Journal Nine: Argument Topics

For this journal entry, I want you to find three different links to newspaper articles, each one focused on a different current issue that truly sparks your interest. For each link: I want you to give me a brief summary of the issue and then tell me what your stance on that issue is. This is meant to get you thinking about a topic for your fourth paper: Arguing a Position. It will be important that you pick a controversial, relevant, and timely topic for your paper. I do not want you arguing for the merits of using sunscreen -- that is obvious and not controversial at all. Controversy will be the heart of why your paper topic merit's a discussion. So think about this when finding possible topics for your paper.

Journal Eight: Keep It Simple

For this journal assignment, please take a look at the comparison made between Nabisco's Sugar Wafer and Fig Newton by Paul Goldberger, the architectural critic for the New York Times:

SUGAR WAFER (NABISCO) There is no attempt to imitate the ancient forms of traditional, individually

baked cookies here—this is a modern cookie through and through. Its simple rectangular form, clean and pure, just reeks of mass production and modern technological methods. The two wafers, held together by the sugar-cream filling, appear to float . . . this is a machine-age object.

FIG NEWTON (NABISCO) This, too, is a sandwich but different in every way from the Sugar Wafer. Here the imagery is more traditional, more sensual even; a rounded form of cookie dough arcs over the fig concoction inside, and the whole is soft and pliable. Like all good pieces of design, it has an appropriate form for its use, since the insides of Fig Newtons can ooze and would not be held in place by a more rigid form. The thing could have had a somewhat different shape, but the rounded tip is a comfortable, familiar image, and it’s easy to hold. Not a revolutionary object but an intelligent one.

Here, Goldberger focuses on the "architectural design" of the cookies for his compare/contrast exercise. I want you to do something similar. Find two objects that are equally interchangeable and write 200-300 words comparing and contrasting them using "design" as the only criteria for your evaluation. You might look at cell phones, the covers of two CDs from the same artist, toothbrushes. Have fun picking your objects. The only rule: KEEP IT SIMPLE!

Please include photos of the objects you are evaluating in your blog . When you are composing your new post, you'll see an image next to "Link" in the toolbar above your writing, below your title. Click on this image and then you'll receive instructions for how to paste images into your post. It's quite easy. 

NOTE: Despite what I said on Friday, this journal assignment is due by the beginning of class on Wednesday. That's right. You got yourselves a slight extension. 

Links to Presentation Readings

Here are links to the articles that you will be presenting on in class on Wednesday:

- Lauren Conrad: 
http://www.salon.com/books/review/2009/06/19/lauren_conrad/

- Social Network: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/10/04/101004crat_atlarge_denby

- James Ellroy: 
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/books/review/Jacobs-t.html?_r=1&ref=bookreviews

- Ruth Reichl:
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/29/arts/restaurants-065093.html

Journal Seven: Establishing Criteria For An Evaluation

For this journal assignment, I want you to pick something to evaluate. It can be anything you like that merits an evaluation: a product, a movie, a book, etc. etc. It does not have to be something you will use in your final paper, but it could be. After you've decided on the thing that you want to evaluate I want you to do the follow in 500 words:

- Of course, tell me what you are evaluating and why it merits evaluation (Is it popular? New? Revolutionary? Controversial?).
- Then, I want you to tell me THE CRITERIA you will use to evaluate your subject. You need to have at least FIVE pieces of criteria that you will use to establish the value of your subject.