Day Eleven Slide Show: Fukuyama Presentations & Paper Two

Day Eleven Slide Show: Fukuyama Presentations & Paper Two CRTW 201 Dr. Fike

Presentations on Fukuyama? • Question: What should your group do? • To prepare? • In class?

Meeting Times • Note: You must meet with me the week PRIOR to your presentation. I will not tolerate a group that procrastinates and wants to see me the day before the presentation. • Group One: Wednesday, 3:30. • Group Two: Thursday, 3:30. • Note: We will meet with the corresponding groups from the other section. Group members who are free should plan to attend.

How To Prepare for Your Conference • Read the chapter. • Meet with your group. • Prepare a hardcopy draft of your presentation and bring enough copies for me, your group members, and the members of the group from the other class. • This draft should consist of your responses to the questions on page 68 in Nosich’s book vis-à-vis your Fukuyama chapter.

Presentation Rubric • In-class presentations require the following elements for a 5/5: the majority of your group members attended your conference and had their Fukuyama books, notebooks, and something to write with, those group members at the conference all said something substantive, all group members contributed something substantive to the presentation, your application of Nosich's circle to your chapter was properly done, and your classmates responded well with comments and questions of their own. These elements do not have to be perfect, but they must be present in your presentations. I will deduct 1 point for each missing element. If you do not show up for your presentation (for any reason), you will receive a zero. (Athletes, see "Attendance Policy" below.)

Another View • Those in attendance at the conference had their Fukuyama books, notebooks, and something to write with. • Those group members at the conference all said something substantive. • All group members contributed something substantive to the presentation. • Your application of Nosich's circle to your chapter was properly done • Your classmates responded well with comments and questions of their own. You led a good discussion.

What To Do in Your Presentation • Share your analysis of the chapter in terms of the elements. • ANALYZE rather than evaluate. • It would be great to have a slide show, but you must have at least a handout. • Bring a slide show on disk as a backup in case you can’t get it to open from your account. • It is VERY okay to ask questions of your classmates, especially about key passages. • Ask them, at the end of your presentation, whether they can augment your response to the elements: Did you overlook anything? Do they have any comments on the job you did?

What About Evaluation? • You don’t get to flop the flap about your opinions until we have gone all the way through the elements. • Analyze first. Evaluate later. • This exercise isn’t about your opinion. It’s about faithfully applying Nosich’s elements to a chapter in Fukuyama’s book.

Evaluation • Do a standards check. See Nosich 162-63. • It is okay to blend analysis and evaluation (F’s concept is X, and he does not present it very clearly). It is also okay to do the analysis (elements) and then give all the evaluation (standards). You choose.

S.E.E.I. • State definition: Your job is to go around the circle of elements and share your insights with the rest of the class. • Elaborate: In other words, you will analyze the reasoning in your chapter. • Exemplify: For example, you will identify key concepts. • Illustrate: • It’s like tearing an engine apart and figuring out why it works or doesn’t work. • It’s like going to Scandals on Thursday night and asking yourself why people want to dance with your one roommate but not with your other roommate.

Bottom Line • What’s going on in your Fukuyama chapter, and why do you think so? • Analysis first, then evaluation.

Paper Two • The assignment involves the thinking that you do in your discipline. • Ultimately, you need to argue that your ability to do it stems mostly from nature or from nurture. • But let’s put the horse before the cart before we get to that.

Stages of Prewriting • Stage One: Nosich’s exercise on pages 63-64. • Stage Two: Identify a focused topic and put it through the same kind of analysis that you did to your discipline as a whole in Stage One. • Stage Three: Plug your findings into an overall outline based on the classical argument.

Focused Topic • Area of Inquiry: Thinking in a discipline. • Topic: Thinking in history. • Focus: Your take on a particular passage in a primary or secondary text (an original source or a history textbook). This focused topic may well center on a key question. • For examples, see Nosich 202ff.: A paragraph max. is your focused topic this time.

Next • Go around the circle of elements. Use page 68 and/or page 159. • See page 176: N’s whole system is here. • The elements: A series of steps (WHAT is going on?) • The standards: A series of filters (HOW WELL is it going on?) • The discipline: A cognitive framework.

Systems • See Nosich 197 for a definition of systems. • Theories and laws • Points of view • Case studies • Experiments • Opposing points of view

Now… • You should be able to see the importance of pages 63-64: you have to know how to think in your discipline before you can analyze your thinking about a focused topic. Period. • You must do Stage One completely and well before you move to Stages Two and Three.

What Then? • Question: After you go through the stages of prewriting, what do you do next? • Answer: Your write a classical argument.

Introduction • On opening sentence that mentions your focused topic. • A paragraph of about 5 sentences (about half a page). • A thesis that says: • Although (nature/nurture) may have some influence, • I will argue that (nature/nurture) is the greater factor in my suitability for thinking about (my focused topic) in (name of discipline) • because (give a reason why).

Background • Present and analyze your focused topic. • Focus = a passage from a primary or secondary text in your field. • To identify the kind of thinking required, go around the circle of elements. • Include the passage and your analysis of it in your paper. • This may take a couple of pages.

Assumptions Paragraph? • You don’t need one this time. • But there will be assumptions in your background section because you’ll go around the circle of elements.

Arguments • Give reasons why you have aptitude for thinking in your discipline. • Nature or nurture? Pick one and argue for it. • Things to consider: • Your parents? • Your background? • Can you really separate the two?

Objections • Now chip away at the arguments. • What is weak in them? • Are there alternatives? • For instance, if you are arguing for nature, you now need to object by suggesting that nurture plays a role as well. • Which is greater—nature or nurture?

Reply • Concession: Okay, the objections have a point. Say so, say why. • Reply: What is wrong with the objections, and why are the arguments okay. • Therefore, your position/thesis still holds.

Conclusion • Implications: • Are you in the right major? • If so, what are you going to do with it? • If not, what are you going to do about it? • Can you take the nature/nurture controversy a step further? • What have you learned about yourself from doing this assignment?

Somewhere in Your Paper • Try to build in one of the quotations from Ridley’s book (on the assignment sheet).

Today • Nosich 63-64: • Share your insights on each element with your group members. • Each group then selects one best response for each element. • I will call on each group to share a subset of their best responses. • You will say, for example, “In biology, a key concept is….”

Next Time • Bring a focused topic: a passage from a primary or secondary text. • Read and bring Wolfe’s article. • Bring “The Logic of an Article.” • DON’T FORGET GROUP MEETINGS: • GROUP ONE—TOMORROW, 3:30 • GROUP TWO—THURSDAY, 3:30

Day Eleven Slide Show: Fukuyama Presentations & Paper Two