Blog #23: Lord of the Flies

Minimum Words: 400
Minimum Text References and Citations: 3 (Including works outside of The Lord of the Flies)
Due Date: Tuesday, December 22 at midnight. Actually, it can be done any time before the end of break.
Note: You are very welcome to include references to other works, including books, stories, videos, music, and other things.

Helpful links: Sample Reader's Notebook from CIS Literature* | Critical Lens notecards | Reader's Notebook Instructions | Spark Notes

This notebook entry is supposed to be 100% dictated by your own analysis and relationship to the text. If you can, try to do this without looking at the suggested questions below. However, for those of you who need a little push to begin this voyage, please feel free to consider the following questions or statements: 

• Try to apply a critical lens to your reading, the characters, or the context of the novel.

• Who is the protagonist in the novel? Who is the antagonist? How does the opposition of these two characters help develop the drama and the unfolding of the tale?

• What connections can you make with law, morals, and ethics? Consider the readings we did in class.

• Do you agree or disagree with what Golding seems to be teaching through this novel?

• What does it mean to be good? What makes a person good? How are these traits or qualities reflected in the characters in Lord of the Flies?

• How does fear or savagery or the unknown control the boys? How do characters leverage these feelings or concepts to control others?

• What connections can you make to Plato's Republic and the idea of justice or the creation of a perfectly just society? How does The Lord of the Flies contrast or compare with the ideas at play in The Republic?

Suggested topics from Spark Notes:
* The sample reader's notebook above is done by a senior in high school with a lot of experience writing these notebooks. It is also over 600 words longer than the entry you are expected to create. No pressure.

1. Of all the characters, it is Piggy who most often has useful ideas and sees the correct way for the boys to organize themselves. Yet the other boys rarely listen to him and frequently abuse him. Why do you think this is the case? In what ways does Golding use Piggy to advance the novel’s themes?

2. What, if anything, might the dead parachutist symbolize? Does he symbolize something other than what the beast and the Lord of the Flies symbolize?

3. The sow’s head and the conch shell each wield a certain kind of power over the boys. In what ways do these objects’ powers differ? In what way is Lord of the Fliesa novel about power? About the power of symbols? About the power of a person to use symbols to control a group?

4. What role do the littluns play in the novel? In one respect, they serve as gauges of the older boys’ moral positions, for we see whether an older boy is kind or cruel based on how he treats the littluns. But are the littluns important in and of themselves? What might they represent?

You can also use the prompts from the previous blog post to help in your analysis.

Please cite page numbers and specific passages from the novel to support your inferences and conclusions. We will be using these questions and your conclusions, questions, and insights to spark classroom discussion on Wednesday.

Example citation:

Scout says that "Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it" (Lee 4). She seems to be trying to emphasize not just the age of the town, but also the slowness of the town, the values of the people, and the way that summer heat made everything drag on.

or

This isn’t the first time we see one of the Price women choosing materialism over God, despite Nathan’s harsh beatings and warnings. On page 363, Rachel reaches for her mirror instead of for her Bible, explaining “[ . . . ] it didn’t seem worth saving at that moment, so help me God. It had to be my mirror.” Whether this shows rebellion or just the simplistic mindset of a 15-year-old teenage girl, I’m not sure. Perhaps she was, in her own, small way, rebelling from Nathan. But maybe she just wanted to make sure that no matter where she went in Africa, she would always know the state of her appearance. That seems pretty likely.

Blog #22: Hope and Fear

Due: Saturday, December 13
Minimum Words: 400
Textual References and Links: Four
Remember to quote and cite the works you are using correctly.

It seems we're always living on a continuum of hope and fear. They are two emotions that are powerfully motivating and almost ever-present in our lives.  In class, we discussed how closely related the two emotions can be. Some of you went so far as to say that the two concepts are the same thing. Of course, I disagree.

Huge topics call for a lot of latitude in responses. So, I've provided several possible questions with an important disclaimer near the end. Synthesizing sources is essential.

