Portfolio Revision Goals

Remember that another writing instructor will be reading and grading your portfolio, and so a large part of this final revision exercise is making sure that your ideas translate to someone who doesn’t know you nor have a complete sense of the topic or discussions we have had in class.  In other words, this is an exercise in communicating your ideas to an impartial, objective reader, which means that you need to be careful to sufficiently explain all your important terms and concepts.  Remember also that as your portfolio revision has already been graded and revised at least once, they are going to be evaluated as per the Writing Program’s most rigorous grading standards.  (See the rubric in your course book, p. 129.)  

Towards preparing your final portfolio revision essay:

Start with the INTRODUCTION.
Does it set up the important concepts of the essay?
Establish a clear and manageable context for your discussion (not too broad or narrow)?
Effectively present your thesis statement?

Next examine the THESIS STATEMENT itself.
Consider what a thesis needs to do:
Answer the Question.
Present the blueprint or road map for your argument.
Remember that it is often best to answer the question in the language and logic of the prompt.

Then consider your TRANSITIONS.
First between your sentences.  Are there choppy or logically disconnected sentences?
Are the opening sentences of your paragraphs specific enough?  Do they help establish how the paragraph relates to your greater argument?
Transitional words and phrases.  There better be some of these—no essay is going to work as well as it can without proper transitional words and phrases at either the paragraph or sentence levels.

Make sure each PARAGRAPH offers the following things:
Transition from previous paragraph.
One unified topic sentence.
Supportive examples/details and warrants.  Is it clear how the supportive ideas in each paragraph refer back to your thesis and what they are contributing to your argument?

Concerning GRAMMAR AND SYNTAX
Consider your use of pronouns.  Too many pronouns can lead to vague sounding writing.  You may know what “it” is or who “he” or “she” is, but your ready often needs more precise language.  Remember that your argument will always benefit from more specific and more concrete (vs. vague) language choices.
Any overly long sentence, please READ THEM ALOUD.  This is the best way to catch awkward sounding or overly complex sentences.  If you get lost reading your own sentences, think how the reader is going to feel.
Actively work to avoid sentence fragments and run-ons.

Finally, some issues to consider with regards to your CONCLUSION
Does the conclusion simply repeat your thesis statement?  Remember that we want more than simple repetition.  Don’t add any important new ideas, but make sure your conclusions is doing or saying something different about your main claim.

Defense Department becomes a wildlife protector - latimes.com

Defense Department becomes a wildlife protector - latimes.com

Environmental success stories: On Earth Day, visit places saved by conservationists. - Slate Magazine

Environmental success stories: On Earth Day, visit places saved by conservationists. - Slate Magazine

A5 Heuristic Response

1.  At this point, you should have a list of communities we have encountered this semester and notes about how they interact--i.e. what are the occasions of their interaction and what kind of communication they engage in.  As the first part of this question, give me your lists, first of

A) the communities; and then

B) the occasions for and content of their interaction.

For example: "Social and deep ecologists engage each other in academic essays where they argue over who has the better environmental ethics"; or "in general, visitors to the many south western national parks go to interact physically and mentally, even emotionally with a frontier-oriented 'text' of the wilderness."

2.  Now consult the "Principles of Critical Reasoning" posted below and

A) what are the sound/unsound reasoning practices operating in the occasions for communication you describe above?  (Who is using mythical thinking?  Who is avoiding responsibility?  Who relies on the better experts or evidence?  Etc.)

B) now consider how these practice, good and bad, strengthen or weaken the communities that employ them.  Here you might ask what is at stake in the debate?  Who wins and who loses?  What are the real world results of these communities' interaction?  How might we improve the results of unsound practices?  

Be ready to discuss your responses in class on Friday.

Principles of Critical Reasoning for A5

Principles of Sound Critical Reasoning 

In looking for principles of sound critical reasoning related to the social issues you have studied this semester, you might want to consider the list below.  Be aware, however, that this list is not exhaustive.  These principles should not be used to structure an argument but rather to generate ideas.    

