November 18, 2002 —
In-class activities
Five tasks for you to work on. Number 1 is optional, but it is probably
the most fun!
- Write a parody. I’ve given
you hard essays, too academic, but now you see the academic style.
Let’s have some fun with it and parody the academic style. Write
me one paragraph of prose, using the “De-authentication” paragraph
from Gergen’s essay as our model.
a)
E.g. De-authentication: make up a new word to describe the “new
self.”
b)
Describe this new word as “subtle” or important, or paradigmatic
(make it seem really important).
c)
Put it in the context of human history, or some other really big framework.
d)
Explain how that tradition is being undermined by technology.
e)
Give a general, vague example.
- Write a summary of Gergen’s
essay if you have not done so already. Show me that you understand
the main points of the essay. Take a sentence or two to describe the
ways in which you would offer a rebuttal argument, an application argument,
or a combination of rebuttal and application.
- Read the essay for Wednesday:
Howard Rheingold’s “In
the Heart of the WELL.” As you read, think about the ways
in which Rheingold’s essay makes points that are similar to or different
from Gergen’s points in “The
Self in the Information Age.” For the Unit 3 essay,
you can write a rebuttal to or application of Rheingold’s essay, rather
than or in addition to, Gergen’s essay.
- Do some research on rebuttal or
“refutation” essays (“refutation” seems to be a
better search term on google). A professor at Buffton College in Ohio
describes “refutation arguments”
effectively.
- Also research the idea of “applying”
or “extending” the work of people you read. This essay contest at
the University of British Columbia (go Canada!) gives really good advice
about how you might take a complex passage from an academic like Gergen
(their example is sociologist Anthony Giddens), and extend certain ideas
without necessarily agreeing or disagreeing.