August 27, 2008
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“Write a bad argument for Friday,” I said to my English 120 class at about 1:35pm.
I gave this as an example to the English 120 class:
“Write a bad essay for Friday,” I said to my English 110 class at about 2:35pm.
Jaws dropped in both classes. WHAT do you want us to DO?
“Well, how do you know when an argument has gone badly? Someone starts swearing, right? Or it turns into ‘You suck’ ‘No, you suck’.”
And I gave this to the English 110 class as an example:
“If you’ve been told you write like crap, just do that. If you’ve been told you write well, do the opposite.”
I’ve confused them and challenged them all at once; I’m awesome.
From confusion comes critical thinking? I hope?
Two new assignments… we’ll see how it all turns out come Friday.
Comments (4)
This is a hilarious assignment! A fun way to make a point. You’ll have to let us know how it turns out.
@espoir - Oh, I will. I feel I have thoroughly confused them. I suppose it’s better than boring them. I’m sure they don’t think it’s a “typical boring English class” now; they think I’m nuts instead. I can deal with that.
Bad argument? That is just so @#$%@#$% stupid! You think just because you have a Master’s degree you can make all of us feel stupid by writing this dum assignment. If you cared so much about our mentally development, you would maybe do something about the classroom were in. It is too hot to learn! Plus, that little car of yours is not green, so you aren’t really as good as you make us think you are. You assignment is wrong, its bad, there are no bad arguments, just idiots who don’t know what the h*** they are hearing from the right person!!! So take that….yeah.
@ChubEchpmnk - I love it, I love it, I love it. Thanks for writing up a sample for me to use in class, Cheryl. And thanks for the brainstorming via IM about letter-to-the-editor arguments; I have a Labor Day wknd assignment now! Woo hoo…