1. CUSP134: Icarus’s Parachute Technology and Media(tion): The Senses Today’s Agenda 1.McLuhan: Understanding Media Discussion of Reading Preparation #1 Questions Seminaring: Reading Preparation #3 Commentary on Selections 2.Short Paper #1 – Passage Commentary Comments on Writing in College Assignment Document (see assignment doc) Exemplification: Commentary

2. CUSP134: Icarus’s Parachute Technology and Media(tion): The Senses Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media (Experiential) Reading Preparation #1: Good Questions Seminaring: 1.Group by Selections 2.Discussion 1-3 of Reading Preparation #3 what is needed to understand it? what is the purpose of the passage? what does the passage imply? Discussion & General Commentary

3. CUSP134: Icarus’s Parachute Writing in College: R.I.P. High School Methods Kill the 5-Paragraph Essay Model -The form of your paper will not think for you -Worry about what you need to say first -Rethink the “thesis statement” -do not cling dogmatically to it -it should not be answerable with yes/no -Rethink the idea of “evidence” -hypothesis/data model is misleading -quotations/“facts” are not evidence w/o reasoning -It is not WHAT you think, it is HOW you think that matters!

4. CUSP134: Icarus’s Parachute Writing in College: Some Goals of Academic Writing Communal/ To Contribute to Knowledge Which means: -Contributing to the academic “conversation” about the world by engaging the given discourse(s) through new inquiry NOT: -Demonstrating how much you already “know,” how eloquent or smart you can sound, or repeating what others said Personal/ To Develop your Critical Imagination -Restructure your memory, aid your reflective capacity, practice personal responsibility for thought

5. CUSP134: Icarus’s Parachute Writing in College: Engaging Discourses through Texts The Texts are Your Friend -They constitute a consultable ground -I.A. Richards “Machines to Think With” -Discourses of academic disciplines are sustained in their TEXTS (books, essays, journals, reports, novels, poems, etc.) -They both enable and guide thought -They enforce PATIENCE and PRECISION -The “new” can only be accessed and communicated confidently through the given -Ex. Bacon’s “helps”; OuLiPo’s principle of creativity

6. CUSP134: Icarus’s Parachute Writing in College: Engaging Discourses through Texts BUT… Nothing absolves you of reasoning -Texts do not really “contain” evidence, they construct it -Ex. “statistics show…”; appeals to authority, so-and-so said what?! -Reading for information/inspiration/pleasure (vs) -Reading AS inquiry How do I keep from simply seeing and affirming what I already believe, and dismissing what I don’t?