Cofer, Judith Ortiz. “The Story of My Body.” Rereading America. Gary Colombo, Robert Cullen, and Bonnie Lisle, Eds. Boston: Bedford’s St. Martins, 2010.
Cofer explains the different perceptions of beauty and self-image based on the lens of society. Through personal narrative she shares her story of not fitting the prevailing image of beauty in the United States. She describes how in Puerto Rico, her lighter skin was viewed as beautiful and desirable, but upon immigrating to the United States, her skin was viewed as “dirty.” So, her light skin actually became brown, and she lost her “advantage”. She was short which became a disadvantage in school. Her looks were beautiful by Latino standards, but not by traditional American standards, so even she adjusted her idea of what beauty was. She did not change, but her perceptions of her looks did based on what society thought was beautiful. Eventually, Cofer realized that her intelligence was a constant, not her looks, and she decided to concentrate on that area of her life.
Russell, Cameron. “What is Beauty?” www.ted.com/talks. 12/12/2012.
“I have been offered so many – too many opportunities. I have been offered TV shows and movies and books. And that's all because of just how I look.” - Cameron Russell Part 3 of the TED Radio Hour episode What Is Beauty? Cameron Russell shares that she won "a genetic lottery." She is naturally beautiful: tall, thin, with long, shiny hair, great bone structure, and, is not surprisingly, an underwear model. Russell is candid about her natural gifts. In this TED talk she describes the industry that made her a sexy teenage model and a favorite with brands like Ralph Lauren and magazines like Vogue. She discusses the power of image and its affect on how we feel about our selves. Russell wants to show that she is more than her beauty. She is also a political activist who works on social change through art. Walker, Alice. “Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self.” http://enloehs.wcpss.net/resources/kingsberry/propaganda.pdf Alice Walker received a childhood injury to her eye and developed a “glob” within the eye. As a child she looked to her family for her definition of beauty; she wanted her father to think she was the prettiest and to take her to the fair. After her injury, she would hide in her room, did poorly in school, and became known as the girl who “does not raise her head.” She actually prayed for beauty. So, at first her definition of beauty came from her family, then from her peers. Once she had the “glob” removed, she still struggled with the definition of beauty. It was only as an adult and after her daughter said, “Mommy, there’s a world in your eye” (51) that Walker realized that she was “beautiful, whole, and free,” and that the other dancer was actually herself.
Great topic, in my experimentation with this in my classroom I've had some students pick this, and the discussions with their peers has proved extremely valuable. Thanks for posting.
It is such a relevant topic and one that kids love. We need to include men as well-great excerpt on looks in Sherman Alexis's Autobiographyof a Part Time Indian.
Bennhold, Katrin. "Behind Flurry of Killing, Potency of Hate." New York Times. N.p., 12 Oct. 2013. Web. 14 Oct. 2013. . In “Behind Flurry of Killing, Potency of Hate”, Katrin Bennhold attempts to answer an age old question: “do we have it in us” to kill someone for a particular cause, even if they are, in a way, innocent. Bennhold interviews Sean O’Callaghan, a man known for killing people in the name of the Irish Republican Army’s cause, who explains that for him, the answer lies in not viewing his victim as human. Additionally, “authority and obedience that supplants individual moral responsibility with loyalty to a larger mission helps loosen the moral inhibition against murder” as “does a routinization of violence, as well as injustice or economic hardship that allows the killer to see himself as the true victim” (Bennhold). Additionally, Bennhold cites famous incidents in history in which several groups dehumanize their victims, such as the reference to groups as rats, cockroaches, subhumans, Huns, “gooks”, or in the case of “[w]here Mr. O’Callaghan grew up . . . they called Protestants ‘sassanagh,’ Gaelic for ‘foreigner’”(Bennhold). Although a culture creates a place for the killing of people deemed less than the culture, it comes at a psychological expense. The killers must atone for the crimes they committed and carry the mental burden of guilt is places on their conscience.
"Pyramid of Hate." USC Shoah Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2013. . The Pyramid of Hate is an image that shows the escalation of prejudicial behavior to full blown genocide, stating the following major steps: prejudiced attitudes, act of prejudice, discrimination, violence, and finally genocide. While one may perhaps start as an observer of racially charged jokes and refuse to say anything, the premise is that eventually, one may become the perpetrator of such jokes, and how these “jokes” have power. Jokes and stereotypes at the expense of another race may become eventually become more charged, leading to full blown verbal ridicule and eventually discrimination. Discrimination could escalate into violence against the group the culture opposes, which would eventually lead to genocide. The United States Holocaust Museum shares this information to describe what the Nazis did to the Jews and use it to educate people on how racial stereotypes are dangerous for a society. Additionally, these tools can be used to prevent genocide by recognition of evil and, as Zimbardo states, reveal how all “evil begins at 15 volts.”
Zimbardo, Philip. "The Psychology of Evil." TED. Sept. 2008. Lecture. In the TED Talk “The Psychology of Evil”, Philip Zimbardo presents his concept of the Lucifer Effect, named after the famous angel turned villain, in an attempt to examine how good people can easily turn evil. As the prison supervisor for the Stanford Prison Experiment, Zimbardo watched as good college students, all chosen for their intelligence and lack of deviant behavior, fell easily into their roles of prison guard or prisoner. When asked why these young men could fall into the perpetrators of hate, he cites Stanley Milgrim’s experiment with electric shock in which obedience to authority and anonymity become the key agents in being able to execute something like mass murder or mass prejudice. He states “That’s the key. All evil starts at 15 volts” to emphasize how evil often starts small and snowballs into something larger.
