QUOTE JOURNALS

PROCEDURE FOR QUOTE JOURNALS

• Suppose I give you the following quote:• Television was not intended to make human beings vacuous,

but it is an emanation of their vacuity.  -- Malcolm Muggeridge

• These are the steps I’d like you to follow:1. Copy the quote and label it with today’s date and speaker’s name, if

available.2. Paraphrase the quote.3. Agree with, disagree with, or qualify the quote. 4. Cite an example to support your opinion.5. Include a concession and an anticipation of a counterargument with

a refutation.6. Expand steps 2-5 into a fully formed paragraph. You can respond

however you like, as long as you are arguing with agreement, a qualified argument, or disagreement.

SENTENCE STEMS FOR QUOTE JOURNALS

• Muggeridge claims that TV is an outlet for human vacuity—emptiness, foolishness, triviality, dull-wittedness, and stupidity.  In reality, TV is _______claim___________ because _______reasons_______________.

• Although everyone must admit that TV is _____concession_______, TV is ___claim___.

 • Some may say that TV is _______anticipated

counterargument__________, but _____________refutation______________.

QUOTE JOURNAL I

“Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants.”

-- John W. Gardner

QUOTE JOURNAL II

“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”

-- Oscar Wilde

QUOTE JOURNAL #3

“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”

-- Henry David Thoreau

QUOTE JOURNAL #4

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”

-- Mark Twain

QUOTE JOURNAL #5

“All of us take pride and pleasure in the fact that we are unique, but I’m afraid that when all is said and done the police are right: it all comes down to fingerprints.”

-- David Sedaris

QUOTE JOURNAL #6

“A dreamer is one who can find his way only by moonlight and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”

-- Oscar Wilde

QUOTE JOURNAL SUMMATIVE ARGUMENT

OBJECTIVE:

• Choose one of the quotes that you have written about to defend, challenge, or qualify.

• You will compose a full-length AP style Argument Essay (this one is different from the Synthesis Essay)

QUOTE JOURNAL SUMMATIVE ARGUMENT

• Use at least three well-developed pieces of evidence to support your thesis.  (Yes, this is a bit formulaic.  We'll take off the training wheels later.) Avoid merely listing reasons or examples. Weigh and consider them. Explain them. Reflect on their significance.

• Be sure to elucidate the quote early in your essay. This is why the paraphrasing process is very important.

• Make sure you have a clear thesis that defends, challenges, or qualifies the claim made in the quote. Do not say “I defend, I challenge, or I qualify…”

• Use the Aristotelian (Classical) Argument!

• This will be graded using the AP 9-point rubric:  How cogent is the overall argument?  How convincing are your examples? (Always consider your audience when selecting evidence.)

• Your paper will be submitted via Google Docs and printed out for peer grading.

• DUE: Tuesday, October 6th, 2015 for peer grading on Wednesday, October 7th.

QUOTE JOURNAL TIMELINE

• Today: Prompt and Response Creation

• Tomorrow: Introduction and Conclusion Workshop

• Weekend: Compose 1st Draft

• Monday: Revision and Editing (*I check 1st Draft*)

• Tuesday: Annotation and Final Draft (50%)

• Wednesday: Peer Review (50%)

PROMPT STYLE I

• 2000: The lines above are from a speech by King Lear. Write a carefully reasoned essay in which you briefly paraphrase Lear’s statement and then defend, challenge, or qualify his view on the relationship between wealth and justice. Support your argument with specific references to your reading, observation, or experience.

• 2002: Carefully read the following passage from Testaments Betrayed, by the Czech writer Milan Kundera. Then write an essay in which you support, qualify, or dispute Kundera’s claim. Support your argument with appropriate evidence.

PROMPT STYLE II

• 2004: Contemporary life is marked by controversy. Choose a controversial local, national, or global issue with which you are familiar. Then, using appropriate evidence, write an essay that carefully considers the opposing positions on this controversy and proposes a solution or compromise.

• 2006: Write an essay in which you take a position on the value of …public statements of opinion (“talk radio,” “television shows,” “popular magazines,” “Web blogs,” “ordinary citizens,” “political figures,” “entertainers”) supporting your view with appropriate evidence.

• 2008: Some people argue that corporate partnerships are a necessity for cash-strapped schools. Others argue that schools should provide an environment free from ads and corporate influence. Using appropriate evidence, write an essay in which you evaluate the pros and cons of corporate sponsorship for schools and indicate why you find one position more persuasive than the other.