Attitude of Approach

Sound critical reasoning

…understands that social issues, by their very nature, don’t have certain answers 

    or solutions

…reflects this uncertainty by being skeptical of one’s own ideas as well as the

    ideas of others

…realizes that engaging uncertainty and practicing intellectual skepticism results

    in a more honest and objective argument 

Formation of Ideas

Sound critical reasoning

…contributes to the ongoing discussion of the issue in an original manner,

    moving beyond the superficial to put forth an entirely new perspective or 

    approach existing perspectives in new ways

…identifies credible and sufficient evidence

…refines rough ideas into conclusions proportionate to this evidence

Articulation of Argument

Sound critical reasoning

…recognizes the distinctions between ideas but also the connections that bridge

    them 

…expresses itself in language that is resonant with the complexity and nuance of

    the ideas

…displays an awareness of the audience receiving the reasoning, thereby

    presenting it in a manner that engages rather than alienates other people 

Some Examples of Unsound Critical Reasoning

In looking for examples of unsound critical reasoning related to the social issues you have studied this semester, you might want to consider the list below.  Be aware, however, that this list is not exhaustive.  These terms should not be used to structure an argument but rather to generate ideas, though the best essays will transcend these terms by bringing something original to the discussion.    

Apathy/Laziness:  unwillingness to invest in the work required for sound reasoning

Avoiding Conflict: sometimes a heated debate or discussion may appear like a tense conflict to be avoided rather than joined (e.g. consider phrases like “I don’t want to rock the boat.”)

Barriers to Entry:  if entering the conversation requires resources/qualifications/access available to only a select few (e.g. poll tax in the Jim Crow south, or running for office requiring independent wealth—Meg Whitman for Governor of California, or Michael Bloomberg for Mayor of New York)

Certainty:  approaching argument from an absolute, close-minded position that cannot take other positions into consideration

Conformity: while conformity may be somewhat reasonable (and necessary) in a social context, it can also hinder one’s ability to think beyond the boundaries of social norms and expectations

Conspiracy:  claims that require no evidence and that reject all evidence to the contrary as “part of the conspiracy” itself (e.g. 9/11 attacks were planned by George Bush, Barack Obama is not a US citizen)

Dependence on “Experts”:  wherein participants give up their agency to authorities (e.g. the Milgram electric-shock experiments in psychology; consider phrases like “I was just following orders.”)

Diffusion of Responsibility: the refusal or inability to take personal responsibility for social issues may stem from the belief that others will take care of problems

Distraction: good reasoning requires sustained attention. What distracts us? (e.g. pop culture, Facebook updates, personal life, consumerism)

Factual Discord:  it is hard for the reasoning to advance if the parties cannot agree on the same set of basic facts (i.e. hard to argue productively about what to do if there is disagreement on what is happening)

Ignoring/Deferring to Tradition:  reasoning that ignores tradition will not resonate with a public, and reasoning that is overly beholden to tradition will be static and discourage new ideas

Logical Fallacies (see pages 9-12 in the Writing 140 Course Book)

Metaphysical/Mythical Thinking:  reasoning that assigns responsibility to factors beyond the “human” (e.g. declaring Hitler evil/satanic and thus absolving us of the task of explaining Nazism as a real social phenomenon)

Naïve Romanticism: reasoning that is naively ideal cannot genuinely engage the complex realities of most social issues

Scape-goating: transferring accountability (and usually guilt) from one group or person to another, thereby obscuring the record of events pertinent to an issue and thus concealing genuine responsibility for outcomes

Self-consciousness: worries about how others perceive us can limit our engagement with social issues (e.g. being labeled a radical, flip-flopper, idealist)

Self-selection & Confirmation Bias:  the practice of only participating in the conversation through filters that you yourself select—and that tend to confirm rather than challenge preconceived ideas (e.g. understanding American social issues only through the lens of Glenn Beck or Keith Olbermann, FOX News or MSNBC)

Static Reasoning:  that which doesn’t adapt to new social attitudes/practices/realities (e.g. fighting the War on Terror with conventional, Cold War-era strategic thinking)

Stubbornness: engaging in critical reasoning requires one to find common ground between contrasting ideas

Ulterior Motive:  if the conversation is entered for reasons other than advancing the best answer to the issues at hand, problems can arise, e.g.:

Popularity/Profit: commercially-driven reasoning that is primarily concerned with ratings and selling advertisements

Sabotage/Corrupt:  if the goal is not to advance the discussion but rather destabilize or discredit it

Pleasure Principle: when the drive for pleasure is the chief motivating force in behavior it may affect reasoning

