ENG 1213: Assignment for Thursday, September 6th

Annotated Bibliography: I’ve decided to move the due date of this assignment back to October 16th – the same date that your Unit 4 proposal is due.

We will begin our first unit next Tuesday. Please have the following done:

  • Read: Donna Woolfolk Cross, “Propaganda: How Not to Be Bamboozled” (Power of Language, 2nd, p. 39-48)
  • Write: A paragraph that defines “propaganda” and gives at least one example of propaganda that you see in your world. This could be printed (e.g., an advertisement in a magazine), televised (e.g., a news clip or speech), or spoken (e.g., something someone has tried on you). The paragraph can be handwritten.
  • Read: Lynn Quitman Troyka and Douglas Hesse, “Logical Fallacies” (QA Compact, p. 85-88)
  • Read: Adolph Hitler, “Nation and Race” from Mein Kampf (Power of Language, 2nd, p. 445-49). Be able to identify a couple of propaganda techniques and/or logical fallacies in Hitler’s text. Note: Hitler mentions Columbus’s Egg on the first page of the text. This is a reference to a legend about Christopher Columbus, once he had returned from the New World. James Baldwin adapted the story as follows:

[One] day Columbus was at a dinner which a Spanish gentleman had given in his honor, and several persons were present who were jealous of the great admiral's success. They were proud, conceited fellows, and they very soon began to try to make Columbus uncomfortable.

"You have discovered strange lands beyond the seas," they said, "but what of that? We do not see why there should be so much said about it. Anybody can sail across the ocean; and anybody can coast along the islands on the other side, just as you have done. It is the simplest thing in the world."

Columbus made no answer; but after a while he took an egg from a dish and said to the company:—

"Who among you, gentlemen, can make this egg stand on end?"

One by one those at the table tried the experiment. When the egg had gone entirely around and none had succeeded, all said that it could not be done.

Then Columbus took the egg and struck its small end gently upon the table so as to break the shell a little. After that there was no trouble in making it stand upright.

"Gentlemen," said he, "what is easier than to do this which you said was impossible? It is the simplest thing in the world. Anybody can do it,—after he has been shown how!"

If Hitler is casting himself as Columbus, what are the “eggs” that he is referring to?

Work Cited

Baldwin, James. “Columbus and the Egg.” Good Stories for Great Holidays.Ed. Francis Jenkins Olcott. Charleston: BiblioBazaar. 2006: 161. The Baldwin Online Children’s Literature Project. Ed. Lisa Ripperton. 2007. 5 Sept. 2007 <