Oct 2nd Assignment

Class,

We reviewed four different types of sentences yesterday, which I know can seem overwhelming, but you managed to discern most of them by the end of class. That's pretty good work! Good writing requires the same kinds of skills as good music. This is why they both use the term composition. If we only have a drum beating out a single rhythm, the writing gets boring. Vary your sentence length. Engage your readers. Take them on a wild ride filled with imagery, metaphors, and thoughtful prose.

We also discussed arguments. Now, arguing is a skill. Sometimes you may not feel like you have a strong opinion one way or the other, but your opinion really isn't at play in a composition class. The effectiveness of your defense in writing is. Write with conviction. Take a stand and defend it. Maybe you like chocolate and vanilla, but that's not what we are worried about in argumentative writing. Aristotle described a good rhetorician as somebody skilled in arguing both sides of a position. What we need to learn to do is to convince our opponent to choose one side, and we want it to be ours. Nobody is going to lose sleep over our position. Instead, we want to learn how to use Reasons, Examples, Names, Numbers, Sensory Words, Questions, and Quotations (RENNSQQ) to back up our position. Someday, taking a stand on a topic may be necessary. You may need to consider merging a business, buying one house over the other, or any other decision. The topics in class are generally playful, but we will add in more complex issues. For those of you considering college courses, the SAT and the TSI require a cold argumentative essay, which means you do not know the topic, and you must argue ONE side. My goal is to prepare you for this.

For class next week, you need to bring in your rough draft of your advertisement essay. We will work on these in class with our peers through a peer editing workshop. Next, read the first five chapters of The Giver and prepare for your literary circle. We will begin introducing Rhetoric next week.