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Portfolio Drexel University Critical Reasoning Philosophy 105 Patrick Denehy This document provides more information about the portfolio project and guidelines to complete each content area to the best of your ability. Use the information here and contained in the syllabus to answer initial questions you may have. And don’t forget to include citations for every piece of text you reference or use to help you formulate your own work. You can either include a short works cited/bibliography at the end of each content area, or one large works cited/bibliography encompassing all content areas. Any style is fine so long as it is consistent. Meeting You need to schedule a 30-minute meeting with me during the term. You should bring two content areas of your choosing with you for review. These need to be full first drafts, not merely ideas or notes. I will read as much as time permits to provide you feedback on how to improve these pieces of writing and approach the remaining content areas. I will also give you a sense of where you stand with your APC grade. Fallacies For the fallacies content area, you should find examples of fallacies committed in texts or videos.* If all else fails, create a dialogue between different persons that represents fallacious arguments you have heard in the past or in which you were personally involved. After providing the fallacy, you should identify the fallacy and then explain how this text, video, or dialogue commits this fallacy. Students usually complete this section in one of three ways. One option is to provide a number of examples with brief explanations (roughly 5-8 fallacies). The second option discusses fewer fallacies in more depth (roughly 2-3 fallacies). Finally, other students take up some issue of the day and locate a number of fallacies in arguments surrounding that issue. This third option usually involves discussing fewer fallacies in depth as well, thereby overlapping with the second option. Morals and Markets While some people attempt to respond to the overall claims of Sandel’s book – and this is all well and good – I encourage everyone to focus on at least two concrete cases or scenarios he raises. This will allow you to provide a more in-depth response or investigate a case even further. Some people also use this as an opportunity to perform light research in order to substantiate or criticize various points in the book. Feel free to bring in other cases that display a dilemma of norms in a market-driven culture.

* You should not simply repeat fallacies from our textbook, another logic textbook, or some website dedicated to explaining fallacies. There would be no point to such an exercise. The purpose is to display that you can apply the concept of a fallacy to real-world cases, not ones already identified by others. Finally, if you are wondering why I have included this footnote because this just seems so obvious to you, this would be a good opportunity to remind yourself that the obvious does not extend to all of your peers.

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If you are completely stuck, though I don’t think you will be, there are some overarching questions one could ask throughout the work and by the end. Let me suggest a few, though these need not be your focus:

• Are there cases in which moral, civic, familial, or other values should be upheld against market values?

• Are there cases in which market values should be upheld against these other values? • If there is a mix of cases, by what criteria should we distinguish them? If there is not a mix of

cases, why not? • What are potential solutions or strategies for upholding non-market values in the face of market

norms and pressures, or vice-versa? • How can market and non-market values sometimes point to identical solutions?

Op-Ed Analysis The goal of this content area is to critically analyze an opinion piece from a reputable source, whether a newspaper, online news source, blog, or magazine. Opinion pieces are not news reports. The latter have the responsibility of truthfully and accurately relaying information about events in the world; the former, informed by news reports and much more, attempt to offer arguments about all kinds of important (and sometimes unimportant) human events. You have undoubtedly been taught that different media offer different, and politically charged, points of view. That’s true but not terribly interesting. What is more interesting and dangerous is the idea that, if media are politically charged, they must therefore be biased in some manner. This leads many people into utter skepticism about any and all news sources. This attitude is unhealthy (and, possibly, a concerted political effort in and of itself.) To alleviate this concern, I want you to just glimpse at the following two Wikipedia pages, the first about media bias in the U.S., and the other listing orientations of political magazines: Wikipedia: Media Bias in the U.S. Wikipedia: Political Magazine Orientations It will be more interesting, especially as you complete this portion of the assignment, to worry less about bias and more about political orientation. Bias attempts to undercut credibility. Orientation, on the other hand, just admits that people have points of view underpinned by political outlooks and values. (How could we not?) The list also points to far more than just the usual two political categories so dominant in the U.S., like most opinion pieces in, say, The New York Times opinion page. Choose whatever reputable source you like. If you would like references to other sources, ask me in person. Generally, you should do two things:

• Summarize the article(s) by charitably interpreting the author’s argument(s) • Respond to the argument – here are typical maneuvers:

o Agree with the author and provide further reasons supporting the claim o Agree with the author’s conclusion, but disagree with her reasons or support o Disagree with the author’s conclusion and provide reasons for a different conclusion

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Videos The major videos and films we will watch this term are the following: Frank Luntz on political speech, George Lakoff on political speech, 12 Angry Men, Born Rich, and Walmart: The High Cost of Low Prices. There are also a few of articles (Greenfield, Culler) that could be included in this section, even though they aren’t videos. (This is really the “third thread” content area.) You do not need to write a reflection on every single video or alternative article. You should, however, write something on at least 60% of them, so roughly 3 out of 5 videos or so. Alternatively, students sometimes write on all five videos but write combined reflections on the Luntz and Lakoff videos (because they form a pair) and the Born Rich and Walmart films (because they form a pair as well). Unlike the op-ed content area, you should not feel the need to summarize much of the video. A sentence or two would be sufficient. The basic reason is that I am familiar with all of these, while I will not be familiar with the opinion piece you choose until I read it. As such, you should launch straightaway into a critical reflection or analysis of some portion of each film you choose. Self-Assessment While the self-assessment content area is part of your grade, I usually tell students that this is more for you than for me. You should write a reflection of your own learning throughout the course, including the effort you were able to put into the class, particular ideas you think were especially important, concepts or examples you will definitely remember going into the future, or other items reflecting and assessing yourself. There are two ways the self-assessment is generally weak, especially upon a first draft. First, many students say overly abstract or general things (“this course taught me how to think more critically”) without, frankly, saying much at all or providing examples. That’s not particularly reflective. Second, and somewhat strangely, students sometimes write self-assessments as if they were professor assessments akin to evaluations at the end of the course. But again, this is for and about you, not me. Those evaluations will be something separate. Generally speaking, students approach this in one of two ways, perhaps three. The first is to leave this content area until the very end. The second is to give yourself a kind of midterm self-assessment, thereby at least beginning it by week 5 and then finishing the rest after week 10. The final approach jots down various notes throughout the term and compiles them into a short essay. I will leave it up to you.