Download Text Rationale for Thank You for Arguing: Revised and Updated

Text Rationale for Thank You for Arguing: Revised and Updated Edition by Jay Heinrichs
(2013)
Rationale: The work is specifically about the very curricular focus of AP English III, which is
rhetoric and the art of persuasion. Honestly, I cannot think or find any other work that would do
as much good except for Language of Composition or Aristotle’s Rhetoric, both of which I have
listed below under “Alternate Texts.” The book perfectly “front loads” fundamental information
essential to understanding the complexities of rhetoric. In fact, teachers will certainly use the
book consistently throughout the first six weeks unit, but the text will also prove useful even
later in the school year.
The very structure of the work mirrors the exact rhetoric Heinrichs wishes for his audience to
analyze and use themselves. Throughout each page, he inserts small boxes containing metacognitive insights into his own writing, making the work a reflective and thorough work of
analysis itself. The entire book models and teaches what it wants students to learn. In those
aforementioned boxes, Heinrichs also gives vocabulary on rhetorical schemes and tropes,
including a thorough glossary at the end. In each example, Heinrichs not only describes the
rhetorical maneuver, but he also explains its usefulness in rhetorical persuasion. Therefore,
students have hundreds of pages where they may glean stylistic insights for their own writing.
Furthermore, Heinrichs devotes an entire chapter to analyzing the rhetoric of President Obama;
Heinrichs also consistently uses “pop culture” and engaging entertainment mediums to make
rhetoric applicable to students’ daily lives. He references historical rhetoric, both old and new, in
order to reveal how rhetorical communication shapes the course of history.
Because the AP III team plans to use this book for summer reading and first six-weeks
curriculum study, it will help to introduce the basics of rhetoric, including Aristotle’s three basic
appeals of ethos, pathos, and logos. The book will also help teachers to train students on
remembering their particular audiences as students complete their PBL over oppressed people
groups.
The reading level is certainly applicable to a high school or early college level, but Heinrichs
uses a dry, humorous voice, appealing to his audience.
Summary:
General Notes
• “You fight to win; you argue to achieve agreement” (17).
• The primary element of any argument is the goal (19).
• Cicero defined three goals for persuading people, listed in order of increasing difficulty:
(1) stimulate your audience’s emotions; (2) change the audience’s opinion; (3) get the
audience to act
• After defining your goal and identifying your audience’s mood, mind, and action, ask
yourself, “What’s the issue?” This narrows down to three core issues: Blame (Past),
Values (Present), and Choice (Future) [Chapter 3]
Rhetoric of the past deals with justice and is called “forensic evidence”; it
determines guilt and metes out punishment
o Rhetoric of the present deals with the community and is called “demonstrative
rhetoric” (or epideictic); it is the language for commencement addresses, funerals,
and sermons
o Rhetoric of the future deals with decisions and is called “deliberative rhetoric”; it
favors expedience
§ Deliberative argument can use facts, but it must not limit itself to them
(32). It also relies on public opinion to resolve questions.
dialectic - the pursuit of discovering truth instead of talking people into action
Never debate the undebatable; instead, focus on goals.