• How do hope and fear shape and change people? How does the roles of hope and fear change throughout a person's life?
• What is the relationship between hope and fear? How does this play itself out in some of the works we have read and how could this relate to real life?
• We've talked extensively about all of the advantages fear has with motivating people. What benefits could their be from leading with hope? What advantages should there be with leading through fear? How does this show itself in some of the literature we've examined in class?
• Hugh Howey wanted us to explore Plato's Allegory of the Cave and the 24-hour news cycle and what it does with our optimism and pessimism. Can you fully explore these ideas in the context of Wool and/or the other works we've read in class.

@cleanapple Sure. Tell them about Plato's Cave. And then ask what 24-hour news does to our perception of the world, our optimism/pessimism.
— Hugh Howey (@hughhowey) November 18, 2013

• What role does hope and fear play in education in general or your education specifically? What themes from some of the works we have read fit well with your educational experience?
• We started to explore the idea of pride and ego as they relate to fear. We also looked at the popularity of superheros during times of fear and hopelessness. What connections can you make with these concepts and the discussions in class as they relate to the literature we've studied as a whole?
• Under what circumstances is hope more powerful than fear? How can fear be healthy? How does this show itself in life and what connections can be made with the work we have studied in class?
• MAUS explores the idea of survivor's guilt as it relates to hope, fear, and ego. It also brings up the fear that defined lives in the concentration camps. What conclusions can you make based on this work as they relate to other things we've looked at. If you need help citing a graphic novel, check out this resource.

If you haven't figured this out by now, it is essential that you provide evidence from the texts we've studied in class to support or illustrate your claims. Beyond that, you can create any question for yourself to pursue that allows you to synthesize multiple sources in your writing.

Works for your consideration:

• Wool by Hugh Howey
• The Lady or the Tiger by Frank Stockton
• Hiroshima by John Hersey
• Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
• The Republic by Plato
• MAUS II by Art Spiegelman
• "All The Kings Horses" by Vonnegut
• Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
• Hamlet by William Shakespeare
• The blogs and opinions of Seth Godin
• The Hunger Games, specifically Catching Fire by Suzane Collins

Here is some help with how to format citations like a pro.

Don't forget to provide links within your text to your outside sources and credit all opinions that are not yours.

Blog #21: The Republic

Due: Tuesday at the end of the day.

Minimum words: 350

Minimum links: 0

When I originally selected Plato's Republic for this class, I knew it would be challenging - both in the way it is written and the concepts that it contains. I wanted a piece of literature that would stretch us and make us work. However, I also wanted this work to be worthwhile - to lead us to some deep discussions and conversations about the nature or morals and justice. 

In this blog post, please reflect on your thinking about The Republic and the concepts that you found most important or interesting. Please go beyond whether or not you "liked" the book.

Here are some concepts and potential questions for you to consider if you need some help getting started:

• What is the true nature of Justice?
• The Forms.
• The Allegory of the Cave
• The Tripartite Soul
• The value of a Philosopher king
• The role of luxury in a just society
• Democracy, Timocracy, and Oligarchy 
• Wisdom, Honor, and Appetite 
• Censorship and "The Noble Lie"
• Creators, Makers, and Imitators
• Restorative Justice versus Punitive Justice
• The Tyrannical Man

What value is there in studying this work from 2300 years ago in a modern context?

Why is "goodness" so hard to understand or describe?

How have the philosophies in this book influenced things, beliefs, or systems you encounter in your life?

Can you connect the ideas presented in this book with current situations?

Why is justice so important to us but so difficult to describe or obtain?

Why must Socrates describe a just city in order to shed light on a just person or the concept of justice in general?

What quotations or concepts stick out to you when you look at key quotations from The Republic? 

Blog #20: Things Fall Apart

Due: Friday, October 31 at the end of class. Sunday night at the latest.

Things Fall Apart is about a culture on the verge of dramatic change. We see how the prospect of change affects individuals within that culture.

