Week 10 Day Two

Blog Post 3 dealt with the subject of stereotypes and restricted definitions. The directions to the post were as follows:



William Rasberry in his essay The Handicap of Definition makes a plea for providing the younger generation with a more postive, more expansive definition of black.

Answer the two questions below:

1. Do research on another ethnic group which carries with it a limited definition of that group (e.g., Australian, German, Arab, Chinese, etc). How is that group stereotypically defined? What can teachers, parents, and society at large do to impart to the younger generation positive and more expansive definitions of ethnic groups?

2. Like most people, you or someone you know had had a "defining" term applied to you at one time or another. Perhaps you've been called "shy" or "stubborn" or "the class clown" or "the athlete of the family." Focusing on one such label that's been applied to you, explain the effects that this labeling has had on your life.

Don't forget to comment on at least two of your peers' posts.

Even though not all the posts are in, I liked Nick M's post on Greek stereotypes and his personal reflection on being looked down because he was a golfer.

1. The Greek culture interests me because that is the majority of my background, but being Greek in times like these is not very easy. As many know who watch the news, they know that in Athens, the capital of Greece, there is absolute chaos going on. You can start to see stereotypes being thrown around because the economy in Greece is terrible. I have heard many people say that Greeks have olive oil skin, or are too cocky because they think that they invented everything. Many people are laughing at the Greeks now saying that they are ignorant and can't even support their own economy, but yet look at the economy of the U.S. People everywhere are always going to look down on people of different cultures, but in reality everyone is the same.

I think that the best thing that teachers could do would be to show students the positive parts of every culture. Then the students can associate their classmates with positive thinking. If students are taught young to associate good thoughts with other cultures, then maybe there will be more acceptance in our future society and racism will be cut down to a minimum.

2. My entire life I have loved the game of golf. Many people saw this sport as a easy sport, or something that required no athleticism. I always used to be ashamed to tell my friends that I was going golfing, or going to practice. I decided once I got to high school that I wanted to do something with the game I love, so I gave up on what people thought. All my true friends didn't bother me about it, and I took my game to a whole new level. Now that I have a pro card, I look back at all the kids that made fun of me and smile knowing that I am a pro athlete.

Week 10 Day One

We discussed the subject of surveys and Gen Nexters (born in the 1980s)from the reading by Ann Hulbert called Beyond the Pleasure Principle . The activity was to replicate a Pew Research Center study done in 2006 on values, behaviors and issues of Gen Nexters.

I sent the students out with the task to interview 3 people on campus (preferably people in the Gen Nexter age range) and ask them five questions. The questions were as follows:

1. Do you support gay marriage?
2. Do you support privatization of the Social Security system?
3. Do you believe it is yur duty as a citizen to vote?
4. Do you agree with the statement that technological tools make people lazier?
5. Do you agree with the statement that the growing number of immigrants in the U.S. strengthens our country.

With approximately 65 respondants, the results were tallied with Alex in charge of figuring out the best procedure for tabulation.

1. 64% supported gay marriage.
2. 47% supported the privatization of the Social Security system.
3. 90% agreed with the statement that it is your duty as a citizen to vote.
4. 58% agreed with the statement that technological tools make people lazier.
5. 18.5% of the respondants agreed with the statement that the growing number of immigrants in the U.S. strengthens our country.

We discussed the discrepancies with the statistics in the Pew Research Center study looking at the different variables, such as the demographics and the currency of the study.

The biggest difference was on Question 5 regarding immigrants strengthening our country (18.5% compared to 50% in the Pew study). We briefly talked about the high immigrant population in Florida and the issues related to employment and education. Although I wasn't terribly surprised that the survey revealed that the majority of students on the FGCU campus don't agree that immigrants strengthen our country, it brought home the point that we need to address the issue of diversity and spread awareness of what a diverse population can contribute to our nation.

This would make a good claim to use in an argument using the Rogerian pattern of argument to help students see the various perspectives on this topic.

We still had 15 minutes left in the period. I had talked about the i-Generation and planned to show the video clip below but the sound wasn't working. Instead, the students had to google the characteristics of the i-generation and form three questions regarding the values, behaviors, or issues of this generation and form their questions to try and elicit the differences between the Nexters and the i-generation.

A couple of questions posed in the discussion forum were:

(Carly's Questions)

1. Was either your first or second cell phone a smartphone?

2. Did/Do you have a facebook in middle school?

3. Have you ever used dial up Internet connection?

(Jennifer's Questions)

1. Were you in elementary school when you recieved your first cell phone?

2. Were you younger than 15 when you joined your first social net-working website?

3. Do you use a PDA for more of a research data base than your own computer?

In a way, I'm glad that the video didn't work, because it allowed time for tdiscussion of the differences between the i-generation and the Gen Nexters.

