1. Introduction To English II
Dr. Bordelon

2. Language is the Focus Question to mull over as we begin
Would you prefer to be treated by Dr. One who says
“I admitted a brain tumor from the ER” or “There’s a new Crohn’s on the ward.”
Or Dr. Two who says
“I admitted a person with a brain tumor from the ER” or “There’s a new patient who has Crohn’s on the ward.”
Explain your choice – and don’t necessarily focus on grammar.
Ludwig Wittgenstein “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”
Discuss: Get students to see that understand language means understanding life.
Review Syllabus after this
Then go to course site
Then back to Powerpoint

3. Metaphor And a little closer to home . . . .
“Is light a wave or a particle? Are molecules like billiard balls or force shields? Is the human mind [. . .] like a dark cavern (needing illumination)? A muscle (needing exercise)? A vessel (needing filling)? A lump of clay (needing shaping)? A garden (needing cultivation)? Or, as so many say today, is it like a computer that processes data?”
And a little closer to home
“A metaphor is not an ornament. It is an organ of perception. Through metaphors, we see the world as one thing or another” (Postman 174). Connect this idea to Dr. One and Dr. Two
“And what of students? Are they patients to be cared for? Troops to be disciplined? Sons and daughters to be nurtured? Personnel to be trained? Resources to be developed?” (Postman 174)
Postman, Neil. The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School. New York: Vintage, Print.

4. Metaphor: Fireworks in the Brain
And now, an animated metaphor, courtesy of Pixar:
Wolf’s beehive as fireworks Remy gets it (smart rat) Emile doesn’t (not so smart rat)
“Years ago, the cognitive scientist David Swinney helped uncover the fact that when we read a simple word like “bug,” we activate not only the more common meaning (a crawling, sixlegged creature), but also the bug’s less frequent associations— spies, Volkswagens, and glitches in software. Swinney discovered that the brain doesn’t find just one simple meaning for a word; instead it stimulates a veritable trove of knowledge about that word and the many words related to it. The richness of this semantic dimension of reading depends on the riches we have already stored” (Wolf 9).
It’s time to mind the store: time to build up the riches in our brains.

5. How to be a Smart Rat
“This is why attentiveness is worth cultivating: not just because it is good for you or because (as Gallagher also says) it can help you “organize your world,” but because such raptness is deeply satisfying” (Jacobs 86).
Jacobs, Alan. The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction. New York: OUP, Print.
David Foster Wallace
Learning “how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed”
“As Winifred Gallagher has written, “attention enables you to have the kind of Dionysian experience beautifully described by the old-fashioned term ‘rapt’—completely absorbed, engrossed, fascinated, perhaps even ‘carried away’—that underlies life’s deepest pleasures, from the scholar’s study to the carpenter’s craft to the lover’s obsession” (qtd. in Jacobs 86).
Complete the homework
Review the Lesson Plans online
Annotate as you read
Immerse yourself – it’s fun

6. Did he just say “satisfying?”
Can you really get satisfaction out of a college writing course? Let’s get started: Billy Collins “Introduction to Poetry”