Olivia Agius 2/28/17

Today in class the focus was on counterclaims and how to use them in the essays we have been working on. At the beginning of the class we were asked two related questions: 1.What is a counterclaim? 2. How do you use one in your essay? As groups we then discussed it, before talking as a class and giving definite answers. We decided a counterclaim was defined as an anti-thesis, and it is opposing a claim. Then, we said we would use it in our essays to discredit or refute the opposing views in order to strengthen our claim. Next we watched a clip from the movie Bowling for Columbine which was focused on who people blamed after the Columbine shooting. Basically, all the blame went to one man; Marilyn Manson. The class discussed what some counterclaims against the director were that related to Marilyn Manson. As a class we came up with three, one being that Manson's music causes violence. From that we were asked how the director of the movie used Manson in order to discredit and refute the counterclaim. One example was that he showed Manson using logic and data to see not only normal but smart. The last thing we were asked to do today was to go into groups and work on an assignment on classroom called logical fallacies. Every table was given one row and were asked to describe the fallacies in the row, and then connect it to our own topics. My group was given the gambler's fallacy, composition fallacy, black or white, and anecdotal. There were a few more difficult fallacies, but overall it was easy to find a good definition to use. Tomorrow we will be working on this as well, and then post our answers on classroom.