Undue Adherence to Data:  reasoning only concerned with raw numbers or cold instrumental analysis will be devoid of pathos and ineffective at dealing with real human issues

Industrial hazards force communities to consider relocation

Industrial hazards force communities to consider relocation

Ambitious plan would remake Yosemite National Park - latimes.com

Ambitious plan would remake Yosemite National Park - latimes.com

Historic Joshua Tree sites blighted by city's ills - latimes.com

Historic Joshua Tree sites blighted by city's ills - latimes.com

The Annotated Bibliography

It is the goal of the annotated bibliography first to establish your control over your sources and then to show me (and yourself) how you intend to employ their information. A good annotation provides a succinct summary of the article, and it should give some insight into the articles relevance to your own agenda. This is the first step in establishing the “because” explanation (warrant) upon which the Toulmin supportive approach turns. The more relevant information you pack into the annotation, the more your own argument is going to take form before you start writing. You will also find that beyond helping to sculpt the contours of your own analysis and approach, the annotated bibliography easily becomes your works cited page (bonus!).

Example:

Grant, Barry Keith (1996). Rich and Strange: The Yuppie Horror Film [Electronic Version]. Journal of Film and Video, Vol. 48, No. ½ (Spring-Summer 1996): pp. 4-16. URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20688090

Grant examines a subgenre of the contemporary horror film, the “Yuppie Horror film,” focusing on the way that this subgenre employs the same elements of traditional horror films but shifted to exploit the 1980’s-early-1990’s social and cultural preoccupation with material success. Using a wide variety of films as his support, Grant demonstrates the way that Yuppie horror replaces monsters and the supernatural with financial horrors such as losing one’s livelihood, social standing and/or material possessions. This essay will provide material for my analysis of the salient economic anxieties and cultural tropes that motivate the affluent villains in Bret Easton Ellis’ short stories, the Devil Wears Prada (1989) and Let Them Eat Stake (1990).

Introductions: Notes and Goals

 

In the kind of essays we are writing in this course, your introductions must offer the following:

THESIS: a succinct statement of the central claim that the rest of the essay will explain/expand upon.

CONTEXT: a brief statement of the information that your reader needs to understand in order for your thesis to make sense.  The context should include the following:

A preliminary statement or implication of the STAKES inherent in your argument/issue.  In other words, WHY should the reader care about this topic?  What will it cost her not to understand your argument?  

An indication of the state of play of the conversation about the topic of your thesis, i.e. the conventional wisdom, the conventional ignorance, or the most salient elements of the ongoing dispute.

If at all possible, your introduction should also include a HOOK, an opening sentence or two that startles or charms your reader into reading further.

You may also want to include a ROAD MAP in or near your introduction.  This series of claims will lay out HOW you will be proving your argument.  This often includes a terse statement of your primary supportive claims and especially the LOGIC of their organization.

EXAMPLE:

Stephanie Solis did not know that she was an illegal immigrant until she was eighteen.  Until then, her parents had been able to hide the fact that they had broken the law when they brought their infant daughter to the United States.  Solis’ discovery of her illegal status may be unusual, but her predicament is not.  This year alone about 70,000 undocumented students will graduate from American high schools.  Immigration excites powerful emotions on both sides of the debate; livelihoods, ways of life, and lives all seem to be at stake.  However, the very importance of the topic tends to lead people to get emotionally attached to their positions and to avoid confronting the complexities of the issue.  For example, the immigration debate in this country tends to focus on adult immigrants; it often fails to account for the millions of children brought into the country by their parents.  It is true that these children’s very presence in this country is a crime.  However, many, if not most of the children illegally in the United States came here when they were too young to have deliberately done anything wrong.  Many people oppose “rewarding” adult immigrants by giving their children citizenship.  But like it or not, those  millions of children are already here and something must be done to allow them to become fully productive residents.  Therefore, for both moral and practical reasons, Congress must pass a law creating a pathway to citizenship for all people brought to the United States before they turned eighteen.

(h/t J. Enfield)

Tom Zeller Jr.: Clean Power Collateral Damage: Of Birds, Tortoises And The Transition From Fossil Fuels

Tom Zeller Jr.: Clean Power Collateral Damage: Of Birds, Tortoises And The Transition From Fossil Fuels

Population growth is threat to other species, poll respondents say - latimes.com

Population growth is threat to other species, poll respondents say - latimes.com

Should We Cease to Build in Harm's Way - To the Point on KCRW

Should We Cease to Build in Harm's Way - To the Point on KCRW

A2 Reading Response/Heuristic

Please follow the instructions and provide your responses as a comment to this blog post.

