Students:

This week please choose one of the following to address in your post:

Option 1 — In “Anti-Intellectualism” Grant Penrod highlights the animosity that some feel toward “intellectuals.”  Do you agree with what Penrod is arguing here?  Why?  Refer to specific parts of the essay.  What do you make of his claims about celebrities in our culture?  Also, pay attention to his use of sources.  What kind of sources are they?  Do you think they are appropriate for use in an academic essay?  Why?

Option 2 — Write a synopsis of your essay thus far.  What is your thesis?  What kind of support have you found thus far?  What kind of dissenting opinions have you found?  How will you reconcile these differences?  This should be a synopsis, not simply the first page of your essay.

Note:  Regardless of which prompt you respond to, be sure that both are the equivalent of roughly one typed page in word.

Your Beef with Pittsburgh

Whether you’ve been living here all your life, or you’ve only been here for a few months, you’ve likely found yourself puzzled by some things here in Pittsburgh.  Just this past fall, you may have asked yourself, “Why does Luke want to tax college students?” or “What’s up with the so called ‘T?’”

In this next post, I’d like you to begin thinking about your Argumentative Documented essay.  This week, take some time to look through the Post-Gazette and the Tribune Review and find 3-4 local issues that you think you might want to handle in this next essay.  For each option that you’re considering, tell us a bit about why it interests you.

You may also choose to handle an issue from your hometown instead of one here in Pittsburgh.

Harnessing Your Inner Wolfe

Class,

This week we took a look at an excerpt from Tom Wolfe’s “The New Journalism,” and we talked a bit about his use of point of view throughout some of his work.  This week I’d like you to harness your inner Wolfe.

Think about someone who is your total opposite - a bizarro you - and write a description of yourself from that person’s perspective.

Wednesday Students Only:

For this week’s Tumblr post I’d like you to talk a bit about the paper you started writing this week.  As you’ve been thinking about different places to write about you’ve probably eliminated some choices because they were either too obvious, or have had a lot written about them already (ahem, Primanti’s!).  Remember, you’re trying to come up with a unique angle on the place you’re writing about.

In this post, I’d like you to address 2 things.  First, which places were you considering early on that you ultimately decided would not work for this piece?  Why didn’t you believe they would work well?  In what ways had you seen these places already represented in other media? Be as specific as possible.  Secondly, what place did you ultimately choose?  Why do you think this place is a better choice than the others?  And finally, and perhaps most importantly, what is your angle?