Reading and Writing for Civic Literacy: The Critical Citizen's Guide to Argumentative Rhetoric. Brief edition.
by Lazere,DonaldEdition: Brief
Format: Nonspecific Binding
Pub. Date: 2009-01-30
Publisher(s): Paradigm Publishing
Other versions by this Author
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Summary
This brief edition of a ground-breaking textbook addresses the need for college students to develop critical reading, writing, and thinking skills for self-defense in the contentious arena of American civic rhetoric. Designed for first-year or more advanced composition and critical thinking courses, it is one-third shorter than the original edition, more affordable for students, and easier for teachers to cover in a semester or quarter. It incorporates up-to-date new readings and analysis of controversies like the growing inequality of wealth in America and the debates in the 2008 presidential campaign, expressed in opposing viewpoints from the political left and right. Exercises help students understand the ideological positions and rhetorical patterns that underlie such opposing views. Widely debated issues of whether objectivity is possible and whether there is a liberal or conservative bias in news and entertainment media, as well as in education itself, are foregrounded as topics for rhetorical analysis. Online Materials Available -Steve Brouwer's essay, "If We Decide to Tax the Rich" with complete footnotes and works cited -Model Student Research Paper: "From Reagonomics to Obamanomics" -Research Resources -Glossary of Rhetorical and Critical Thinking Terms -Works Cited
Author Biography
Donald Lazere, now at the University of Tennessee, is Professor Emeritus from California Polytechnic State University and editor of American Media and Mass Culture: Left Perspectives (University of California Press).
Table of Contents
| Preface for Teachers (and Curious Students) to the Brief Edition | p. ix |
| Acknowledgments | p. xii |
| Introduction | |
| An Appeal to Students | p. 3 |
| English as a Survival Skill | p. 3 |
| Critical Education in Historical Perspective | p. 13 |
| "An End to History" | p. 17 |
| "Majoring in Debt" | p. 19 |
| "Where's the Misery?" | p. 22 |
| Young America Foundation's Homepage | p. 23 |
| "The Voices of Dissent" | p. 25 |
| What Is an Argument? What Is a Good Argument? | p. 32 |
| What Is a Good Argument? | p. 33 |
| "The Intellectual Free Lunch" | p. 35 |
| Analysis, Synthesis, and Judgments | p. 40 |
| Style and Tone, Eloquence and Moral Force | p. 42 |
| Conclusion | p. 43 |
| Rhetoric: A Checklist for Analyzing Your Own and Others' Arguments | p. 44 |
| A Historical-Causal Analysis of "The White Problem" | p. 49 |
| Definitions and Criteria of Critical Thinking | p. 54 |
| Critical Thinking and Cultural Literacy | p. 56 |
| Making Connections | p. 57 |
| Dialogue in Critical Thinking and Literature | p. 58 |
| Recursiveness, Cumulativeness, and Levels of Meaning | p. 59 |
| Drawing the Line and Establishing Proportion | p. 61 |
| Avoiding Oversimplification and Recognizing Complexity | p. 62 |
| Reading Between the Lines | p. 64 |
| Irony and Paradox | p. 66 |
| "My Dungeon Shook" | p. 69 |
| "A Noiseless Patient Spider" | p. 72 |
| "Can Patriotism Be Compassionate?" | p. 73 |
| Semantics in Rhetoric and Critical Thinking | p. 78 |
| Denotation and Connotation | p. 79 |
| Definition and Denotation in Argument | p. 79 |
| Connotation in Argument: "Cleans" and "Dirties" | p. 80 |
| Euphemism | p. 83 |
| Abstract and Concrete Language | p. 84 |
| Unconcretized Abstractions | p. 85 |
| Literal and Figurative Language | p. 85 |
| Literal and Figurative Language in Literature | p. 86 |
| Summary: Applying Semantic Analysis | p. 88 |
| A Semantic Calculator for Bias in Rhetoric | p. 88 |
| "When Words Cheapen Life" | p. 89 |
| "Framing the Issues" | p. 90 |
| "Look Behind Statistics for Changing Definitions" | p. 94 |
| Writing Argumentative Papers | p. 97 |
| Prewriting | p. 98 |
| Writing | p. 98 |
| Postwriting | p. 102 |
| Locating and Evaluating Sources | p. 103 |
| A Model of the Writing Process in a Student Paper | p. 105 |
| from The Beauty Myth | p. 116 |
| "The Backlash Myth" | p. 120 |
| Attaining an Open Mind: Overcoming Psychological Obstacles to Critical Thinking | |
| From Cocksure Ignorance to Thoughtful Uncertainty: Viewpoint, Bias, and Fairness-Culturally Conditioned Assumptions and Centrisms | p. 125 |
| Relativism and Commitment | p. 127 |
| Biased and Unbiased Viewpoints: The ESBYODS Principle | p. 128 |
| Acknowledge Your Own and Opposing Viewpoints | p. 130 |
| Rogerian Argument, Believers and Doubters | p. 130 |
| Culturally Conditioned Assumptions and Centrisms | p. 131 |
| Totems and Taboos | p. 131 |
| Ethnocentrism | p. 134 |
| American Ethnocentrism | p. 136 |
| "Battle over Patriotism Curriculum" | p. 136 |
| Questioning Capitalism | p. 140 |
| Phallocentrism | p. 144 |
| Other Centrisms | p. 145 |
