AP/MODR1770 6.0 O: Techniques of Persuasion
Offered by: MODR
Session
Fall 2020
Term
Y
Format
LECT
Instructor
Calendar Description / Prerequisite / Co-Requisite
This is a skills-based course focusing on critical thinking, persuasive writing, and strategic argumentation. Examples are drawn from various forms of persuasion including advertising, propaganda and political argument. Course credit exclusions: AP/MODR 1730 6.00, AP/MODR 1760 6.00. Note: This is an approved LA&PS General Education course: Humanities OR Social Science.
Course Start Up
Course Websites hosted on York's "eClass" are accessible to students during the first week of the term. It takes two business days from the time of your enrolment to access your course website. Course materials begin to be released on the course website during the first week. To log in to your eClass course visit the York U eClass Portal and login with your Student Passport York Account. If you are creating and participating in Zoom meetings you may also go directly to the York U Zoom Portal.
For further course Start Up details, review the Getting Started webpage.
For IT support, students may contact University Information Technology Client Services via askit@yorku.ca or (416) 736-5800. Please also visit Students Getting Started UIT or the Getting Help - UIT webpages.
Joshua Paul
moufawadpaul@gmail.com
In this course we will learn tools of critical thinking with an emphasis on persuasion and how we are persuaded, according to advertising and political ideology, in everyday life. The first half of the course will concern critical thinking and ways in which good arguments might or might not be persuading. The tools learned in the first half will be applied to the second half where we consider techniques of marketing/advertising persuasion (expanding on discussions in the first half) and the ways in persuasion functions politically through propaganda and dominant ideology.
The Power of Critical Thinking (5th Canadian Edition)
Other readings available on the Moodle site.
Class/Homework: 20%
Midterm test: 25%
Writing Assignment: 30%
Final Exam: 25%
First half of the course will be focused on the discipline of critical thinking as we work our way through the course text. Various homework assignments will be designed to prepare students for the mid-term. Following the mid-term, the second half of the course will focus on applying the skills learned in the first term to the material of the second term. There will be a major writing assignment and a final. Due to the pandemic teaching will be online, mainly pre-recorded with a few live sessions.
To be familiar with the basics of critical thinking, including deductive and inductive reasoning. To understand that persuasion and good reasoning are not always the same. To understand the way different techniques of persuasion function in our everyday life.
- Academic Honesty
- Student Rights and Responsibilities
- Religious Observance
- Grading Scheme and Feedback
- 20% Rule
No examinations or tests collectively worth more than 20% of the final grade in a course will be given during the final 14 calendar days of classes in a term. The exceptions to the rule are classes which regularly meet Friday evenings or on Saturday and/or Sunday at any time, and courses offered in the compressed summer terms. - Academic Accommodation for Students with Disabilities
