This is a course in self-defense for the academic world. Designed to teach the key skills required at the beginning of a college education, E110 serves as the training grounds for the given first-year student’s two most critical abilities: reading critically and writing argumentatively.

Studying informal fallacies and argumentative techniques, students will analyze the form of various aspects of the media: from print media to blogging, from advertisements to “serious” journalism, from podcasts to films. Students will begin with the assumption that all genres of the media are, at their most basic level, arguments that need to be qualitatively evaluated. “Breaking News” takes an interested but skeptical look at the techniques deployed by those who want to communicate their argument to modern audiences as well as the comprehension skills audiences bring to bear on the media.

 

• Access to our website, the internet, & a means of printing necessary documents.

• An account with the New York Times. This is a free service to college students if you sign up via your UD e-mail account.

• The Arak Anthology.

• A University of Delaware E-mail account.

• A supply of 8½ x 11 binder paper (or perforated notepad or notebook paper—no spiral notebook paper will be accepted!).

•  The Bedford Handbook

• A good dictionary—Remember that you have online access to the Oxford English Dictionary via the library’s networked databases. I am also a big fan of theFreeDictionary.