider the emotional costs of layoffs in determining whether to let workers go? How might an employer address the criticisms that Uchitelle is making? Ultimately, is a company responsible for the emotional well-being of its employees? Why or why not?

McMahon's problem with the above prompt from the book is that while I agree it would be great if employers followed the prompt's recommendations, it's doubtful it would ever happen, so what's the point of writing the essay?

McMahon Grammar Exercise: Essential and Nonessential Clauses

Birthdays that land on a Monday are a bummer.

Birthdays, which can be costly, are overrated.

Circle the relative clause and indicate if it’s essential with a capital E or nonessential with a capital N. Then use commas where necessary.

One. I’m looking for a sugar substitute that doesn’t have dangerous side effects.

Two. Sugar substitutes which often contain additives can wreak havoc on the digestive and nervous system.

Three. The man who trains in the gym every day for five hours is setting himself up for a serious muscle injury.

Four. Cars that operate on small turbo engines don’t last as long as non-turbo automobiles.

Five. Tuna which contains high amounts of mercury should only be eaten once or twice a week.

Six. The store manager who took your order has been arrested for fraud.

Seven. The store manager Ron Cousins who is now seventy-five years old is contemplating retirement.

Eight. Magnus Mills’ Restraint of Beasts which is my favorite novel was runner up for the Booker Prize.

Nine. Parenthood which is a sort of priesthood for which there is no pay or appreciation raises stress and cortisol levels.

Ten. I need to find a college that specializes in my actuarial math major.

Eleven. UCLA which has a strong actuarial math program is my first choice.

Twelve. My first choice of car is the Lexus which was awarded top overall quality honors from Consumer Reports.

Thirteen. Mangoes which sometimes cause a rash on my lips and chin area are my favorite fruit.

Fourteen. A strange man whom I’ve never known came up to me and offered to give me his brand new Mercedes.

Fifteen. My girlfriend who was showing off her brand new red dress arrived two hours late to the birthday party.

Sixteen. Students who meticulously follow the MLA format rules have a greater chance at success.

Seventeen. The student who tormented himself with the thesis lesson for six hours found himself more confused than before he started.

Eighteen. There are several distinctions between an analytical and argumentative thesis which we need to familiarize ourselves with before we embark on the essay assignment.

Nineteen. The peach that has a worm burrowing through its rotted skin should probably be tossed in the garbage.

Twenty. Peaches, which I love to eat by the bucketful are on sale at the farmer’s market.

Twenty-one. Baseball which used to be America’s pastime is declining in popularity.

McMahon Grammar Lesson: Mixed Structure

Mixed construction is when the sentence parts do not fit in terms of grammar or logic.

Once you establish a grammatical unit or pattern, you have to be consistent.

Example 1: The prepositional phrase followed by a verb

Faulty

For most people who suffer from learned helplessness double their risk of unemployment and living below the poverty line.

Corrected

For most people who suffer from learned helplessness, they find they will be twice as likely to face unemployment and poverty.

Faulty

In Ha Jin’s masterful short story collection renders the effects of learned helplessness.

Corrected

In Ha Jin’s masterful short story collection, we see the effects of learned helplessness.

Faulty

Depending on our method of travel and our destination determines how many suitcases we are allowed to pack.

Corrected

The number of suitcases we can pack is determined by our method of travel and our destination.

Mixed Structure 2: Using a verb after a dependent clause

Faulty

When Jeff Henderson is promoted to head chef without warning is very exciting.

Corrected

Being promoted to head chef without warning is very exciting for Jeff Henderson.

Mixed Structure 3: Mixing a subordinate conjunction with a coordinating conjunction

Faulty

Although Jeff Henderson is a man of great genius and intellect, but he misused his talents.

Corrected

Although Jeff Henderson is a man of great genius and intellect, he misused his talents.

Faulty

Even though Ellen heard French spoken all her life, yet she could not write it.

Corrected

Even though Ellen heard French spoken all her life, she could not write it.

Mixed Structure 4: The construction is so confusing you must to throw it away and start all over

Faulty

In the prison no-snitch code Jeff Henderson learns to recognize variations of the code rather than by its real application in which he learns to arrive at a more realistic view of the snitch code’s true nature.

