UNIT 1: THOMPSON'S "PUBLIC THINKING"

• Excerpts from Clive Thompson's "Public Thinking," chapter 1 of Smarter Than You Think (Penguin Press, 2013.) The excerpts are 
  pages 5 - 61, 66-68, and 81-2. You may wish to use the complete chapter for assignment 1 (you can also use this for 
  unit 4 as a text that responds to Carr).

 

Background & Links

• Clive Thompson's bio (from the site for his book, Smarter Than You Think.)
• Thompson's wikipedia page, twitter feed and blog 
• Video of Thompson discussing some of the claims in his book with Andrew Keen of TechCrunch TV (10 minutes).  Video interview about the book on Huffington Post (12 minutes).  
• Video of Thompson from CBS This Morning show. Short (3.45) 
• Review of the book by Walter Isaacson of the New York Times. A collection of reviews from other sources (selected by the publisher of Thompson's book). 

 

 

Unit 1 Teaching Materials

 

TEACHING RESOURCES 

• Big collection of materials - prompts, rubrics, pre-reading ideas, jig saw work, discussion questions, templates, drafting ideas, peer review guides, and writing tips. 
• Jamie's list of first day activities for Diamond 
• Identifying and evaluating evidence - handouts by Jamie Madden and Jason Parker

Sample Schedules and Class Plans for Unit 1

• Alicia's Tu/Th Schedule. Covers lesson plans from first day of class to turning in Project 1.
• Overview and detailed description of possible class plans/activities

 

 

Prereading 1

• Powerpoint on the politics of definition - examples of race, sexuality, medical condition, etc.
• The Daily Shows and rhetorical questions. TDS explores news media use of leading questions, the issue of framing, agency, responsibility, etc. 

 

 

Prereading 2: Jigsaw Work, Discussion, & Group Work

• Pre-reading questions about definitions, metaphor etc., survey questions, and class plans. Ideas for teaching and introducing issues raised in Postman, but could perhaps also be used for Oreskes. 

• "How to Mark a Text," by Mortimer Adler

• Some background material on the significance of metaphor, ways of approaching metaphor, analysis, etc.

• Discussion Starters and Jigsaw work

• Jigsaw Work (Postman-specific)
• Pre-reading - powerpoint materials
• Pre-reading, Rhetorical Reading, Questions to pose text (see section on this in all purpose teaching materials)
• Discussion & Group Work (see section on this in all purpose teaching materials)

 

 

The Assignment: guidelines, scoring, rubrics and sample papers

• Assignment 1: Guidelines and Scoring
• Sample Grading Rubric
• Paper #1 - Oreskes (Fall 2011).doc (Paper Prompt and Rubric - by Daniela)
• Sample Assignment Prompt #1 - Oreskes (Tyler) 
• Sample Assignment Prompt, Revised Assignment Prompt (utilizing some of Katie Hughes' language) as well as my rubric (Alicia)
• Sample assignment prompt and rubric (Rose)
• Sample prompt, rubric, introduction and body paragraphs (mix of Chris, Rose and Alicia)
• Collection of sample student papers. These 2 sample papers use Friedman's "The Power of Green," which is also about climate change.
• Sample Powerpoint explaining how to do asignment 1
• Project 1 Tips for students (FAQs) (Rose - to be discussed in class; change the tone to be much friendlier if posted for students)

 

Charting, PACES, Analysis and Strategies 

• Identifying & Analyzing Strategies in Oresekes (by Erin)

• Some collected Oreskes materials 

• Alicia provided the following resources:
  Articulating the Argument: Worksheet for mapping out PACES - project, argument, evidence, claims and strategies (Alicia) 

• See all purpose teaching materials on rhetorical reading and analyzing texts

• See all purpose teaching materials on ethos pathos logoc, metadiscourse and rhetorical strategies.

 

Drafting & Peer Review

• Outline of the introduction (Alicia)
• An overhead/handout for Peer Review (Alicia)
• See all purpose teaching materials on drafting and peer review 
• Peer review form for assignment 1 (for the traditional paired peer review)
• GRAMMAR - handout and resources - the most common problems & how to fix them
• Beyond the Red Ink - A Video of Students describing how they feel about/interpret teacher comments. Produced by Bedford St. Martins
  as part of Nancy Sommers' new book Responding to Writers.  Could be used  to get a discussion going about why and how
  you comment, and how students should understand them. 

