Frederick Douglass

Near the beginning of Douglass's 1852 speech "What, To the Slave, Is the Fourth of July," he tells his audience that "I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young." What are some of his reasons for being "glad"? How does he use this idea of being "glad" throughout the remainder of the speech? As he says at the conclusion, he "leaves off where [he] began, with hope," a reminder of his earlier pronouncement of "gladness."

Scholarly sources

From our experiences in class, what do you think the major differences are between "scholarly sources" and non-scholarly sources, or sources collected from sources other than our library's research databases? What is the value of a scholarly source and what is the value of a non-scholarly source? What do you think of the requirement in most college classes that you limit your research to scholarly and academic sources?

Cooper's "The Slaughter of the Pigeons"

Cooper's "The Slaughter of the Pigeons" is excerpted out of a full-length novel, yet it manages to stand alone as an effective denouncement of avaricious human practices towards innocent non-human residents in a community (in this case, the pigeons). How is it that this few-page piece can stand by itself, when you don't even know these characters or their histories? What tactics does Cooper use in this brief episode to tell you a significant amount about these characters' traits and this community's general attitude about animals and about themselves and their rights?

Logical Fallacies! Pick a group's post and identify the fallacies in your response.

Brian Ruskauff, Flannery Norton, Isaac Hostak, Alex Appell
1. If you don’t cut down that tree, monkeys will inhabit it.
2. If you don’t return that quarter I lent you, you might walk into an unfortunate accident.
3. If you dry up the oceans, no one will drown.
4. I won’t do my math homework because my Calculus teacher’s German shepherd is a Nazi.
5. Your beautifully astounding intellect can clearly see the stunning superiority of our work.

Francisco, Kaitlin, C.V., Josh
1. That idiot doesn't know anything about the issue at hand.
2. Baseball is the most popular sport in the nation. Doyou watch it?
3. This is the most interesting man in the world, and hedrinks Dos Equis.
4. I played against some Brazilians and they werehorrible. All Brazilians must be this way.
5. He shouldn't be president, his cousin's a convict.

Donovan May, Jordan Keeley, Conor Ward, Aaron Krueger
1. Having an iPhone is like winning the Nobel Peace Prize.
2. Anyone who doesn't have an iPhone is a douche bag.
3. The only phone Harry Potter uses is an iPhone.
4. Don't be friends with him. His brother doesn't have an iPhone.
5. If Apple can make the iPhone, then we can make a car that runs on air.

Daniel Wermer, Ariana Espinosa, Andre Littot, Chris Robertson
1. When you see a dog who has no hope of finding a home you can either adopt one or they will all die in the streets.
2. If we don't stop using aerosols to do our hair every morning then all of the polar ice caps will melt causing the polar bears to die.
3. You should buy these worn out blue jeans because everyone else is getting them.
4. We should not spend time and money to rebuild New Orleans because it will only be destroyed again by the next passing hurricane.
5. If you spend the majority of your time in gang troubled neighborhoods, then you must also be a criminal yourself.

Alyssa Ninos, Paul Muegge-Granhol, Natasha Trujillo, Sarah Furlano
1. That idiot does not know what he is talking about.
2. Riding the bus gives you cancer.
3. Since everyone goes to a technical school, they all must be geeks.
4. Obama’s uncle received a DUI so the whole family must have drinking problems.
5. Everyone is buying Toshiba computers; we should also.