Persuasion doesn’t depend on being true to yourself but to your audience (55)
o Persuasion isn’t about you, but the beliefs and expectations of your audience
*Aristotle argued that the person most affected by a decision makes the best judge of it
(106)*
o
•
•
•
•
Ethos [Chapters 5-8]
• “commonplace” - an appeal to an audience’s acceptance of a presupposed or accepted
fact or cultural norm
• argumentum a fortiori - “argument from strength,” i.e., if something works the hard way,
then it is more likely to work the easy way, too
• prolepsis - anticipatory concession where one agrees in advance to what the other person
is likely to say; means “anticipation”
• decorum - making the audience find you agreeable because you meet their expectations,
which may not be exactly like your audience but what that audience expects
o ethos in Greek originally meant “habitat,” for an ethical person fits her audience’s
rules and values the same way a penguin fits the peculiar habitat of an iceberg
(47)
• According to Cicero, the perfect audience would be receptive, attentive, and well
disposed toward you (57)
• On page 57, Aristotle defines his three qualities of persuasive ethos as the three C’s:
o (1) virtue (arȇte), or cause: the audience believes you share their values [chapter
6]
o (2) practical wisdom (phronesis), or craft: you appear to know the right path in
decision-making [chapter 7]
§ Persuasion starts with understanding what the audience believes,
sympathizing with their feelings, and fitting into their expectations (69)
• But this is still insufficient to persuade an audience: you must have
phronesis, the practical wisdom that proves you know the correct
path to take going forward; Heinrichs calls it “flexibly wise
leadership” (70); see chapter 17
o 1. Show off your experience
o 2. Bend the rules
o 3. Take the middle course - taking the middle ground
makes your opponent’s position seem extreme
o
(3) disinterest (eunoia), or caring: lacking bias, being impartial and caring only
about the audience’s interests rather than your own [chapter 8]
§ Seem to deal reluctantly with something that you are truly eager to prove,
or, show an overwhelming amount of evidence on the other side that still
makes you believe in your own position
Pathos [Chapters 9-10]
• Aristotle, bemusedly, argued that emotion wins over audiences more than logic (8-9)
o People must have the desire to act
• “argument by the stick” - should words fail, an opponent uses violence
o war metaphors are a good example
• Pathos is more than just feelings: it includes physical sensations and “suffering” (81)
o Aristotle argues that you may modify someone’s emotions through changing their
beliefs (their values and expectations)
§ The mode of narration works beautifully here in reshaping someone’s
beliefs
o Control your emotion and volume, letting the words tell the story plainly (85)
• Desire - attaching a desired action to your audience’s lust for something (92)
• Target your audience’s instinctive traits--i.e., using simple speech, making your audience
feel powerful, employing humor (99-103)
o Types of humor: urbane (usually educated wordplay); wit (playing off situation);
facetious (ribald jokes for laughter); banter (clever insults and snappy comebacks)
§ Concession + wit = banter
Logos [Chapters 11-13]
• Heinrichs argues that concession is the true heart of logos, for as Aristotle said, every
argument has its opposite corollary
o Never use, “Yes, but...”; always use, “Yes, and…” and allow yourself to take the
argument in the direction you want while still appearing concessory (43)
• To begin a logical argument, identify the audience’s commonplace, or their most
common beliefs and presuppositions (107-110)
o This allows you to target their desires and logic
o Euphemisms and branding (in politics or advertising) presume on an audience’s
commplaces
o Counterarguments almost always stem from commonplaces
• stasis theory - a four-question, pre-writing (invention) process developed in ancient
Greece by Aristotle and Hermagoras
o The facts (conjecture)
o The meaning or nature of the issue (definition)
o The seriousness of the issue (quality)
o The plan of action (policy).
§ Excellent for pre-writing; make a graphic organizer for this tool
• stance theory - an argumentative strategy with multiple steps in case of preceding failure
(115-116)
o Should facts not work in your favor (or you don’t know them), then redefine the
terms; if that does not work, then argue that your opponent’s argument is less
•
•
•
important than it appears; finally, your last resort is to claim that the discussion is
irrelevant.
Redefining your terms is a powerful rhetorical tool
Framing - defining the issue in the broadest terms while identifying the audience’s
commonplace presuppositions before addressing the problem specifically
Formal logic [Chapter 13]
o deductive logic and syllogisms use a premise (a fact or commonplace used as
proof) and apply it to a specific case to reach a conclusion; the premise proves the
examples
§ An enthymeme is a shortened version of a syllogism that is missing its
warrant, presupposition, or commonplace
o inductive logic uses specific cases to reach a general conclusion or prove a
premise; the examples prove the premise
o Types of examples: facts, comparisons, and stories (139)
Logical Fallacies [Chapters 14-15]
• Seven logical sins
o Bad proof
§ 1. false comparison - committed when one uses miscategorized examples
as comparative proof
• all natural fallacy; appeal to popularity; reductio ad absurdum;
fallacy of antecedent; false analogy; unit fallacy
§ 2. bad example - do the examples support the conclusion?
