Bare with me that I haven't had much time to look at this (just got the critiques on wed.) but I have gotten some great tips and creative direction from our Professor.
Circles, Brains, and Squares Oh My! - Margaret Cavendish
The
18th century was a time of much discussion and contention involving
the brain and its inner-workings. However, there was a backlash from other
scientists for a movement against defining the brain and the mind. Those in
literature as well as science contested this definition of a unified brain
including one young prolific author, Margaret Cavendish. Cavendish argued
against the merging of the mind and brain, especially the fact of placing the
mind in the organ known as the brain. Cavendish outright humiliated those who
tried to demystify it. Through her poem, “The Circle of the Brain cannot be
Squared,” Cavendish sets a message that confronts the defining of the mind in
the confines of the brain, but also sends a silent outcry against the
mathematical simplicity implied about and the worn methodology used to analyze
the mind-brain complex.
Possible Sentence beginnings to paragraphs:
1st: The circle was a symbol that had a deep significance to philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians alike.
2nd:While Cavendish used the imagery of geometry to explain the complexity of the mind, she also critiqued the tendency of those who studied the brain to confine both the brain and mind to a simplistic idea.
3rd: The final major point that Cavendish makes is that those studying the brain have been trying relentlessly for a long time without much result.
Conclusion:
Cavendish was an extravagant writer that had a passion for her fancies. She wasn't respected in her time but she still expressed her thoughts because the valued both the mind and the brain. She argued against those minds at her time because she just could not stand idly and watch the brain with all its complexities and fullness be transformed into a simple formula or graph. She believed in the ability of natural perception and reasoning and by having this outrageous idea that it, the brain, can be boiled down to the simplicity of the same magnitude as a square. Cavendish and her opinion are very valuable to scientific and educational philosophy and through studying her words one can appreciate the complexity of the brain and of human thought.
1. Read the introduction and then the conclusion. What differences are there between them, if any? Catalogue these differences below:
ReplyDeleteThe introduction reads as a really strong opening to an argumentative paper. I think something important to establish in the introduction is the difference between the mind and the brain if you feel there is any difference (which it sounds like you feel that there is). However the conclusion reads as more of an evaluation of Cavendish as an author rather than the conclusion of an argumentative paper.
2. Now read the topic sentences. Do they make claims? If not, mark the ones that don’t.
All make claims.
3. Do the topic sentence claims make the connection/progression clear between the intro and the conclusion? What aspects of them do this connecting work? Record below:
The only thing I would say doesn't carry through is this distinction between the mind and the brain that you introduce in the introduction. You mention it in the second topic sentence, but because the reader doesn't really understand that difference yet, it's a little confusing.
4. What parts of the conclusion are not accounted for in the topic sentences? What parts of the topic sentences are not accounted for in the conclusion? Record below:
Again, the main issue is the distinction between the mind and the brain.