Here is the video clip I wanted to show.

Week 9 Day Two

This week's online blog post was on personality types. The following were the directions to the assignment.




Revisit James Gleick's essay Life as Type A on pp. 449-454 of your Longman Reader.

1. Do some research on Type B personality. Write a post of no shorter than 150 words in which you offer a fuller definition of the Type B personality than Gleick's essay provides. Rather than defining Type B through negation, as Friedman and Roseman do, marshal convincing evidence that illustrates the validity of the Type B phenomenon. Write a brief personality sketch of the "canonical" Type B as well as discuss the factors that shape the Type B personality as you define it. Be sure and cite your source.

2. Take the personality test at http://www.personalitytype.com/career_quiz and summarize the results.

Type A
Type B

Here is a good post by Caitlin.

1. Gleick's essay revolves around mostly explaining what a type A personality is, and towards the end he adds a little 'blurp' about what a type b personality is but doesn't explain it with enough information for anyone to completely comprehend. It says that a type b personality is the opposite of a type a personality, and with a little research its easy to figure out. A type b personality is someone that is much more easy going, they relax easy and they know the value of the word patience. These people are also very non confrontational, and their rarely ever quick to anger. Their calm, cool and collected and it takes alot to irritate them. They know how to keep themselves from becoming too stressed and when they do get stressed they know how to channel their stress rather then being destructive. If a type a personality becomes overwhelmed at work or with school work they tend to get frustrated and shut down rather then getting anything done, where as a type b personality will make a list of everything they have to do and get it done in an efficient manor without becoming frustrated or stressed.




2. The results for my personality test were ENFP. ENFP's are curious, energetic, adaptable and creative. We like letting ideas float around and come up with a solution thats unconventional and out of the ordinary. We tend to be talkative, enthusiastic, playful, and generally fun loving people, who are warm and caring but have strong personal values. Tend to pride ourselves for our uniqueness and originality, but are optimistic for the "possible." We tend to see significance in al things and keep our options open. After all were only 6-8% of the world.



Several students are not reading the directions carefully enough to know that they need to comment on a minimum of two of their peers' posts.

On Monday, I need to remind the students to be sure and cite all graphics that are not royally free. Many are forgetting to do this. Most have gotten the hang of labeling conventions. There are a few who don't bother to read the directions.

I was pleased with the way that the Monday lesson on procrastination linked to Personality Type B. Ben and a couple of others pointed that out. I hope the students are finding the readings interesting. I certainly am finding the essays in Comp 2 very good.

Week 9: Day One

Today we worked on creating a visual argument from an essay in our text. The directions were as follows:

Use the information in the article by Kurt Kleiner When Manana Is Too Soon to create a visual argument supporting Steel's claim that there is little correlation between anxiety and the tendency to procrastinate. Put a PowerPoint slide presentation together that explains in pictures and text his theory that procrastination is caused by a combination of hyperbolic discounting with a theory of motivation called expectancy theory, or temporaal motivational theory (TMT).

Your pictures should dominate your argument.

You title slide should include the title of your presentation and the names of the authors. Your title should be catchy and be related to procrastination. Include at least five slides not including the title slide.

The last slide should cite ONE of the images you use in your slideshow using MLA format. Use www.easybib to enter the information.

Roles: Resource Person (has text, does image citation, and looks for images)

Writer: (looks for images, writes text, puts slideshow together, submits PowerPoint presentation)

Katie and Erica did a great job on the various causes of procrastination presented by Kurt Kleiner.

There wasn't enough time to have selected students show their work.

Week 8: Day Two

This week began the collaborative blogging assignments. I decided to have everyone go into their Eagle mail and accept their invitation at the beginning of our F2F class on Monday.

I also had someone demonstrate how to embed a video. Despite this orientation, several of the students did not get onto the blog as they were supposed to do this week's blogging post on the Darley and Latane essay about the Kitty Genovese case. Several students are not reading the directions to the assignments and are losing points for this. I think it is due to lack of attentiveness when the oral directions are explained and the jumping into the assignment without reading what is needed. I don't know what the solution to the problem is.

Anyway, here is the assignment.

Read the true story of Kitty Genovese from the New York Times article written by Martin Gansberg two weeks after the crime.

http://www.angelfire.com/comics/mooreportal/kitty.html

Then answer two of the the following 3 questions.