Efulefu level: 250 words and a quote from the novel
Unoka level: 350 words and two quotes from the novel
Okonkwo level: 450 words and two quotes from the novel
Chukwu level: 750 words and at least two quotes from the novel as well as quotes and references from other works.

A Culture On the Verge of Change

• What forces are at play?
• What connections can you make to things happening now?
• What role do tradition, ritual, and ceremony play in maintaining a culture and what role do they play during a time of change?
• What effect does status play in cultural change?
• How does push and pull influence people.

Progress

• In what ways does the idea of progress shape the novel?
• How does the idea of a single story play into the idea of progress?

Tradition

• How does tradition perpetuate and thrive from one generation to the next?

If none of these questions work, here are some questions I stole from a great school and teacher in Pleasanton, California. If you are the teacher who wrote these questions, you are getting the titles of our village. May Chukwu bless your people and your traditions - in both your motherland and fatherland. I tried to find you to ask permission and thank you, but I couldn't.

1.   How does the father-son relationship throughout three generations shape the     personalities of Okonkwo, and Nwoye? Comment on their characteristics and the role their father plays in making them who they are.

3. "The story of Okonkwo is in a way the story of our culture; he pays a price because he places too much emphasis on strength and manliness." Discuss this quote as it applies to both the novel and our own modern American culture.

4. One of the themes of Achebe's novel is the striving after titles, trophies, and status in general. Write an essay commenting on the presence and importance of status symbols in Okonkwo's world and today's world. Explain their appeal and the ways in which searching for status symbols is a negative force in life.  

5. Discuss the ways in which the District Commissioner symbolizes intolerance and disrespect for cultures he considers inferior.

6. Okonkwo suffers because he does not understand himself.  Do his experiences help lead him to self-awareness or not, and why?

7. "[Okonkwo's] whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness."  Explain how fear, in an ironic way, is the catalyst for destruction and failure in the novel?

8. Comment on how Achebe, through this novel, counters the Imperialist stereotypes on Africa as an uncivilized continent.  What aspects of Ibo culture contradict this commonly held stereotype?  Perhaps use the District Commissioner’s comments to help convey the imperialist view.

Blog #19: Ethnography Preconceptions

Due Date: Tuesday, October 7.

Researchers' personalities, cultural orientations, social statuses, political philosophies, and life experiences will color how they interpret other cultures. It is important to be aware of your own experiences and biases as you head in to your ethnography observation.

In this post, do these three things;

1. Explain who and where you will be observing and what led you choose this culture. What are you hoping to discover or what driving questions do you have?
2. Who is your broker - your contact person with a connection to the culture? You do not need to use last names.
3. Try to outline what preconceptions you have about the culture you are observing and how those may affect your observations. What do you expect to find? 

Do not share these expectations with the group you will be observing as it may alter their behavior. The purpose of acknowledging your biases and preconceptions is to help yourself enter the observation process as objectively as possible.

Your next step after this is to conduct a focused observation, complete with thorough notes and photos, audio, videos, or a combination of the three. You can take photos of artifacts, environments, and products if you cannot or do not want to take photos of people. Again, take thorough notes on everything you notice without adding judgement. It is far better to have too many notes than too few.

Observations deadline: Monday, October 20.

Blog #18: Hamlet

Due Date: Saturday, September 20 and the end of the day.
Minimum Word Count: 450
Minimum Quotations and Specific Text References: 4
Please come up with a better title than "Hamlet" and start with a strong thesis or claim.

Your task:

You've been working on this blog post for the past week. It's based on the essential question that fate selected for you. If you need a reminder about your question or a copy of the outline sheet that you got in class, click here.

Throughout the process of reading, discussing, and writing about the play, you followed and took notes on your essential question. Now, this is your opportunity to present your reflections, discoveries, and conclusions in the form of a blog post, complete with textual citations and quotations (required) and multimedia (when appropriate).

