Freakonomics Podcast

In an effort to better understand rhetoric and its purpose, we will listen to some pieces of rhetoric, which might provide you with some different ideas about argument and rhetorical strategies.

Some background on the speakers you will soon listen to:

A few years ago, economist Steven D. Levitt published a research project that that contained "a strikingly novel thesis: abortion curbs crime. What Levitt and his co-author claimed, specifically, was that the sharp drop in the United States crime rate during the 1990's -- commonly attributed to factors like better policing, stiffer gun laws and an aging population -- was in fact largely due to the Roe v. Wade decision two decades earlier. The logic was simple: unwanted children are more likely to grow up to become criminals; legalized abortion leads to less unwantedness; therefore, abortion leads to less crime" (Holt). In the world of AP Language, this thought process is called a syllogism, a logical argument in which the conclusion is inferred from two previous premises. But is it accurate?

Levitt didn't stop there. He garnered so much attention that he teamed up with journalist Stephen J. Dubner to publish Freakonomics in 2005, which became a national sensation filled with curious claims and peculiar arguments.

New York Times literary reviewer Jim Holt wrote that the subsequent publication of Freaknomics "answered everything he always wanted to know" because "Levitt has strayed far from the customary paddock of the dismal science in search of interesting problems. How do parents of different races and classes choose names for their children? What sort of contestants on the TV show ''The Weakest Link'' are most likely to be discriminated against by their fellow contestants? If crack dealers make so much money, why do they live with their moms? Such everyday riddles are fair game for the economist, Levitt contends, because their solution involves understanding how people react to incentives" (Holt). Freaknomics spawned a revived interest in economics, simply by changing the way that readers examine an issue by challenging conventional wisdom.

These analyses were subject of controvery, and naturally led to a continuing conversation. Levitt and Dubner went on to produce a series of podcasts to discuss new observations and economic theories. That is what we will listen to today.

Your Assignment: 

Visit www.freakonomics.com. On the navigation bar, scroll over "Radio" then scroll down and select "Podcast Archives."

Choose one podcast from the Freakonomics archive list. The podcast must be at least 14 minutes long (or you can choose 2 six-minute podcasts). Most podcasts are in the 30-minute range and invite credible speakers (an appeal to ethos!). Pick one with an intriguing title, rather than the length of time. Listen and take notes on the claim, argument, and supporting evidence.

The claim is often revealed in the podcast title, which is so outlandish that listeners can't help but be intrigued. Some claims include "Can You Be Too Smart for Your Own Good?", "Would You Let a Coin Toss Decide Your Future?", and "Should Tipping Be Banned?". Listen as Levitt and and Dubner discuss these claims and pay attention to the assertions (unsupported opinions) versus qualified opinions (supported with examples, statistics, personal experience, etc).

Compose a blog post titled "FREAKONOMICS PODCAST" that answers the following:

1. What is being said? (identify the argument)

2. How is it being said? (identify rhetorical strategies, assertions, and qualified opinions)

3. What is the effect? (how do listeners feel? how *should* the listeners feel/react? Did the podcast discussion accomplish its goal?)

*Stay up to date on the most current questions in Freakonomics by following Levitt/Dubner on twitter: @Freakonomics

Works Cited: Holt, Jim. "Freakonomics: Everything He Wanted to Know." New York Times 15 May 2005. Print.

How the Hashtag is Ruining the English Language

Today in class we discussed the application of syntax and diction in modern writing.

Now, let's look at another recent phenomenon that is a form of syntax: the hashtag.

While your comprehension of the hashtag might be only understood in the context of Twitter, let me give you a little history of this symbol, originally known as the octothorpe.

World Wide Words reports that the octothorpe "was originally a jokey term among engineers at Bell Labs in the USA. In the early 1960s, the Labs were working on ways to interface telephones to computers and invented what is now called touch-tone dialing. This needed two additional special keys on handsets, both of which have since become standard. One of these is the * symbol, usually known as the asterisk, which Bell Labs decided to call the star key. The other was the # symbol" (Quinion).

The hastag has taken on a life of its own, thanks to the advent of Twitter and Facebook. While originally used as a tool for tagging tweets and providing a link to commonly discussed ideas, the hashtag has evolved into some sort of "paralanguage," a component of meta-communication that may modify or nuance meaning or convey emotion. In some ways, the hashtag has begun to replace original thought.

