DAY 2 - CYCLE 2 - SEMESTER 2

Today, we covered lesson 17 in the Sentence Diagramming workbook, more about Possessive Nouns. This lesson includes new layers of lines, so it might seem a bit tricky at first, but the logic is the same as for all attributive adjectives.

Then, we began our discussion of the Tannen and Pollitt essays, starting with the Tannen essay.

First, I provided you with a copy of some of her basic premises, and I asked you to agree or disagree with each one, using your anecdotal support from the past couple of days to help you make a determination:

1. Girls define themselves and their relationships through the way the talk to one another.
2. Boys define themselves and their relationships through the way they act with one another.
3. Boys engage in "ritual opposition" in almost all activities.
4. Boys use language to establish hierarchy.
5. Class discussion is inherently modeled to prefer boys' methods of speaking.
6. Debate relies upon competitive chllenges, and thus favors boys.
7. These language differences appear to be "Nature," not "Nurture."
8. Women learn by "contextualizing" (understanding things from a variety of views, seeing things from the author's perspective, connecting it to real-life experiences, etc.) Men see this as "soft."
9. Men learn by dismantling and then rebuilding. Women see this as "combative."
10. "Many, if not most" women shrink from being challenged nd find it humiliating.
11. Men prefer to speak in public.
12. Women prefer to speak in private.
13. Women think it is rude to seek the conversational spotlight.
14. Men think it is their job to seek the conversational spotlight.
15. Women who avoid speaking in large groups are likely to thrive in small groups, especially if partnered with people like them.
16. Those who are more passive, polite, or restrained in their conversational style do not have the same educational opportunities as their more assertive peers.
17. Small group interactions in a classroom help promote fairness to all learning styles.

I then asked you to add any underlying assumptions you see operating here; in other words, what are her general, implied or partially stated assumptions about girls, boys, and classrooms?

Once those were identified, I asked you to construct an approximation of her deductive and inductive arguments, and to note any invalidity or fallacies you saw at work.

We then left it open to general discussion about the essay. At the end of class, I asked you to take three to five minutes to write about how this has changed your ideas about class discussions in general.

HOMEWORK:

1. Write down the premises and assumptions for the Pollitt essay, and then identify her deductive and inductive arguments. We'll discuss that essay tomorrow.

2. Generate a list of THREE potential topics for an argument paper of potential interest to USM students. (Assigned lunch tables? No cut policy? Paying for music downloads? etc. And no, these should not be in your list.)