Friday, September 30

Starter:  OW survey

Fun with satire:  Onion Fact-check

What are some questions that we have about American politics after watching the debate? (yesterday's journal)

Group work: Debate Analysis

HONORS (time to work).  

You can do Journal 9.30 with or without independent research.  Please feel free to use this time to work on your essays, ask Jessica for help, and organize critique plans with your fellow Honors students.  

Independent Work Time: Media Consumption (and journal)

1. Google media analyzing the debate.  Does it match your thoughts on the debate?
2. Research some of the questions we have about American politics.
3. Look at the websites of each candidate.  Read up on their positions.  How do their plans reflect the candidates’ ideologies?
1. https://www.hillaryclinton.com/
2. https://www.donaldjtrump.com/
4. Journal 9.30:  After watching the debate and reading up on the candidates’ positions on the issues, which candidate do you find resonates more with you?  Who is a better ideological match for your own positions?  Why?

Thursday, September 29

PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE

Follow along with the debate transcript.  (NPR fact-checked many claims during the debate).

Other fact-checking sites:

Factcheck.org

NY Times Fact check

Politifact

Honors: Let’s meet for a few!

Journal 9.29:  

1. React to the presidential debate.  Who do you think won and why?  Who had better rhetorical strategy?  Cite some specifics from the debate in analyzing why one person’s rhetorical strategy was better than the others.
2. What questions do you have about American politics after watching this debate?  What ideas or policies do you want to find out more about?

Wednesday, September 28

Welcome, Dr. Sarah Roberts-Cady!

Starter 9.28:  What was one thought and one question you had about Dr. Roberts-Cady's talk?  Why was it relevant to our study?

Questions/Debrief

Begin Watching Presidential Debate
Look for the types of political language we have been studying.  Raise hands with questions and observations.

Tuesday, September 27

Today:

How is language sometimes used to confuse and manipulate?

Starter 9.27:

Lutz says, "Language is power; those who control language control the world.  Power may come out of the barrel of a gun, but without the control of language there can be no real control of society."  Do you see this as true?  How so?  What might be some real world examples of how this plays out?

Announcements

Tomorrow 1st period, we have a guest speaker in the Commons. If you are in Steve's class third period, we will be switching hours, so report to the Commons 1st and be prepared to do chemistry for an hour of my class.

Doublespeak

Exaggerated Example:  Kevin King

What is doublespeak? What is the thesis of Lutz's article?

Review each of the concepts. Then in groups, have some theatrical fun with doublespeak.

• jargon
• euphemism
• gobbledygook
• inflated language

Group 1: Use doublespeak to try to get your parents to let you go with friends to a concert in Denver with no parental supervision. (Use the jargon of "teenspeak")

Group 2: Use doublespeak to try to explain to Sean and Libby why it is necessary for you to park in the upper lot. (Use euphemism to code your language).

Group 3: Use doublespeak to try to get out of a parking ticket. (Use gobbledygook to confuse the officer.)

Group 4: Use doublespeak to try to get hired for a job. (Use inflated language to help yourself sound better.)

What are "talking points"?  How can they be turned into doublespeak?

Example:  Governor of Florida

What are some of the talking points we have see in this election?

Lecture:  Logical Fallacies

Handout:  Some Logical Fallacies

Monday, September 26

Dearest Students:

Unfortunately, I had to go home sick today.  Please explore the new questions on the board by completing the following tasks:

1.  Read/annotate "Doublespeak" by William Lutz (Hard copies on front table).  Be able to identify the thesis of the article and define the key terms.  (euphemism, jargon, gobbledygook, inflated language) Try to associate it with real world examples.  

2.  Explore Logical Fallacies on the Internet.

Here is a great You Tube channel that covers many different fallacies.  Also, check out the poster on my wall.

Some resources:
You Tube channel that covers many different fallacies.  

Fallacies for Election Season
For an exhaustive list of fallacies

JOURNAL 9.26:  Notes/Examples of Fallacies

For each fallacy you research, note it in your comp book, and try to think of an example to go with it.

3.  Google and consume media surrounding tonight's debate.  

Optional Homework

Watch Presidential Debate tonight and look for the elements of rhetoric we have been studying so far.  You will have an open-note/open-reading quiz this week that asks you to apply your rhetorical knowledge to the presidential debate.  We will watch it again in class later this week, so you don’t have to watch it tonight, but please feel free if this stuff is fascinating to you.  Think about fallacies and doublespeak as you watch!

HONORS:  As you will be writing your first essay on this debate, you may benefit from watching it more than once.  Preview the essay here!

Thursday, September 22

Please get out your T-chart so I can give you credit.

Political Compass Quiz:  As you work through the quiz, ask me clarifying questions!!! 

Journal 9.22:  Building on Journal 9.19, how did adding the four quadrants add to your understanding of your own political ideology? Did you find anything surprising or did it confirm what you already knew about your political identity?  Explain. 

–OR—

How did the quiz add to your understanding of American politics?  Explain.



FROM WIKIPEDIA:

Modern American liberalism is the dominant version of liberalism in the United States. It is characterized by social liberalism,[1] and combines ideas of civil liberty and equality with support for social justice and a mixed economy.[1] The term 'modern liberalism' in this article only refers to the United States. In a global context, this philosophy is usually referred to as social liberalism.