HOMEWORK: Read the following article by Sam Biddle on Gizmodo. His claim is that the hashtag is ruining the English language. After you read the article, compose a post on your own blog that answers the following questions:

1. Is the author's claim too biased, in that his argument loses validity because it is so opinionated, colloquial, and satirical?

2. Identify some rhetorical strategies that the author uses to accomplish his purpose. Identify what is being said, how it's being said, and the effect of this language.

3. Does the use of the hashtag throughout the article enhance or detract from the author's purpose?
4. Read some of the reader's comments. Are they in agreement with Biddle? Or do the comments bring up other points that could have been addressed in the article to present a more convincing argument?

Be sure to title your post "How the Hashtag is Ruining the English Language."

College Football: Pay Players or Ban it Altogether?

In class, we read and annotated two articles about college football. GO BIG RED!

One is an argumentative piece by Sean Gregory of Time Magazine. He argues that it is time for universities to pay college athletes for their performance, rather than capitalize on the individual's and team's success. He argues that since players are the ones performing, they should be compensated, rather than their coaches, universities, and college towns.

The other article is by Buzz Bissinger of the Wall Street Journal. His claim is simple and straightforward: college football should be banned because it has no academic value. It is a losing enterprise.

On your own blogs, compose a post that discusses which of the two articles offers a more convincing argument. It does not matter which side of the issue you stand on. Focus on how effectively the authors present their points and counterpoints. Compose one paragraph that details the rhetorical strategies, patterns of development, and the effect of the piece.

Have Sports Teams Brought Down America's Schools?

The following is an editorial, or opinion piece, from today's New Yorker. It is very topical, given the time of year, and also relevant to you students at Mount Carmel.

Your Homework: Read and evaluate the author's claim (thesis). Examine the arrangement of the piece (is it the classical model? narration, description, process analysis, exemplification, compare/contrast, classification/division, definition, cause and effect?). Explain what the arrangement is, and how the arrangement is tied to the author's purpose. Ultimately, is this a persuasive editorial and argument? Respond on your blogs in one complete paragraph.

Have Sports Brought Down America's High Schools?
By Elizabeth Kolbert
www.newyorker.com September 6, 2013

In her new book, “The Smartest Kids in the World,” Amanda Ripley, an investigative journalist, tells the story of Tom, a high-school student from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, who decides to spend his senior year in Wroclaw, Poland. Poland is a surprising educational success story: in the course of less than a decade, the country raised students’ test scores from significantly below average for the developed world to significantly above it; Polish kids now outscore American kids in math and science, even though Poland spends, on average, less than half as much per student as the United States does. One of the most striking differences between the high school Tom attended in Gettysburg and the one he ends up at in Wroclaw is that the latter has no football team, or, for that matter, teams of any kind.

Sports, Ripley writes, were “the core culture of Gettysburg High.” In Wroclaw, by contrast, if kids wanted to play soccer or basketball after school they had to organize the games themselves. Teachers didn’t double as coaches and the principal certainly never came out to cheer. Thus, “there was no confusion about what school was for—or what mattered to the kids’ life chances.”

I thought about Tom the other day, while I was watching my fourteen-year-old twins play soccer. It was the day before school began, but they had already been going to J.V. soccer practice two hours a day for nearly two weeks. I wondered what would have happened if their math teacher had tried to call them in two weeks before school started to hold two-hour drill sessions. My sons would have been livid, as would every other kid in their class. Perhaps even more significant, I suspect that parents would have complained. What was the math teacher doing, trying to ruin the kids’ summer? And why should they have to make a special trip to the high school so their kids could study trig identities?

That American high schools lavish more time and money on sports than on math is, I know, an old complaint. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that my own experience with high-school sports was limited to being cut from the tennis team.) But, as another school year starts, it is a lament worth revisiting. This is not a matter of how any given student who play sports does in school, but of the culture and its priorities. This December, when the latest Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA, results are announced, it’s safe to predict that American high-school students will once again display their limited skills in math and reading. They will once again be outscored not just by students in Poland but also by students in places like South Korea, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, Singapore, New Zealand, Canada, Switzerland, and Japan. (In the last round of PISA tests, administered in 2009, U.S. students ranked thirty-first in math and seventeenth in reading , among seventy-four countries.) Meanwhile, they will have played some very exciting football games, which will have been breathlessly written up in their hometown papers. (Ripley notes that at each Gettysburg High football game “no less than four local reporters showed up.”)

