Propaganda -- Section C

A little something to keep you warm while you wait for school to re-open and AG practices to return:

Section C: Techniques of Irrelevance

0. No Technique

1. Appearance: Judging someone based on the way they look

       Example: That girl exchange student from Denmark is really a sharp dresser. I’ll bet she’s smart,  too.

2. Manner: Judging someone based on the way that they act

      Example: Melissa was bubbly and cool. She really handled those tough questions with confidence. She is a much  better candidate for the job than Sally, who was nervous and jittery.

3. Degrees and Titles: Using a degree or title of a speaker to impress the listeners

      Example: “I like the perfect fit, the luxurious feel, and inner warmth of my Brady’s Leather Jacket,” says Laura Stern, President of the American Dog-Breeders Association.

4. Numbers: Using numbers to make a point

         Example: Ad: “Use Galma-Mudd, the face cream preferred by eight out of ten women in the Cleveland area.”

5. Status: Using someone who is famous to endorse a product or support a position

      Example: You should take 500 milligrams of vitamin C every day. The Nobel Prize-winning chemist Linus Pauling recommended vitamin C to prevent and cure the common cold.

6. Repetition: Using the same word, phrase or sound repeatedly to capture the attention of the listener

       Example: Wool carpet has everything that a carpet should have. Wool has a natural bounce in every fiber. Wool carpet has lasting beauty. Wool carpet has lasting color. Wool carpet resists flame. Wool carpet cleans easily. The answer is WOOL.

7. Slogans: Using a short, catchy phrase or sentence designed to be easily remembered by the general public

       Example: Ad: “Open your mind to the world. Select Netscape software for complete and total access to the entire World Wide Web.”

8. Technical Jargon: Using technical language to impress or confuse the listener

       Example: Ad: “This new dress from Janis Kaye’s Originals contains a new fabric, dureneum, which keeps the cloth from shrinking and resists dirt.

9. Sophistical Formula: Using an old saying or cliché as the main point in an argument

      Example: Let’s not give up. True, we have tried everything. We have telephoned; we have knocked on his door; we have written to him. And we have not yet received a cent from him. But “where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

Propaganda -- Section A

Happy New Year Everyone!

The last practice before break we started learning Propaganda by going over the techniques in Section A.  Below is a brief description of those techniques:

Section A: Techniques of Irrelevance

0. No Technique: No Propaganda is being used in the example, or Propaganda from another section is being used.

1. Prejudice: Judging someone based on their inclusion in a group.  Prejudice can be either for or against someone, and can stem from race, religion, sex, age, political affiliation, etc.
Example: Let’s invite David into our club, we need a Baptist member.

2. Academic Detachment: When faced with two options, speaker chooses neither options and instead does not make a decision.
Example: Both candidates have been throwing dirt at each other during the campaign, so I’m not going to vote for either of them.  I’m staying home.

3. Drawing the Line: When faced with a situation with multiple options, speaker reduces the choices to just two.

Example: We can either watch the Olympics, or we can watch the Food Network.  (there are no other viewing options?)
Hint - Listen for "choice" words like "either", "or".

4. Not Drawing the Ling: Speaker is faced with a limit, but chooses or asks to go past that limit (What’s one more?)

Example: I have been absent from school for ten days already.  What’s one more day?

5. Conservatism, Radicalism, Moderatism: Conservatism – Everything old is good; Radicalism – Everything new is good; Moderatism – Likes compromise

Examples: Conservatism – We’ve used these score sheets for every tournament for the last ten years, why change now?
Radicalism – We Democrats must take a fundamentally different approach from the agenda of the last 8 years.
Moderatism – Ad: Sealy Serta mattresses offer the perfect combination of mattress qualities.  They’re not too hard, not too soft.  They conform to fit your body.
Note - It is not necessary to indicate which of these three techniques is being used.

6. Rationalization: Making excuses for something that has already happened.  The speaker refuses to take responsibility for a mistake.

Example: There was no way for me to win the On Sets match.  The girl I was playing knew both of the judges.

7. Wishful Thinking: The speaker believes something to be true because they really want it to be true.

Example: I deserve a good grade because I put a lot of effort into studying.

8. Tabloid Thinking: Speaker reduces an entire group to a stereotype or applies a generalization about a group.

Example: Dave is a typical programmer – you know, thick glasses, pale, skinny, and hardly able to talk to a normal human being.
Note - Tabloid Thinking differs from Prejudice in that with Prejudice an action is suggested, whereas in Tabloid Thinking a stereotype is being used, but no action is advocated.

9. Causal Oversimplification: A complex event is explained by references to one or two causes.

Example: It’s easy to stop inflation, just get the Federal government to balance its budget.

10. Inconceivability: The speaker declares a position to be false because they can’t conceive of it being true.

Example: I just can’t understand why the students would go on strike.  If I were a student, I wouldn’t go on strike.

Winter Break Status update

Hello All,

Hope everyone is having an enjoyable winter break.  I wanted to provide a little status update.  When practice resumes next week, we will begin preparations in earnest for the State tournament in March.  I will email a letter later this week providing details for the tournament.  The cost per student this year for the tournament will be $335.  This includes registration, room, board, meals, and transportation to and from the tournament.  We will have limited scholarship money available.