You must incorporate at least two relevant quotes from the play, as well as paraphrased instances from Hamlet or other texts that relate to your thinking (between 4-8) that support your answer. You might also consider using minor supporting information from other sources (allusions to historical figures, celebrities, the Bible, or other stories/films). If you allude to anything other than the play itself, be sure it is cited correctly to credit is given to the original authors.

Here's how you cite examples and lines from the play:

25. Verse play or poem For verse plays, give act, scene, and line numbers that can be located in any edition of the work. Use arabic numerals and separate the numbers with periods.

In Shakespeare’s King Lear, Gloucester, blinded for suspected treason, learns a profound lesson from his tragic experience: “A man may see how this world goes / with no eyes” (4.6.148-49).

Blog #17: What is justice?

Due Date: Sunday, September 8
Minimum Word Count: At least 350
At least 1 quote or reference to Plato's The Republic
At least 1 quote, reference, or link to a modern example of justice or injustice

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The first week of class has focused on two main questions:

Why bother being good?
What is Justice?

These questions have sparked a lot of thought, discussion, and debate. Most of all, they've called into question some of the essential questions about what it means to be a part of a culture or civilization.

For your first blog, take time to come to some conclusions for yourself on the issues of goodness and justice. Here are some possible questions to get your started, but you are always more than welcome to come up with a question or questions on your own.

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What is justice?

Is justice, as it is currently practiced, just the advantage of the stronger? How do you know?

Why do you think our discussion on the importance of doing good turned into a discussion on the benefits of being bad?

How is the ideal of justice different from how you have experienced justice?

How do children learn about justice, and what does that say about us?

Look at the current events surrounding Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden, or Trayvon Martin and discuss how you see justice or injustice playing into these situations.

Why bother defending justice?

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Our questions from class:

• What is Justice and how did it change from when The Republic was written and now?
• Can justice co-exist with other qualities in a person?
• Is justice still justice when the person delivering the ‘justice’ is ‘unjust’?
• Can justice be unjust?
• Who does justice better?
• Does Socrates really know what justice is and is testing those around him, or is he curious?
• Can justice be bad but still be justice?
• Why is justice important?
• Do you need justice to have a peaceful society?

Blog #16 - Your Year

Reflect on your growth, thinking, and connections you've made throughout this year.

Creating, Non-fiction projects, Truth, Happiness, Nature, Beauty, American Dream, The Good Life, Goodness, Leadership, Meaning, Asking Questions, Choice, Connections, Lenses, Vocabulary, Self as Reader, Satire, Videos, Importance of Story, Research, Experience Points, Fallacies, Claims, Evidence, Warrant, Discussions, Critical writing prompts, creative writing prompts, interviews, lead-transition-quote articles, Julius Caesar, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Stranger, Vonnegut, Animal Farm, Dystopias, Night Flying Woman, American Male Age 10, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Ben Franklin, This American Life, Shoes, Interviews,and a lot more.

• Class Syllabus 
• Day 1

Blog #15: Your nonfiction project

Due Date: Sunday, June 1
Minimum Word Count: 500 words

Congratulations, friend! You did it.

You've got your nonfiction project complete and you've shared it with the class. You've put in a lot of time, effort, and energy over the past few months, and you've learned something because of it. Now, it's time to share what you've learned.

This blog has two requirements:

1. Share your project in some way on here. 
   
   
   
   1. Embed your Prezi or YouTube video.
   
   
   2. Upload your podcast to SoundCloud and embed it.
   
   
   3. Share your Google Doc with the world and embed or link to it on here. Do something to make your project available to everyone.


2. Reflect on your project and present your major conclusions and understandings.

If that is enough information for you and you want to take your own spin on this blog, then go for it!

If you still need more, then continue reading.

A good reflection will:

• An explanation of how you accomplished what you accomplished.
  
  
  
  • Turn our research and findings into a story that raises and answers questions.
    
