Great books cluster launch; seminar norms & prep notes

Prepare for seminar, analyze civic speeches using classical rhetoric, and read dense texts by paraphrasing and then arguing (CCSS RI.11-12.2, RI.11-12.6, SL.11-12.1). Seminar norms: come with annotated text and two questions, cite page numbers, speak to classmates rather than only the teacher, build on or challenge ideas respectfully, and invite quieter voices. Classical rhetoric: Aristotle's three appeals (ethos, pathos, logos) and kairos (timing); the five canons of rhetoric from Cicero and Quintilian are invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. Civic speeches to analyze include Pericles's Funeral Oration (as recorded by Thucydides), Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, and Barbara Jordan's 1974 Watergate impeachment statement. Dense-text protocol: read once for the gist, then sentence by sentence; paraphrase each paragraph in one plain sentence; mark the claim, key terms, and reasoning; then respond with agreement, disagreement, or qualification and a reason. Example paraphrase: "The life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" (Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651) → "Without government, people would live in constant fear and danger." Then argue: "Hobbes underestimates how communities cooperate without a state, as Indigenous confederacies showed." Prep notes template: key passage, paraphrase, question, connection to another text. Speech: Barbara Jordan, 1974. Ethos: "My faith in the Constitution is whole." Logos: quotes from the Framers on impeachment. Kairos: the House Judiciary Committee's televised hearings. Prepare seminar notes on a great-books selection, analyze a civic speech by appeal and canon, and apply the dense-text protocol to two pages of philosophy, ending in a paragraph that argues with the author. Usual mistake: Treating paraphrase as the end of reading rather than the starting point for argument.