Monday, April 25

In-Class:

• Journal: Read the essay Ms. Houston put on the overhead (see it below). Choose one from the list that you think IS an effective use of satire and say why.  Then, choose one that you think is NOT an effective use of satire and why.
• Megan Koetje
  Creative Writing 
  January 13, 2015
  Smoking
  There is nothing like waking up first thing in the morning and taking a nice, big puff from a cigarette. Some people think smoking is bad for the human body, but there are many benefits. Smoking cigarettes is quite satisfying in most aspects of our lives and the world. Everybody does it, so you should too. When you buy a pack of cigarettes, it provides a life for the workers who produce them. Keep that one in mind. Here are some reasons why we should all smoke cigarettes:
  1.    Cigarette butts thrown on the ground help provide fertilizer for plants. A plant can’t grow without tobacco in it’s soil right?
  2.    Coughing and hacking helps keep public places from being too quiet. Geesh, that would be some awkward silence.
  3.    Smoking improves organ functions by 84%. Wow! Maybe smoking will help me finish
  this run faster!
  4.    I’ll never get sick smoking cigarettes. I’m invincible to lung and brain cancer. 
  5.    Four hundred and eighty thousand deaths a year and dying early? Not me, cigarettes are my life support. 
  6.    Strokes won’t attack me two to four times in my life. My hearts protected by all the smoke. 
  7.    Don’t have many friends? Take up smoking and you’ll have lots!
  8.    Can’t figure out what to do with that extra twenty dollars? Buy four packs of cigarettes, it’s a great investment! 
  9.    Pregnant and smoking? Don’t worry, your baby will come out perfect. 
  10. Strong bones? When smoking cigarettes, you’ll love the feeling of weak bones.
  11. Stressed after work? Light one up and you’ll feel completely relaxed.
  12. It’s so easy to quit! Don’t bother chewing gum or wearing nicotine patches.
  13. Who wants whiter teeth when yellow teeth look so much better.
  14. Don’t worry what your dentist says, bad breath boosts your confidence.  
  15. There’s nothing more fashionable than a trachea voice box. They now come in fluorescent colors!
  16. Do you like eating tar from the roads? Then you’ll love smoking cigarettes.
  17. Love sleeping? Cigarettes will make you sleep twice more than you already do. 
  18. If no one around you smokes, that’s okay, second hand smoking is so much better.
  19. Smoking isn’t costly at all! Five thousand dollars a year is nothing.
  20. Don’t have an addiction to anything? Cigarettes will take care of that for you. 
• Write your own top ten list of a topic that you want to satirize.  For example, "Why you should drop out of school," or, "What you should do at a job interview."
• We did a worksheet that showed how "A Modest Propsal" is like a persuasive speech, only sarcastic and ironic.
• Name: _____________________

   

  A Modest Proposal: A Persuasive Essay

   

  For first, as I have already observed, it would greatly lessen the number of Papists, with whom we are yearly overrun, being the principal breeders of the nation as well as our most dangerous enemies; and who stay at home on purpose to deliver the kingdom to the Pretender, hoping to take their advantage by the absence of so many good Protestants, who have chosen rather to leave their country than stay at home and pay tithes against their conscience to an Episcopal curate.

   

  Summary of argument:

   

  Secondly, the poorer tenants will have something valuable of their own, which by law may be made liable to distress and help to pay their landlord’s rent, their corn and cattle being already seized and money a thing unknown.

   

  Summary of argument:

   

   

  Thirdly, whereas the maintenance of an hundred thousand children, from two years old and upwards, cannot be computed at less than ten shillings a piece per annum, the nation’s stock will be thereby increased fifty thousand pounds per annum, besides the profit of a new dish introduced to the tables of all gentlemen of fortune in the kingdom who have any refinement in taste. And the money will circulate among ourselves, the goods being entirely of our own growth and manufacture.

   

  Summary of argument:

   

   

   

  Fourthly, the constant breeders, besides the gain of eight shillings sterling per annum by the sale of their children, will be rid of the charge of maintaining them after the first year.

   

  Summary of argument:

   

   

   

  Fifthly, this food would likewise bring great custom to taverns, where the vintners will certainly be so prudent as to procure the best receipts for dressing it to perfection, and consequently have their houses frequented by all the fine gentlemen, who justly value themselves upon their knowledge in good eating; and a skillful cook, who understands how to oblige his guests, will contrive to make it as expensive as they please.

   

  Summary of argument:

   

   

  Sixthly, this would be a great inducement to marriage, which all wise nations have either encouraged by rewards or enforced by laws and penalties. It would increase the care and tenderness of mothers toward their children, when they were sure of a settlement for life to the poor babes, provided in some sort by the public, to their annual profit instead of expense. We should see an honest emulation among the married women, which of them could bring the fattest child to the market. Men would become as fond of their wives during the time of their pregnancy as they are now of their mares in foal, their cows in calf, or sows when they are ready to farrow; nor offer to beat or kick them (as is too frequent a practice) for fear of a miscarriage.

   

  Summary of argument:

   

   

  I can think of no one objection that will possibly be raised against this proposal, unless it should be urged that the number of people will be thereby much lessened in the kingdom. This I freely own, and it was indeed one principal design in offering it to the world. I desire the reader will observe, that I calculate my remedy for this one individual kingdom of Ireland and for no other that ever was, is, or I think ever can be upon earth.

   

  Counterargument:

   

   

  Rebuttal:

   

   

   

   

  After all, I am not so violently bent upon my own opinion as to reject any offer proposed by wise men, which shall be found equally innocent, cheap, easy, and effectual. But before something of that kind shall be advanced in contradiction to my scheme, and offering a better, I desire the author or authors will be pleased maturely to consider two points. First, as things now stand, how they will be able to find food and raiment for an hundred thousand useless mouths and backs. And secondly, there being a round million of creatures in human figure throughout this kingdom, whose sole subsistence put into a common stock would leave them in debt two millions of pounds sterling, adding those who are beggars by profession to the bulk of farmers, cottagers, and laborers, with their wives and children who are beggars in effect; I desire those politicians who dislike my overture, and may perhaps be so bold to attempt an answer, that they will first ask the parents of these mortals whether they would not at this day think it a great happiness to have been sold for food at a year old in the manner I prescribe, and thereby have avoided such a perpetual scene of misfortunes as they have since gone through by the oppression of landlords, the common sustenance, with neither house nor clothes to cover them from the inclemencies of the weather, and the most inevitable prospect of entailing the like or greater miseries upon their breed forever.

   

  Counterargument:

   

   

  Rebuttal:

   

   

   

   

   

  I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in endeavoring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the public good of my country, by giving some pleasure to the rich. I have no children by which I can propose to get a single penny; the youngest being nine years old, and my wife past childbearing.

   

  Final “nail in the coffin”:

Homework:

• Finish worksheet at home if you didn't finish it in class!