Homework, Wednesday, December 9

Seniors -

12CD - Reread "Bloodchild," highlighting and annotating all of the evidence that supports your chosen interpretive lens for the story.

12A and 12B - Complete "Bloodchild" and write a half page about what this story is REALLY about. Hint* Despite the bizarre aspects of this world, what is recognizable to you about human behavior or society? I encourage you to think of examples from the real world that remind you of this story.

12B -Complete your on-demand by tomorrow at 9:00 pm. You should only spend about an hour of focused work on it. 

AP Language - Write the thesis and paragraph on T. Paine's "Common Sense," with a focus on the analogy he references throughout the excerpts. Remember that a figurative analogy is a type of comparison and often appeals to pathos. The "What does it mean?" prompts will push your analysis beyond the basic and help you think about the evidence more deeply. You already built a solid foundation of analysis in class (Note: foundation/building are examples of figurative language).

I also wanted to follow up on the baseball analogy we discussed in class. My point was not that it is "bad" to use the analogy or that it was developed with the intention of elevating or denigrating anyone in particular. Instead, my purpose was to demonstrate that all analogies bring a certain set of assumptions and often contain implicit meanings that are worth unpacking and discussing.

Here are some common sense guidelines for evaluating an analogy from Stanford's Encyclopedia of Philosophy (You do not need to use them in tonight's homework, but thought you might be interested): 

1. The more similarities (between two domains), the stronger the analogy.
2. The more differences, the weaker the analogy.
3. The greater the extent of our ignorance about the two domains, the weaker the analogy.
4. The weaker the conclusion, the more plausible the analogy.
5. Analogies involving causal relations are more plausible than those not involving causal relations.
6. Structural analogies are stronger than those based on superficial similarities.
7. The relevance of the similarities and differences to the conclusion (i.e., to the hypothetical analogy) must be taken into account.
8. Multiple analogies supporting the same conclusion make the argument stronger.