1. Explain Darley and Latane's "diffusion of responsibility effect" in the Kitty Genovese case and find a similar case from the newspaper in which bystanders were involved and did nothing. Summarize the other case and provide your personal response to the story. Be sure and cite your source.

2. Darley and Latane cite social critics who believe that the United States has become a nation of strangers, alienated and withdrawn from one another. Write a response refuting this claim by summarizing one good Samaritan story from the news in which bystanders did react in a crisis to help someone out. Also, draw on your own or others' experience. Be sure and cite your source for your news story.

3. How could families and schools or communities or religious organizations encourage children to act rather than withdraw when confronted by someone in difficulty. Do some research and explain the steps that this particular institution could take to help develop children's sense of responsibility to others. Develop your points with specific examples of what has been done and what could be done. Be sure and cite your source(s).

There were some good posts on this subject with most students choosing to answer Questions 1 and 2. McKenzee did a nice post on Questions `1 and 2.

When I read about the Kitty Genovese case I found the results shocking yet understandable. Does that make me bad person? I’m sure anyone else who replied to this question would only talk about how it’s awful and inexcusable for the citizen’s actions. In reference to Question 1, I completely understand the "diffusion of responsibility effect". Why would anyone report a murder if in return they only get put as a suspect? The answer is they wouldn’t. The “diffusion of responsibly effect” is when someone that needs helps or in a crisis is ignored by others. There can be two reasons for this, fear and assumption. A person could be afraid to help someone because they could be put involved with it, when the truth is they just happen to be passing by as the right time. Other reasons include having the assumption that someone else is going to help them so they don’t need to. I fell that this effect has be influence by society.
Interesting video relating towards bystanders:



Although a claim has been stated by Darley and Latane in Question 2, about the United States becoming alienated from one another, I don’t believe it’s all true. There are always people that rise above society’s brainwashing ways and do the right thing. On Fox News in Oregon a group of men saw a women getting raped as they drove by. The men stopped the car to pull the guy off of her and held the guy until the cops arrived. There are good people out there; it’s just a matter of instincts and not fearing what’s going to happen if you do take action.
Link to the incident:
http://www.kptv.com/news/14441750/detail.html

Week 8: Day One

Monday's class centered around the power of visual rhetoric. Ann McClintock's essay Propaganda Techniques in Advertising allowed students to look at the various types of propaganda that are used in advertising.

Students worked in pairs to find three ads that would demonstrate at least three of the types of propaganda McClintock discussed in her essay.

The students did a good job with their PowerPoint presentations. Three groups presented. The one difficulty for some of the groups was to distinguish the transfer technique from the glittering generality technique.

Here is an example submitted by Laura and Jared.

transfer technique

name calling technique

glittering generalities technique

I was pleased with the activity and how students were so efficient in finding the ads that demonstrated the techniques. All seemed on task and the time limit was perfect.

Week 7: Day One

Instead of a face-to-face class, we had an online midterm course reflection assignment in which students were asked to answer the following questions for each week of the seven weeks we have had in the course thus far:

1. What did I learn?
2. What did I do?
3. How did I feel about what I learned and what I did?

Students had a lot of Web 2.0 tools to choose from. They could do a blog, a loggel, a series of 7 vokis, a moviemaker video, a toondoo, a Photostory 3 digital story, or use jing.com to capture their stories.

Most students chose to do vokis and blogs. I had outstanding submissions from the majority of the students. I would like to showcase a few here and on the sidebar as loggel won't let you embed.

Here is Tom's Toondoo.

thomas moore midterm course reflection by tmo8940 | Make Your Own At www.toondoo.com

Tim and Rolando did an awesome job on their loggels. For those of you who don't know what a loggel is it's like diary entries on a timeline. They are often used for travel logs. I thought that loggels would be a great way to capture our journeys as writers. I haven't experimented with this Web 2.0 tool which allows people to comment on your entries. You can embed videos and photos in addition to text. The only disadvantage to loggels is not being able to embed the code into a blog. Here are the links.

Tim's loggel: http://www.loggel.com/lifelogs/timilne/Diary--Midterm-Reflection/1373

Rolando's loggel:http://www.loggel.com/lifelogs/rlopez/Diary--Midterm-Assignment/1378

The voki submissions were also good. Ryan's series of vokis were very creative. He not only chose different characters but he used different voices. He did his Borat voki for Week 2 of the course.





One student took the time (from noon to 5 p.m.) to make a moviemaker clip. I asked him to submit it to YouTube so that he can get an embed code and I can add it here on my blog.

