Second Week

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Second Week

Activity 2.1 Reading and Class Cafe Assignment

Initial post due Wednesday each week

Reactions to others due by Sunday each week.

Reading Assignment: Chapter 2 Reading Arguments (19-44)

Chapter Objectives

To read an argument is to enter into a dynamic social conversation. This chapter describes practical strategies for comprehending and interacting with arguments you will read as a preparation for writing arguments. In this chapter, you will learn to:

• apply different reading strategies such as varying your speed, writing marginal responses, reconstructing the rhetorical context, and grappling with and restating difficult passages

• read as a believer by summarizing an article's key points using "does" statements to express the function of each paragraph (introduces the issue, elaborates on a point, and so forth) and "says" statements to encapsulate each paragraph's main idea
• read as a doubter by questioning and challenging the ideas in an argument

• consider alternative views

• examine sources of disagreement in arguments' interpretations of facts and reality; in arguments' values, beliefs, assumptions; and in analogies employed
• use disagreements in arguments to help you uncover your own values, cope with ambiguity, and prompt you to investigate an issue for an argument you will write

Class Café Assignment

First read the chapter, learn about the strategies for reading arguments and then join us in the class café. We will attempt to articulate and synthesize the conversation surrounding radio shock jock Don Imus’s firing last week over comments he made about the Rutgers Women’s Basketball team. I will provide links to a few articles, and your job will be to apply the 5 strategies for deep reading outlined in Chapter 2 of your book. I will set up café tables for a few different conversations, and I hope you join us at each one as we first summarize the viewpoints expressed in these articles, challenge or question them, explore the genres and rhetorical context of these viewpoints, and analyze the sources of disagreement.

Table 1: Reading as a Believer

Table 2: Reading as a Doubter

Table 3: Understanding Genre and Rhetorical Context
Table 4: Analyze the Sources of Disagreement

Table 5: Using Disagreement Productively

• Background readings if you have not followed the Imus story (these should not be included in your cafe discussion):

US Radio Jockey Suspended (reuters video)

Monday Apr 9, 2007

Don Imus show loses more advertisers (Reuters)

Wed Apr 11, 2007

Imus Remarks and his apology (video)

Imus on Al Sharpton's Show (video)

U.S. radio host Imus fired by CBS over racist slur