| from A Room of One's Own | p. 147 |
| "Anti-Capitalism in Five Minutes or Less" | p. 147 |
| Overgeneralization, Stereotyping, and Prejudice | p. 153 |
| Prejudice | p. 154 |
| Class Prejudice | p. 155 |
| Reverse Prejudice | p. 160 |
| "An Unexpected Education at St. Anthony's" | p. 162 |
| "Life on the Expense Account" | p. 163 |
| "Dozens of Billionaires Receive Ag Handouts" | p. 165 |
| "Wal-Mart: Rise of the Goliath" | p. 166 |
| Authoritarianism and Conformity, Rationalization and Compartmentalization | p. 171 |
| from Network | p. 174 |
| Rationalization, Compartmentalized Thinking, and Double Standards | p. 177 |
| Other Defense Mechanisms | p. 180 |
| from 1984 | p. 181 |
| "On the Merits" | p. 182 |
| "Greens Dodge Links to Unabomber" | p. 184 |
| Elements of Argumentative Rhetoric | |
| Some Key Terms in Logic and Argumentation | p. 191 |
| Deductive and Inductive Arguments | p. 191 |
| Implications and Inferences | p. 199 |
| Setting the Agenda | p. 199 |
| Tone and Style | p. 202 |
| Polemics | p. 203 |
| Ground Rules for Polemicists | p. 203 |
| "Vouchers, Choice: Opposing Views" | p. 204 |
| "Chicken Little Calling Out, 'Global Warming!'" | p. 205 |
| "Closing the Wealth Gap" | p. 206 |
| Logical and Rhetorical Fallacies | p. 211 |
| Glossary of Logical and Rhetorical Fallacies | p. 212 |
| Causal Analysis | p. 222 |
| "Ya Got Trouble" | p. 224 |
| "Other People's Children: North Lawndale and the South Side of Chicago" | p. 226 |
| "Crisis in American Education" | p. 234 |
| Uses and Misuses of Emotional Appeal | p. 242 |
| Appeals to "Cleans" and "Dirties" | p. 242 |
| Puff Pieces and Hatchet Jobs | p. 243 |
| "Bunker Hunt's Greatest Investment" | p. 244 |
| Predictable Patterns of Wartime Rhetoric: Appeals to Fear and Pity | p. 250 |
| "The War Prayer" | p. 257 |
| "The Real War 1939-1945" | p. 259 |
| "War Is the Supreme Drug," An Interview with Author Chris Hedges | p. 260 |
| Thinking Critically About the Rhetoric of Politics and Mass Media | |
| Thinking Critically About Political Rhetoric | p. 267 |
| Political Semantics | p. 267 |
| Liberalism, Conservatism, Democrat, Republican | p. 269 |
| Socialism, Communism, Marxism | p. 270 |
| The World Political Spectrum | p. 271 |
| The American Political Spectrum | p. 274 |
| A Guide to Political Terms and Positions | p. 274 |
| Notes on the Guide to Political Terms and Positions | p. 279 |
| Predictable Patterns of Political Rhetoric | p. 283 |
| A Note on Twenty-First Century Modifications to Table 13.1 | p. 284 |
| Political Viewpoints in Sources | p. 285 |
| "If We Decided to Tax the Rich" | p. 290 |
| "The Intellectual Class War" | p. 294 |
| "Fascism Anyone?" | p. 297 |
| Thinking Critically About Mass Media | p. 303 |
| Do the Media Give People What They Want? | p. 304 |
| Are News Media Objective? What Are Their Biases? | p. 308 |
| The Debate over Political Bias in Media | p. 309 |
| Conclusion | p. 319 |
| "The Illiberal Media" | p. 320 |
| "Networks Need a Reality Check" | p. 323 |
| "Liberal Hate-Speech" | p. 325 |
| "Matthews vs. McNulty" | p. 328 |
| "Outfoxed Tweaks Rupert Murdoch's Mayhem-isphere" | p. 329 |
| Assignment for a Paper | p. 333 |
| Deception Detection: Varieties of Special Interests and Propaganda | p. 334 |
| Special Interests, Conflict of Interest, and Special Pleading | p. 334 |
| Lobbying and Public Relations | p. 337 |
| Varieties of Propaganda | p. 339 |
| Invective and Smearing | p. 340 |
| Government Public Relations; the Military-Industrial-Media Complex | p. 341 |
| "The Historic Power of Special Interests" | p. 344 |
| "When Money Talks" | p. 346 |
| "Flack Attack" | p. 347 |
| 60 Minutes, "Confessions of a Tobacco Lobbyist" | p. 351 |
| Putting It All Together in a Long Paper | |
| A Case Study: Rhetoric and the Wealth Gap | p. 361 |
| Goldberg versus Chait on Taxes | p. 362 |
| "The Rich Aren't Made of Money" | p. 362 |
| "A Very Special Kind of Math" | p. 363 |
| Sklar versus the Wall Street Journal | p. 368 |
| "Billionaires Up, America Down" | p. 368 |
| Wall Street Journal "Movin' On Up: A Treasury Study Refutes Populist Hokum About 'Income Inequality'" | p. 369 |
| Analyzing Statistical Tricks | p. 373 |
| Summary of Suspicious Statistical Arguments | p. 376 |
| An Outline of Conservative and Leftist Arguments on the Rich, the Poor, and the Middle Class | p. 376 |
| Collecting and Evaluating Opposing Sources: Writing the Research Paper | p. 384 |
| Assignment for an Annotated Bibliography and Working Outline | p. 385 |
| Sample Annotated Bibliography Entry | p. 385 |
| Sample Working Outline | p. 386 |
| Sample Research Paper | p. 388 |
| Documentation and Research Resources | p. 389 |
| Documentation | p. 389 |
| Works Cited Section | p. 390 |
| Research Resources | p. 392 |
| Index | p. 393 |
| Credits | p. 403 |
| Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved. |
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