Why does this situation continue? Well, for one thing, kids like it. My sons love everything about soccer: the practices, which are held rain or shine; the games, from which they sometimes do not return until nine o’clock at night; the sweaty socks and the cleats and the jerseys—one color for home games and another for away.

But adults generally do not—and certainly should not—leave educational policy to fourteen-year-olds. According to Ripley, however, one of the problems with the American educational system is that parents seem to like the arrangement, too. She describes a tour she took of a private school in Washington, D.C., that costs thirty thousand dollars a year. The tour leader—a mother with three children in the school—was asked about the school’s flaws. When she said that the math program was weak, none of the parents taking the tour reacted. When she said that the football program was weak, the parents suddenly became concerned. “Really?” one of them asked worriedly. “What do you mean?”

“Even wealthy American parents didn’t care about math as much as football,” Ripley concluded.
One of the ironies of the situation is that sports reveal what is possible. American kids' performance on the field shows just how well they can do when expectations are high and they put their minds to it. It’s too bad that their test scores show the same thing.

Monday Matters #2

Information on Editorials

Definition of an Editorial

1.     Of editing: relating to, involving, or concerned with the editing of a text or broadcast

2.     Opinion piece: an article in a newspaper or magazine that expresses the opinion of its editor or publisher

Unique Attributes of an Editorial

Writing an editorial is different from writing a news story. Where in a news story, the facts are prized, and opinions unwelcome, in an editorial, the piece is based on opinion with facts as support.

A thesis is stated near the beginning of the piece. The thesis is the foundation for the author’s opinion and selected evidence/facts.

An editorial strikes a balance between off-topic banter and dry reporting. Facts (logos) are interspersed with emotional (pathos) or social (ethos) appeals to the reader.

Readers tend to follow along more easily when the piece includes direct persuasion and personal touches not found in news reporting.

Most newspapers dedicate a section to editorial writing. Contributors or newspaper editors write columns once or twice per week.

Famous editorialists

Peggy Noonan of the wsj.com (conservative)
David Brooks of the nytimes.com (liberal)
Bill Simmons of Grantand.com (moderate/humorous)
Rick Reilly of ESPN.com (sports commentary)
Malcolm Gladwell of newyorker.com (analytical)

Monday Matters Week #2- Your Assignment

Return to the issue that you selected for Monday Matters #1. Now find an editorial that discusses the event. Read the editorial, then compose a paragraph that paraphrases the author’s position. Be sure to hit on the main points of the editorial (focus on what the author is saying).

Labor Day: Work, Character, and the Need for Leadership

 

Let us read and remember what this national holiday, Labor Day, is really about. It is commonly perceived as a day to "not work," when in fact Labor Day is a day to celebrate the fact that we can work. We commemorate this special day in honor of those whose labor helped build our nation. As high school students, you may not have had the experience of employment yet, but you do understand the value of hard work in the classroom and on the athletic fields. It is quite simple: you work hard, you see results, and you feel accomplished. Work is inextricably tied to our identities and sense of worth.

But what are we to make of this "cultural unease" caused by the high unemployment rates? What happens if a person cannot work because of the faltering job market, lack of education, or a personal injury or illness? Perhaps you can posit a response to those questions for yourself, but now multiply those issues by 11 million. The result is a national identity crisis.

Peggy Noonan lays it on thick with the ethos and pathos in this piece. Noonan claims that those who can't work are struggling with morale, and those who are able to work and are in the public eye are perhaps not doing enough to positively affect those who need inspiration (see the second to last paragraph and identify who she is alluding to). Read and respond to the question at the end by composing a post on your individual blog.


Peggy Noonan
"Work and the American Culture"
August 30, 2013, 6:59 p.m. ET www.wsj.com

Two small points on an end-of-summer weekend. One is connected to Labor Day and the meaning of work. It grows out of an observation Mike Huckabee made on his Fox show a few weeks ago. He said that we see joblessness as an economic fact, we talk about the financial implications of widespread high unemployment, and that isn't wrong but it misses the central point. Joblessness is a personal crisis because work is a spiritual event.