The one thing I would structure more on this midterm reflection is have the students tie the midterm objectives more directly to their discussion. I felt that a lot of the students talked about the readings and didn't connect the objective of the lesson to the discussion. Some made the connections between the essays using the constructive approach, but most just talked about the readings and how they felt about the readings. Even though the midterm objective document was in the lesson folder, I have a feeling that most students didn't look at it when they did their course reflections.

I need to work on this more, particularly in the online portion of the class. I need to constantly remind them to make those connections to the concepts.

Week 6: Day Two

Students are turning in their Paper 2 Drafts today and are playing around with some Web 2.0 tools to decide what they will be doing for their midterm course reflection.

The majority of the students chose to do the loggel but I'm pretty sure they didn't understand what it entailed. They thought it would involve simple text diary entries. I had had it on my original list of tools to use and removed it.

Nine students chose to do a loggel. Five will do vokis. Two chose to do blogs and one will do a movie.

No one chose Photostory or jing.


Check out this link about loggel. It is usually used for travel logs but metaphorically speaking their writing journey from Week 1 to Week 7 is going to be captured using text and the visual elements.

http://www.loggel.com/

Loggel can be accurately defined as a Lifelog community with a new format and the best part of it is that you will not have to pay anything at all to join it. This site is a great mixture of aesthetics and usefulness that gives you the chance to make use of modern web technologies in a very simple way. If you decide to use this solution you will be benefited with an interesting service that was especially created to allow you to record a diversity of life situations in multiple media resources.

Do you want to get in touch with friends as well as to be allowed to meet new people? If you do, this site will be giving you the chance to add texts and a variety of images, as well as audio files and a number of videos to your profile. This is a convenient service you can use in order to let the world know about the last big party or wedding you have attended, etc.

No matter if you want to publish your profile and your Lifelogs, or if you prefer to keep everything private, this is going to be the right site for you to have access to such an option.


Read more: http://www.killerstartups.com/Social-Networking/loggel-com-a-new-community-experience#ixzz0fvfXBZAH

Week 6: Day One

Today's lesson was on the media's influence on a woman's and a man's image. The lesson began with a journal entry related to the media's influence on a woman's image.



We connected the video to the essay by Dave Barry called Beauty and the Beast.


Then, students were given the following activity.

Work in pairs on this activity. One person is responsible for the text portion; the other is the PowerPoint person.

Click on the link here which explains men and masculinity: http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/men_and_masculinity/index.cfm

Scan the information that applies to how the media influences society's perceptions on what it means to be a male in America.

Then put together a slide show using photos and text which explain the media's influence on the American male image.

You should have a title slide with the title Men and Masculinity with your names and a graphic on that slide.

Attach your Powerpoint slide show to your post and include both names in your subject heading. One person will be responsible for the text while the other is responsible for finding the graphics that represent the text.

Three pairs came up and presented their slideshows. Tim and Reggie put the best one together.


I thought the pairs worked very well together and worked very efficiently once they figured out that the resource was provided in the discussion forum. The timing for the activity was just right. If I did this again, I would have a couple of oral presentations and then I would have students go back in the discussion forum and do sandwich critiques of two other presentations.

I would also include in the directions that the title slide had to be a POW and the final slide had to be a WOW in which the information presented was synthesized. I pointed out that the visual representation of the definition of masculinity needed to have the elements of a text essay. In other words, it needed the POW factor, the development of the thesis, and the WOW factor. When one pair was finished early, I suggested that they go back and do that final slide synthesizing what they had presented.

Here is Reggie and Tim's powerpoint presentation they created.

Week 5: Day Two

Wednesday's online discussion forum's theme was the environment. The directions were as follows.

Make sure you read Carson's A Fable for Tomorrow (359-362), Helvarg's The Storm This Time (103-110), and Harris' How to Keep Air Clean (Week 5 Lesson folder).

Watch the YouTube video below on air pollution.



Answer 3 of the 5 questions below. Be sure and remember to reply to at least two of your peers.

1. Relate Joni Mitchell's, Big Yellow Taxi to the Carson essay.



2. Find a video on YouTube that mirrors the story that Helvarg tells in his essay, The Storm This Time. Compare and contrast the video you chose with the information in the essay. You can either provide the link to the video or embed the code using the last icon on the toolbar that looks like a piece of paper with a yellow arrow in the corner (the Source icon). The embed code is next to the YouTube video under the url code. You must hit the Source icon before you paste the code in the message box.