• misinterpreting the evidence; hasty generalization
§ 3. ignorance as proof - “what we cannot prove cannot exist”
• fallacy of ignorance
o Wrong number of choices
§ 4. false choice - lumping together too many choices, forcing a responder to
answer too many loaded questions
• many questions; false dilemma; complex cause; poisoning the well
o Disconnect between proof and conclusion
§ 5. tautology - repeating the premise as proof
• begging the question
§ 6. red herring - bringing up another topic as a distractor
• straw man
§ 7. wrong ending - the premise or proof may be acceptable, but it leads to a
faulty conclusion
• slippery slope; faulty causality / post hoc ergo propter hoc (“after
this, therefore because of this”); false authority
• Three questions to test a logical proof
o 1. Does the proof hold up?
o 2. Am I given the right number of choices?
o 3. Does the proof lead to the conclusion?
• tautology - a logical argument where one repeats the assertion using different phrasing,
disguising the assertion as the proof
•
“In most cases, there are no right or wrong decisions in argument; there’s only likely and
unlikely” (166).
o A logical fallacy is only unsuccessful if it fails to persuade, and herein lies the key
difference between logic and rhetoric, for the former deals with hard absolutes
while the latter dallies in persuasion of a specific audience
Gauging a Speaker’s Trustworthiness [Chapters 16-17]
• In rhetoric, a persuader starts with the audience’s needs, and manipulation begins when
the the persuader makes his audience believe that his solution fits the bill (182)
o When a speaker shows disinterest, be aware that this could be a ploy to accrue
your tacit agreement; if the speaker dodges your question that attempts to steer the
focus back on target, be leery (184-86)
• You can also gauge a speaker’s ethos, or virtue, according to the choices he offers and to
what degree he achieves the mean in regards to the topic at hand (186-87)
o Why seek the mean? Because it is the closest approximation to the audience’s
values
§ Those who describe a middle-ground conclusion (i.e., mean) as extreme
de facto label themselves extremists
o An ethical persuader will consider the qualifiers inherent in any argument before
proffering a suggestion (191)
• virtue - a state of character, concerned with choice, lying in a mean (191)
• Those with adequate phronesis can conjecture about possibilities rather than sticking to
rote deduction; they encourage us to remember the qualifiers inherent in any situation
(192-93) and deliberate before making a final decision (198)
o They also identify what the true issue is and, therefore, what the audience requires
Sharpening Your Persuasion through Figures [Chapter 18]
• Heinrichs divides figures into three main categories: figures of speech, figures of thought,
and tropes
o 1. figures of speech - change ordinary language through repetition, substitution,
sound, and wordplay
o 2. figures of thought - logical or emotional wordplays
o 3. tropes - substituting one image or concept for another
• Using an opponent’s own cliche or idiom to your own advantage can be a humorous way
to win over your audience
• An anthimeria can capture an audience’s attention, but beware: it could also prove a
major distractor
• parelcon - a “filler-word” that has lost its meaning due to overuse
Figures of Speech- change ordinary language through repetition, substitution, sound, and
wordplay
• chaismus - offering an audience a choice with antithetical syntax structure (also a figure
of thought)
• accismus - employing coy behavior to hide excitement
• dialogismus - adding dialogue to a narrative in order to add realism
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
periphrasis - using description as a name (i.e., Voldemort, “He-Who-Must-Not-BeNamed”)
anaphora - repeating the same word or phrase in successive phrases, clauses, or
sentences
epistrophe - ending a series of lines, phrases, clauses, or sentences with the same word or
words; the opposite of anaphora
o epanalepsis - repetition at the end of a line, phrase, or clause of the word or words
that occurred at the beginning of the same line, phrase, or clause (“A lie begets a
lie”)
diazeugma - using parallel verb phrases with one subject/actor
idiom - a colloquial figure of speech used regionally, connoting shared values or
definitions
asyndeton and polysyndeton - syntactical schemes using zero or many conjunctions,
respectively, to emphasize either the objects listed or the sheer number (again,
respectively)
correctio - interrupting a sentence to amend, qualify, or amplify a point
alliteration - connecting ideas or images together through parallel beginning letters
symploce - The combination of anaphora and epistrophe; beginning a series of lines,
clauses, or sentences with the same word or phrase while simultaneously repeating a
different word or phrase at the end of each element in this series.
