Day 14 - Tuesday

Day 14 - Tuesday

 

I. Housekeeping

  • sign-in
  • paper due Thursday
  • re: spring break homework: movie will be on reserve

 

II. Introductions

A. Drawing activity

from Betty Edwards's Drawing on the Artist Within. Illustrate anger, joy, peacefulness, depression, human energy (power), femininity, illness

  • What does this exercise have to do with intros?

    Humans are highly programmed/programmable. We share conceptual structures, and we learn to rely on them. We expect things to be a certain way. Use the introduction of your paper to provide expectations that the body of your paper will fulfill.

B. Intellectual Structure of the Intro

The problem statement is the functional heart of the introduction in that laying out the problem requires that your reader possess certain information: key characters, themes, costs, etc. Your reader must know what's at stake.

C. Social Structure of the Intro

Different readers, however, need different kinds of information &endash; even different readers within the same discourse community. Some readers already possess certain information. Some readers have different interests in reading your paper, etc. In order to meet a reader's expectations, therefore, you must know your reader as a social being, a thinker within a context. To properly customize the tone of your introduction, certain questions must be asked:

  • What info does your reader need? What info is he/she likely to have already?
  • What terms are likely to be most persuasive?

See handout.

D. Re-vamping Greenberg's introduction

In groups, students will re-write Greenberg's problem for different audiences, trying to fulfill their expectations: Biography Magazine, an academic history journal, Art in America, and Teen Beat.

  • What info will these readers need? What info won't they need?
  • In what terms is Greenberg's problem likely to be most persuasive to these audiences?

 

Homework: Complete paper.

 

The Social Structure of an Introduction

Which of these introductions is more socially appropriate for a college a paper?

 

Example 1:

 

Donne's "A Lecture upon the Shadow" gently admonishes his lover to maintain the honesty and integrity implicit in their relationship lest they should come to deceive themselves as they had the loves in their separate pasts. The poem is in two sections, each tightly defined by rhyme scheme and line length (see attached). The first is primarily a metaphoric history of their past relationships, in which the shadow speaks for the insubstantial though haunting quality of the past and their deliberate deception of previous lovers. Donne then tells us that past behavior no longer applies, and thereby implies his current relationship is everything the previous ones were not: mature, complete, emotionally honest. With an eye toward preserving this newfound purity, the second sections moves into the future and prescribes against the disingenuousness of the first.

The opening couplet establishes Donne's seriousness.

 

 

Example 2:

 

"Come live with me and be my love." What lover of poetry has not been thrilled by words like these? Love has always been one of the most durable and exciting appeals that poetry makes to its readers. Love is certainly one of the most important sources of appeal in the poetry of John Donne, although sometimes the love in question is love of God. Unlike other love poets, however, John Donne tires to use argument to make his lovers love him. Donne's "A Lecture upon the Shadow" is a poem that makes an argument. In this poem, Donne gently admonishes his lover to maintain the honesty and integrity implicit in their relationship lest they should come to deceive themselves as they had the lovers in their separate pasts. The poem has two sections. Each section has the same rhyme scheme and stanza structure. In each section, Donne has one long stanza (aabbccddceee) with varied line length (in syllables, the lines run 6, 7, 10, 10, 10, 6, 10, 8, 8, 10) and a closing couplet. The first section is primarily a history of their past relationships told in metaphors &endash; comparisons without using "like" or "as." In this section the shadow speaks for the insubstantial though haunting quality of the past and their deliberate deception of previous lovers. Donne then tells us that past behavior no longer applies. Thereby he implies his current relationship is everything the previous ones were not: mature, complete, emotionally hones. With an eye toward preserving this newfound purity, the second section moves into the future. In it Donne prescribes against the disingenuousness of the first section.

The opening couplet shows that Donne is serious.