The American modern liberal philosophy strongly endorses public spending on programs such as education, health care, and welfare. Important social issues today include addressing inequality, voting rights for minorities, reproductive and other women's rights, support for same-sex marriage, and immigration reform.[2]

Modern liberalism took shape during the twentieth century, with roots in Theodore Roosevelt's New Nationalism, Woodrow Wilson's New Freedom, Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, Harry S. Truman's Fair Deal, John F. Kennedy's New Frontier, and Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. American liberals oppose conservatives on most issues, but not all. Modern liberalism is historically related to social liberalism and progressivism, though the current relationship between liberal and progressive viewpoints is debated.

John F. Kennedy defined a liberal as follows:[9][10]

"...someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people—their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties—someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a 'Liberal', then I'm proud to say I'm a 'Liberal'."

Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1941 defined a liberal party as one,

"which believes that, as new conditions and problems arise beyond the power of men and women to meet as individuals, it becomes the duty of Government itself to find new remedies with which to meet them. The liberal party insists that the Government has the definite duty to use all its power and resources to meet new social problems with new social controls—to ensure to the average person the right to his own economic and political life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."[11]

American Conservatism is a broad system of political beliefs in the United States that is characterized by respect for American traditions, support for Judeo-Christian values, economic liberalism, anti-communism, advocacy of American exceptionalism and a defense of Western culture from perceived threats posed by creeping socialism, moral relativism, multiculturalism, and liberal internationalism. Liberty is a core value, with a particular emphasis on strengthening the free market, limiting the size and scope of government, and opposition to high taxes and to government or labor union encroachment on the entrepreneur. American conservatives consider individual liberty, within the bounds of conformity to American values as the fundamental trait of democracy, which contrasts with modern American liberals, who generally place a greater value on equality and social justice.[1][2]

The history of American conservatism has been marked by tensions and competing ideologies. Fiscal conservatives and libertarians favor small government, low taxes, limited regulation, and free enterprise. Social conservatives see traditional social values as threatened by secularism; they tend to support voluntary school prayer and oppose abortion and same sex marriage.[8][9][10][11][12] Some also want the teaching of intelligent design or creationism allowed, as the topics are currently judicially prohibited in public schools. The 21st century has seen an increasingly fervent conservative support for Second Amendment rights of private citizens to own firearms. Neoconservatives want to expand American ideals throughout the world.[13] Paleoconservatives advocate restrictions on immigration, non-interventionist foreign policy, and stand in opposition to multiculturalism.[14] Nationwide most factions, except some libertarians, support a unilateral foreign policy, and a strong military. The conservative movement of the 1950s attempted to bring together these divergent strands, stressing the need for unity to prevent the spread of "godless communism."[15]

-

William Buckley

“It is the job of centralized government (in peacetime) to protect its citizens' lives, liberty and property. All other activities of government tend to diminish freedom and hamper progress. The growth of government (the dominant social feature of this century) must be fought relentlessly. In this great social conflict of the era, we are, without reservations, on the libertarian side. The profound crisis of our era is, in essence, the conflict between the Social Engineers, who seek to adjust mankind to conform with scientific utopias, and the disciples of Truth, who defend the organic moral order.”

Joe Wurzelbacher

“Conservatism is about the basic rights of individuals. God created us. As far as the government goes, the Founding Fathers based the Constitution off of Christian values. It goes hand-in-hand. As far as the Republican Party? I felt connected to it because individual freedom should not be legislated by the federal government.”

The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives

Work in groups to answer the following questions.  Be prepared to share your group’s thoughts with the whole class.

How do we see Haidt’s ideas about the moral values manifest on both sides of the issues?  Use the frameworks (harm/care, fairness/reciprocity, in-group/loyalty, authority/respect, purity/sanctity) and any other ideas from the talk to explain the issue through the lens of moral psychology.  

• Group 1:  Immigration
• Group 2:  Same-Sex Marriage (and/or religious liberty)
• Group 3:  Criminal Justice
• Group 4:  Gun control/Gun rights
• Group 5:  Foreign policy/National Security

DISCUSS:  How can this knowledge help us better understand people who are ideologically different than we are?  How could it help us find compromise in US politics?




IF TIME: The brain research on liberals and conservatives


OPTIONAL WEEKEND HOMEWORK:
Do more background research on liberal and conservative thought.  

Look at the historical evolution of the parties:
Republican Party
Democratic Party

Look at the modern party platforms:
Republican Party Platform
Democratic Party Platform
Libertarian Party Platform
Green Party Platform

Switch back and forth between MSNBC and Fox to notice the difference in their coverage

Wednesday, September 21

Starter 9.21: America loves satire!!! Watch this video and respond:

• What liberal and conservative perspectives are being spoofed in this video?  Explain some of the perspectives being satirized, referring to specifics from both sides of the political aisle. 

What would a liberal/conservative say about __________?

• Line-up in two even lines (one liberal, one conservative).  You shouldn’t necessarily be in the line that you yourself agree with (although many of you will be). 
• Review issues from T-chart, taking turns making points and counterpoints on each issue. 
• What questions do we have?

The Political Compass: Social Scale AND Economic Scale

(Social) Authoritarian (more law and order) vs Libertarian (more individual freedom)

• How much should the government legislate morality and personal behavior?
• How free should we be?

(Economic) “Right” vs “Left”

• What is capitalism? What is communism? What is socialism?
• What are "free markets"?
• How involved should the government be in regulating the economy?
• How much (and what) should we own collectively v. privately?
• What should government (collect taxes to) provide and ensure?

TWO DIFFERING VIEWS OF HUMAN SOCIETY:

• Karl Marx: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”
• Collaborative view of human nature
• Adam Smith: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”· 
• Competitive view of human nature