A Pre-Agricultural Outlook

Read James Suzman, “ Sympathy for a Desert Dog ” on the NYTimes website. (Or download as .pdf, you have trouble getting access). Suzman’s essay turns on what to make of the terrible suffering inflicted on a dog by village children.

Write and submit via the comments a one-¶ response to one of the following prompts:

1. Sum up the logic of Suzman’s essay for an unfamiliar reader. What lesson does he draw from the story of this dog?
2. Give a hostile critique of Suzman’s conclusions, written for someone who’s just finished reading Suzman’s article. Since you only have 1 ¶, try to focus attention on what you see as the critical flaw in his argument.
3. Writing for someone familiar with both authors, set Suzman’s thinking in proper relation to Harari’s idea that we organize our experience in relation to an “Imagined Order.” If Suzman and Harari are in agreement, write a ¶ summing up their thinking, noting differences of approach or terminology, but emphasizing their shared vision. If they are in disagreement, write a ¶ noting similarities in their thinking or terminology but emphasizing the core difference.

Post your response below under the appropriate heading.

MLA Source Citation

In 2016 the Modern Language Association revised their widely used style guide for source citation. You probably learned MLA citation in high school, but you may have learned the old method—or you may be using EasyBib without really understanding what you’re doing. Blindly following a machine’s prompts is likely to get you into trouble. As computer tech people say about the danger of relying on algorithms without understanding them, “Garbage in, garbage out.”

For a refresher, you can consult this video tutorial on MLA citation: link. For future reference, the Purdue University writing lab has an excellent online resource for source citation. Go check it out now, and if you like what you see, make a bookmark so you can come back later.

Practice Quiz: I’ve designed a quiz so you can test your mastery of MLA style, available on Blackboard here. After completing the quiz, be sure to click the link to see how you did, and where you went wrong. This quiz counts for completion only, but the quiz next Friday will be scored for mastery.

What Makes Us Human?

In his book Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari advances an interesting proposition as to what allowed Homo sapiens to out-compete Neanderthals and other close relatives, spread across the globe, and eventually become the world’s dominant life form. In Harari’s account, the crucial difference between sapiens and neanderthalensis wasn’t brain size or even language, but the capacity to invent and share fictions.

Reading: Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind, selections as follows:

• Chapter 2, in full
• Ch 5, first two sections (“History’s Biggest Fraud” and “The Luxury Trap”)
• Ch 6, in full

As you finish each of these chapters from Harari’s book, go back and make a brief list of two or three key points you want to remember from that chapter. Note a page # and a 2-3 word quote to help you find that passage later on in the book. Be brief, not copious: ideally, ALL your notes from these three chapters should fit on one side of a piece of paper.

Then, take a minimum one-hour break so your brain can absorb what you’ve learned (eat a meal or work on something else). Then skim back through your notes to identify ONE key idea that you find compelling—something that you might want to share with a friend.

Writing: a short paragraph presenting one of Harari’s key ideas in your own words to someone well educated but unfamiliar with Harari. Your ¶ should start with a sentence that highlights the idea you’re covering, using Harari’s keyterm and a page range. Quote sparingly or not at all.

Publish your ¶ in the comments below.

For class: Bring your paper notes from Harari to class for my inspection.

Introductions

For class, please watch or listen to “How to Think Like Shakespeare,” a speech made in 2016 by Scott Newstok, a professor of Renaissance literature, to greet the incoming 2020 freshman class at Rhodes College in Tennessee. If you prefer reading, you can access the text of his speech here.

Write a brief (1-¶) response to ONE of the following prompts and post it as a “Reply” under the appropriate heading in the comments below:

• Newstock delivered this speech to the 2020 class during the Convocation ceremony in August 2016. Name and briefly discuss how Newstock framed his speech to that particular occasion.
• What moment in this speech spoke most powerfully to you, and why?
• Orators often appeal to facts and reason. When does Newstock do this most powerfully, and why is such an appeal a good one at that moment in his speech?
• Orators often appeal to emotion. When does Newstock do this most powerfully, and why is such an appeal a good one at that moment in his speech?
• Orators sometimes appeal to their personal authority. Does Newstock do this? If so, is it effective? If not, why not?

You do NOT need to register on this website to post a response.