  • What are your main findings and what research did you do that led you to those conclusions. What did you learn along the way about your topic? How would you explain your research process in light of your findings?
  
  
  • What were your beliefs heading into the project and how did they change throughout your process? What learning, research, observations, or interviews helped you in your thinking?


• What you think went well with your project.


• What areas for improvement do you see?
  
  
  
  • Beyond "Start earlier", what would you do differently if you were to do this again?


• What do you hope your audience would take from your project?


• What are some thing you learned that you left out of your project?


• What are some thing you're looking forward to doing with your next research project?

Blog #14: Your Utopia

Due: Friday, May 9
Word Count: 400
Minimum Links or References: Two
Remember to use links to resources to help support your thinking. Your claims should have support.

Your Project

No matter which questions you'll answer, please do this. First of all, embed your video from your group so that other people can see it. Don't just link to it. It should look like this:

Copy your video URL from YouTube, click the clipboard icon on the formatting bar, select YouTube video and paste in the link. Hopefully this will work for you.

• Describe your Utopia. Give a general description of the society and the process of creating it. What are the fundamental principles behind your Utopia?

After you have your video and a general description for your society posted, consider the following questions:

• What challenges did your group have in the creation of a Utopian society?
• What were your group's focus questions? How did you address them?
• What did this project make you think about in regards to governments or governing people in general?
• Could people ever create the perfect government or society for themselves or would it be easier for an outside group to create a utopia for someone else?
• What do believe your Utopia really has gotten right? What things do you think wouldn't work in actuality? Why would your Utopia be successful, why would it fail.
• Just go in detail about your Utopia: Its principles, how it'll work, how it will incorporate the key elements of a perfect government.

Updated Questions and Thoughts

After you post your video, you can address the questions above or take on some of the deeper questions we tackled in class discussions. See the details below for more clarification.

Self Actualization and Utopias

Can a classroom, a family, a government, or a school be set up to help people achieve self-actualization? What would that look like?

Can only self-actualized people help others become self-actualized? If self-actualization was a goal, how could a system be created to help it happen for the most people?

Wants, Needs, and Making Good Decisions

Respond to the following statement: “People are driven by their wants more than their needs, and this makes them incapable of making good decisions about government.” 

Write about the way your thinking on these issues may have developed and how you see these things expressed either in the way the world is currently or the way it works in literature.

The Importance of Wellbeing

Respond and expand on the following statement: “The wellbeing of a society should be more important than the happiness of individual citizens.”

How does this relate to your thinking about Government, Utopias, and Dystopias. Can a great government thrive on this principle? Can people create their own happiness in a government that doesn't consider the happiness of an individual but values the wellbeing of the whole society. Does living in a great place mean sometimes accepting unhappiness or discontent?

Other Thoughts

Here's a link to our discussion questions from throughout the week. If you like one or want to combine several, you can. Please remember to find resources you can use as links to support your thinking.

Blog #13: Final Choice Novel blog

Minimum Words: 450
Make sure you are continuously having a conversation with the text, referencing it and responding to it.

This blog should cover the second half of your choice novel (though referencing the first half is obviously okay).

These are the things to consider in your blog:

1. A Reader Response to the novel as a whole. Include your opinions on how your story was resolved, what you liked, what you didn't, discuss predictions you made and how accurate they were (or weren't), etc.

2. Discuss the second half of the book through a different lens than the one you discussed initially. You can still refer to your original lens, but try another one regardless of how much of a stretch it may seem. Make sure to use specific references from the book.

3. Finally to reinforce viewing things from a different perspective... though we describe these books as "dystopian" they are a "utopia" for someone. Take some time to consider who is benefiting from the society created in your novel. How is life for them? What are their goals? Needs? Wants?

Blog #12: Choice Dystopian Novel

This should be the first blog post for your dystopian choice novel and should cover at least the first half of the book.

The goal for this assignment is to discuss your novel as you would with a regular lit circle; ideas, thoughts, surprises, and questions. Because of the nature of this discussion, it will be less formal than your last post. Also make sure you view your novel through at least one of the critical lenses discussed in class.

