your trusted friends

advertising to kids

synergy?

similarities b/w ray kroc and ronald mcdonald?

golden arches!

Warner

1) Citing such influential figures as Michelle Obama, Sarah Palin, and Glenn Beck, Judith Warner suggests that changing people's eating habits could prove far more difficult than many imagine. Why does she think this change will be so challenging?

2) How are historical changes in public attitudes toward cigarette smoking, discussed in paragraph 8, related to Warner's argument about Americans' eating habits?

3) Does Warner include any possible objections to her argument? If not, do it for her. Insert a brief paragraph stating an objection to her argument and then respond to the objection as she might.

Warner seems to consider it unlikely that Americans will adopt a healthier diet anytime soon, despite efforts by Michelle Obama and others to promote better eating. How would you respond to this? Do you agree? Disagree? 

warner

Turned the campaign around by referring to it as an attempt to destroy our pursuit of happiness

Both Palin and Beck mock government efforts to lead Americans to live less fattening lives.

their critique of Obama: your incapable of making your own decisions

Seems so apolitical, so uncontroversial

balko

1.      What does Radley Balko claim in this essay? How do you know? What position is he responding to? Cite examples from the text to support your answer.

Balko’s claim in the essay is that government intervention to curtail obesity (including limiting access to high-calorie foods, requiring menu labeling of nutritional value and fat and calorie content, and taxing high-calorie food), as well as treating obesity as a public health issue, is wrong-headed; instead, personal responsibility should be encouraged. He also argues the larger point that the socialization and government subsidization of medicine leads people to become less responsible for their own health and encourages them to continue to behave in unhealthy ways. See paragraphs 2–3, 5, and 8–9.

2.      Reread the last sentence of paragraph 1: “In other words, bringing government between you and your waistline.” This is actually a sentence fragment, but it functions as metacommentary, inserted by Balko to make sure that readers see his point. Imagine that this statement were not there, and reread the first three paragraphs. Does it make a difference in how you read this piece?

Without the fragment that ends the first paragraph, Balko’s negative stance would not be clear through the end of the second paragraph (unless one noted the negative connotation of language such as “agitating for a panoply of government anti-obesity initiatives”). But he makes his position explicit at the beginning of paragraph 3.

3.      Notice the direct quotations in paragraph 7. How has Balko integrated these quotations into his text—how has he introduced them, and what, if anything, has he said to explain them and tie them to his own text? Are there any changes you might suggest? How do key terms in the quotations echo one another? (See Chapter 3 for advice on quoting, and pp. 109–11 for help on identifying key terms.)

The first is a direct quotation, which Balko introduces by naming both the speaker and the organization she represents. The second is not so much a quotation as a phrase included in quotation marks so that Balko can distance himself from it;  “personal responsibility bias” is a concept promulgated by trial lawyers that Balko finds ridiculous. He comments directly on the title of the ABC News documentary as a way of emphasizing the point made in the two previous quotations that the idea of personal responsibility, in his view, is being given short shrift.  

1.      Balko makes his own position about the so-called obesity crisis very clear, but does he consider any of the objections that might be offered to his position? If so, how does he deal with those objections? If not, what objections might he have raised?

Although Balko offers examples of what is being proposed by those he opposes and provides a brief summary of their views, he does not consider direct objections to his own position in any detail. For example, he doesn’t explore the issue of the cost benefits of governmental intervention to curtail obesity, an issue that would be raised in opposition to his “leave it up to individuals” approach.

dont blame the eater

1.      What are his arguments against the practices of fast-food companies? How persuasive are these arguments?

Zinczenko argues that fast-food companies do not provide alternatives to the fat- and calorie-laden meals they serve and that they do not prominently display caloric and other nutritional information for these products. As he writes in his final paragraph, “Fast-food companies are marketing to children a product with proven health hazards and no warning labels.” Opinions may differ as to how persuasive these arguments are, but his statistics about diabetes suggest a definite health risk. These arguments also support his larger point that lawsuits against such companies are justified.

2.      One important move in all good argumentative writing is to introduce possible objections to the position being argued—what this book calls naysayers. What objections does Zincenko introduce, and how does he respond? Can you think of other objections that he might have noted?

Zinczenko introduces objections to his arguments at two points: in his first paragraph when he raises the question “Whatever happened to personal responsibility?” and in paragraph 7 where he also phrases the objection as a question (“Shouldn’t we know better than to eat two meals a day in fast-food restaurants?”). He responds to these objections by pointing out that fast-food restaurants are “the only available options for an American kid to get an affordable meal.” No alternatives.  "No calorie information charts on fast-food packaging." Calorie info is misleading (all the ad-ons.Ads don't contain warning labels the way tobacco ads do". Students may think of other objections, such as the argument that parents should do more to supervise the diets of their children, teach them good eating habits, and work to counteract the advertising of fast-food chains.

3.      How does the story that Zinczenko tells in paragraph 3 and 4 about his own experience support or fail to support his argument? How could the same story be used to support an argument opposed to Zincenko’s?

By showing that he himself faced the same predicament as the young people who are suing McDonald’s, Zinczenko humanizes the problem and perhaps makes readers more sympathetic to their suit. The fact that he was able to learn to manage his diet, however, could be used to support the opposing argument that other young people should be able to do so as well instead of blaming fast-food restaurants for their weight.

4.      So what? Who cares? How does Zinczenko make clear to readers why his topic matters? Or, if he does not, how might he do so?

Most students will likely feel that Zinczenko succeeds in making clear that his topic matters. He starts out by noting the lawsuit against McDonald’s, something that has gotten significant publicity, and he goes on to document the skyrocketing rates of childhood diabetes, directly linking them to obesity. Further, paragraph 9 provides an eye-opening example of the staggering calorie count of a supposedly dietetic chicken salad offered by one company. More sick, obese kids. Statistics act diabetes.

Not everyone is as motivated as him to turn their lives around.

diabetes

graff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymsHLkB8u3s

school smart v street smart
blaming schools for "missing the opportunity to tap into street smarts and channel them into academic work"

street smarts equated with anti-intellectual concerns

life of the mind associated with weighty and academic subjects

cars, fashion, video games, dating, sports: not intellectual topics

can generate a lot of discussion!

don't need to read a lot of intellectually challenging stuff to become an intellectual

should take on subjects that interest them, not us (p. 298)

1.      So what? Who cares? Graff does not answer these questions explicitly. Do it for him: write a brief paragraph saying why his argument matters, and for whom.

Possible paragraph: Graff’s argument matters because entering college students often find it difficult to become a part of the intellectual life that matters if one is truly to benefit from formal education. Such students start off either bored or intimidated by academic texts, but at the same time they deserve to be given a chance to develop the intellectual skills that they will need in college and later in their careers. Instructors need to find ways of doing this, and Graff believes his model is one such possibility.