Goals for the Day

• Explore the ideological conflict with the Islamic State
• Gain further perspective on US foreign policy

Welcome, Mike!  Thanks for sharing your experiences and perspectives!  Kids, ask smart questions:)

Film:  The Islamic State

Questions for Discussion and Edmodo Discussion:

• What was most surprising to you about IS?
• How is this an ideological conflict? 
• How did watching this video impact your perspective on Obama’s current air strikes?
• What foreign policy recommendations would you make to the current leaders?

Be sure to get on EDMODO and synthesize your learning!  Answer the discussion questions!

You have until tonight to respond to your peers' posts from Why We Fight.

Goal for the Day

• Commune with Walt Whitman across space and time.  Talk to him about America?

      Who was Walt Whitman?

      My experience and that of other poets:  What is it about Whitman that makes us feel his ghostly presence so strongly?

      Some examples:  Ginsberg and Alexie

·      

      Find 3-5 quotes that speak to you and/or seem to reflect something about Whitman’s philosophy or his ideology or his America.  Respond to Walt.  T-chart or free form on sketch paper with doodles as responses. 

Walt’s Words	Your Response

GROUP FUSION 

1.  Share the quotes you identified.

2.  Make a poster with your groups.

3.   Each of you will contribute one of your quoted passages.  Each person should write in a different color. 

4.  Make the poster beautiful in other ways you see fit.  (Grass?)

Closure:  Why the title Leaves of Grass?

Exit ticket:  Tell me about your experience with Whitman today.

TURN IN ALL PAPERWORK!!

Film:  Why We Fight (2005)

Rhetorical Analysis:  Why We Fight

As you watch the film, takes notes that will help you answer the following questions.   Write complete, detailed answers to the questions (due Friday).   This weekend, post your answer to question #6 on EDMODO (by Friday) and/or respond to your peers’ posts (by Sunday).

1. Explain the concept of the military industrial complex.  What was President Eisenhower warning us against?

2. Write a detailed paragraph summarizing the argument that this film is making.  How does the film seem to be answering the question: Why do we fight?

3. How is this film rhetorical?  Write a detailed paragraph discussing the film as a work of rhetoric.  Mention several of the rhetorical concepts that we have studied so far.  (CONSIDER:  Refer to the four A’s of rhetoric , logos/pathos/ethos, and/or any concepts from the Herrick article. Is the movie guilty of any logical fallacies or doublespeak?) 

4.  What counterpoints could be made against this film’s rhetoric? 

5.  Is the film’s rhetoric effective for you?  Why or why not? 

6. EDMODO mini-seminar: React rhetorically to Why We Fight and the general content of the course these last few weeks.  As a thinking American, contribute your perspective to the conversation on foreign policy.  (Rhetoric is a response and invites a response!).  Post this answer to Edmodo.  Respond to 3-5 of your peers’ posts by Sunday night.

Goals for the Day

• Examine the roots of the arguments for and against the expansion of an American Empire at the turn of the 20th Century
• Identify ideological foundations of two conflicting historical primary sources

Starter 9.24:  Interpret the rhetoric of the political cartoons.  For each:  What perspective is it advancing?  What ideology does the cartoon seem to be reflecting?

Background Knowledge

John Green on American Imperialism

Teddy Roosevelt and the Spanish American War

Overview of the Imperialism Debate

Define:  yellow journalism




Mark Twain's rhetoric and proposed flag:

In a February 1901 article titled, "To the Person Sitting in Darkness," he criticized the U.S. policy in the Philippines:

There must be two Americas: one that sets the captive free, and one that takes a once-captive's new freedom away from him, and picks a quarrel with him with nothing to found it on; then kills him to get his land. . .

True, we have crushed a deceived and confiding people; we have turned against the weak and the friendless who trusted us; we have stamped out a just and intelligent and well-ordered republic; we have stabbed an ally in the back and slapped the face of a guest; we have bought a Shadow from an enemy that hadn't it to sell; we have robbed a trusting friend of his land and his liberty; we have invited clean young men to shoulder a discredited musket and do bandit's work under a flag which bandits have been accustomed to fear, not to follow; we have debauched America's honor and blackened her face before the world. . .

