Warm-Up Spring (or late winter). What I remember, what I love or hate, what I hope for…

From the start, the contemporary university's relationship with students has a solicitous, nearly servile tone. As soon as someone enters his junior year in high school, and especially if he's living in a prosperous zip code, the informational material -- the advertising -- comes flooding in. Pictures, testimonials, videocassettes, and CD ROMs (some bidden, some not) arrive at the door from colleges across the country, all trying to capture the student and his tuition cash. The freshman-to-be sees photos of well-appointed dorm rooms; of elaborate phys-ed facilities; of fine dining rooms; of expertly kept sports fields; of orchestras and drama troupes; of students working alone (no overbearing grown-ups in range), peering with high seriousness into computers and microscopes; or of students arrayed outdoors in attractive conversational garlands. Occasionally -- but only occasionally, for we usually photograph rather badly; in appearance we tend at best to be styleless -- there's a professor teaching a class. (The college catalogues I received, by my request only, in the late Sixties were austere affairs full of professors' credentials and course descriptions; it was clear on whose terms the enterprise was going to unfold.) A college financial officer recently put matters to me in concise, if slightly melodramatic, terms: "Colleges don't have admissions offices anymore, they have marketing departments." Is it surprising that someone who has been approached with photos and tapes, bells and whistles, might come in thinking that the Freud and Shakespeare she had signed up to study were also going to be agreeable treats?

“ We're going to have to control your tongue," the dentist says, pulling out all the metal from my mouth. Silver bits plop and tinkle into the basin. My mouth is a motherlode. The dentist is cleaning out my roots. I get a whiff of the stench when I gasp. "I can't cap that tooth yet, you're still draining," he says. "We're going to have to do something about your tongue," I hear the anger rising in his voice. My tongue keeps pushing out the wads of cotton, pushing back the drills, the long thin needles. "I've never seen anything as strong or as stubborn," he says. And I think, how do you tame a wild tongue, train it to be quiet, how do you bridle and saddle it? How do you make it lie down?

“Idea” vs. “Evidence” Idea statements Analysis Thesis Color commentary Implications “How” it is said Interpretation Claim Argument Evidence statements Examples Could be direct quotation Could be paraphrase Play-by-play “What” is said Concrete detail Evidence “From the Text”

More on Idea vs. Evidence Although academic writing involves many sentence types, for our purposes right now, we will be identifying two general categories: idea and evidence. In order to analyze another author’s argument, you must first be able to identify how she is using these two kinds of sentences. In turn, you will observe how you are using them in your own writing, and ultimately, craft your paragraphs using a combination of the two. Evidence sentences recount specific details from a source text or life experience. Evidence sentences may be summarized in the writer’s own words or in the form of direct quotes from a text. For our purposes, you will often need to quote directly. Idea sentences state the writer’s specific idea, interpretation or theory about a given topic or a source text. (I define “text” in the broadest sense; it encompasses not only written texts, but also includes any artistic artifact, interviews, conversations, or performances (formal or informal). People themselves may at times be considered “texts” available for our interpretation.)

Idea or Evidence? ____ The voiceover narrator says, “In the minors you got to make all the calls, and then one day you get the call,” after which we see him face his first real test. ____ Americans are not without culture; they simply have a different culture from that of Bennett and Hirsch. ____ The greatest patriots in our time will be those who explore our ideology critically, with particular attention to the gaps between mythology and practice. ____ He must call an important and ‘close’ play correctly and then withstand the pressure of dispute.

Idea or Evidence? ____ The narrator seems to be feeling some culture shock. ____ He states, “You are white—yet a part of me as I am a part of you.” ____ The author of the poem, “Theme for English B,” displays a sense of self-knowledge and confidence. ____ In a line like “I wonder if it’s that simple, I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston Salem,” it becomes clear that the author is introspectively contemplating his place in his educational surrounds.

Shape of an Academic Paragraph Topic sentence (Idea sentence) Evidence sentence Analysis sentence (may be one, two or three sentences) Evidence sentence Analysis sentences (may be one, two, or three sentences) [potentially more evidence and analysis]

Shape of a Body Paragraph, cont. Big Idea sentence (topic sentence) Evidence sentence Two-Three smaller idea sentences Evidence sentence Two-three smaller idea sentences Evidence sentence Two-three smaller idea sentences

More on Academic Paragraphs (or Body Paragraphs) The outline on the previous slide gives you a form for Assignment 1.3. It is also the form of any “body paragraph” in a longer essay. I often break the paragraph into “chunks.” One “chunk” is an evidence sentence plus your analysis that follows. Note that any time you provide evidence, you should follow it with analysis. (Don’t have any hanging quotes). Your topic sentence is a “bigger” idea sentence than analysis sentences. (“Bigger” in my terms means broader, more abstract, or able to encompass more evidence.) The topic sentence is less specific than the other idea sentences in a paragraph.

What does an effective topic sentence do? Presents a claim about the evidence which will follow Makes a mini-argument States your interpretation of the text For our purposes right now, it argues the effect of the author’s rhetorical strategy (of the text you’re writing on)