Try to move past the Reader Response lens (just your reaction to the text) and try to connect your reactions to something else. Make observations, predictions, compare and contrast, but use a different lens to shape your entry. Remember to constantly refer to the text quoting specific passages and phrases.

400 word minimum, excluding quotes.

If you need them, here are some thoughts that may help get you started:

• Connection and empathy (or the lack thereof); what kinds of experiences have brought people together (or driven them apart)? How have you seen that develop, and how has it shaped the book?
• The idea of "progress"; how is it framed? Has it contributed to the "dystopia" created? How?
• Try on the gender lens; how would something as simple as changing the gender of your main character change the story? Would the conflict be the same? Why? Include the book title in your Post title so they are easier to find for responses. 

Due end of the day Friday, April 11.

Blog #10: Power and Leadership in Julius Caesar

Due Date: Thursday, March 20
Minimum Words: 350
Links required, none
Text references required: 2


For the complete text of Julius Caesar, with both the original text and the modern translation, check out No Fear Shakespeare: Julius Caesar.

Consider the story of Julius Caesar and reference it as you respond to the text. Your response should focus on the ideas of Power and Leadership.

Make sure your writing as a clear claim near the beginning and that you introduce your topic ully. You need to give context to your audience at the start of your writing so they know what you are writing about what you may be trying to prove.

Here are a few questions if you need an idea to get you started. You can go in depth about any of these or combine them into your own questions. Don't treat this as a quiz and answer every questions.

• What modern connections can you make between Julius Caesar and the idea of leadership today?

• Antony, another member of that ruling class, is also one of the more sympathetic characters of the play. But is he a good ruler?

• Does this play portray an ideal leader? Does it give any clues about what an ideal leader could be?

• What is the difference between a good person and a good leader? Are those two things mutually exclusive in certain ways? Are there ways that good people cannot be good leaders and good leaders cannot fully be good people? What implications does this have on your views of leadership?

• What kind of leader is Julius Caesar? The conspirators say he's a tyrant headed for absolute power. Is there evidence in the play to support this? Is Caesar really a threat to the Roman Republic? Why or why not?

• Were the conspirators justified in removing a leader who has the potential to be a tyrant?

• What relationship is there between leaders and those who are led (or, perhaps, followers)? What does this play suggest about the people's ability to choose leaders and the choices they make for themselves? What do the Plebeians suggest in this play?

• What connections can you make between "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and Julius Caesar.

Here's how you cite examples and lines from the play:

Although it is not required in this blog entry, you can get tremendous practice in citing text from a play with this blog. You will receive extra credit points for attempting to quote a passage from the play in the correct format.

25. Verse play or poem For verse plays, give act, scene, and line numbers that can be located in any edition of the work. Use arabic numerals and separate the numbers with periods.

In Shakespeare’s King Lear, Gloucester, blinded for suspected treason, learns a profound lesson from his tragic experience: “A man may see how this world goes / with no eyes” (4.6.148-49).

Blog #11: Animal Farm Reader's Notebook

This entry should cover the end of the book
Due Date: Monday, March 31 by the end of class.
Minimum Words: 500 of your own words, not counting quotations.
Note: Be sure you are using a lens and continually returning to the text in quotations. Feel free to refer to class discussions.

Helpful links: Sample Reader's Notebook from CIS Literature* | Critical Lens notecards |  Reading Schedule | Reader's Notebook Instructions | Spark Notes and Penguin Guide | How to do in-text citations right | Historical context of George Orwell and Animal Farm

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For this blog, try to move beyond just the reader response lens - just your reactions to the text. Instead, try to connect your reactions to something else, make observations and predictions, comparisons and contrasts, or use a different lens to shape your entry.

The most important thing to remember is that you should constantly refer to the text. Quote passages and paraphrase scenes.

