Argument Abounds

Duncan Robinson Essay Contest Form  

Duncan Robinson was formerly chair of the English Department.  His family has established a memorial fund which is used to fund a freshman essay contest.  Four winners are chosen each year and each receives a $50 scholarship and a certificate.  For each academic year, all students taking 1301 or 1302 are eligible to submit their essays for this award. Students from both the fall and the spring semesters are eligible, and essays written in either fall or spring semester may be submitted. There will be a spring banquet toward the end of April and the winners of the Duncan Robinson awards will be honored at it.  The deadline for entries is April 9th.

Remember that we have two required Toulmin Assignments. Together, these activities comprise ten percent of your final course grade. Although technical difficulties necessitated some changes to our original assignment plan, we will forge onward, and the online syllabus has been edited to reflect recent changes. Please feel free to check it, print it, or use it to revise your previously printed syllabi.

TOULMIN ASSIGNMENT #1 is due Monday, February 19th. For this assignment, you will consider an article of SPAM (included in handout) as an argumentative text. Following the directions on the handout, identify each part of the Toulmin model. Next, identify elements of logos, ethos, and pathos used by the author. Finally, find and correct some of the many, many grammatical errors. Have fun!

TOULMIN ASSIGNMENT #2 and EXTRA CREDIT are due on Friday, February 23rd. Remember that on Friday, February 16th you were asked to bring a magazine or newspaper advertisement to class? This ad should make an argument with which you strongly disagree. Following the directions in this handout, you will generate a Toulmin analysis, identify elements of logos, ethos and pathos in the advertisement, and (specifically) identify the target audience. This analysis will require considerably more thought and explanation than Toulmin Analysis #1, since the parts of the argument will be less blatantly stated – and may even be visually represented.

Your extra credit assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to design and create your own “anti-ad” in response to this advertisement. See handout for details.