 

 

 

Kevin Carey, "Why Do You Think They're Called 'For Profits?'"

• Kevin Carey's "Why Do You Think They're Called 'For-Profit Colleges?'" See also the comments and responses at the bottom of the page.

 

Background on Carey

• Some background on Carey: his page at the New America Foundation

 

 

Pre-reading

• There is a collection of marketing documents (from the senate inquiry into for profits) and links to advertisements by for-profit
   companies like UPhoenix in this folder. You could ask students to examine some of these and present their responses.
• Have students look up Carey, Clifford and some of the companies referred to - for example, Carey mentions Corinthian College.
  This company has been in the news recently. 

 

 

College Inc - introducing the arguments and issues 

• The College Inc. documentary web site.
•  Teaching Guide & discussion questions
• From College Inc. "The Miller Center’s National Debate Series’ “The Cost of Higher Education.” Students can take notes on the debate arguments, determine 
  which debater best represents their point of view, and explain why. 
• Interviews with figures from the documentary
• COMMENTS SECTION - comments and discussion of College Inc. Can be used to model assignment 2. 
• Responses, Readings, Links related to the film 
• Paper by Chris Werry about some aspects of the rhetoric of for profit institutions. This paper was originally written for a civic group in New Zealand concerned about the introduction of for-profit universities to the country. There is also a powerpoint presentation for the paper.
• Groupwork handout for students to use for College Inc.

 

 

Source Texts for Assignment 2

Here are several collections of texts that respond to the claims advanced by Carey

 

• The main collection of texts contains the following
  New York Times – short texts from Room for Debate, “How to Regulate For-Profit Colleges.”
  Carliss & Dillon “Bridgepoint Booms Over Troubled Waters”
  Michael Seiden, “For-Profit Colleges Deserve Some Respect”
  Holly Petreaus, “For-Profit Colleges, Vulnerable G.I.’s”
  Brian Darling, “For-Profit Education Under Assault” 
  GAO Report on For-Profit Universities, August 4, 2010
  Joshua Woods, “Opportunity, Ease, Encouragement, and Shame: a Short Course in Pitching For-Profit Education.”  
  
  
• Kevin Carey's Testimony of to U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, February 2, 2012. Extends and illustrates claims made in article.

 

• There is also Eisner, "Subprime goes to college,"  Beha, "Leveling the field: what I learned from for-profit education,"
• Students may wish to use materials from College Inc. as sources. For example, there is a discussion section where many teachers, students and administrators present their perspectives. Students could examine this and excerpt selections to be used as source material. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/collegeinc/talk/ 

 

Pre-reading, Discussion questions, Classroom Activities & Charting

• Sample Student papers that examine claims about for-profit universities. These papers respond to a different assignment, but cover some of the same ground. The assignment 
  had student watch the College Inc documentary, then select source texts to analyze. The focus was on evaluating these outside sources - their strengths and weaknesses.  
• This file contains some pre-reading exercises, discussion questions, charting examples and class activities 
• A powerpoint that uses the example of the Beatles tp introduce the basic concepts (extend, complicate, etc.)
• Evaluation - this collection of materials may be useful if you decide to include analysis of strengths and weaknesses in the second paper. It covers critical questions to ask of texts. 

 

 

Digital Literacy Materials to Use with Unit 2

 

As an exercise in digital literacy you could have students look at the site GIBill.com. This was a site set up by a group of for-profit colleges designed to persuade 
veterans to enroll in for-profit schools. It was shut down by the federal government as it was deemed to be a deceptive site that tricked veterans into thinking it
was organized by the government and was primarily informational and educational. The site has now been replaced by this message:

 

Using the archive.org site you can go back in time and see the GIBill.com site. For example: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://gibill.com

 

Consider these snapshots of the site

Jan 29, 2011: https://web.archive.org/web/20110129071743/http://www.gibill.com/ and see the FAQ section (what seems missing?)
Dec 28 2011: https://web.archive.org/web/20111228165411/http://www.gibill.com/

Jun 27 2012 https://web.archive.org/web/20120627203241/http://www.gibill.com/

 

You could ask students to consider how the site works to persuade its audience, and why the government might have objected to some 
of the strategies used. It might be interesting to compare the GIBill.com site with the department of veterans affairs site that 
has replaced it, http://www.benefits.va.gov/gibill/. 