CREATE YOUR OWN

• The fact that the wording of the persuasive prompt has varied over the years argues that students must not develop pre-conceived ideas about what the prompt will look like but be prepared to deal with the prompt as it appears on the page in May.

• Step 1: on your notecard:• Put your name at the top and the Quote Journal #• Write an AP style prompt based on your chosen Quote

Journal

APPROPRIATE EVIDENCE

• Look at how the requirements for evidence have been worded in these 9 years of the exam:

• 2000: Support your argument with specific references to your reading, observation, or experience.

• 2001: Use appropriate evidence to develop your argument.

• 2002: Support your argument with appropriate evidence.

• 2003: Use specific evidence.

• 2004: Use appropriate evidence.

• 2005: Support your argument with appropriate evidence.

• 2006: Support your view with appropriate evidence.

• 2007: Support your position with evidence from your reading, observation, and/or experience.

• 2008: Using appropriate evidence, write an essay….

APPROPRIATE EVIDENCE

• What does it mean to offer evidence from your observations, experience, or reading?

• Observation Knowledge (not narrative) • Use your knowledge of any specialized subject, such as

• history • current events • science • technology • music • sports • human behavior

• You can either use this knowledge in a way that directly applies to the subject (if that’s appropriate to the subject), or you can create an analogy between this specialized knowledge and your persuasive prompt.

APPROPRIATE EVIDENCE

• The Chief Reader had this to say about using students’ own experiences as evidence:

• “Through extensive reading, discussion, and writing, students will come to recognize a world larger than their own immediate experience. Rather than considering the broader implications of Horace’s quotation, many students focused on proximal causes because those were conveniently near. Teachers need to help students understand the usefulness of a global view, to increase their awareness of the world beyond their own. Students need to recognize that examples drawn from a wider world may be stronger [than their own personal experiences]….When relating their personal experiences, students need to be mindful of the public nature of most argumentation. In such a context, the primary purpose of a personal narrative is rhetorical, not confessional.”

QUALIFICATION

• Often the strongest persuasive essays are those in which the writer qualifies an assertion rather than strictly defending or challenging it.

• When you qualify, you force yourself to look at an issue from more angles than one and to view it from the vantage point of both sides.

• Qualifying an assertion shows you to be a person who considers points of view other than your own and a person who respects others’ opinions, all traits which develop your character and credibility as a writer, or your ethos.

• Students should be aware that rarely is any issue in the public forum cut and dried, right or wrong, black or white. To produce more sophisticated and finessed essays, students should learn how to qualify an assertion.

QUALIFICATION

• Assertion: Laws which protect citizens from themselves are justified.

• Defense: • Our forefathers determined that it is the business of the

government to provide all that shall affect our “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Democracy works because the people have entrusted that power to their elected officials. It is government’s right, yes, and its duty to enact laws that best protect and preserve the lives of Americans. Therefore, the government, through our elected officials, has the right to protect citizens and to make judgments regarding how best to protect citizens from themselves. Because society will have to pay (through health and mental care) for a person who harms himself, society has the right to limit a person’s rights when he tries to harm himself.

QUALIFICATION

• Assertion: Laws which protect citizens from themselves are justified.

• Challenge: • All human beings are distinct entities, possessing a spirit,

soul, and body. The right to make private decisions affecting one’s life is a precious one. Any government, even in its best intentions, never has the right to impose its will on its citizens, even when it proposes to protect them from themselves. According to the values of our country, people should have the “liberty” to choose “life” or “happiness” on their own terms.

QUALIFICATION

• Assertion: Laws which protect citizens from themselves are justified.

• Defend or challenge with a concession: • Our forefathers determined that it is the business of the government to provide all

that shall affect our “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Democracy works because the people have entrusted that power to their elected officials. It is government’s right, yes, and its duty to enact laws that best protect and preserve the lives of Americans. Therefore, the government, through our elected officials, has the right to protect citizens and to make judgments regarding how best to

protect citizens from themselves. Civil libertarians might argue that the right to make private decisions affecting one’s life is a precious one, one that government has no right to intrude upon. They would say that any government, even in its best intentions, never has the right to impose its will on its citizens, even when it purposes to protect them from themselves. Yet society will have to pay (through health and mental care) for a person who harms himself. Therefore, society has the ultimate right and duty to limit a person’s rights when he tries to harm himself.

QUALIFICATION

• Assertion: Laws which protect citizens from themselves are justified.