And as for a flag for the Philippine Province, it is easily managed. We can have a special one--our States do it: we can have just our usual flag, with the white stripes painted black and the stars replaced by the skull and cross-bones.

Primary Source Analysis: 
Senator Beveridge and the Anti-Imperialists



Feedback for Jessica

Check-in:  How are we doing?  Where are we going?  

Starter 9.23:  Check in with the news....

Read this article in the Washington Post and look at the polling statistics.  Answer the following questions.

• Why do you think Americans fluctuate so much in their opinions on U.S. military action?  What do you think influences these changes?

USA:  Democracy or Empire?

Goals

• Identify the characteristics of democracies and empires. 
• Continue to deconstruct the question:  Is the U.S.A. a democracy or an empire?

Group brainstorm:  Democracies and Empires

Share on Board.  (Take notes!)

• Which characteristics of each do we see in the American Experience?  (Highlight)
• Do we all agree about which we are?  What are our points of disagreement?
• Is this question a false dichotomy?  Could democracy be compatible with empire?

Discuss assigned article and Dr. Grossman's Powerpoint:  
A History of US Military Interventions
What is Dr. Grossman's ideological bias?  How does he support his arguments?
How does he inform our answers to the essential questions?


BIG QUESTION:  Why do we fight?  
In groups:  Why do you think the United States engages so frequently in military conflict?  What are the advantages and disadvantages of having the most powerful military in the world?

HOMEWORK:
Read Chapter 12 of Howard Zinn AND do some general background research on the Spanish American War.

Goals for the Day

• Analyze political discourse for the elements we have been studying.  (Specifically:  Aristotelian appeals, logical fallacies, and doublespeak)

Rhetorical Analysis:  Leading to War
Watch film:  Leading to War

1.  "Annotate" the film, noting rhetorical devices.

• Look for examples of logos, pathos, and ethos.
• Look for logical fallacies.
• Look for examples of doublespeak.
• Are the filmmakers guilty of any fallacies?

2.  In digital comp books, write 1-2 solid paragraphs analyzing the rhetoric that we see in this film, indicating examples of the rhetorical devices you annotated.

Further analysis of the information and rhetoric, can be found on the website: leadingtowar.com.

Bombs Over Baghdad:  How is "Shock and Awe" rhetorical?

What does war mean in the age of mass media?




HOMEWORK:
Read and annotate "Briefing on the History of Military Interventions" by Professor Zoltan Grossman

Edmodo foreign policy discussion!  I will post some stuff.  You guys post some stuff.  You say smart stuff and show your smart thinking.  

Pay attention to the news!!

Goals for the Day

• Be able to define four types of doublespeak (jargon, euphemism, gobbledygook, inflated language).
• Generate original examples of fallacies and doublespeak.

Doublespeak

Exaggerated Example:  Kevin King
What is doublespeak?
Review each of the concepts.


What are "talking points"?  How can they be turned into doublespeak?
Example:  Governor of Florida


Additional Rhetorical Concepts
Doublethink:  the power to hold two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously and accepting both of them.  -George Orwell, 1984

A few more fallacies...

False Analogy:  This fallacy compares two things which might share some similarities, but also differ in very important, often crucial ways.  Meaning is often twisted with this fallacy.

• Humans were born as free as the birds.  Why should we work?

Guilt by Association:  This fallacy claims someone is guilty because they may share some ideas or have a relationship with a criticized person or group.

• All communists are civil rights supporters. Martin Luther King, Jr. is a civil rights supporter. Therefore, Martin Luther King, Jr. is a communist.

Fallacy Poster Project

1.  Each group will add an example of the fallacy to the corresponding poster.

2.  Illustrate your example if you wishJ

3.  You may use whatever resources you have available to generate your example (go-go-gadget fallacy generator!)

4.  You cannot repeat an example that is from the Powerpoint, handout, or that is already present on the poster.  Be original.

A LINK message:  Welcome, Zoe!

HOMEWORK?

FINISH ALL READINGS and make sure Comp Book is caught up.

EDMODO conversation:  Respond to Russell Brand's rhetoric on American foreign policy.  (Respond in the conversation stream where the video is linked.)