After our in-class discussions and the application of "The Pentad," the next step in answering this prompt is to find a main claim from the Bookchin and/or Bradford that will become the central criteria by which you evaluate in what ways Davis and/or Didion's portrayal of life in Malibu reflects the Deep Ecology vs. Social Ecology debate.  So:

Pick three (3) central claims from the Bookchin and/or Bradford and explain how they relate to the depiction of the Malibu fires in the Davis and/or Didion.

Examples:

Bookchin's criticism of our hierarchical social organization finds clear support in the way that Davis explains the class distinctions he believes have given rise to the unequal allocation of  emergency resources in Los Angeles.

Or

Didion's emotional connection to the beauty and tranquility of Malibu represents a vital connection between identity and place that Bookchin's critique disregards too quickly and with too little attention to the inescapable ways in which people create a sense of dwelling.  Home is, after all, as much an emotional state as it is a social construct. 

As always, there are no right answers at this stage of the game.  We are just trying to start putting some ideas in relation to each other.  So don't let self-consiousness edit your responses.  Just make some claims that we can talk about and which might ultimately find their way into your essay either as a thesis claim or a supportive assertion.

Have a good weekend.

The Gradual Selling of America the Beautiful - NYTimes.com

The Gradual Selling of America the Beautiful - NYTimes.com

The very nature of the city - latimes.com

The very nature of the city - latimes.com

Canned air for sale to combat smog in China - latimes.com

Canned air for sale to combat smog in China - latimes.com

Conference Schedule

A1 Sample Thesis Statements

 1. Through my childhood experiences I have gained a very affectionate view of the natural world, as well as an intense desire to protect it. Reading the works of Aldo Leopold and Thomas Berry, I was very surprised to find that their views were extremely similar to my own. In particular, Berry’s nostalgic love of the nature, and Leopold’s humbling views of mankind’s role in the universe are attitudes I have myself gained through my own experiences in the natural world.

2.  While Leopold believe that there exists a “land ethic” for environmental awareness and preservation to protect future human survival, Berry sees that there is more to nature than its resources; there is a connection between nature and spirituality-“the meadow across the creek.”  After my retreat experience at Holy Family Ranch, I realized that religion comes not only from teachings and rituals, but also from the interaction with the tranquility of nature itself.  Since religion is spiritually dependent on nature, it is a religious and social responsibility to shelter the environment from harm.

3. I am a child of the urban environment. Gritty cities have been my meadows; the unending brilliance of artificial lights has lit up my nights and made me feel less alone. I have known the beauty of mountains and oceans, but the human landscape has always been my refuge. As such, architecture has defined the way I view mankind’s relationship with the natural world. It is our way of shaping it, of conquering it, so why not better that relationship by striving to make it one of equals, of mutual give-and-take? Creating a land ethic and extending the worth of the environment beyond that of mere property would allow progress to continue responsibly. However, as Aldo Leopold puts it, society takes action only when that action has economic value. Environmental consciousness is costly, and, sadly, this very cost is our greatest obstacle towards achieving sustainability.

My 1,700-mile hike across the XL Pipeline

My 1,700-mile hike across the XL Pipeline

A1 Heuristic Task and Reading Response Question

Hey folks.  Happy holiday weekend.  Two things:

1) Remember that for Wednesday, 1/23 you need to put together a heuristic list compiled from concepts and/or terms from your own diagnostic plus those of at least two of the three assigned A1 readings.  Remember also the goals of this combined list:

--Make it messy;

--Make it longer than you think it needs to be;

--Then highlight 5 contrasting ideas, 5 consonant ideas, and identify 5 subordinate relationships among the terms/concepts on your combined list.  In other words, find these 15 kinds of intersections between your ideas and the concepts in the readings.

2) Then, in a short comment to this post (one paragraph or so) respond to the following questions: 

How do Neass' ideas relate to Leopold's?  Where are they similar?  How do they differ?  What is the biggest idea from the readings that you hope to incorporate into your own A1 response?  

***This response is due by noon on Monday, 1/21.  Make sure your full name is at the bottom of any blog posts or comments.  Thanks.