Debates

1. Review the Debate Process & Procedure 
2. Find a partner a team to debate with.
3. Sign up for a topic to debate

Each person or team will submit notes for:

·        Their introduction

·        Contention / claim 1

·        Contention / Claim 2

·        Anticipated reubuttal

·        Conclusion

·        Bulleted notes are recommended. One document can be submitted for the entire team.

Sources – mention where you are getting this information in the debate (i.e. According to the U.S. Cenus Bureau….)

Article #2 & 3 from Columnist Project should now be turned in

Articles should include :

• annotation (what is author saying, your questions & responses, & how techniques & devices you see) 
• 4 sentence precis (sentences should be typed and separated out
• response with concrete examples 

• bio - what has your writer done? accomplishments? awards? publications or other ventures? 100 - 200 words with picture (helpful) & mla format - only with the second article 

Ted Talk Friday

Preview transcript or video for Friday

Kelly McGonigal: How to make stress your friend

Bring in notes
Find her claim (s)
Grounds - evidenced she researched to prove her claim
Warrant - what is her belief about stress
Backing - where did this belief stem from? (This is exigence if we were talking rhetorical analysis)

To what extent do you agree or disagree with her claim (s)?
Do you want to support her evidence with a parallel example?
Do you want to challenge her evidence with a personal observation / experience?
Bring in specific examples to support your point

Toulmin Ad analysis due Thursday

Bring an advertisement for a product (it can be from on-line, a magazine, or newspaper)
Ad analysis
Claim + Reason
Grounds (evidence) given
Warrants (beliefs that the claim rests on)
Backing (where do these beliefs come from?)
Qualifiers (one word that shows the strength or limitation of the claim "probably", "every")
Rebuttals (exceptions, limitations the other side would recognize)

Columnist Project Due Dates

Article 1: Tuesday February 18
Article 2: Monday February 24 + biography of your author
Article 3: Monday March 3
Article 4: Monday March 10
Article 5: Monday: March 17th
Creative response: Monday, March 24th

Each week, you will turn in:

• annotated column 
• precis
• 1 paragraph response 

Columnists

Prominent Newspaper Columnists

Anne Applebaum (Washington Post)

Mark Bowden (Philadelphia Inquirer)

David Brooks (NY Times)c

David Broder (Washington Post)- L

Mona Charen (syndicated) C

Richard Cohen (Washington Post)- l / I

Gail Collins (NY Times)

Megan Daum (LA Times)

E.J. Dionne (Washington Post) L

Ross Douthat (NY Times)

Maureen Dowd (NY Times) - L

Thomas Friedman (NY Times)l

Georgie Anne Geyer (UPS – uexpress.com)

Jonah Goldberg (LA Times)c

Ellen Goodman (Boston Globe)L

Fred Grimm (Miami Herald)

Jane Healy (Orlando Sentinel)

Bob Herbert (NY Times)- L

Carl Hiassen (Miami Herald)

Christopher Hitchens (The Atlantic)

Arianna Huffington (huffingtonpost.com) L

David Ignatius (Washington Post)

Molly Ivins (Texas Monthly, )- L

Fred Kaplan (Slate.com)

Charles Krauthammer (Washington Post)c

Nicholas Kristof (NY Times)- L

Paul Krugman (NY Times)- L

Lawrence Lessig (Wired)

Dahlia Lithwick (Slate.com)

Doyle McManus (LA Times)

Peggy Noonan (Wall Street Journal) C

Andres Oppenheimer (Miami Herald)
Kathleen Parker (Washington Post)

Leonard Pitts (Miami Herald)

Jeanine DiGiovanni (Newsweek)

William Raspberry (Washington Post)

Rick Reilly (Sports Illustrated/ESPN mag.)

