Monday, February 25, 2008

Tilting and other less violent means of argument

a_knights_tale.jpga_knights_tale.jpga_knights_tale.jpgBy way of introduction to arguments and since I am sick as a dog and probably won't be at school on Monday, we are watching a movie today (you've probably already seen part of it by the time you read this).  Your task is this, blog your analysis of one of the following two arguments made in the movie.  Consider the relationships between the speaker, audience(s), and subject.  Examine the appeal and how that appeal is constructed, evaluating its effectiveness.  This will be due the day after we finish the movie (probably Wednesday February 27th).


Chaucer's Argument to endear the crowd to Sir Ulrich von Lichtenstein in


A Knight's Tale


 You're good. You're very good. My lords, my ladies, and everybody else here not sitting on a cushion!

[crowd roars]

Today... today, you find yourselves equals.

[crowd roars]

For you are all equally blessed. For I have the pride, the privilege, nay, the pleasure of introducing to you to a knight, sired by knights. A knight who can trace his lineage back beyond Charlemagne. I first met him atop a mountain near Jerusalem, praying to God, asking his forgiveness for the Saracen blood spilt by his sword. Next, he amazed me still further in Italy when he saved a fatherless beauty from the would-be ravishing of her dreadful Turkish uncle.

[crow, boos]

In Greece he spent a year in silence just to better understand the sound of a whisper. And so without further gilding the lily and with no more ado, I give to you, the seeker of serenity, the protector of Italian virginity, the enforcer of our Lord God, the one, the only, Sir Ulllrrrich von Lichtenstein!!!

[crowd roars]

Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week.

OR

Sir Ulrich's letter to win back the love of Jocelyn in


A Knight's Tale


It is strange to think, I haven't seen you since a month.

I have seen the new moon, but not you. I have seen sunsets and sunrises, but nothing of your beautiful face.

The pieces of my broken heart are so small that they could be passed through the eye of a needle. I miss you like the sun misses the flower; like the sun misses the flower in the depths of winter.

Instead of beauty to direct its light to, the heart hardens like the frozen world your absence has banished me to. I next compete in the city of Paris, I will find it empty and in the winter if you are not there.

Hope guides me; that is what gets me through the day and the night. The hope that after you're gone from my sight, it will not be the last time that I look upon you.

13 comments:

  1. Does this have to be a certain length?

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  2. Well, as long as it needs to be in order to do a good job. There isn't necessarily a page or word limit. I will say that an analysis involves more than identifying the audience, etc., but you'll hopefully go beyond that anyway in answering the questions in the the prompt.

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  3. Mr. Giddings I am a bit confused I think? Not sure if I am confused but let me see if I am. Should we annotate one of the text and then write an analysis or should we just analysis it? I see what you said to Chandra in saying hopefully we will go beyond answering the question in the prompt but I am still a bit confused I guess? "/

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  4. Sammy, I didn't mean go beyond the question, but that answering the questions goes beyond simple identification of audience and/or approaches. I'm not requiring that you annotate the text; however, annotation is a tool that may help you analyze it. Learning to use the tool is why I assigned annotations of the Ascham text and the JFK speech. If annotating the text will help you get to a good analysis, then go for it. I hope that clears things up.

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  5. yep that clears things up my thoughts are now a bright sunny day and not a cloudy one YAY! :)

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  6. I can't get on to my blog. I go to learnerblogs.org and it sends me to edublogs.org and it won't let me log on. Do you just want me to do it on paper for tomorrow?

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  7. Giddings...I went to learnerblogs.org to log on to my blog and it went directly to edublogs.org...what should I do? Should I just write it on paper?

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  8. k. so i have tried to login by going on to your Gidding's noodle main page. and it says that i need to enable my cookies and change password and or username. It won't sign me on...so i go to i lost my password button and it says that i need to enable my cookies again. i know i have the right user name and email address...and i'm getting really friustrated...then i tried to go to learnerblog.edu and that still told me to enable my cookies....


    please help.

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  9. Mr. G, my blog, as I told you, is no longer functioning. What can we do about repairing, or probably more simply, creating a new one?

    I'm not worried about the assignements currently on my blog- I have them all saved to a word document. I can always repost them.

    Perhaps you could create me a new account using my old email address? :] It's busy.hero@yahoo.com. Make me a cool username. ;D

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  10. I made a new account- I figured out how. :] (duh.) It's http://soup.edublogs.org. The only thing I'm concerned about is that I... Was I supposed to make a "learner blog" instead of an "edublog"? I really couldn't figure out how to make a learnerblog. o.o Will it still work and stuff?

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  11. Relax. I checked to see if anyone had questions at about 8:45 and nothing. Dang!

    Anyway, if your blog is giving you trouble, do it on paper and don't worry.

    So is "soup"? Jocelyn?

    I checked things out and it looks like the problems logging in might be explained here: http://edublogs.org/2008/02/26/come-together-and-chat-on-our-new-forums/
    though they say you can keep the learnerblog "indefinitely", so it doesn't make sense you couldn't log in. Crazy.

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  12. Yes, soup is just my username. But I changed my preferences, so I'm not sure why it's not coming up as "Jocelyn".

    So... having an "edublog" instead of a "learnerblog" won't present any problems? Sorry, Mr. G, really. I think I'm probably technologically impaired.

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  13. No, Jocelyn. It won't affect you. In fact, if you read the link in my previous post, they have frozen new learnerblogs and all new blogs will be edublogs and you just specify teacher, student, or other when setting it up. That would have been the smart thing to do in the first place. We had the dumb luck to be using it while they are making lots of changes and figuring out what they want to do.

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