Figures of Thought - logical or emotional wordplays
• chaismus - offering an audience a choice with antithetical syntax structure (also a figure
of speech)
o antimetabole - chiasmus with literal word/grammatical reversal added in
• hypophora - asking a rhetorical question before immediately answering it, which
anticipates an audience’s skepticism
• aporia - wondering openly or admitting that you cannot fathom a reason, which moves
the audience to start reasoning for you
• dialysis - to spell out alternatives, or to present either-or arguments that lead to a
conclusion, often with a “yes” or “no” added in to achieve an ironic reversal of idea
o antithesis - contrasting one argument against another; also often in reversed
grammatical form
• litotes - ironic understatement
• tactical flaw - reveal a weakness that wins sympathy, or show the sacrifice made for the
cause shared with the audience
• character reference - have others raise your ethos for you
• dubitatio - making yourself appear doubtful as to what to say, which gives an illusion of
honesty
• Passive voice removes the actor from the action, making it appear that things happened
on their own and/or objectively
• anadiplosis - the repetition of the last word (or phrase) from the previous line, clause, or
sentence at the beginning of the next, showing a train of logical thought; often used in
conjunction with climax
• periphrasis - swapping a description for a name, usually used for redefining a person or
issue
•
•
•
•
•
metastasis - skipping over an awkward subject
hyperbole - using overstatement, often using concurrent examples in increasing order of
extremism
paralipsis - mentioning something by saying you won’t mention it
paraprosdokian - the latter part of a sentence ends in a surprising or humorous way that
causes one to reinterpret the first half of the sentence
anthimeria - substitution of one part of speech for another (such as a noun used as a
verb), creating a neologism
Tropes - substituting one image or concept for another
• metaphor - a direct comparison
• simile - a comparison using “like” or “as”
• irony - swapping the apparent meaning for the real one
• synecdoche - an identifying substitution of a whole for a part or a part for a whole
• metonymy - an identifying substitution of a related object, symbol, or idea to the thing
itself
Sharpening Your Persuasion through Your Identity [Chapters 19-21]
• Present-tense language codifies and harmonizes a community back together after an
argument
• One’s virtue also relies on code words, insider language used to persuade an audience to
identity with you (220-25); the persuader speaks the language of the audience (233)
o Irony works as a keyed gateway that excludes those unaware of the coded
meaning (234)
• Tapping into an audience’s rhetoric, causes, codes, and identity all show that you--at least
on the surface--have high rhetorical virtue
• Identify the image, or halo, with which the audience most closely identifies and exploit it
to your own rhetorical advantage (243-47)
o Identify the tribe, or classified group, and their values, codes, causes, etc.
When You Have Made a Mistake [Chapter 22]
• 1. Always keep your target in mind
• 2. Employ kairos, or thoughtful timing
• 3. Use the future tense
o Do not focus on the past where blame lies, but train your audience’s eyes to the
future holding a possible solution or even improvement
• 4. Re-enhance your ethos
o If you do choose to apologize, make sure to emphasize your own high standards
instead of merely repeating your sorrow over a mistake
Kairos, or Seizing the Occasion [Chapters 23-24]
• “A person with kairos knows how to spot when an audience is most vulnerable to her
point of view, and then exploit the opportunity” (261)
o “...doing the right thing--practicing your decorum, offering the perfect choice,
making the perfect pitch--at the right time” (261)
• Keeping in mind your medium is also crucial to good persuasion
Consider timing, the kind of appeal, and your gestures (272-73)
The senses themselves also carry connotations of persuasion
o sound - the most rational sense because voice carries ethos; music, of course,
encourages pathos
o smell - driven primarily pathos since it is the most primal sense that carries
emotional connotations
o sight - encourages and relates to belief, making it pathos in this regard, but written
text is mostly logos
o touch - pathos
o taste - pathos
o
•
Cicero’s Five Canons of Persuasion [Chapter 25]
• This is a perfect chapter to use in preparing students to work on their PBLs
• The order of how you organize and arrange of your persuasive text matters
o 1. Invention - What is the focus of your argument? Who is your audience? What’s
the goal? “Your job in this stage of the speech is to discover, or invent, the
‘available means of persuasion,’ as Aristotle put it” (283)
o 2. Arrangement - ethos, then logos, then pathos; win over your audience with
shared values, and then present the facts, and finish with the emotions needed to
cull action
§ Introduction - present your ethos
§ Narration - state the facts and keep it brief
§ Division - define your terms and list the points where you and your
opponent agree and disagree
§ Proof - move into your grounds and warrants
§ Refutation - refute your opponent’s argument
§ Conclusion - restate your points, close with pathos
o 3. Style - use language suitable to the audience and occasion; be clear; craft a
vivid picture for your audience (often in the narration); use decorum; dress your
rhythm of voice (the place to use figures of speech and thought)
o 4. Memory - Heinrichs goes into the concept of memory palaces
o 5. Delivery - employing your body language, voice, rhythms, and breathing for
effect
• Have students analyze a variety of video speeches for their effectiveness in Cicero’s
classical style
Knowing When to Use the Right Tools [Chapter 27]
• Heinrichs categorizes the multitudinous elements into a few core areas:
o Goals - What is the rhetor seeking?