Frank Rich (NY Times)- L

Eugene Robinson (Washington Post)

Gregory Rodriguez (LA Times)

Debra Saunders (San Francisco Chronicle)

Jackie Bueno Sousa (Miami Herald)

Thomas Sowell(Hoover Institute scholar) – C

Andrew Sullivan (The Atlantic)

Lynn Sweet (Chicago Sun-Times)

Liz Taylor (Seattle Times)

Phil Taylor (Sports Illustrated)

Cal Thomas (Washington Times)

Mike Thomas (Orlando Sentinel)

John Tierney (New York Time)c

George Will (Washington Post)C

George Will (Washington Post)

AND MORE —

The New York Times    http://www.nytimes.com  Click on Editorials/Op-Ed.  (You get 10 freebies monthly)

The Washington Post   http://www.washingtonpost.com  Click on Opinions to see a list of regular contributors.

The Boston Globe  http://www.boston.com/globe  Click on Editorials/Op-Ed.

The Nation  http://www.thenation.com/  (note this is a left-wing publication)

Townhall.com – (note: right wing publication)

Chicago Sun-Times  http://www.suntimes.com/index/  Click on Commentary and use list of columnists.

Chicago Tribune  http://www.chicagotribune.com/   Click on Columnists.

Miami Herald   http://www.miami.com/herald/  Click on Opnion; Columnists are on the right; Click on

The San Francisco Chronicle  http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/  Click on Columnists.

The Washington Times  http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/  Click on Opinion/Editorial and scroll down to Regular columnists.

Columnists By Topic

News & Politics Anne Applebaum (Washington Post) Steve Chapman (Chicago Tribune) Richard Cohen (Washington Post) Gail Collins (NY Times) Joe Conason (Salon.com) E.J. Dionne Jr. (Washington Post) Maureen Dowd (NY Times) Thomas Friedman (NY Times) Michael Gerson (Washington Post) Nat Hentoff (Jewish World Review) Jim Hoagland (Washington Post) David Ignatius (Washington Post) Derrick Z. Jackson (Boston Globe) Al Kamen (Washington Post) Mickey Kaus (The Daily Caller) Bill Keller (NY Times) Michael Kinsley (The New Republic) Joe Klein (TIME) Morton M. Kondracke (Roll Call) Nicholas Kristof (NY Times) Harold Meyerson (Washington Post) Mary Mitchell (Chicago Sun-Times) Peggy Noonan (Wall Street Journal) Clarence Page (Chicago Tribune) Kathleen Parker (Chicago Tribune) Ronald Brownstein (National Journal) Robert J. Samuelson (Washington Post) Mark Shields (Creators.com) Thomas Sowell (Jewish World Review) Andrew Sullivan (The Dish) Lynn Sweet (Chicago Sun-Times) George F. Will (Washington Post)

Business Bloomberg Columnists Chicago Tribune Business Columns Rance Crain (Advertising Age) Pual Krugman (NY Times) Gail MarksJarvis (Chicago Tribune) Steven Syre (Boston Globe) Schumpeter (The Economist)

Computers/Technology Mike Cassidy (San Jose Mercury News) John C. Dvorak (PC Magazine) Andrew Leonard (Salon.com) Walter S. Mossberg (All Things D)

Sports

• Mitch Albom (Detroit Free Press)
• Bill Plaschke (LA Times)
• Sports Illustrated Writers
• Patrick Reusse (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)
• Rick Telander (Chicago Sun-Times)
• ESPN Page 2 Columnists
• Washington Post Sports Blogs & Columns

Humor Columnists

Dave Barry
Hey may well be the funniest man in America, and you can sift through his columns to find incisive political commentary. And no, he is not making this stuff up.

Art Buchwald
Read the latest musings from the king of American political satire in the Washington Post.

Maureen Dowd
Pulitzer Prize winner Maureen Dowd’s insightful and wickedly funny column appears twice a week in The New York Times, on Sundays and Wednesdays. The Times' web site features links to all of her columns from the last month.

Jim Hightower
The latest commentary from "America's #1 Populist." Hightower calls himself "a leading national voice for the 80 percent of us who no longer find ourselves even within shouting distance of those at the top."

Arianna Huffington
The complete syndicated columns of Arianna Huffington, who, with wit and irreverence, has taken to railing against the corruption of the political system and advocating reform.