3. Helvarg took the photographs that accompany the essay. Compare the photograph of the marked door on Page 105 with the author's description of it in Paragraph 6. Does this photograph add to the description in the essay, or is the author's description so vivid that the photograph is unnecessary? Explain. Now it is your turn to find a Katrina photograph and describe it in words. Be sure and insert the image and cite it according to MLA guidelines. Write your description below the photograph.

4.Sydney Harris never once mentions what we can do as individuals to keep the air clean. Imagine you are going to write an essay on this subject. Find at least two other credible sources on the internet on what individuals can do to keep the air clean. Be sure and cite your sources using appropriate MLA format.

5. Carson imagines a fictional town that has changed for the worse. Consider a place you know well that has changed for the better. You might focus on a renovated school, a rehabilitated neighborhood, a newly preserved park, etc. Contrast the place before and after the change. Describe the effects of the change.

Jared did an outstanding job on his post and replies to his peers.

Discussion Forum 4 Post

by Jared at 2/10/2010 8:52 PM

1.Big Yellow Taxi basically explains Carson essay, except in more poetic way. Mitchell’s songs talks about man’s desires over personal items, a materialistic society. That we as a society never think of the consequences, we leap and never look back. The songs message correlates at the end of Carson’s essay. When the town gets hit by a famine and everything starts to die. Man can do nothing to stop it, because the actions previously taken can’t be reverse. I believe I have a good grasp of the message of both the article and the song. If you don’t take the time to appreciate the natural world, everything will be lost. The world of the future will be become gray, with no shades of colors to go along with it. Just like in the song maybe one day we will have to visit a tree museum, just to see a tree.



2.I found a video clip called Hurricane Katrina Images, it show the devastation after the hurricane hit. In the video clips it shows many images including, national guards, the army, and rationed food supplies. Helvary while visiting Katrina describes seeing national guards, keeping the peace and creating road blocks. Just like images of destroyed homes, Helvarg recalls visiting a man’s house that has been completely destroyed. Helvarg talks about organizations trying to give food to people in the city, just like the images portrayed people giving out food. However there are some differences between the video clip and Helvarg’s article. While reading his article he correlates a lot of what he sees to past experiences. For instance he references a lot about New Orleans destruction similar to when was a war correspondent, and the damage he saw in those countries. Helvarg also is more interested about the environmental damage of New Orleans, as opposed to the physical destruction the video clip shows. The video clip showed more of a general consensus of people’s emotion about Katrina, as to Helvarg’s perception of what he saw there. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E971oBiu9Z4





4.I believe the steps of keeping our air clean is through personal responsibility. While reading the article I noticed the main pollutant was fossil fuels, or the most expressed. Right now we are two heavily dependant on fossil fuels to stop cold turkey. Though what we can do is lower the amount fuel we need per year. For instance people should drive cars only for pure necessity. Perhaps maybe there should be a federal mandate, that homes of certain sizes should have solar panels. Maybe we a need a policy implemented by the federal government to have 35% of renewable sources by 2025. There are many different solutions to solve this, but by combining them we could change the future. So by lowering our demands for fossil fuels, we lower the amount of pollutants put into the atmosphere.



Tips to improve your Gas Mileage." Fuel Economy. Web. 11 Feb. 2010. .



"50 Tips To Prevent Air Pollution - Home And Garden News Story - KIRO Seattle." Seattle News, Weather, Traffic, Video and Sports I Pacific Northwest News I KIRO 7 Seattle, Washington. Web. 11 Feb. 2010. .



Re: Mckenzee  Discussion Forum 4

by Jared  at 2/10/2010 8:59 PM

I thought how you described the yellow taxi to Carson's essay was excellent. You brought out points I never even thought of saying. I have no other comments to make, keep up the good work.

Re: Discussion Forum 4

by Jared  at 2/10/2010 9:06 PM

I like the points you brought out about yellow taxi baby, and Carson's essay. Also the story of Disney's re-renovation. However you lacked in both answers your initial P.O.W, in grabbing your audience and making your claim.

Week 5: Day One

The focus of our Monday class was on two constructive arguments that were presented in two essays. The essays were on the subject of torture: Alter's Time to Think About Torture and Porter's Now the Talk is About Bringing Back Torture


I decided to poll the students with a question related to how far would you go to extract information from a suspected terrorist if there was a possibility of saving American lives.

Here is the poll and the results which showed that 50% of the students would resort to waterboarding. I even had one of the students describe what waterboarding is. I then explained to the students that if I were presenting my case against using any form of torture, including waterboarding, I would have to provide evidence that waterboarding and other methods aren't effective in extracting the truth. Here is the poll. It is live so you can text in your response.