o Ethos, pathos, logos - Which appeal(s) does he emphasize?
o Kairos - Does he use his occasion wisely?
The History of Rhetoric in America [Chapter 28]
• Heinrichs narrates the history and importance of rhetoric in American history, hoping his
audience takes rhetoric more seriously and sees the potential downfall of democratic
ideals should competing factions continue arguing with invective rather than actual
deliberation
Merit Awards and Recognition: The book is still a top-seller after a few years on the market.
Benefit to Students:
Students would find the book as fun and engaging an introduction into rhetoric as they may
reasonably expect. Heinrichs takes great pain to make this ancient art fresh and interesting for a
modern audience. He uses popular culture, movies, history, and the like to engage his audience
as he teaches them about the art and usefulness of rhetoric in our daily lives. For an AP III
course, the text aligns perfectly to curricular objectives and is written in a facile, easy-going tone
in order to make difficult rhetorical concepts fun and interesting.
Heinrichs consistently uses popular culture and direct second-person narration to involve his
reader in the analysis and craft of rhetoric. The text presents a diverse and knowledgeable
worldview. In fact, Heinrichs helps the student to see how diverse and pervasive rhetoric is in
everyone’s daily lives. Heinrichs’ book helps students to better interpret others’ rhetorical sleight
as they craft their own. One full chapter is an extended analysis of political speech, but the whole
emphasis of the book is to teach readers how to read, think, and analyze rhetorically. Therefore,
it prepares students for global issues.
Brief description of proposed classroom activities generated by text:
• This book will be used for AP English III summer reading.
o Students may complete a handout over rhetorical terms, theories, and
applications.
• The team plans to give students a list of short fiction with argumentative focuses
surrounding our thematic approach for the year. Students will choose one short story per
focus and identify the author’s argument, audience, and means of persuasion.
o Oppression: “Story of an Hour”; “The Yellow Wallpaper”
o Environment: “The World on the Turtle’s Back”; “To Build a Fire”
o Education: “Life After High School”; “How it Feels to be Colored Me”
o Economics: “The Devil and Tom Walker”; “Outcasts of Poker Flat”
o Culture/Satire: “The Fly”; “The Veldt”
o Technology: “There Will Come Soft Rains”; “Invasion from Outer Space”
• In the first six weeks, teachers can use the skills—written, spoken, analytical, etc.—
taught through the book in a Project Based Learning unit over oppressed people groups.
• Students can analyze a variety of texts—articles, videos, documentaries, advertisements,
speeches, etc.—through the Aristotelian method Heinrichs helps to delineate.
• Teachers will use the book throughout the year for introduction and reinforcement of
rhetorical concepts.
• Lessons, experiments, and activities run from pages 331 through 372.
• Have students analyze a variety of video speeches for their effectiveness in Cicero’s
classical style (chapter 25).
List of the TEKS the proposed text supports:
(1) Reading/Vocabulary Development. Students understand new vocabulary and use it when
reading and writing.
(A) determine the meaning of grade-level technical academic English words in multiple
content areas (e.g., science, mathematics, social studies, the arts) derived from Latin,
Greek, or other linguistic roots and affixes;
(B) analyze textual context (within a sentence and in larger sections of text) to draw
conclusions about the nuance in word meanings;
(6) Reading/Comprehension of Literary Text/Literary Nonfiction. Students understand, make
inferences and draw conclusions about the varied structural patterns and features of literary
nonfiction and provide evidence from text to support their understanding. Students are expected
to analyze how rhetorical techniques (e.g., repetition, parallel structure, understatement,
overstatement) in literary essays, true life adventures, and historically important speeches
influence the reader, evoke emotions, and create meaning.