P.J. O'Rourke 

Carl Hiassen 

Extra Credit

1. Go to the Poets meet Poets Spoken Word Poetry Contest this Saturday.
Join - observe, reflect
Evidence: take a selfie with one of the poets and write a brief reflection of your thoughts on the experience.

2. Go to politicalcompass.org  test
Answer the questions to the best of your ability. Print out your results or take a selfie with you and your test.
Write a brief reflection. Discuss the results. Where do you stand on both ends of the spectrum? Were you surprised or this correlates with what you thought? Explain why.

Have a good weekend.

Homework: Liberal vs. conservative & Hawkins response

In preparation for some reading of future liberal or conservative thinkers.... we will have a 
1. Mock Debate on Monday - Homework Directions 
Friday-  sign up for a side to take (Liberal, Conservative, the undecided waiting to be "converted")
This weekend: 
a. All - Take notes on what the beliefs are on both sides of the liberal view & the conservative view
choose 6 topics
- wealth
- taxes
- economy
- role of government
- war
- immigration
- environment
- prayer in schools
- death penalty
- education
- gun control
- health care
- security
- you may choose others not on this list
Resources: (These are only a couple and remember created by one person / organization so they may be oversimplified or present a narrowed view of the perspective)
Liberal Vs. Conservative 
Conservative Vs. Liberal 
history liberals vs. conservative

b. Liberals & Conservatives: after your notes are done, develop arguments on 2 issues you want to use to persuade people to join your group. This means support the belief with an example, statistics, logical reasoning. (you need to participate for credit) (Turn in bulleted notes, bulleted or written arguments)

Example Liberal Argument: We should have more government. Look at the healthcare system, largely being run by our government and giving people more access to healthcare. According to the White House . As of January 1, more than 2 million people had selected a plan in the health insurance marketplace, and nearly 80 percent of those people will – thanks to the ACA – benefit from tax credits to help pay their premiums. This has huge implications for our suffering economy.
 A second example: I want to propose we have the post office offer banking services. This would help the suffering economy as well and help people to manage their money and mail all in one place! If we have a government regulated banking system, this might help to prevent some of the bad decisions that lead to the tanking of our economy involving banks giving out bad loans.(see here for the real story on post office) (Current events backed example. 

Example Conservative Debate: My opponent wants to argue more government is better, but my friends, where is the respect for individualism, working hard at our capitalist ventures to stimulate the economy based on our hard work as opposed to a government that controls and gives handouts. 

Recently, the government is proposing having the postal service run money services to bring in more money and better serve the people. This is like having the Navy start running a fighter pilot school. Banks are privately owned and operated. Having a government run system is infringing on public's rights to free enterprise. Why would we have a failing institution take over something they are not event trained at doing? The government is not looking at the rights and interests of the people, only what is going to make a better bang for their buck. The current administration is forgetting that the United States already tried this idea back in 1910 and it failed within 5 years costing the country more money and panic. More government is not the answer. (Historical backed example) 

The people waiting to be converted: On Monday, you will hear the arguments of the liberals and conservatives and write a thoughtful paragraph due Tuesday that includes:
- a discussion of whose arguments were most effective
- what position would you take? Why?
support with examples from the argument or your own observations
(Turn in bulleted notes & written reflection)

Monday: Liberals and Conservatives will present their arguments on each issue trying to sway the audience to join their side.

2. Hawkins Response: Write a 1-2 paragraph response to the John Hawkins. (Turn in annotation & written / typed response w/ MLA format only if you researched anything ) see prompt and response below (OK DUE TUESDAY!!!!!!!!!)

Evaluate: To what extent do you agree or disagree with the author? Include 1-2 points of the author’s that you support with your own example, and observations from current events, or reading from history, etc.

