Calendar Post for October 28

• As in preparing for today's class, download and bring with you on Wednesday a handout on claims and "Proposal: From Inquiry to Argument" (at drop.io), which describes the first of two phases in our upcoming assignment. Note that "purpose" and "audience" in the latter handout refer to the proposal itself, not your Academic Argument, which your proposal should outline and describe.

• Prepare for our in-class trial run at crafting an argument about climate change, "Staking a Claim" (at drop.io). Review that overhead and confirm with your partner (via e-mail addresses at the Writing Studio) which claim you will be debating. As described in the overhead, one partner (who authored the chosen claim) presents reasons and evidence to support the argument, while the other (playing the devil's advocate) presents a counter-claim as well as reasons and evidence to oppose it. Each pair's oral debate should last less than two minutes.

• Read about "Appeals for Written Argument" (PHG pages 516-520) as well as Edward Koch's "Death and Justice" (PHG pages 534-540).

• Begin drafting a proposal for your Academic Argument. As described in the assignment handout (see above), this is a short and preliminary but detailed outline of the argument you plan to write, and it's due during a conference with your instructor. These conferences take place in lieu of class, but they happen very soon: this Thursday (3:45 to 5:15 PM), this Friday (11:15 AM to 3:15 PM) and this Monday (11:15 AM to 3:15 PM). We will assign conference times in class on Wednesday.