In Class Writing Exercises

Ted Goertzel

Instructions

• Each slide will contain a sample sentence or paragraph which is a paraphrase of a famous quotation

• You should rewrite this paragraph following the principles of Effective Style and Language

• You can then compare your work to that of the original writer

In the entire long history of conflict and warfare between human beings, this is the first time that a tremendous number of people have owed their very survival to a quite small number of brave men.

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.Winston Churchill

Instead of being self-centered and asking what you can get for yourself, focus your energies on making a contribution to the country as a whole.

Ask not what your countrycan do for you; ask what you can do for your country.John F. Kennedy

It is not so important what we say as what technology we use to say it with.

The Medium is the MessageMarshall McLuhan

The biggest mistake a teacher can make is to try to shove material down students’ throats when they aren’t ready for it.

10/18/2003 3

The Whole Picture

“The fatal pedagogical error is to throw answers,like stones, at the heads of those who have notyet asked the questions” –Paul Tillich

What questions are there to ask?

A woman can live a perfectly happy and successful life without a man.

A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.

Cigars are better than sex.

Good food is better than sex.

Or try...

A woman is only a woman, a good cigar is a smoke.

Kissing don’t last,cooking do.

We aren’t finished yet, we aren’t even close to being finished, but at least we may be finished getting started.

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.Winston Churchill

Life is boring and dreary, it’s just the same thing over and over and over forever.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in the petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time.William Shakespeare

None of us can really be free to enjoy our own lives while other people are suffering, such as poor people, criminals or people in jail.

While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element I am of it; while there is a soul in prison I am not free.Eugene Victor Debs

We really do not need to be afraid of anything except our own irrational tendency to be afraid of things.

About 33% of our people do not have enough to eat or adequate clothing or a decent place to live.

I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.Franklin Delano Roosevelt

All the nations of the world are going to disarm, convert all their weapons to civilian uses, and not fight any more wars.

They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.Isaiah II, 4

He loved to work in local politics where he was able to keep close track of everything that was going on understand and manipulate all the power relationships.

For this exercise, make an analogy to a watchmaker who enjoys working with watches.

He took a watchmaker’s delight in the close, the intricate, the small, the tensely sprung; he liked to feel power ticking in his hands.

Edmund MorrisDutch: A Memoirof Ronald Reagan

His mind had a fundamentally childlike, bipolar quality...a tendency to see all moral questions in terms of opposites.

Make an analogy using a magnet and iron filings

His mind was like a magnetamong iron fillings, it either concentrated acceptable facts in a tight cluster, or repelled them and kept itself clean.

Edmund Morris in Dutch

Now let’s try some sentences from student papers.

Desperate Housewives has an affect on how body images are portrayed because all the main characters on the show are attractive.

All the characters on Desperate Housewives are slender and attractive, so women believe that is how they should look.

Through watching sporting events and sports shows, my life has transformed into a motivated lifestyle with aspirations of wealth and happiness.

Watching celebrity athletes on television made me believe that wealth and fame were the royal road to happiness.

Social Conflict goes on all around us everyday, so television is good because it helps people to deal with situations that they are experiencing by relating to what happens on the show

Watching people work out their conflicts on television programs helps people learn how to solve their own problems.

News Radio overtly reports the Presidency as neutral bystander; however, covertly, the news station exhibits the Presidency and itself in a hidden agenda to indoctrinate Americans.

News radio appears to be neutral and objective but it subtly indoctrinates listeners with a biased view of itself and of the Presidency.

Note: this would have to be followed by an explanation of what the bias is.

1. Individualism and Personal Choice2. Absence of Social Conflict3. Traditional Gender RolesI feel these three ideas are relevant to my topic because each of them exist in all television shows..

Each of the television programs accepts traditional gender roles and assumes that people’s problems arise from personal choices rather than from problems in society.

All of these cases have shown different ways to deal with situations at different stages in a person’s life, and have shown traditional roles, diversity, and individualism throughout each case.

Each of these cases posits that individuals can resolve their problems with personal effort, without having to challenge traditional gender roles or ethnic stereotypes.