Corrected

In prison Jeff Henderson discovered that the no-snitch code doesn’t really exist.

Faulty

Recurring bouts of depression among the avalanche survivors set a record for number patients admitted into mental hospitals.

Corrected

Recurring bouts of depression among avalanche survivors resulted in a large number of them being admitted into mental hospitals.

Mixed Structure 5: Faulty Predication: The subject and the predicate should make sense together.

Faulty

We decided that Jeff Henderson’s best interests would not be well served staying in prison.

Corrected

We decided that Jeff Henderson would not be well served staying in prison.

Faulty

Using a gas mask is a precaution now worn by firemen.

Corrected

Firemen wear gas masks as a precaution against smoke inhalation.

Faulty

Early diagnosis of prostrate cancer is often curable.

Corrected

Early diagnosis of prostrate cancer is essential for successful treatment.

Mixed Structure 6: Faulty Apposition: The appositive and the noun to which it refers should be logically equivalent

Faulty

The gourmet chef, a very lucrative field, requires at least 10,000 hours of practice.

Corrected

Gourmet cooking, a very lucrative field, requires at least 10,000 hours of practice.

Mixed Structure 7: Incorrect use of the “is when,” “is where,” and “is because” construction

College instructors discourage “is when,” “is where,” and most commonly “is because” constructions because they violate logic.

Faulty

Bipolar disorder is when people suffer dangerous mood swings.

Corrected

Bipolar disorder is often recognized by dangerous mood swings.

Faulty

A torn rotator cuff is where you feel this intense pain in your shoulder that won’t go away.

Corrected

A torn rotator cuff will cause chronic pain in your shoulder.

Faulty

The reason I write so many comma splices is because the complete sentences feel logically related to each other.

Corrected

I write so many comma splices because the complete sentences feel logically related to each other.

Faulty

The reason I ate the whole pizza is because my family was a half hour late from coming home to the park and I couldn’t wait any longer.

Corrected

I ate the entire pizza because I’m a glutton.

In-class exercise: Write a sample of the seven mixed structure types and show a corrected version of it:

One. Verb after a prepositional phrase

Two. Verb after a dependent clause

Three. Mixing a subordinating conjunction (Whenever, when, although, though, to name some) with a coordinate conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so)

Four. The sentence is so confusing you have to start over.

Five. Faulty predication

Six: Faulty apposition

Seven. Incorrect use of the “is when,” “is where,” and “is because” construction

General Punctuation Rules Including Comma, Semicolon, and Colon

Semicolon Rules

Use semicolon for two related sentences:

Dark chocolate is my second favorite dessert; my first favorite is Costco-purchased Ghirardelli Triple-Chocolate Brownies.

When I was five years old, my parents moved us into the Royal Lanai Apartments of San Jose, California; by the time I was seven we had advanced to a large house in the nearby suburbs.

I used the Jack Crazy Man Ripped Abs Training Program for six months; it proved worthless: I'm as fat as ever.

Use semicolon for two related sentences separated by a conjunctive adverb:

I didn't get the pesto pizza; instead, I chose the zesty feta cheese with Greek olives.

I won't loan you a thousand dollars; however, I'll pay you $50 to wash my car.

Torrance is a good place to live a sedate, stagnant existence as you grow old in your elastic waistband Dockers; in contrast, Santa Monica is more snappy and urbane for aspiring hipsters.

I won't break up with you for cheating on me; nevertheless, you must now live with the guilt of knowing that I will forever feel like a rusty claw just ripped into my chest and tore out my heart.

Use semicolon to clarify a list:

Planet Earth was saved by Superman, the Man of Steel; Aquaman, the Creature of the Deep; Batman, the Caped Crusader; Captain America, Fighter for Justice; Wonder Woman, the Goddess of Crime Stoppers, and Thor, the Hero of Fury.

Without the semicolons, you would think the world was saved by 12 heroes when in fact it was saved by only 6.

Colon Rules

Use a colon to introduce a list:

My favorite desserts are the following: triple-chocolate brownies, cherry pie ladled with Italian vanilla gelato, fresh apple jelly donuts doused with powdered sugar, German chocolate cake, and cinnamon butter pecan coffee cake.