Frost, Liz. “Theorizing the Young Woman in the Body.” Body and Society (2005). ERIC. Web. 14 October 2013.
Park, Lora E., Ann Marie DiRaddo, and Rachel M. Calogero. "Sociocultural Influence And Appearance-Based Rejection Sensitivity Among College Students." Psychology Of Women Quarterly 33.1 (2009): 108-119. ERIC. Web. 14 Oct. 2013.
Calogero, Rachel M. "A Test Of Objectification Theory: The Effect Of The Male Gaze On Appearance Concerns In College Women." Psychology Of Women Quarterly 28.1 (2004): 16-21. ERIC. Web. 14 Oct. 2013.
A review of literature exploring correlations between the female body image and the female self-image reveals important questions about appearance consciousness in Western capitalistic culture and what causes women to be disproportionally more concerned with appearance than men. Further, research has identified which factors and social situations increase and decrease appearance anxiety and perceived social rejection based on body image. Goffman’s idea that subject to societal pressure women actively promote and maintain their “social selves” has particular relevance today.
In “Theorizing the Young Woman in the Body,” Frost deconstructs the various frameworks for exploring the issues surrounding body image among young women, from the beginnings of research grounded in early feminist theories to Goffman’s idea that body image and identity are products of interconnected complex but deliberate social choices. Rejecting the early feminist view of women as victims of “oppressive white patriarchal capitalism” (Chapkis), Frost argues Goffman’s theory that all people are “social actors” who continually pursue more perfect versions of themselves. The role of Western capitalism in producing “individualized consumers with a whole range of personal wants and needs” has contributed to a generation of girls and women more likely to be “self-oriented, self-critical, and highly concerned with their looks.” Further, Frost refers to Giddens’ “high-risk” society, in which hyper control of the self becomes a coping mechanism in uncertain times.
Examining women’s sensitivity to social rejection based on appearance is the focus of “Sociocultural Influence and Appearance-Based Rejection Sensitivity” by Park, et al., who explored the link between concerns about physical appearance and perceived rejection by others. Women were found to be much more likely than men to exhibit this trend, regardless of parental behaviors and attitudes surrounding physical appearance. The variable which did affect women’s tendencies to anticipate rejection was the idea of “peer conditional acceptance” – whether or not women believed their peers’ acceptance of them was conditionally linked to physical appearance. Park, et al., found that women’s “anxious expectations” about appearance rejection have more to do with the anticipated behavior of their peers than how much value the women themselves place on appearance.
Calogero looks at body image in social contexts in “A Test of Objectification Theory: The Effect of the Male Gaze on Appearance Concerns In College Women.” In the study, one group of women was asked to imagine interacting socially with men and another group to imagine interacting socially with women, with each group recording subsequent feelings and perceptions about body image. Calogero found a significantly greater negative effects recorded by women who imagined interacting with men than those who imagined social interactions with women. Calogero calls the findings “unsettling if we imagine the number of seemingly innocuous social contexts women enter in and out of on a daily basis that include the potentially objectifying male gaze.”
Central to this discussion are the ideas of body image as identity, of one’s appearance as a continuous and adaptive social construct, and of the role female peer relationships play in each of these.
You're welcome! I found some fascinating articles - then promptly lost my entire research folder when I failed to login to my NSU database account. *sigh
In "Welcome to the Programmable World", Bill Wasik argues for the beauty and simplicity of a programmable world, a world in which our possessions are wired with sensors and communicate with us and each other. He builds his argument with pages of examples highlighting the how easy life could be if your coffee maker could communicate with your alarm clock which could also communicate with your lights. Your dog's tag could send you a message if it wanders too far from home during the day. Your baby's nursery could attempt to sooth the baby back to sleep before texting you while you are enjoying cocktails next door. You could not only use GPS to know that your friend is at a particular bar, but you could also triangulate his/her position to a particular stool in that bar. "Who wouldn't want to live in this seemingly sci-fi but approaching reality?" the author seems to ask. Wasik does acknowledge that this reliance on technology strikes a bit of fear into many hearts. We no longer trust the government or big corporations to stay out of our private lives. We don't even really trust the technology itself, envisioning computerized homes that rise up against us and lock us in. However, he quickly counters those arguments before finally assuring the reader that his life will be far more enriched by intelligent and interconnected gadgets than it will ever be by a missile launcher.
While Wasik's article highlights the beauties of what is often called "The Internet of Things," a recent article by Dyugu Tavan offers a more measured response to this trend that has industry drooling with anticipation. He notes that while interconnectedness between items and users offers up new avenues for business growth, the view isn't entirely rosy. For example, how does a company determine from whose device information comes, how do they keep it secure, and how should it be regulated? Tech developers cannot answer those questions yet. Tavan writes in the world of banking and finance, so he explores possible answers offered by current finance corporations. Regardless, he concludes that the way consumer transactions take place in our world will rapidly change as a result of the Internet of Things, and we will accept it because the convenience outweighs the risk.
Finally, in an open-minded approach, Jedediah Bracy of the website _Privacy Perspectives_, outlines the statistics, benefits, concerns, and conversations associated with the Internet of Things. This article brings up some interesting social complications that could result from the constant flow of information between consumers and business. For example, could information-relaying sensors create geo-fences or social divisions among classes as stores recognize non-members in ways that exceed the standard SAMs or Costco cards? What kinds of eyes and ears will businesses really have on what The Electronic Information Privacy Center calls "sensitive behavioral patterns"? However, Bracy claims to be no expert about any of the issues and instead looks forward to an upcoming Internet of Things roundtable featuring industry associations, government regulators, academics, and privacy advocates. In conclusion, he outlines several central conversations that dominate the discourse about the Internet of Things: data collection vs use; de-identification; the government's role, self-regulation and industry codes, individual control, and data control.