A job isn't only a means to a paycheck, it's more. "To work is to pray," the old priests used to say. God made us as many things, including as workers. When you work you serve and take part. To work is to be integrated into the daily life of the nation. There is pride and satisfaction in doing work well, in working with others and learning a discipline or a craft or an art. To work is to grow and to find out who you are.

In return for performing your duties, whatever they are, you receive money that you can use freely and in accordance with your highest desire. A job allows you the satisfaction of supporting yourself or your family, or starting a family. Work allows you to renew your life, which is part of the renewing of civilization.

Work gives us purpose, stability, integration, shared mission. And so to be unable to work -- unable to find or hold a job -- is a kind of catastrophe for a human being.

There are an estimated 11.5 million unemployed people in America now, and those who do not have sufficient work or who've left the workforce altogether inflate that number further.

This is the real reason jobs and employment are the No. 1 issue in America's domestic life. And what I have been thinking in the weeks leading up to this weekend is very simple: "Thank you, God, that I have a job." May more of us be able to say those words on Labor Day 2014.

And may more political leaders come up who can help jobs happen, who can advance and support the kind of national policies that can encourage American genius. One of the things missing in the current political scene is zest -- a feeling that can radiate from the political sphere that everything is possible, the market is wide open. In the midst of the economic malaise of the 1970s the TV anchormen spoke in sonorous tones about the dreadful economic indicators -- inflation, high interest rates, "the misery index." But Steve Jobs, in his parents' garage, was quietly working on circuit boards. And strange young Bill Gates was creating a company called Microsoft. All that work burst forth under the favorable economic conditions and policies in the 1980s and '90s.

What is needed now is a political leader on fire about all the possibilities, not one who tries to sound optimistic because polls show optimism is popular but someone with real passion about the idea of new businesses, new inventions, growth, productivity, breakthroughs and jobs, jobs, jobs. Someone in love with the romance of the marketplace. We've lost that feeling among our political leaders, who mostly walk around looking like they have headaches. But American genius is still there, in our garages. It's been there since before Ben Franklin and the key and the kite and the bolt of lightning.
* * *
The second point is about a kind of cultural unease in the country that is having an impact on the national mood. I think it's one of the reasons the right track/wrong track polls are bad.

To make the point, we go back in political time.

Really good politicians don't try to read the public, they are the public. They don't try to be like the people, they actually are like them. Ronald Reagan never thought of himself as a gifted reader of the public mind, but as a person who had a sense of what Americans were thinking because he was thinking it too. That's a gift, and a happy one to have -- the gift of unity with the public you lead. The lack of that quality can be seen in many current political figures, who often, when they speak, seem to be withholding their true thoughts. As if the people wouldn't like it, or couldn't handle it.

Reagan was a good man, and part of his leadership was that he thought Americans were good too. He had high respect for what he saw as the American character. He liked to talk about the pioneers because he was moved by their courage, their ability to endure and forge through hostile conditions. He thought that was a big part of the American character. He was similarly moved by the Founders. He talked about the men who founded Hollywood , too, because those old buccaneers were great entrepreneurs who invented an industry. He admired their daring and willingness to gamble. They were wealth creators -- that's who Americans are. He liked to talk about inventors who create markets -- that's us, he thought. He liked to talk about barn raisings -- the practice out West of local settlers coming together to build some neighbor's barn, so pretty soon they'd have a clearing and then a town.
By celebrating these things he felt he was celebrating not the America that was, but the America that is. That America, he felt, was under threat of being squashed and worn down by the commands and demands of liberalism. He would fight that and, he thought, win, because Americans saw it pretty much as he did.

So Reagan didn't just have something, the ability to lead. He was given something -- the America he grew up in, knew and could justly laud.

To today: I've been thinking about the big bad stories of the summer, the cultural ones that disturb people. The sick New York politician who, without apparent qualms, foists his sickness into the public sphere again. The kids who kill the World War II vet because they're bored. The kids who kill the young man visiting from Australia because they too are bored, and unhappy, and unwell. The teacher who has the affair with the 14-year-old student, and gets a slap on the wrist from the judge. The state legislator who's a sexual predator, the thieving city councilor and sure, the young pop star who is so lewd, so mindlessly vulgar and ugly on the awards show.

We're shocked. But we're not shocked. And that itself is disturbing. We're used to all this, now, this crassness and lowness of public behavior. The cumulative effect of these stories, I suspect, is that we're starting to fear: Maybe that's us. Maybe that's who we are now. As if these aren't separate and discrete crimes and scandals but a daily bubbling up of the national character.