Some important dates coming up in early January:
Saturday January 11 - Saturday tournament
Monday January 13 - Linguishtik worksheets due.  Presidents and Propaganda questions from 8th graders due.
Friday January 17 - State tournament money and health form due
Monday January 20 - No practice
Tuesday January 21 - Special practice, State tournament teams announced.

Please note we also have an Academic Games sponsored fun night coming up (more details coming really soon).  This is our big fundraiser for the year, and we ask all Academic Games parents to volunteer at the Fun Night.

I will post some info detailing the Propaganda techniques we learned before break and some that we are going to learn right after break.  I have also posted a set of Presidents worksheets on the right.  No points will be awarded for these, but they are a very useful study tool.  I would also recommend everyone take a look at AGLOA.org, the official national AG website.  They have a section called online learning that has both Presidents and Propaganda quizzes.

Only 64 more days until States!

Challenge Match results

By request, the results of the challenge matches:

We Love Pi 3.94
Bob Lee's Pizza Delivery Service 4.07
Rated Ag-13 4.25
Raisin Brains 3.80

As a result, every member of Rated Ag-13 who was present tonight will get a 6 added to their Friday tournament scores, Bob Lee's players will get 4s, We Love Pi 3s Raisin Brains 2s.

Last practice of the year on Friday.  We will play another round of Ling, our usual Presidents Progression and maybe start learning Propaganda.  Reminder that On-Sets worksheets are due on Friday.

A group of collective nouns

I came across this great list of animal congregations and thought it might be of some use to our budding Linguishtik players.

Also, the Elementary Ling packet has been posted on the right.  Although it is not due until after winter break, it would be very helpful to print out the worksheets as we learn all of these things in practice.  Middle Ling packet will be posted this coming weekend.

Late November Updates

Hello All!

Just a quick note to provide some updates on practices, tournaments and worksheets.

Equations worksheets were turned in by the students on Monday.  For the most part, I was very pleased with the time and effort the students put into the worksheets.  I told the students at practice that I think that these worksheets might be the single hardest thing we do in AG, so I was very proud of their work.  Most students turned in worksheets.  Over half the students got ten or more sheets completed with at least a third of the students getting the maximum number of points.  I will check off points for the students and return the worksheets Monday next week.  I would encourage kids to keep working on the worksheets if they didn't complete all of them, and to save the worksheets to study from for future tournaments.  I have posted the answer key for the worksheets in the right sidebar so that each student can check their own answers.

I have also posted the On-Sets worksheets on the right.  These worksheets are considerably easier than the Equations worksheets, I believe, and there are fewer of them.  Any student can get up to ten points for completing these worksheets, and they are due before winter break (our last practice is December 20).  Although we won't spend as much time in practice working on these worksheets as we did with the EQ worksheets, I would still encourage every kid to print them out and bring them to each practice.

Our mini-Presidents tournaments are going well.  As many of you may know, on Fridays after our cube game tournament, we have been reading five Presidents questions, keeping score for everyone, and tracking the average Presidents score for each grade.  As you might guess, the eight graders have the highest overall average, but the 7th graders have been closing the gap, and the sixth graders have been as improving as well.  To improve Presidents scores, I would recommend every student find a good book about the Presidents, or a good digital source of information, and spend at least 10-15 minutes per day reading and / or studying that material.  You can find good, cheap Presidents books at most bookstores (they still have those?), or on Amazon.  There are a host of Presidential trivia apps you can get for either an IPhone or an Android based phone.  And you can find Presidents quizzes on the national Academic Games website (agloa.org).  I will also post some Presidents worksheets that can be used as study guides a little later in the year.

Finally, we have begun learning our fourth game, Linguishtik.  A game that tests students' vocabulary, and their knowledge of English grammar, many students struggle with the game when we first learn it because those are subjects that aren't taught very much in school.  I told them to imagine what it would have been like to learn Equations with knowing how to subtract or multiply.  I told them not to get discouraged, and to make sure they take good notes when they are learning.  I will post some Linguishtik worksheets which contain a lot of lessons within them sometime before next Monday.  Those worksheets will not be due until after we return from break in January. 

So much for this being a quick note (!)  Hope you are all having a good Thanksgiving break - eat lots of turkey (or tofurky if you prefer), watch some parades or some football, and maybe study some Pres ;-)

Equations Worksheets

Equations worksheets are linked on the right. There is a packet for Elementary players (6th graders) and one for Middle players (7th and 8th grade). We will not be printing out the worksheets, so it is up to each student to print them out on their own. Worksheets are due before Thanksgiving break.

For every page completed, students will get one point added to their Friday tournament score, regardless of the number of problems they get correct. The idea is to reward effort. Students are encouraged to bring their worksheet packet with them to all practices, as we will often have times when they can work on them with other students.

6th and 7th grade students can get a maximum of 20 points from the worksheets, while 8th grade students can get points for the worksheets that deal with variations that are new this year, specifically worksheets 7O, 7P, 7Q, 8A, 8B, 8C, 8D, 8E, 10C & 10D.