Here are some questions or ideas you can look at to get started if you are stuck. These are not required questions and you can completely ignore them if you'd like:

• What are the conflicts in Animal Farm? What types of conflict (physical, moral, intellectual, or emotional) do you see in this story?
• How does George Orwell reveal character in Animal Farm?

• What is the central/primary purpose of the story? Is the purpose important or meaningful?

• How effective is the novel as a fable?
• How is language used to establish and maintain social control?
• Discuss Boxer.
• Take a look at these Book Club questions if you're really stuck.

___

* The CIS Reader's Notebook is much more thorough and much longer than your notebook needs to be

Blog #9: Claim, Evidence, Warrant

Due: Friday, February 7 at midnight
Minimum words: 400
Minimum links (evidence): 3

Note: This blog entry is worth more than the traditional 25 point blog entry. You will be evaluated by more than one person, including members of the Journalism 2 class at Buffalo High School.

For the past few weeks, we've been talking about Claim, Evidence, and Warrant as a way of presenting an argument. If you're totally baffled by this, check out this helpful site that will walk you through it. Also, this page may be even more helpful with examples.

We're pretty awesome at creating arguable claims, and we're starting to get great at Evidence. Warrant is giving us a headache.

Warrant is the "So what?" It explains why your evidence is important and how your evidence connects to your claim. It makes a claim convincing.

Your task? It's easy.

Choose a topic. It could be the same as your Satire topic, something that can help you with your nonfiction project, or just something you're interested in. Then, you get to engage it with informational writing using Claim - Evidence - Warrant.

1. Make an arguable claim that you actually believe.


2. Provide valid evidence for your claim from authoritative sources and link to that evidence.


3. Provide warrant.


4. Anticipate a counter-claim and briefly argue against it, explaining how your argument is better through evidence and warrant.

I ask that you make a claim that you actually believe in or one that you actually can support. Remember that an arguable claim is one that can be debated, so go ahead and pick something that not everyone agrees with you about.

Your writing should be polished and your evidence should be sound. You should put emphasis on proofreading your entry and work toward having a clear and audience-friendly final draft.

Need help? Try it first!

Blog #8: Logical Fallacies

Due: Friday, January 31
Minimum Words: 300
Links Required: Your Fallacy Video and perhaps your presentation

For this post please embed your group's fallacy video and strongly consider embedding your Fallacy presentation. This is a great chance to turn your blog into a portfolio.

After you include your work, come to some conclusions about how Logical Fallacies relate to problem solving, debates, or influence. If you need help coming to a conclusion or getting started with your writing, please consider to following questions:

• What has studying logical fallacies taught you about reasoning, debating, and argument.
• Where have you encountered logical fallacies in your life? 
• What fallacies do you find yourself using?
• How can understanding fallacies make you a more prepared thinker or debater?
• Why do you think logical fallacies are used?
• How can understanding fallacies help with problem solving?
• How can people best use debates and discussions to promote problem solving instead of creating deeper divisions? How can understanding logical fallacies relate to this?
• Why are debates and discussions so difficult sometimes?
• When have you seen fallacies used correctly?

Help with embedding a presentation.

Help with embedding a YouTube video on your blog.

Blog #7: Creating Satire

Due Date: Friday, January 10
Minimum Words: 400 - However, other formats may be used
Links: Optional, but helpful if you're going to have fun with the tone in a "real" blog.

Start here for an excellent video that defines what satire is and gets you a head start on how to make your own.

Here's an example of satire, outlining the tortures of Teenage Affluenza.


Jon Stewart, who is a modern master of Satire, explains about his relationship with it here.



Your assignment is to create an original piece of satire on a topic of your choice.

It can be written as an essay, an article, a poem, or a song. It could be performed as a piece of music or speech, it could be a video done alone or with partners. It could take the form of anything you please.

Feel free to label your post as Satire if you are worried about your audience forming the wrong impression about you. However, if you truly want to do this well and have your intended effect, you may want to avoid the label.