It would be good if we had some political leaders who could speak of this deflated and anxious feeling about who we are. Conservatives have been concerned about our culture for at least a quarter-century. Helpful now would be honest liberal voices that speak to our concerns about who we fear we're becoming. They might find they're thinking the way the American people are thinking, which is step one in true leadership.

Your Homework: Read the passage and identify at least 2 examples of ethos and 2 examples of pathos. Explain how the author uses these rhetorical strategies to address the audience, and analyze the effects. Consider the rhetorical triangle: who is the author and why is she qualified to speak on this subject? Who is her audience, the "we" that the author is referring to in the first paragraph? Where does she position herself on the subject, and ultimately what is her purpose or message in this piece?

Logos, Ethos, and Pathos from the Dr. himself

In class today, we learned about rhetoric, or the art of communication. We focused on three rhetorical strategies: logos (an appeal to logic), ethos (an appeal to the speaker's character or ethics), and pathos (an appeal to emotions). Now let's look at an example of a piece of nonfiction that incorporates all three rhetorical strategies.

Arguably, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is one of the greatest rhetoricians in American history. His writing is powerful not simply because of the message, but because of his use of rhetorical strategies. Read the short editorial "The Purpose of Education," which Dr. King wrote while attending Morehouse College. Identify specific instances where Dr. King appeals to logos, ethos, and pathos. Be sure to address what is being said, how it is being said, and the effects of this rhetorical strategy. Respond on your personal blogs.

"The Purpose of Education"

by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,
Morehouse College Student Paper, The Maroon Tiger, in 1947

As I engage in the so-called "bull sessions" around and about the school, I too often find that most college men have a misconception of the purpose of education. Most of the "brethren" think that education should equip them with the proper instruments of exploitation so that they can forever trample over the masses. Still others think that education should furnish them with noble ends rather than means to an end. It seems to me that education has a two-fold function to perform in the life of man and in society: the one is utility and the other is culture. Education must enable a man to become more efficient, to achieve with increasing facility the legitimate goals of his life.

Education must also train one for quick, resolute and effective thinking. To think incisively and to think for one's self is very difficult. We are prone to let our mental life become invaded by legions of half truths, prejudices, and propaganda. At this point, I often wonder whether or not education is fulfilling its purpose. A great majority of the so-called educated people do not think logically and scientifically. Even the press, the classroom, the platform, and the pulpit in many instances do not give us objective and unbiased truths. To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.

The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.

The late Eugene Talmadge, in my opinion, possessed one of the better minds of Georgia, or even America. Moreover, he wore the Phi Beta Kappa key. By all measuring rods, Mr. Talmadge could think critically and intensively; yet he contends that I am an inferior being. Are those the types of men we call educated?

We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character--that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate. The broad education will, therefore, transmit to one not only the accumulated knowledge of the race but also the accumulated experience of social living.

If we are not careful, our colleges will produce a group of close-minded, unscientific, illogical propagandists, consumed with immoral acts. Be careful, "brethren!" Be careful, teachers!

Welcome, bookworms!

If you're reading this, it means you are enrolled in AP Language this year. If you're in my AP Language class, there are only three requirements:

1. Do the work.
2. Be an active contributor.
3. Be awesome at all times.

The primary purpose of this blog is to provide a forum for you to become an informed person. Beyond the classroom, we are exposed to ideas--academic and otherwise--through a confluence of technology and the media. We are citizens in the 21st century that is dominated by an influx of information, so much so that we have become reliant on the media. (Imagine going 24 hours without any form of media.) 

Thanks to the first amendment, we Americans are entitled to freedom of speech and freedom of the press, so there is a lot of literature out there. But just because something is published does not mean that it is right or we have to agree with it. As such, nearly everything is an argument. In order to be an informed citizen, you must be able to identify an author's rhetorical strategies, purpose, and audience. By practicing how to analyze, argue, and synthesize, you will be well-prepared for the AP Language Exam in May. But where do you start?

In simple terms, you need to know something about something. And you do this by reading.

How do you know when you know something? You've read a piece, re-read it, thought about it, formulated an argument, and written about it. That's what we'll work on here. Check back often for new posts, assignments, and feedback.

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