Bracy, Jedediah. "The Internet of Things: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly." _Privacy Perspectives._. 26 July 2013. Web. 14 October 2013.
Tavan, Duygu. "Cover story: The internet of things - Internet takes control." The Banker 1 Apr. 2013. General OneFile. Web. 14 Oct. 2013.
Wasik, Bill. "Welcome to the Programmable World." _Wired_ May 14, 2013. Web. 30 September 2013.
I apologize that I didn't get to complete my literature review, but I have a topic and sources inspired by a PD I'm creating for later this week. I do intend to work on this task more as I value the usefulness of the task.
A base beginning…and some initial thinking about my topic and sources.
The conversation stems from a recent discovery made by Matthew Burrows and ___Sutton who recently discovered working gears in planthopper insect nymphs. Before this research, no other living organism had been identified as having gears for movement, although many have been identified to have “cogs”, like in the heart valve of crocodiles. The question is now raising issues about evolution vs. the man-made gears from the ancient Greeks along with creationist theories vs. evolution. The texts I read derive from several perspectives: news articles, like the Washington Post and Huffington Post, NPR, but also from Cambridge University and Evolutionnews.org. Each text takes a different angle and appeals to specific audiences. (Note: NPR has a running conversation/commentary from various readers that identifies interests, opinions, arguments, etc. that the discovery is generating). Below are the articles I’ve been working from, but I’ve also read the primary source (or tried to) from Science Journal, September 13, 2013. http://www.newsela.com/articles/insect-gear/id/1123/ http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/09/mechanical_gear076801.html http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-09-12/national/41996411_1_legs-gears-insect http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/functioning-mechanical-gears-seen-in-nature-for-the-first-time http://www.npr.org/2013/09/13/219739500/living-gears-help-this-bug-jump
Primary Source: Interacting Gears Synchronize Propulsive Leg Movements in a Jumping Insect Malcolm Burrows† and Gregory Sutton*
^^ Sherry -- I'm in the same boat as you. (Your research sounds fascinating, by the way -- and something "new" also). "My" topic, the more I read about it, has been argued to death already (Teach for America). I've almost lost interest in researching, there's such vitriol surrounding TFA and its effectiveness. Unless I can discover a new slant, or more about TFA's role in our state of Mississippi, I think I'm going to switch topics. Ugh!
I always let me students switch topics, even half way through. It's better to switch than the slog through a topic that isn't interesting to a students
I have been thinking about how much I do not know about argumentation, as well as how strange it is that although I have a masters degree and hours toward my doctorate I have never been required to turn in an annotation or a literature search. I wish I had more experience in these areas before I took this class. I am learning a great deal but have a long way to go as well. Once I do learn how to do these things more competently I will actually require my high school students to learn how to do them as well.
I started teaching argument to my senior composition students modeled closely on George Hillocks' strategies. I've found his strategies for introducing argument through investigation (and the vocabulary he uses) has carried over well for my seniors, and they have produced annotations and now are working on a lit review with that vocabulary and their relationships firmly in tow. It's been really, really fun. For them and for me.
I used the Hillocks book in my classroom last spring with freshmen, juniors, and seniors. They loved it. You're right - the vocabulary made sense to them, and the "CSI" (my spin) approach was immediately engaging. I wish I'd known about Hillocks earlier!
My mind has been spinning with all the different things that I have been involved with and new ideas I keep getting exposed to. I love the idea of helping students make connections within what they read, the world and how that impacts their learning,etc... with CCSS the move to more non-fiction is a challenge I am excited about and I know its not just on ELA but I want to make sure that I am providing different texts that really enhance what my students are learning. I have a required novel coming up and one way to really bring in more non-fiction is to really supplement the novels. This is becoming easier and easier. I have also spent the last two weeks really teaching my students how to annotate and close read and that it doesn't have to be hard but we must have a specific task and use the clues in the text to our advantage. I was/ am thrilled with their response. I feel like I have given them tools that they can wield well. Just to name a few thoughts...
Though I'm not teaching this year, the work we've been doing in the OLE has helped clarify some things for me about scaffolding an argument assignment. I love the open-endedness of the topic selection process, and the steps seem intuitive.
Leeanne, I've been trying to think of how to describe the "steps", and I totally agree with you: you nailed it with "intuitive". It's the most natural process in the world, and I really don't think I'd have thought of it myself.
My husband and daughter have listened to our last 2 classes and my husband said, "Well, wish someone had told me all that in high school." I am learning as much from OLE as from my students. It has been rewarding!
One of the things that's interested me the most was the idea of modeling curiosity. I did this with my 099E students a couple of weeks ago. The students were to read several text models in the 100E course, one an essay about Bruce Springsteen: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/07/30/120730fa_fact_remnick
The project that follows the readings is an analytic report on a community. To prepare the students to become curious about a topic and to begin questioning, I showed them the lyrics to one of his songs, We Take Care of Our Own. We did a first read where I asked the students to come up with questions about the text. Here are some of the questions they had: What made him feel this way? What is the purpose of the words? Is the song about unifying Americans? What does he mean by "our own"? What is the "map that leads me home"? Why does he repeat? Is he patriotic? Is he blaming? What influenced this song? What is the road of good intentions? Does the song relate just to him?
