august 21

JOURNAL TOPIC: [today's tunes: "The Logical Song" by Supertramp; "Argument" by Monty Python; "Think" by James Brown]

Why do people argue?  What factors should determine who wins an argument?  Describe a time when you won or lost an argument.  Did the experience change your mind?  If it did, why?  If it didn't, what would have?

AGENDA:
1. Journal
2. Housekeeping: Member Blogs
3. Old Business:

• "The Right to Your Opinion"
• "Richard Cory" (theme and tone)

4. New Business:

• Literature analysis
• Vocabulary
• Mini-Socratic seminar: "The Right to Your Opinion" & "Earth on Turtle's Back" (featuring an introduction to rhetoric & early American literature)

HW:
1. Recover: bring your blog up to date.
2. Reflect: post your notes from this week's class to your blog.
3. Prepare: for Friday's vocabulary test (>15 minutes each day).
4. "Earth on Turtle's Back"

• In a post to your blog entitled ANCIENT STORIES, answer the following questions:
  

• How is the language in this text similar to and/or different from the language you use in everyday conversation?
• Because it began as an oral story, "Earth on Turtle's Back" can be found in multiple text versions.  How important is it for a story to be repeated word for word?  Is meaning embellished, distorted, lost, or enhanced in the retelling?
• [BONUS] Find your own early (pre-writing/1492) American myth and compare it to "Earth on Turtle's Back"-- come to class Thursday prepared to discuss.