 

 

BIG COLLECTION OF TEACHING MATERIALS - Discussion, Drafting, Analyzing

• This collection of materials should help with most aspects of teaching Pinker, from pre-reading, to discussing, to drafting and analyzing the text.
• Sample student paper 

  

The Assignment, Grading and Rubrics

• Prospectus assignment (a warm-up assignment to outline sources before they write their draft) 
  

• Assignment prompt with drafting advice (Alicia), Assignment prompt and rubric and Assignment Breakdown (Rose)

• Assignment checklist and grading rubric

• Paper #2 Prompt.doc (Daniela - Fall 2011), Paper #2 Prompt (Tyler - Fall 2011)

• Sample charting of draft paper (from previous semester)

 

Source Texts for Assignment 2

• This file contains a list of source texts students can select from. Note: we have taught Pinker before, thus to avoid plagiarism, this file gives students a set of options from a list of source texts we have not used in the past. You can, if you wish, select from other sources, or let students select their own.
  
• MORE TEXTS: Jonathan Haidt, "Reasons Matter (When Intuitions Don’t Object)." The NYT has a section called THE STONE, where philosophers talk about issues and books in an accessible way. They recently critiqued Haidt's work. HAIDT responds in this article. May be useful to model the idea of academic "conversation."
• "Reinventing Ethics," by Howard Gardner.   Dan Jones' "The Depths of Disgust," which focuses on how disgust plays into moral feeling and reasoning.  
  The Wisdom of Psychopaths, by Dutton 
• Previously used  source texts for Pinker. There is a selection of academic texts, videos, and popular texts. Some address the position and claims presented by Pinker, although they don't mention Pinker's article. There are also many blog postings that directly address Pinker's article, and some also contain a comments where people further debate the issues. You could use these blog postings to model the assignment, or as actual source texts.
• More previously used source texts.
• Feel free to add texts you find.

 

Sample Schedules & Ideas for Modeling How Authors Extend, Complicate, Illustrate, etc. a Text 

• Overview of possible class activities/plans for unit 2

• Student group projects and presentation activities (uses Food Inc.) 

• Sample schedule for unit 2 (Alicia)

• Introducing the project: Practice with extending, complicating, refining, and qualifying an argument (Rose)

• Bittman's "Junk Food Guidelines Won't Help - short opinion piece about regulating junk food. See comments section to model how readers respond by extending, illustrating, challenging, etc.

• Model sources and how to connect them to Gladwell - uses Jared Diamond, but also texts that discuss cultural legacies, fictional texts, case studies, etc.

• More model sources - how to use the Tough article ("What it Takes to Make a Student") which complicates Gladwell's use of KIPP schools and education research, plus Alicia's example of how to build a body paragraph using a text that complicates the rice paddies chapter.

• An op-ed that provides a good example of how authors often use one text to complicate another. David Brooks summarizes the common idea that the internet has played an important role in polarizing political views over the last 10 years. He then discusses how recent research complicates this view. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/20/opinion/20brooks.html?hp  
  Radio lab's "The Bad Show," which includes discussion of the Milgram Experiment. 

 

 

Drafting and Peer Review

• COLLECTED DRAFTING MATERIALS, templates, body paragraphs, sample papers, etc. for unit 2

• Guide to the organization/moves for paper 1, by Amanda Fiore and Rachel Gellman.

• COLLECTED GRAMMAR, editing and mechanics advice unit 2

• Exercises and groupwork for drafting paper

• Writing a prospectus/structured outline

• Drafting exercises - helping students connect the texts

• Drafting template - provides framework of major moves students should make, plus examples.

• Body paragraph templates and then a body paragraph template with model (using Gladwell and a complicating, outside text)

• Template for introducing authors

• Sample body paragraphs on Rifkin (Rose)

• Sample body paragraphs and template phrases

• Sample peer review form for paper 2

• SAMPLE STUDENT PAPERS - 5 sample papers of varying quality

• Words and exercises to use for making transitions, signaling relationships, establishing connections, etc.

• Guideline for Assignment 2 (Outline) this was used for Chua, but can be useful when thinking of how to structure this assignment.

 

 

Researching, Finding/Evaluating Sources, Creating an Annotated Bibliography, and Avoiding Plagiarism

• Teaching students about research, finding and evaluating sources, creating an annotated bibliography, and avoiding plagiarism. By Emma Lee Whitworth, with editorial assistance from Michael Underwood and Julie Williams.