I really was impressed with the questions they asked on the first read. We did a second read to find more evidence, but needed more sources. I showed them the video for the song and we did a lot of noticing, pausing, questioning, and discussion. We learned, through the video, that we could answer several of the questions through the images Springsteen chose to use in the video.
I think the lesson was a good precursor to the project the students are working on in that they began to question text (print and nonprint) in order to make some sort of discovery.
I'm also going to use the idea of curiosity with a group of teachers this Friday as we read a text. I'll see how this goes!
How has it changed my teaching . . . multiple ways, and not only in research and argument. This year, I've had my students go out on their own to find articles that have something to do with the novel we are reading rather than me assigning articles for them to read. I've also given them much more freedom to direct their own questions rather than my own questions and topics that I know are important. An interesting thing started to happen with these students . . . they began making connections I hoped they would see and other observations I had not thought about but were very interesting journeys of thought. They took on the task themselves . . . they created their own repositories of articles on different topics we all agreed probably would be important, and they gave each other feedback about the articles. They also collected images, which I loaded into the annotate website and commented on the significance of the images as a whole. This led into analysis, which led into deconstructing arguments . . . and for the first time in several years, I felt as if my class has become somewhat autonomous.
I lost a whole draft...sorry. I have been thinking a lot about the invitations to enter conversations and especially argument development. I am remembering several years of delving into the concepts of ethnography and "peeling onions" of experience--and how our own frames of reference serve as both frames and constraints. In that light, I am trying to listen very hard to where teachers and students are in the framing of their issues and arguments and what they are selecting as evidence --and how that will give me information about what they are on the verge of doing next, both as teachers, as students--and as writers.
I missed the second session because I had to work a ballgame (PTA president at my daughter's school), but the first session alone blew me away with ideas for teaching argument. I'm still trying to absorb it all and figure out a way to use it in service. Wheels turning. . . .
Lost my draft, too! I was writing about Cognitive Coaching training I was in today and how I will have to change my identity as the "go to" resource consultant and move toward the coach that lets the teacher be self-directed.
Zahnd, Brian. "Why I Don't Own a Gun." Brian Zahnd. Word of Life Church,2012. Web. 16 Sept. 2013
When I was wrestling with a response to Newtown and considering what I'd do if I were asked/required to carry a gun as a teacher, I took some time to reconsider my upbringing as a pacifist in a historic peace church. I wrote an essay affirming my beliefs--a practice essay using a Gretchen Bernabei text structure called "The Onion: Unlayering Our Beliefs." A friend read it and directed me to Zahnd's blog post. He captured the right conversational tone asking gun owners to be at peace with people who choose not to carry them. Zahnd doesn't carry a gun because he doesn't hunt and doesn't want to shoot people. He goes on to counter some of the arguments people make for gun ownership. Zahnd uses narrative to make his points--someone has held a gun on him on two occasions--and a blog post reaches an audience of thoughtful Christians and others like me who want more voices to add to our arguments.
Wogan, J.B. “Advancing the Debate: should Teachers Carry Guns?” Governing the States and Localities, 13 March 2013. Web. 12 Oct. 2013.
In response to the Newtown shooting, South Dakota became the first state to legalize allowing school employees, including volunteers, to carry guns in schools. Twenty-four other states were considering similar “school sentinel” laws at the time of this post. Proponents point out that the law requires a training course. VP Joe Biden remarked, “The last thing we need to do is arm teachers.” Many others questioned the necessity of such a law in South Dakota, where only five gun-related homicides occurred in 2011. Many school leaders have come out in opposition to the law. Most arguments center around the fear that accidents will happen. In defense of the law, state lawmakers see it as a way to give localities autonomy when federal action is unpredictable. Sen. Dan Lederman argues that children in rural schools should have the same level of protection that children in the cities have. Lederman says that national government isn’t the answer. School safety needs to be tailored on a district by district basis.
Corbett, Ken. “Arming Teachers: Three Reasons Why Teachers Should Not Carry Guns in Schools.” Slate, 10 April 2013. Web. 11 Oct. 2013.
In response to the NRA National School Shield Task Force Proposal, a recommendation that schools be staffed with armed school resource officers, child psychologist Ken Corbett argues that guns in schools are a bad idea for kids. First, because kids get their hands on most everything. Corbett points to a study in the journal Pediatrics in 2001 that observed small groups of boys who were told to wait in a room with an actual handgun and two water pistols partially concealed in the room. Most boys found the handgun and thirty boys handled the gun. Kids know how to use guns. Secondly, kids will be afraid. The presence of guns silences the voice of civil discussion. Finally, such talk is necessary because children, especially boys, learn to handle their problems with their hands, not their minds. NRA recommends that armed SROs also serve as educators and informal counselors, begging the question of can we trust someone with a gun and operating in a position of force to offer wise counsel?
What is Beauty?
ReplyDeleteLit Review
Kathy Miller
Cofer, Judith Ortiz. “The Story of My Body.” Rereading America. Gary Colombo, Robert Cullen, and Bonnie Lisle, Eds. Boston: Bedford’s St. Martins, 2010.