Hawkins is successful in drawing attention to the dire consequences of some of our political actions, but fails to get the buy in from more groups who may oppose his ideas with his excessive generalizations and ad hominem attacking style that rely too much on critiquing the current government and not enough on supporting through specific examples and proposing useful solutions.  In Hawkin’s second point, he does bring up an important point regarding the loss of morality among our politicians, despite his biased presentation that focuses on only Democrats. Hawkins fails to recognize that though there may be more indiscretions being reported in office, the public is not sitting by “perpetually disappointed,” but often calling for action and Democrats are not the only offenders. Recently, people have publicly condemned New Jersey Governor, Chris Christie, with “booing” at the recent Superbowl game and called for his resignation in light of a recently emerging scandal that involves Christie’s knowledge of a pre-planned traffic jam. Lack of morality among the famous and government officials is not a new concept with the incoming Democratic government – it is however being more widely reported and America is demanding higher morals because of it. With the public’s scrutiny, one might argue Americans are becoming stricter in what they will and will not accept.

Hawkins does make a valid point when he states “We have an unsustainable level of debt that we are not addressing”. The columnist exaggerates the real situation and ignores facts that ABC news recently reported that the Treasury is planning to pay back 35 billion dollars contributing to lowering the debt ceiling. However, his point should not be ignored. The lack of attention over the debt has caused America’s credit rating to be lowered, affect our political image, and business relationships with other countries. Additionally, in comparison to populous countries, we rank second in our debt rating being only behind Japan. (Mercatus) This is not an insignificant fact to ignore. The debt has lacked a clear plan of action for multiple years.

"Mercatus Center." How Does the US Debt Position Compare with Other Countries?N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Feb. 2014.

3. Remember to have a book by Tuesday 

For Wednesday

Read / Watch & be prepared to discuss:

1. 5 fallacies Too many Americans embrace - John Hawkins

I will give you a handout Tuesday. If you are absent, annotate for fallacies, gaps in thinking, rhetorical devices, appeals, etc.

We'll save Ted Talk for later.

Choose a new book and read by March 7

Choose a new book:

Era 5:  WWII & Later 20th Century 

- if you want to choose from off the list - get it approved by me first.

Anaya, Rudolfo - Bless Me Ultima - coming of age story, Chicano culture, New mexico, narrated by individual growing up under the mentor Ultima, various experiences from fishing - to death, cultural references to religion

Dillard, Annie – An American Childhood - memoir growing up 1950’s America

Capote, Truman - In Cold Blood - solving the horrible, gruesome murder of a family in 1960’s small town America - story seen through the eyes of a killer

Ellison, Ralph –, Invisible Man - man narrates a story, claims to be invisible, has problems due to this, his invisibility is metaphorical, he see himself this way because of how others view him, a deep, complex story about being black in early 20th century, black nationalism, & identity

Gaines, Ernest, J - A Lesson Before Dying - 1940’s Louisiana, growing up in racially segregated South, an innocent man charged with murder, another man tries to help

Haley, Alex – Autobiography of Malcolm X - the story of Black Nationalism, identity, community

Heller, Joseph – Catch 22 - satirical novel set in WW II, experiences of an air force squadron, brutal nature of war  

Hosseini, Khaled – A Thousand Splendid Suns (or other books) - cultural conflict & identity, 2 women from different generations meet out of unexpected fate, brought together, thoughts about war

Kesey, Ken – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest - a character by the Name of McMurphy challenges the philosophy and culture of a mental hospital he is placed in

Knowles, John – A Separate Peace - Friendship at a private prep school, extreme rivalry ends in tragedy, how two friends deal with personal losses and war

Lee, Harper – To Kill A Mockingbird - White man defending a Black man in the racially segregated South, 1930’s Alabama, seen from the perspective of his children

O’Brien – The Things They Carried - experience of a platoon during the Vietnam war

Plath, Sylvia – The Bell Jar - semi autobiographical, experiences of a woman struggling to be a writer, struggles with depression and a nervous break down and suicidal thoughts

Salinger, J.D. – The Catcher in the Rye - 16 year old Holden Caulfield has dropped out of several schools, self admits himself to a mental hospital in 1950’s

Wright, Richard – Native Son - story of an uneducated Black man in a downward spiral after a tragic series of events in 1930’s Chicago

Villasenor, Victor - Rain of Gold, Burro Genius - beautiful autobiographical stories of pride for his Mexican American culture, the power of love, growing up in the face of discrimination and experiences with dyslexia, loss, and triumph