(9) Reading/Comprehension of Informational Text/Expository Text. Students analyze, make
inferences and draw conclusions about expository text and provide evidence from text to support
their understanding. Students are expected to:
(A) summarize a text in a manner that captures the author's viewpoint, its main ideas,
and its elements without taking a position or expressing an opinion;
(B) distinguish between inductive and deductive reasoning and analyze the elements of
deductively and inductively reasoned texts and the different ways conclusions are
supported;
(C) make and defend subtle inferences and complex conclusions about the ideas in text
and their organizational patterns; and
(D) synthesize ideas and make logical connections (e.g., thematic links, author analyses)
between and among multiple texts representing similar or different genres and technical
sources and support those findings with textual evidence.
(10) Reading/Comprehension of Informational Text/Persuasive Text. Students analyze, make
inferences and draw conclusions about persuasive text and provide evidence from text to support
their analysis. Students are expected to:
(A) evaluate how the author's purpose and stated or perceived audience affect the tone of
persuasive texts; and
(B) analyze historical and contemporary political debates for such logical fallacies as
non-sequiturs, circular logic, and hasty generalizations.
(11) Reading/Comprehension of Informational Text/Procedural Texts. Students understand how
to glean and use information in procedural texts and documents. Students are expected to:
(A) evaluate the logic of the sequence of information presented in text (e.g., product
support material, contracts); and
(B) translate (from text to graphic or from graphic to text) complex, factual, quantitative,
or technical information presented in maps, charts, illustrations, graphs, timelines, tables,
and diagrams.
(12) Reading/Media Literacy. Students use comprehension skills to analyze how words, images,
graphics, and sounds work together in various forms to impact meaning. Students will continue
to apply earlier standards with greater depth in increasingly more complex texts. Students are
expected to:
(A) evaluate how messages presented in media reflect social and cultural views in ways
different from traditional texts;
(B) evaluate the interactions of different techniques (e.g., layout, pictures, typeface in
print media, images, text, sound in electronic journalism) used in multi-layered media;
(C) evaluate the objectivity of coverage of the same event in various types of media; and
(D) evaluate changes in formality and tone across various media for different audiences
and purposes.
(13) Writing/Writing Process. Students use elements of the writing process (planning, drafting,
revising, editing, and publishing) to compose text. Students are expected to:
(A) plan a first draft by selecting the correct genre for conveying the intended meaning
to multiple audiences, determining appropriate topics through a range of strategies (e.g.,
discussion, background reading, personal interests, interviews), and developing a thesis
or controlling idea;
(B) structure ideas in a sustained and persuasive way (e.g., using outlines, note taking,
graphic organizers, lists) and develop drafts in timed and open-ended situations that
include transitions and rhetorical devices to convey meaning;
(C) revise drafts to clarify meaning and achieve specific rhetorical purposes, consistency
of tone, and logical organization by rearranging the words, sentences, and paragraphs to
employ tropes (e.g., metaphors, similes, analogies, hyperbole, understatement, rhetorical
questions, irony), schemes (e.g., parallelism, antithesis, inverted word order, repetition,
reversed structures), and by adding transitional words and phrases;
(D) edit drafts for grammar, mechanics, and spelling; and
(E) revise final draft in response to feedback from peers and teacher and publish written
work for appropriate audiences.
(15) Writing/Expository and Procedural Texts. Students write expository and procedural or
work-related texts to communicate ideas and information to specific audiences for specific
purposes. Students are expected to:
(A) write an analytical essay of sufficient length that includes:
(i) effective introductory and concluding paragraphs and a variety of sentence
structures;
(ii) rhetorical devices, and transitions between paragraphs;
(iii) a clear thesis statement or controlling idea;
(iv) a clear organizational schema for conveying ideas;
(v) relevant and substantial evidence and well-chosen details; and
(vi) information on multiple relevant perspectives and a consideration of the
validity, reliability, and relevance of primary and secondary sources;
(16) Writing/Persuasive Texts. Students write persuasive texts to influence the attitudes or
actions of a specific audience on specific issues. Students are expected to write an argumentative
essay (e.g., evaluative essays, proposals) to the appropriate audience that includes:
(A) a clear thesis or position based on logical reasons supported by precise and relevant
evidence, including facts, expert opinions, quotations, and/or expressions of commonly
accepted beliefs;
(B) accurate and honest representation of divergent views (i.e., in the author's own words
and not out of context);
(C) an organizing structure appropriate to the purpose, audience, and context;
(D) information on the complete range of relevant perspectives;
(E) demonstrated consideration of the validity and reliability of all primary and
secondary sources used; and
(F) language attentively crafted to move a disinterested or opposed audience, using
specific rhetorical devices to back up assertions (e.g., appeals to logic, emotions, ethical
beliefs).