Cofer explains the different perceptions of beauty and self-image based on the lens of society. Through personal narrative she shares her story of not fitting the prevailing image of beauty in the United States. She describes how in Puerto Rico, her lighter skin was viewed as beautiful and desirable, but upon immigrating to the United States, her skin was viewed as “dirty.” So, her light skin actually became brown, and she lost her “advantage”. She was short which became a disadvantage in school. Her looks were beautiful by Latino standards, but not by traditional American standards, so even she adjusted her idea of what beauty was. She did not change, but her perceptions of her looks did based on what society thought was beautiful. Eventually, Cofer realized that her intelligence was a constant, not her looks, and she decided to concentrate on that area of her life.
Russell, Cameron. “What is Beauty?” www.ted.com/talks. 12/12/2012.
“I have been offered so many – too many opportunities. I have been offered TV shows and movies and books. And that's all because of just how I look.”
- Cameron Russell
Part 3 of the TED Radio Hour episode What Is Beauty?
Cameron Russell shares that she won "a genetic lottery." She is naturally beautiful: tall, thin, with long, shiny hair, great bone structure, and, is not surprisingly, an underwear model. Russell is candid about her natural gifts. In this TED talk she describes the industry that made her a sexy teenage model and a favorite with brands like Ralph Lauren and magazines like Vogue. She discusses the power of image and its affect on how we feel about our selves. Russell wants to show that she is more than her beauty. She is also a political activist who works on social change through art.
Walker, Alice. “Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self.” http://enloehs.wcpss.net/resources/kingsberry/propaganda.pdf
Alice Walker received a childhood injury to her eye and developed a “glob” within the eye. As a child she looked to her family for her definition of beauty; she wanted her father to think she was the prettiest and to take her to the fair. After her injury, she would hide in her room, did poorly in school, and became known as the girl who “does not raise her head.” She actually prayed for beauty. So, at first her definition of beauty came from her family, then from her peers. Once she had the “glob” removed, she still struggled with the definition of beauty. It was only as an adult and after her daughter said, “Mommy, there’s a world in your eye” (51) that Walker realized that she was “beautiful, whole, and free,” and that the other dancer was actually herself.
Great topic, in my experimentation with this in my classroom I've had some students pick this, and the discussions with their peers has proved extremely valuable. Thanks for posting.
DeleteIt is such a relevant topic and one that kids love. We need to include men as well-great excerpt on looks in Sherman Alexis's Autobiographyof a Part Time Indian.
DeleteThat's another great resource.
DeleteBennhold, Katrin. "Behind Flurry of Killing, Potency of Hate." New York Times. N.p., 12 Oct. 2013. Web. 14 Oct. 2013. .
ReplyDeleteIn “Behind Flurry of Killing, Potency of Hate”, Katrin Bennhold attempts to answer an age old question: “do we have it in us” to kill someone for a particular cause, even if they are, in a way, innocent. Bennhold interviews Sean O’Callaghan, a man known for killing people in the name of the Irish Republican Army’s cause, who explains that for him, the answer lies in not viewing his victim as human. Additionally, “authority and obedience that supplants individual moral responsibility with loyalty to a larger mission helps loosen the moral inhibition against murder” as “does a routinization of violence, as well as injustice or economic hardship that allows the killer to see himself as the true victim” (Bennhold). Additionally, Bennhold cites famous incidents in history in which several groups dehumanize their victims, such as the reference to groups as rats, cockroaches, subhumans, Huns, “gooks”, or in the case of “[w]here Mr. O’Callaghan grew up . . . they called Protestants ‘sassanagh,’ Gaelic for ‘foreigner’”(Bennhold). Although a culture creates a place for the killing of people deemed less than the culture, it comes at a psychological expense. The killers must atone for the crimes they committed and carry the mental burden of guilt is places on their conscience.
"Pyramid of Hate." USC Shoah Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2013. .
The Pyramid of Hate is an image that shows the escalation of prejudicial behavior to full blown genocide, stating the following major steps: prejudiced attitudes, act of prejudice, discrimination, violence, and finally genocide. While one may perhaps start as an observer of racially charged jokes and refuse to say anything, the premise is that eventually, one may become the perpetrator of such jokes, and how these “jokes” have power. Jokes and stereotypes at the expense of another race may become eventually become more charged, leading to full blown verbal ridicule and eventually discrimination. Discrimination could escalate into violence against the group the culture opposes, which would eventually lead to genocide. The United States Holocaust Museum shares this information to describe what the Nazis did to the Jews and use it to educate people on how racial stereotypes are dangerous for a society. Additionally, these tools can be used to prevent genocide by recognition of evil and, as Zimbardo states, reveal how all “evil begins at 15 volts.”
Zimbardo, Philip. "The Psychology of Evil." TED. Sept. 2008. Lecture.
In the TED Talk “The Psychology of Evil”, Philip Zimbardo presents his concept of the Lucifer Effect, named after the famous angel turned villain, in an attempt to examine how good people can easily turn evil. As the prison supervisor for the Stanford Prison Experiment, Zimbardo watched as good college students, all chosen for their intelligence and lack of deviant behavior, fell easily into their roles of prison guard or prisoner. When asked why these young men could fall into the perpetrators of hate, he cites Stanley Milgrim’s experiment with electric shock in which obedience to authority and anonymity become the key agents in being able to execute something like mass murder or mass prejudice. He states “That’s the key. All evil starts at 15 volts” to emphasize how evil often starts small and snowballs into something larger.
Frost, Liz. “Theorizing the Young Woman in the Body.” Body and Society (2005). ERIC. Web. 14 October 2013.
ReplyDeletePark, Lora E., Ann Marie DiRaddo, and Rachel M. Calogero. "Sociocultural Influence And Appearance-Based Rejection Sensitivity Among College Students." Psychology Of Women Quarterly 33.1 (2009): 108-119. ERIC. Web. 14 Oct. 2013.
