Read the following popular critical pieces (printable versions available here):

Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”

Clive Thompson’s “Your Outboard Brain Knows All”

David Crystal’s “2b or Not 2b”

Watch Gary Turk’s Look Up and Rives’  A Mockingbird Remix of TED 2006

Use (and print out) Handouts 4 “Identifying Claims | Analyzing Arguments” and 5 “Developing a Critical Stance | Identifying the Conversation,” available here.

Use both to help identify the claims and arguments of each piece, and then attempt to meld these sources into a larger issue-based question.

Then generate a rough Issue-based question that combines the question you just composed with our discussions / readings thus far.

Bring your worksheet from today’s class, and bring a printout of your issue-based question as well.

Post to the class site and come prepared to discuss your issue-based question.