(17) Oral and Written Conventions/Conventions. Students understand the function of and use
the conventions of academic language when speaking and writing. Students will continue to
apply earlier standards with greater complexity. Students are expected to:
(A) use and understand the function of different types of clauses and phrases (e.g.,
adjectival, noun, adverbial clauses and phrases); and
(B) use a variety of correctly structured sentences (e.g., compound, complex, compoundcomplex).
(21) Research/Gathering Sources. Students determine, locate, and explore the full range of
relevant sources addressing a research question and systematically record the information they
gather. Students are expected to:
(A) follow the research plan to gather evidence from experts on the topic and texts
written for informed audiences in the field, distinguishing between reliable and unreliable
sources and avoiding over-reliance on one source;
(B) systematically organize relevant and accurate information to support central ideas,
concepts, and themes, outline ideas into conceptual maps/timelines, and separate factual
data from complex inferences; and
(C) paraphrase, summarize, quote, and accurately cite all researched information
according to a standard format (e.g., author, title, page number), differentiating among
primary, secondary, and other sources.
(22) Research/Synthesizing Information. Students clarify research questions and evaluate and
synthesize collected information. Students are expected to:
(A) modify the major research question as necessary to refocus the research plan;
(B) differentiate between theories and the evidence that supports them and determine
whether the evidence found is weak or strong and how that evidence helps create a
cogent argument; and
(C) critique the research process at each step to implement changes as the need occurs
and is identified.
(23) Research/Organizing and Presenting Ideas. Students organize and present their ideas and
information according to the purpose of the research and their audience. Students are expected to
synthesize the research into an extended written or oral presentation that:
(A) provides an analysis that supports and develops personal opinions, as opposed to
simply restating existing information;
(B) uses a variety of formats and rhetorical strategies to argue for the thesis;
(C) develops an argument that incorporates the complexities of and discrepancies in
information from multiple sources and perspectives while anticipating and refuting
counter-arguments;
(D) uses a style manual (e.g., Modern Language Association, Chicago Manual of Style)
to document sources and format written materials; and
(E) is of sufficient length and complexity to address the topic.
(24) Listening and Speaking/Listening. Students will use comprehension skills to listen
attentively to others in formal and informal settings. Students will continue to apply earlier
standards with greater complexity. Students are expected to:
(A) listen responsively to a speaker by framing inquiries that reflect an understanding of
the content and by identifying the positions taken and the evidence in support of those
positions; and
(B) evaluate the clarity and coherence of a speaker's message and critique the impact of a
speaker's diction and syntax on an audience.
(25) Listening and Speaking/Speaking. Students speak clearly and to the point, using the
conventions of language. Students will continue to apply earlier standards with greater
complexity. Students are expected to give a formal presentation that exhibits a logical structure,
smooth transitions, accurate evidence, well-chosen details, and rhetorical devices, and that
employs eye contact, speaking rate (e.g., pauses for effect), volume, enunciation, purposeful
gestures, and conventions of language to communicate ideas effectively.
(26) Listening and Speaking/Teamwork. Students work productively with others in teams.
Students will continue to apply earlier standards with greater complexity. Students are expected
to participate productively in teams, offering ideas or judgments that are purposeful in moving
the team towards goals, asking relevant and insightful questions, tolerating a range of positions
and ambiguity in decision-making, and evaluating the work of the group based on agreed-upon
criteria.
Clarification of any potentially controversial segments and why the text remains a suitable
choice, despite being potentially controversial:
• emotional rhetoric through seduction
• reference to Paris Hilton’s sex-tape as an example of poor decisions, especially in the
context of medium.
Similar Works:
•
•
The Language of Composition by Renee H. Shea, Lawrence Scanlon, and Robin Dissin
Aufses
Rhetoric by Aristotle