Calogero, Rachel M. "A Test Of Objectification Theory: The Effect Of The Male Gaze On Appearance Concerns In College Women." Psychology Of Women Quarterly 28.1 (2004): 16-21. ERIC. Web. 14 Oct. 2013.
A review of literature exploring correlations between the female body image and the female self-image reveals important questions about appearance consciousness in Western capitalistic culture and what causes women to be disproportionally more concerned with appearance than men. Further, research has identified which factors and social situations increase and decrease appearance anxiety and perceived social rejection based on body image. Goffman’s idea that subject to societal pressure women actively promote and maintain their “social selves” has particular relevance today.
In “Theorizing the Young Woman in the Body,” Frost deconstructs the various frameworks for exploring the issues surrounding body image among young women, from the beginnings of research grounded in early feminist theories to Goffman’s idea that body image and identity are products of interconnected complex but deliberate social choices. Rejecting the early feminist view of women as victims of “oppressive white patriarchal capitalism” (Chapkis), Frost argues Goffman’s theory that all people are “social actors” who continually pursue more perfect versions of themselves. The role of Western capitalism in producing “individualized consumers with a whole range of personal wants and needs” has contributed to a generation of girls and women more likely to be “self-oriented, self-critical, and highly concerned with their looks.” Further, Frost refers to Giddens’ “high-risk” society, in which hyper control of the self becomes a coping mechanism in uncertain times.
Examining women’s sensitivity to social rejection based on appearance is the focus of “Sociocultural Influence and Appearance-Based Rejection Sensitivity” by Park, et al., who explored the link between concerns about physical appearance and perceived rejection by others. Women were found to be much more likely than men to exhibit this trend, regardless of parental behaviors and attitudes surrounding physical appearance. The variable which did affect women’s tendencies to anticipate rejection was the idea of “peer conditional acceptance” – whether or not women believed their peers’ acceptance of them was conditionally linked to physical appearance. Park, et al., found that women’s “anxious expectations” about appearance rejection have more to do with the anticipated behavior of their peers than how much value the women themselves place on appearance.
Calogero looks at body image in social contexts in “A Test of Objectification Theory: The Effect of the Male Gaze on Appearance Concerns In College Women.” In the study, one group of women was asked to imagine interacting socially with men and another group to imagine interacting socially with women, with each group recording subsequent feelings and perceptions about body image. Calogero found a significantly greater negative effects recorded by women who imagined interacting with men than those who imagined social interactions with women. Calogero calls the findings “unsettling if we imagine the number of seemingly innocuous social contexts women enter in and out of on a daily basis that include the potentially objectifying male gaze.”
Central to this discussion are the ideas of body image as identity, of one’s appearance as a continuous and adaptive social construct, and of the role female peer relationships play in each of these.
Oh I love this and will use it with my seniors. Thank you for posting this.
DeleteYou're welcome! I found some fascinating articles - then promptly lost my entire research folder when I failed to login to my NSU database account. *sigh
DeleteIn "Welcome to the Programmable World", Bill Wasik argues for the beauty and simplicity of a programmable world, a world in which our possessions are wired with sensors and communicate with us and each other. He builds his argument with pages of examples highlighting the how easy life could be if your coffee maker could communicate with your alarm clock which could also communicate with your lights. Your dog's tag could send you a message if it wanders too far from home during the day. Your baby's nursery could attempt to sooth the baby back to sleep before texting you while you are enjoying cocktails next door. You could not only use GPS to know that your friend is at a particular bar, but you could also triangulate his/her position to a particular stool in that bar. "Who wouldn't want to live in this seemingly sci-fi but approaching reality?" the author seems to ask. Wasik does acknowledge that this reliance on technology strikes a bit of fear into many hearts. We no longer trust the government or big corporations to stay out of our private lives. We don't even really trust the technology itself, envisioning computerized homes that rise up against us and lock us in. However, he quickly counters those arguments before finally assuring the reader that his life will be far more enriched by intelligent and interconnected gadgets than it will ever be by a missile launcher.
ReplyDeleteWhile Wasik's article highlights the beauties of what is often called "The Internet of Things," a recent article by Dyugu Tavan offers a more measured response to this trend that has industry drooling with anticipation. He notes that while interconnectedness between items and users offers up new avenues for business growth, the view isn't entirely rosy. For example, how does a company determine from whose device information comes, how do they keep it secure, and how should it be regulated? Tech developers cannot answer those questions yet. Tavan writes in the world of banking and finance, so he explores possible answers offered by current finance corporations. Regardless, he concludes that the way consumer transactions take place in our world will rapidly change as a result of the Internet of Things, and we will accept it because the convenience outweighs the risk.
Finally, in an open-minded approach, Jedediah Bracy of the website _Privacy Perspectives_, outlines the statistics, benefits, concerns, and conversations associated with the Internet of Things. This article brings up some interesting social complications that could result from the constant flow of information between consumers and business. For example, could information-relaying sensors create geo-fences or social divisions among classes as stores recognize non-members in ways that exceed the standard SAMs or Costco cards? What kinds of eyes and ears will businesses really have on what The Electronic Information Privacy Center calls "sensitive behavioral patterns"? However, Bracy claims to be no expert about any of the issues and instead looks forward to an upcoming Internet of Things roundtable featuring industry associations, government regulators, academics, and privacy advocates. In conclusion, he outlines several central conversations that dominate the discourse about the Internet of Things: data collection vs use; de-identification; the government's role, self-regulation and industry codes, individual control, and data control.
