Writing and literature podcasts

Rhetorical analysis of the Obama/Romney essay

[4 minutes] What’s good and what is bad about the sample student essays that I’ve provided? In this podcast I’ll discuss the essay on Mitt Romney and Barack Obama’s campaign speeches. This is a rhetorical essay that deals with the use of pathos in those speeches, among other things. [transcript available through the course portal]

Pathos analysis in the sample David Suzuki essay

[5 minutes] In this lecture I’m going to discuss the sample student essay about David Suzuki’s work - the essay evaluates the use of pathos and ethos. I’m going to discuss what is done well and what is done poorly. First of all, let’s look at the introduction structure. The length is good. There are sentences that summarize each body paragraph; that’s great . . . [transcript on BlackBoard]

Blame, shame, war and gratitude in Ovid and Genesis

[13 minutes] Continuation of bookclub for East and West Learning Connections - this is a lecture on Genesis and Metamorphoses, dealing with questions on the Fall of Man and First Nations creation myths. This material was not covered in my lecture on 10 March due to lack of time. I mention the negativity bias, the "iron age" in Ovid, the language of blessings and the role of gratitude in reading creation myths. Membership to the East and West Learning Club is available here.

Genesis and Metamorphoses

[26 minutes] In this book club for East and West Learning Connections, I discuss the book of Genesis and the first 200 lines of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. This is the first in a series of lectures in which we will be looking at books from the past 2000 years that influenced English literature. Some of the themes we will be looking at are the importance of free will, the individual in society, the role of the gods and fate, the nature of virtue, and love, happiness, and gratitude. Next month we will carry on discussing Ovid’s Metamorphoses but we will look at Book 10. We will also discuss the Bible book of John. After that we will read Dante, Virgil, Chaucer, Plato, and Aristotle, among others.  Membership in the East and West Learning Club is available to the public here.

Comparison-contrast essay

(9 minutes) Lecture on writing a comparison contrast essay on the topic of pathos. This podcast is aimed at my COM classes but will be relevant to other classes in which you are doing a comparison essay. I cover the structure of block comparison essays and point-by-point comparison essays. I also discuss the structure of the introduction and the conclusion, and the use of quotations. The transcript and slides are available through BlackBoard.

Disgust is something that makes us reflect

More about how the concept of "disgust" applies to the story "Blue as blood" by Leah Cypess. EAC234 (week 8). 3 minutes.

No compassion for difference - Leah Cypess's "Blue as blood"

This 6-minute podcast is about Leah Cypess, the short story "Blue as blood," the issue of "otherness," and disgust. Cypess's story is a "soft science fiction" story that presents us with the problem of what we do when others have no compassion for our own difference.

How to list a word definition in your References list

Organize the References list with a hanging indent. Organize it alphabetically. Also, when it comes to listing or referring to definitions of words, treat the word itself like an encyclopedia article. For example if you are explaining what the word xenophobia means, do this: ("Xenophobia," 2020). [1.5 mins]

Writing a hook

Writing a hook - several examples of hooks from articles read in our COM course - mentioning articles by Brandon Ambrosino, Lawrence Hill, Timothy Caulfield, and Cassidy Littleton. [3 mins]

Previewing a reading

The skill of previewing an article is a reading strategy as well as a critical thinking strategy, and it's so important that I'm devoting a whole lecture to it this week.

To preview means to look ahead. In basic terms this means that when you pick up an assigned reading for the course, you look at the title, and read the title, and then you just stop. You stop and think and ask yourself questions that will get your brain working. [6 mins]