Group work assignment for Monday, 16 November 2015

 For Monday, bring print versions of the following texts and materials to handwrite your assignment.  Please have at least one member of your group print the questions.

Using the Dedicatory Letter to Machiavelli's Prince and Federalist Papers 1 and 2 (authored by Publius), please analyze the component parts of these introductions in order to compare them, and more fully understand both texts.

All answers must be written in complete sentences without any grammatical errors.
You must cite the texts for many of your answers, particularly for questions 4-6.  For the other questions, if you wish to paraphrase or quote directly, please cite your text.  For Federalist Paper citations, include the paper number and count the number of paragraphs from the beginning. 
During class, you may only use your texts.  No electronic devices will be permitted.
You may only talk to your group members.  I will be available for questions during class.
All work must be turned in by the end of class, and any student more than five minutes late to class will lose points for disrupting group work (the other group members will not be penalized).

Answer these preliminary questions about each text:
1.  To whom does this author write specifically?
2.  What is the current political situation surrounding this text, in no more than three sentences?  (i.e., what is happening in Italy and America, respectively)

Content--answer each question separately for both texts:
4.  What do Machiavelli and Publius directly say in their dedications?
5.  Would each text's audience be likely to agree with their direct statements?  (5 sentences or less on each text)
6.  Are there any messages indirectly or subtlety indicated in the dedications?  This may take the form of rhetorical flourishes, tone, self-referential statements (things the author says about himself), or impressions you get that are not fully direct.
7.  How easy would it be for the text's audience to pick up on these indirect messages?
8.  If they pick up on these messages, are they likely to agree with the authors of these texts?

Effectiveness:
9.  If you were the audience (and understood only what was available to you from question 2 and your knowledge of political philosophy), what would you think after reading this letter?  (You may list different ideas of what you might think here, so that not every group member must agree.)
10.  If you were writing this dedication, with the same intentions as the original authors, what would you change about the direct and indirect messages?  

Comparison:
11.  Is one of the dedications more convincing?  Why?  (You may list up to three answers, to reflect the opinions of each group member.)

(What I imagine will be) FAQ:
Q:  Do we get individual credit?
A:  Nope.  Write all three names on the work when you turn it in, and although you may provide multiple answers on questions like 9-11, make sure each is as strong as possible, even if you don't agree with your group member.  The one exception is with lateness: if you are late, only you lose credit, not your group.

Q:  How do I talk about Publius, since that is really Hamilton and Jay?
A:  When people read the Federalist in the newspaper, they didn't know it was three men writing it--only that "Publius" was listed as the author.  So, read this as if it is written by a single entity for this class.

Q:  How much should I write?
A:  You only need to answer the question.  You may want to initially answer these out of order so that you don't run out of time.  On the ones that will require several sentences, rather than a list, please do not go over the sentence limit.