Bracy, Jedediah. "The Internet of Things: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly." _Privacy Perspectives._. 26 July 2013. Web. 14 October 2013.
Tavan, Duygu. "Cover story: The internet of things - Internet takes control." The Banker 1 Apr. 2013. General OneFile. Web. 14 Oct. 2013.
Wasik, Bill. "Welcome to the Programmable World." _Wired_ May 14, 2013. Web. 30 September 2013.
I apologize that I didn't get to complete my literature review, but I have a topic and sources inspired by a PD I'm creating for later this week. I do intend to work on this task more as I value the usefulness of the task.
ReplyDeleteA base beginning…and some initial thinking about my topic and sources.
The conversation stems from a recent discovery made by Matthew Burrows and ___Sutton who recently discovered working gears in planthopper insect nymphs. Before this research, no other living organism had been identified as having gears for movement, although many have been identified to have “cogs”, like in the heart valve of crocodiles. The question is now raising issues about evolution vs. the man-made gears from the ancient Greeks along with creationist theories vs. evolution.
The texts I read derive from several perspectives: news articles, like the Washington Post and Huffington Post, NPR, but also from Cambridge University and Evolutionnews.org. Each text takes a different angle and appeals to specific audiences. (Note: NPR has a running conversation/commentary from various readers that identifies interests, opinions, arguments, etc. that the discovery is generating).
Below are the articles I’ve been working from, but I’ve also read the primary source (or tried to) from Science Journal, September 13, 2013.
http://www.newsela.com/articles/insect-gear/id/1123/
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/09/mechanical_gear076801.html
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-09-12/national/41996411_1_legs-gears-insect
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/functioning-mechanical-gears-seen-in-nature-for-the-first-time
http://www.npr.org/2013/09/13/219739500/living-gears-help-this-bug-jump
Primary Source: Interacting Gears Synchronize
Propulsive Leg Movements in a
Jumping Insect
Malcolm Burrows† and Gregory Sutton*
^^ Sherry -- I'm in the same boat as you. (Your research sounds fascinating, by the way -- and something "new" also). "My" topic, the more I read about it, has been argued to death already (Teach for America). I've almost lost interest in researching, there's such vitriol surrounding TFA and its effectiveness. Unless I can discover a new slant, or more about TFA's role in our state of Mississippi, I think I'm going to switch topics. Ugh!
ReplyDeleteI always let me students switch topics, even half way through. It's better to switch than the slog through a topic that isn't interesting to a students
DeleteAgreed! And that's what I love about this process! It really allows the student to buy in to the topic.
DeleteI have been thinking about how much I do not know about argumentation, as well as how strange it is that although I have a masters degree and hours toward my doctorate I have never been required to turn in an annotation or a literature search. I wish I had more experience in these areas before I took this class. I am learning a great deal but have a long way to go as well. Once I do learn how to do these things more competently I will actually require my high school students to learn how to do them as well.
ReplyDeleteI've realized now that this space is for tonight--not lit reviews. Sorry everyone!
ReplyDeleteDoesn't matter!
Deleteme too. posted mine herre as well
DeleteI started teaching argument to my senior composition students modeled closely on George Hillocks' strategies. I've found his strategies for introducing argument through investigation (and the vocabulary he uses) has carried over well for my seniors, and they have produced annotations and now are working on a lit review with that vocabulary and their relationships firmly in tow. It's been really, really fun. For them and for me.
ReplyDeleteI used the Hillocks book in my classroom last spring with freshmen, juniors, and seniors. They loved it. You're right - the vocabulary made sense to them, and the "CSI" (my spin) approach was immediately engaging. I wish I'd known about Hillocks earlier!
DeleteI've been using Toulmin. I'm going to look into this approach. Maybe I'll like it better.
DeleteMy mind has been spinning with all the different things that I have been involved with and new ideas I keep getting exposed to. I love the idea of helping students make connections within what they read, the world and how that impacts their learning,etc... with CCSS the move to more non-fiction is a challenge I am excited about and I know its not just on ELA but I want to make sure that I am providing different texts that really enhance what my students are learning. I have a required novel coming up and one way to really bring in more non-fiction is to really supplement the novels. This is becoming easier and easier.
ReplyDeleteI have also spent the last two weeks really teaching my students how to annotate and close read and that it doesn't have to be hard but we must have a specific task and use the clues in the text to our advantage. I was/ am thrilled with their response. I feel like I have given them tools that they can wield well. Just to name a few thoughts...
I think time spent on close reading pays such dividends later!
DeleteAgreed! They can't write about it unless they understand it first.
DeleteThough I'm not teaching this year, the work we've been doing in the OLE has helped clarify some things for me about scaffolding an argument assignment. I love the open-endedness of the topic selection process, and the steps seem intuitive.
ReplyDeleteLeeanne, I've been trying to think of how to describe the "steps", and I totally agree with you: you nailed it with "intuitive". It's the most natural process in the world, and I really don't think I'd have thought of it myself.
DeleteMy husband and daughter have listened to our last 2 classes and my husband said, "Well, wish someone had told me all that in high school." I am learning as much from OLE as from my students. It has been rewarding!