Get a free sms student response system at Poll Everywhere

We then did a journal entry on an interrogation of a 10-year-old boy who was pressured into confessing to a crime he didn't commit. It brought home the point that these kinds of methods often lead to false confessions.

Check out the video.



We then moved into a group exercise in which students had to answer questions on the two assigned readings: Alter's Time to Think About Torture and Porter's Now the Talk is About Bringing Back Torture

I was not pleased with this groupwork activity where I assigned a writer, a resource person, a presenter, and an observer. Everyone was taking out their books when it was the resourcer's job to be in charge. There was little talking and from what the observers said on their sheets, the talking that did go on was chitchat about stuff not related to the assigned task. I think the biggest problem was that the students were not sitting face to face looking at one another. If I did this activity again, I would have printed out the task and made the students face one another to do the task. One student mentioned that the task was "boring." It probably didn't challenge the students because everyone identified the thesis, came up with a decent definition of torture in the context of Alter and Porter's essays, and came up with a list of ways that they feel tortured.

Based on the results of the poll, I think that next time I will have the students debate using extreme measures like waterboarding to extract information. Since 50% of the class said they would do it, I would divide the class into groups of 4 (pro and con) and work on their case and then have a few present.

Week Four Day 2

The video above is a 30-second summary of the George Orwell story Shooting an Elephant.

The online assignment was a discussion forum. The directions are below.

Read and annotate Orwell's Shooting an Elephant (pp. 148 - 155). Choose ONE of the following to respond to and reply to at least two of your peers. Your post and replies should be submitted by 11:55 p.m. on Wednesday, February 3. Review the discussion forum rubric in the COURSE DOCUMENTS folder before posting your answer.


This assignment is worth 25 points.

1. In Paragraph 3, Orwell says that the elephant incident gave him a better understanding of "the real motives for which despotic governments act." What do you think he means? before you answer, reread Paragraph 7 carefully.



2. Was Orwell justified in shooting the elephant? Argue that Orwell was justified or not justified and support your claim with your reasons. Here are some points you might consider: the legality of Orwell's act, the elephant's temperment, the crowd's presence, the aftermath of the elephant's death, the death itself.



3. Orwell's essay concerns, in part, the tendency to conceal indecision and confusion behind a facade of authority. Focusing on one or two groups of people (parents, teachers, doctors, politicians, etc) argue that people in authority sometimes pretend to know what they're doing so that subordinates won't suspect their insecurity or incompetence. Part of your argument should focus on the consequences of such behavior.

Most students chose to answer the second question about whether the narrator was justified in shooting the elephant or not.

Valeria did an outstanding job responding to the 2nd question and replying to her peers.

Discussion Forum 3 by Valeria Alarcon (vaalarco) at 2/3/2010 9:40 PM

2. Was Orwell justified in shooting the elephant? Argue that Orwell was justified or not justified and support your claim with your reasons. Here are some points you might consider: the legality of Orwell's act, the elephant's temperment, the crowd's presence, the aftermath of the elephant's death, the death itself.



-In my opinion, Orwell was definitely not justified in shooting the poor elephant. Legally it is easy for one to understand his doing, because the government made it clear that it would be legal to kill an elephant if it has gone mad and it's owner isn't there to control it. Stating this, I truly feel that if Orwell was on his own and without the huge excited crowd, he would have not shot the elephant and would have waited for the owner to return, which is what he should have done. The elephant did go mad when he was destroying a lot of things in the town, but once Orwell got to the elephant, the elephant seemed calmed down and harmless. Therefore, since the elephant wasn't going mad anymore, there was no need to shoot the elephant. They could have gotten someone to get a tranquilizer and inject the elephant with it. The crowd's presence was what forced Orwell to shoot it, but he should have just walked away to not hear all the riot. He would have not felt guilty after the elephant's death. When he found out that it took the elephant thirty minutes to die and all the Burbans were eating his flesh, he began to feel extremely guilty and bad about himself. Yes, the elephant did things to destroy the town, but they should have not shot it. It was beginning to calm down and seem harmless. Therefore, it was wrong for him to shoot him, because he was the one harming the elephant when he could have been in peace and in control once his owner came to get him.

Re: Discussion Forum 4

by Valeria Alarcon at 2/3/2010 10:11 PM

You are right about how he did not have the good reasons to kill the elephant. If he didn't think it was necessary and he felt that it was calming down and being harmless, then there was no reason to shoot it. But, I do not agree that it should have been killed at all. I understand that it destroyed many things and killed an innocent person, but what the right thing they could have done was to inject it with a tranquilizer. Overall, you've made good statements about your opinion.

