Writing Workshop # 2

1. Writing Workshop # 2 Counterarguments Transition words “Words to cut from your writing”

2. Where do you start??? Many options: • Start with a counterargument (something that presents an opposing viewpoint) • Start with your position • Start with a question to your audience about your subject, or about something related to your argument • Start with something that everyone could relate to so that you’re pulling your audience in

3. Examples: “When the Cleveland Indians break training camp in March for the start of the Major League Baseball season, they should do so without one of their veterans. Chief Wahoo.” http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/02/the_tribe_should_retire_chief.html

4. “Last year’s National Football League season was tainted by on-field racial slurs and the bullying of a Miami Dolphins player. Of course, professional football players operate in an emotional, intensely competitive and physically punishing environment. It is obviously not your normal workplace. But, as employees, there is no reason they should be immune from modern standards of workplace conduct.” http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/01/opinion/the-nfl-begins-to-wake-up.html?ref=editorials&_r=0

5. "Who is Malala?" asked the Taliban gunman who boarded a school bus in Pakistan's Swat Valley in October 2012. Today the question would be redundant. The whole world knows who MalalaYousafzai is. She is the schoolgirl he shot at point blank range for daring to challenge the attempt by Muslim extremists to deny girls in the valley near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border an education. Seldom, if ever, has an attempt to silence a critic backfired so badly. http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/editorials/9286499/Editorial-Malala-needs-no-Nobel-peace-prize

6. Barely three months after ending a causticlabour dispute that discredited both sides, the National Hockey League and its players have found unity through integrity. They’ve signed a landmark deal that doesn’t concern salary caps, revenue shares, arbitration or free agency. It’s about advancing human rights. The NHL and the National Hockey League Players’ Association this past week entered into a formal partnership with the You Can Play Project, an organization dedicated to ending homophobia on playing fields and in locker rooms in every sport. Hockey’s commitment has rightly been called historic. The NHL is the first major North American professional sports league to officially partner with a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy group on this scale. http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2013/04/15/kudos_to_nhl_and_players_for_battling_homophobia_editorial.html

7. Counterarguments • Whatis a Counterargument? (handout) • Make sure you’reconsidering possible opposingviews • What are the possible arguments thatcanbepresented to oppose how youthink?

8. This is how you’llfeel if youforget to consider the otherside.

9. Transition Words • Handout • Allow you to effectively organize your ideas • Allow you to move from one idea, sentence, paragraph to the other • Are essential to writing

10. Words to Cut from Your Writing • Handout • http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/229369

11. More writing resources • Edmodo • Weebly