3.12 Organization + persuasion

During the first part of class we took a close look at the way Obama organized his argument to soothe the "white" outrage over his connections to Rev. Wright.  We noticed that he approached his topic by emphasizing the points of connection with his audience BEFORE dealing with the very conflicted material regarding his pastor's remarks.    As in any argument, his target audience was the people who disagreed with him = the people who were angry that Obama would not renounce the Rev. Wright. 

As we analyzed the organization and movement of Obama's moves, we noticed that he moved back and forth: from stories, illustrations, examples => to logical, straight forward discussions of how that material connected to his argument.  We also noticed that he used transitions when he moved from one focus to the following focus (as when he gave the story about the constitution, and then related it to what he would argue, and then pointed out how his personal story connected to what he would argume and so on). 

After the break, we reviewed the overall organization of a persuasive essay, and I spoke with each of you one-on-one about your plans for creating the draft. 

For next class:

Read: TS/IS Chapter Seven

Write: Draft for your Persuasive essay.  4 pages minimum.

If you did not post your brainstorming (written to the prompts posted on the 3.10 blog), you were assigned to post that work by the end of class.  

As you write your draft, do not worry about correctness or using the right language.   The most important thing for you to do is to get your ideas on the page.  If you find yourself repeating yourself => do some more freewriting, or go back to the readings for more ideas.

Have a great break and see you on March 24.