Re: Ben Brokaw Discussion Forum 3

by Valeria Alarcon at 2/3/2010 10:46 PM

Ben, I don't think you wrote enough to argue about your opinion. The only thing I can agree with you about is that owner should have taken better care of it. He should have tried calling up a friend or family member to help save his elephant though I strongly disagree that it was a correct action at all to kill the elephant. The animal was probably nervous and frightened with everything he saw going on and did not know what to do. Killing is never a right thing to do. They should have injected it with a tranquilizer and left it until it's owner came to control him. You should have written a little more to convince me more. Even though I did not agree with you, you did do a good job in defending him.

Most of the students are catching on to the sandwich critique for evaluating their peers' arguments. I am very please with the progress my Creative Composers are making in learning to make that transition from snorklers of their reading and writing world to scuba divers. Go Creative Composers.

Week Four Day 1

The day began with a journal entry based on the reading by Stephen Chapman's Prisoner's Dilemma. I showed the video clip called "America's Hardest Prisons."








http://www.wordle.net/

Students were introduced to Wordles and were given the directions below. I explained how important it is for writers to define what they are talking about before getting to the whys and hows.

Using the two readings which deal with the idea of what it means to be a civilized society, students worked in pairs. Three of the groups presented their Wordles and explained why they chose the words they used, why the colors, and why the layout and font.

I told them that Wordles are good marketing tools for advertising a product. When the presenters came up to the front of the class to present their case, we were the marketing team that would be choosing one proposal in our awareness campaign for becoming a more civilized America.

Although Clay and Carly did not present, I felt they did the best job in capturing the definition of what constitutes a civilized society.

If I were to change this activity,  I would have the students include their written paragraph and include a short justification for their word choices, their layout, their fonts and colors.

I also would have had a polleverywhere to have students vote on the best of the three that were presented. All in all, it was a good lesson that was timed well.



DIRECTIONS: Work in pairs to create a Wordle about what constitutes a civilized society. In order for the phrase “civilized society” to appear as the biggest word, you will need to mention it at least 3 times in your paragraph.

As you discuss the content of your paragraph with your partner, keep in mind the content of the two readings.

Your first sentence should start with the sentence, “A civilized society is one that …….”

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends, and even embed them in a discussion forum.

Week Three Day 2

The students participated in their second discussion forum based on two essays: one on groupthink and the other on lying. Here were the assignment directions.

On page 258 of Ericsson's The Ways We Lie, she cites Irving Janus's definition of groupthink. Using this definition as a starting point and the video below, find one example of groupthink in history or in the news and analyze it using the eight symptoms of groupthink. Be sure and cite your source. Then, review the other ways of lying that Ericsson categorizes. Provide an example from your own life and argue why you feel that lie was justified or not.

OR

Sykes in his essay The "Values" Wasteland contends that modern education fails to teach morality. Do you agree? Watch the video and do some outside research to argue the point that contemporary schooling blunts or enhances young people's moral sense. In either case, offer convincing examples from your own and other people's schooling to support your point of view. Be sure and cite your source in your post.



Erica's post and sandwich critiques on GroupThink won the award of the week.

groupthink


by Erica Blanco (elblanco) at 1/27/2010 11:42 AM

“A psychological phenomenon within decision-making groups in which loyalty to the group has become more important than any other value; with the result that dissent and the appraisal of alternatives are suppressed.” This is how Irving Janis defines the concept of groupthink.

When I was in high school, I took an AP psychology class, and in this class we learned about groupthink; therefore, I already knew the definition and how it worked. One thing I was not aware of was how hugely it can affect the outcome. The Bay of Pigs Invasion is a great example of groupthink in history. Kennedy’s advisory committee made six different misconceptions about their plan of attack, some of which included that nobody would know that it was the U.S. that was responsible for the attack, that the Cuban army was very small and weak, and also that the Cuban army was so ineffectual that it could just be wiped out. They had the illusion that Cuba was vulnerable and that it would be an easy defeat for them. There was direct pressure to get the job done and overthrow Castro. The majority of people thought it to be a good idea and a full-proof plan and the ones who were a little skeptical just smiled and nodded.