ReplyDeleteOne of the things that's interested me the most was the idea of modeling curiosity. I did this with my 099E students a couple of weeks ago. The students were to read several text models in the 100E course, one an essay about Bruce Springsteen: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/07/30/120730fa_fact_remnick
ReplyDeleteThe project that follows the readings is an analytic report on a community. To prepare the students to become curious about a topic and to begin questioning, I showed them the lyrics to one of his songs, We Take Care of Our Own. We did a first read where I asked the students to come up with questions about the text. Here are some of the questions they had:
What made him feel this way?
What is the purpose of the words?
Is the song about unifying Americans?
What does he mean by "our own"?
What is the "map that leads me home"?
Why does he repeat?
Is he patriotic?
Is he blaming?
What influenced this song?
What is the road of good intentions?
Does the song relate just to him?
I really was impressed with the questions they asked on the first read. We did a second read to find more evidence, but needed more sources. I showed them the video for the song and we did a lot of noticing, pausing, questioning, and discussion. We learned, through the video, that we could answer several of the questions through the images Springsteen chose to use in the video.
I think the lesson was a good precursor to the project the students are working on in that they began to question text (print and nonprint) in order to make some sort of discovery.
I'm also going to use the idea of curiosity with a group of teachers this Friday as we read a text. I'll see how this goes!
I love this!
DeleteHow has it changed my teaching . . . multiple ways, and not only in research and argument. This year, I've had my students go out on their own to find articles that have something to do with the novel we are reading rather than me assigning articles for them to read. I've also given them much more freedom to direct their own questions rather than my own questions and topics that I know are important. An interesting thing started to happen with these students . . . they began making connections I hoped they would see and other observations I had not thought about but were very interesting journeys of thought. They took on the task themselves . . . they created their own repositories of articles on different topics we all agreed probably would be important, and they gave each other feedback about the articles. They also collected images, which I loaded into the annotate website and commented on the significance of the images as a whole. This led into analysis, which led into deconstructing arguments . . . and for the first time in several years, I felt as if my class has become somewhat autonomous.
ReplyDeleteI lost a whole draft...sorry.
ReplyDeleteI have been thinking a lot about the invitations to enter conversations and especially argument development. I am remembering several years of delving into the concepts of ethnography and "peeling onions" of experience--and how our own frames of reference serve as both frames and constraints.
In that light, I am trying to listen very hard to where teachers and students are in the framing of their issues and arguments and what they are selecting as evidence --and how that will give me information about what they are on the verge of doing next, both as teachers, as students--and as writers.
I missed the second session because I had to work a ballgame (PTA president at my daughter's school), but the first session alone blew me away with ideas for teaching argument. I'm still trying to absorb it all and figure out a way to use it in service. Wheels turning. . . .
ReplyDeleteLost my draft, too! I was writing about Cognitive Coaching training I was in today and how I will have to change my identity as the "go to" resource consultant and move toward the coach that lets the teacher be self-directed.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteZahnd, Brian. "Why I Don't Own a Gun." Brian Zahnd. Word of Life Church,2012. Web. 16 Sept. 2013
ReplyDeleteWhen I was wrestling with a response to Newtown and considering what I'd do if I were asked/required to carry a gun as a teacher, I took some time to reconsider my upbringing as a pacifist in a historic peace church. I wrote an essay affirming my beliefs--a practice essay using a Gretchen Bernabei text structure called "The Onion: Unlayering Our Beliefs." A friend read it and directed me to Zahnd's blog post. He captured the right conversational tone asking gun owners to be at peace with people who choose not to carry them. Zahnd doesn't carry a gun because he doesn't hunt and doesn't want to shoot people. He goes on to counter some of the arguments people make for gun ownership. Zahnd uses narrative to make his points--someone has held a gun on him on two occasions--and a blog post reaches an audience of thoughtful Christians and others like me who want more voices to add to our arguments.
Wogan, J.B. “Advancing the Debate: should Teachers Carry Guns?” Governing the States and Localities, 13 March 2013. Web. 12 Oct. 2013.
In response to the Newtown shooting, South Dakota became the first state to legalize allowing school employees, including volunteers, to carry guns in schools. Twenty-four other states were considering similar “school sentinel” laws at the time of this post. Proponents point out that the law requires a training course.
VP Joe Biden remarked, “The last thing we need to do is arm teachers.” Many others questioned the necessity of such a law in South Dakota, where only five gun-related homicides occurred in 2011. Many school leaders have come out in opposition to the law. Most arguments center around the fear that accidents will happen.
In defense of the law, state lawmakers see it as a way to give localities autonomy when federal action is unpredictable. Sen. Dan Lederman argues that children in rural schools should have the same level of protection that children in the cities have. Lederman says that national government isn’t the answer. School safety needs to be tailored on a district by district basis.
Corbett, Ken. “Arming Teachers: Three Reasons Why Teachers Should Not Carry Guns in Schools.” Slate, 10 April 2013. Web. 11 Oct. 2013.
In response to the NRA National School Shield Task Force Proposal, a recommendation that schools be staffed with armed school resource officers, child psychologist Ken Corbett argues that guns in schools are a bad idea for kids. First, because kids get their hands on most everything. Corbett points to a study in the journal Pediatrics in 2001 that observed small groups of boys who were told to wait in a room with an actual handgun and two water pistols partially concealed in the room. Most boys found the handgun and thirty boys handled the gun. Kids know how to use guns. Secondly, kids will be afraid. The presence of guns silences the voice of civil discussion. Finally, such talk is necessary because children, especially boys, learn to handle their problems with their hands, not their minds. NRA recommends that armed SROs also serve as educators and informal counselors, begging the question of can we trust someone with a gun and operating in a position of force to offer wise counsel?