I decided to hire you for several reasons: One, you are reliable. Two, you pay attention to details. Three, you appear to be someone of conscience. Four, you appear to have a hard work ethic. And five, I'm hoping you can set me up with your sister. And perhaps throw in a few good words for me.

Use a colon to emphasize further explanation:

I feel like an old, beat-up dollar bill: Just as an old dollar bill is never accepted in the Coke machine, I'm never accepted by mainstream society.

I remember the first thought I had when my first girlfriend told me she loved me: Oh my God, I need to find a way to get out of this.

Use a colon to precede a quotation, a summary, or a paraphrase:

Paul Fussell explains that X People supremely discard middle-class values and mores: For X People, Fussell explains, the good life is experiencing the Now in all its richness, not groveling for some pathetic social status.

In the masterpiece memoir Muscle, author Samuel Wilson Fussell contemplates his growing paranoia and pent-up emotions: "The threat wasn't just from without; it also came from within. The fright I'd felt on the streets of New York I also felt deep within myself. Who was this man who cried not just at graduations and weddings but during beer and credit-card commercials? Who was this man terrified of his own rage, his own anger, his own greed, his own bitterness? Who was this man who never head a compliment without hearing a subtextual insult, who never said 'I love you' without resenting the other fact: 'I need you.' I couldn't deny it was me, or could I?"

Pronoun Errors

Vague Pronoun Reference

Possible reference to more than one word

Transmitting radio signals by satellite is a way of overcoming the problem of scarce airwaves and limiting how they are used.

In the original sentence, they could refer to the signals or to the airwaves.

Reference implied but not stated

The company prohibited smoking, which many employees resented.

What does which refer to? The editing clarifies what employees resented.

A pronoun should refer clearly to the word or words it replaces (called the antecedent) elsewhere in the sentence or in a previous sentence. If more than one word could be the antecedent, or if no specific antecedent is present, edit to make the meaning clear.

Lack of pronoun/antecedent agreement

Every student must provide their own uniform.

Pronouns must agree with their antecedents in gender (male or female) and in number (singular or plural). Many indefinite pronouns, such as everyone and each, are always singular. When a singular antecedent can refer to a man or woman, either rewrite the sentence to make the antecedent plural or to eliminate the pronoun, or use his or her, he or she, and so on. When antecedents are joined by or or nor, the pronoun must agree with the closer antecedent. A collection noun such as team can be either singular or plural, depending on whether the members are seen as a group or individuals.

Incorrect pronoun case

Determine whether the pronoun is being used as a subject, or an object, or a possessive in the sentence, and select the pronoun form to match.

Incorrect:

Castro's communist principles inevitably led to an ideological conflict between he and President Kennedy.

Correct:

Castro's communist principles inevitably led to an ideological conflict between him and President Kennedy.

Incorrect:

Because strict constructionists recommend fidelity to the Constitution as written, no one objects more than them to judicial reinterpretation.

Correct:

Because strict constructionists recommend fidelity to the Constitution as written, no one objects more than they [do] to judicial reinterpretation.

Rewrite each sentence below so that you’ve corrected the pronoun errors.

One. Between you and I, there are too many all-you-can-eat buffets mushrooming over southern California because a person thinks they’re getting a good deal when we can eat endless plates food for a mere ten dollars.

Two. When children grow up eating at buffets, they expand their bellies and sometimes you find you cannot get “full” no matter how much we eat.

Three. As thousands of children gorged on pastrami at HomeTown Buffet, you could tell we would have to address the needs of a lot of sick children.

Four. Although I like the idea of eating all I want, you can sense that there is danger in this unlimited eating mentality that can escort us down the path of gluttony and predispose you to diabetes.

Five. When a customer feels he’s getting all the food they want, you know we can increase your business.

Six. If a student studies the correct MLA format, you can expect academic success.

Seven. It’s not easy for instructors to keep their students’ attention for a three-hour lecture. He or she must mix up the class-time with lecture, discussion, and in-class exercises.

Eight. It is good for a student to read the assigned text at least three times. When they do, they develop better reading comprehension.

Nine. The instructor gave the essays back to Bob and I.

Ten. We must find meaning to overcome the existential vacuum. Otherwise, you will descend into a rabbit hold of despair and they will find themselves behaving in all manners of self-destruction.