I can remember such simple examples of groupthink throughout my life. When in the classroom and a teacher asks a, “have you ever,” or “do you think,” question and asks for a raise of hands as the answer, in fear of being looked upon differently I waited to see how many people raised their hands first and then raised my hand along with them.



http://department.monm.edu/portfolio/2009portfolios/rpowers/artifacts/Junior_Colloquium_Docs/CATApapers/group%20think%20bay%20of%20pigs.pdf

Re: Nick's Group Think

by Erica at 1/27/2010 11:47 AM

Very good points. I also chose the Bay of Pigs invasion as an example of groupthink. I think that this should be left out of decisions as well, but in reality that seems almost impossible. A lot of people won't ever stand up to people of higher authority or speak out on how they feel if nobody else has stated their opinion. A lot of people think its better to be safe than sorry, and their eyes safe is agreeing with the boss man or with the majority, and sorry is standing up to them and taking the risk of being fired or rejected or even causing another disaster.

Re: Groupthink

by Erica Blanco at 1/27/2010 11:51 AM

You did a good job. It's interesting how such a simple thing can cause such a huge impact. You could have gone a little more in depth with your example, which is a good example by the way. I also use those little white lies all the time! They come in handy but sometimes I do feel bad.

Because we had just finished looking at the 5 criteria for evaluating web pages, I might have asked the students to mention why the source they used was a credible one. Some others in the class went straight to wikipedia for their source for their post. They need to be encouraged to look further.

The other disappointing result of the groupthink question was that many used the Bay of Pigs or Vietnam as their examples from history and didn't specifically refer to the eight symptoms from the essay. In other words, it is possible that some students did not read the essay but only watched the video.

The other thing that the students need to work on is being more critical in their replies to their peers and going beyond anecdotal evidence to agree or disagree. I wanted them to analyze how the writer presented his or her argument. Erica was the only one who made suggestions to her peers.

The other problem is the lack of proofreading for mechanics. Even though I have a discussion forum rubric, most students are using textspeak.

I was pleased with the fact that everyone but two people posted and replied to their peers. Yea!!

Week Three Day 1

Where did the time go today in the F2F class. I went over some of the links under the Resources tab and spent some time talking about doing one's own research using http://www.surveymonkey.com/. My Creative Composers will be spending this week gathering information, seeing if http://www.polleverywhere.com/ or http://www.surveymonkey.com/ will work for their first research paper around the theme of education.

I emphasized how important it is to write for a real audience and take risks in this course on the writing material. I told them that each paper they would write for me would go to a real audience and not just me. I think they were surprised that their writing was going to be more than an academic exercise.

Since our reading was about 9-11, we explored conspiracy theories as it relates to evaluating web sources. Kudos for today's assignment go to Caitlin, Clay, and Kelles for summarizing the flight remote contol theory. Before checking out their post, check out the pod/remote control non-credible YouTube video.

Here is their post:

Conspiracy Theory # _5_ Debunked Summary:
The Conspiracy Theory states that the planes that hit the world trade towers were remote controlled. The company that manufactured the planes that struck the towers explained that there was no way for the planes to be controlled from any other location other then the flight deck of the actual aircraft. Eyewitness passengers also made phone calls stating that hijackers had taken control of the planes.

Non- Credible: http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?read=76058

It is noncredible because:

- It is “.com” not “.gov” or “.edu”

- It is full of advertisements

- There are no credible credentials to the author or the page.

So, how would I change this activity. As I was searching around for conspiracy theory videos, I found it would have been more educational for the students to view these videos and then find a credible source that debunked the theory. The students could provide evidence and state why the source was credible. The only problem with having groups of students view videos in a F2F computer class is that there is no sound on the computers, so perhaps this approach was the way to go, or save this lesson for an online class.

What surprised me in the submissions was that two groups didn't save the worksheet to the desktop and work on the responses from the desktop, upload the document and submit it. I had assumed that they knew how to do it. I also found out that some students don't know how to use the course management system messaging function.

There were no time for presentations either. Next week, I will delve right into the activity for the day. I felt that since this was the second time I've seen them since January 11th, they needed more orientation to what was in the course.

Good lesson overall. The students were attentive and learned that doing their own research and finding a real audience is a part of the authentic writing experience.

Nick, Mackenzee, and Laura summarized the insider trader theory. They summarized the theory and provided evidence debunking the theory. Their resource person provided them with a non-credible source. Here is an example of a non-credible source on the subject of inside trading.

Here is their post:
Nick, Mackenzee, Laura


This is a conspiracy that states that there was unusual trading in stocks of United and America Airlines just before September 11, 2001 supporting evidence of knowledge prior to the attack. The U.S government debunks this stating that indeed there was trading, but each trade was made for a specific reason.

Non- credible source: http://www.hereinreality.com/  . This is a non-credible source because there is no contact information, or any way to track their information to a source.