• Qualify• The Declaration of Independence states that all Americans have

the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Therefore, it can be argued that our right to “life” sometimes hinges on the government protecting us from ourselves. Thus we have laws such as those prohibiting the sale of alcohol to minors and requiring us to wear seat belts in automobiles. Sometimes city, state, or national governments go too far, however, in determining just how Americans should be protected. Some cities have banned trans fats in restaurants, for instance. When a law crosses over the line from protecting Americans’ lives and begins to interfere with their liberties, then that law has gone too far. Laws which protect citizens from themselves are justified as long as those laws do not infringe upon individual liberty.

COMMON ERRORS

1. Not understanding the task or the directions

2. Merely paraphrasing the passage

3. Not taking a definite stand

4. Using inappropriate or weak evidence to support your position

5. Writing a stylistic analysis of the passage instead of a persuasive essay

CREATE YOUR OWN CLAIM

• On your notecard:• Write a defense or challenge (with or without a

concession), or a qualified argument that responds to your prompt. Note: I’m just looking for the claim of purpose for your argument here, not an explanation.

ARISTOTELIAN ARGUMENT

• The Aristotelian argument is the framework upon which most academic, thesis-driven writing is based.

• You can use this template any time you need to take a position on a topic.*

• Before getting started, make sure that your thesis is argumentative and non-obvious.

• When determining how to support your thesis, try to group all of your supporting evidence into distinct piles which have thematic similarities.

• Finally, develop each claim in its own section of text, making sure that each point is proportionate to the others.

ARISTOTELIAN STRUCTURE I: INTRODUCTION AND NARRATION

• In writing, the first two parts of the classical argument, the introduction and narration, are often run together. In speaking, the introduction often served as an “icebreaker” for the audience.

• Since the writer needs to focus on grabbing and focusing attention rather than making the audience feel comfortable before beginning the argument, a written classical argument usually condenses these two elements into one.

• Some of the most common devices writers use in a classical introduction are a focusing event or quotation, a question, a statement of a problem or controversy, a representative analogy or case, an attack on an opposing point of view (especially if it’s a more popular one than yours), or a confession or personal introduction.

ARISTOTELIAN STRUCTURE II: CONFIRMATION

• The confirmation, where you present the claims and evidence that back up or substantiate the thesis of your argument.

• These claims and evidence are often connected together in a chain of reasoning that link the reasoning, facts and examples, and testimony (i.e. inartistic proofs) that support the main claim you are making.

• You need three body paragraphs with at least 3 specific examples.

ARISTOTELIAN STRUCTURE III:

• The concession and refutation sections, which go together, exist because arguments always have more than one side.

• It is always dangerous to ignore them. Moreover, reasonable audiences often have more than one response to an argument.

• So considering the opposing viewpoints enables a good arguer to anticipate and respond to the objections that her or his position might raise, and defuse opposition before it gets started.

ARISTOTELIAN STRUCTURE I: INTRODUCTION AND NARRATION

• The conclusion, where the writer ties things together, creates a sense of finality or closure, answers the questions or solves the problem stated in the introduction—in other words, “closes the circle” and gives the readers a feeling of completion and balance.

• Sometimes writers like to add a “final blast”—a big emotional or ethical appeal—that helps sway the audience’s opinion.

7 QUESTIONS TO ASK WHEN WRITING AN INTRODUCTION…

1. What is the situation that this argument responds to?

2. What elements of background or context need to be presented for this audience? Is this new information or am I just reminding them of matters they already have some familiarity with?

3. What are the principal issues involved in this argument?

4. Where do I stand on this issue?

5. What is the best way to capture and focus the audience’s attention?

6. What tone should I establish?

7. What image of myself should I project?

4 QUESTIONS TO ASK WHEN WRITING A CONCLUSION…

1. How can I best leave a strong impression of the rightness and importance of my view?

2. How can I best summarize or exemplify the most important elements of my argument?

3. What is the larger significance of the argument? What long-range implications will have the most resonance with my readers?

4. How can I bring the argument “full circle” and leave my readers satisfied with the ending of my argument?

ANNOTATION REQUIREMENTS (25%)

• Introduction Questions (in comments)

• Thesis Statement, Topic Sentences (green)• Evidentiary Statements (gold)• Concession (red)• Refutation (blue)

• Conclusion Questions (in comments)

• Note: although you are not directly identifying appeals, you should use them for a strong argument

• EXAMPLE

BEGIN TO WRITE…

1. Have your quote journals out and ready to show me (Due Today! [Quiz x1])

2. Work on the Aristotelian Outline (Due Monday completely filled out [Quiz x2])

3. Then…begin to draft your Argument (Due Monday as a COMPLETE draft [Quiz x3])