English 102

Thursday, March 05, 2009

New Brooks' Articles

Human Capital Agenda

A Critique of Pure Reason (deals with Education reform)

America's Admissions System (deals with immigration)

And another on Education Reform

Brooks' Articles

Here's Psst! Human Capital

Marshmellows and Public Policy

Of Love and Money

Investing in Human Futures

Day 42

Lesson Plan Day 42 English 102

Scoring the essay
MLA for Class Matters
MLA for David Brooks
Counter Argument Power Point

Complete Peer Editing

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Tom Friedman's Five Worst Predictions

From Vanity Fair

Day 41

Lesson Plan English 102 Day 41

Counter-Argument: Two Approaches--Other ideas that might help--or--Why your ideas might not work. Either way works, but for full points, be sure to Concede, Refute, Accomodate, or Reject as irrelevant.
Health Care for Poor, Minorities
College not for Everyone
Financial Leadership program

BREAKING NEWS!

"How Can We Duplicate" revision is due this Friday ONLY IF you are interested in using this essay as your final, final essay. This gives me time to respond and you time to revise it.

If you KNOW you are revising a different essay, (N &D or TWIF) Revised "How Can We Duplicate" Essay is not due until THURSDAY, March 12th.

Peer edit "How Can We Duplicate" in class
1. We're looking for clear topics in each paragraph
2. We're looking for support from Class Matters, Nickel and Dimed, The World is Flat
3. We're looking for an awareness of Counter-Arguments from the above books as well.
  1. Here's how we'll do it
    1. Write a question or two you need answered. The more specific the better.
    2. Number paragraphs
    3. Hand to partner at your table.
    4. Peer edit without reading aloud.
      1. Stay focused.
      2. Give it your complete attention.
      3. They are counting on you.

Peer edit your own essay as homework tonight.

We Already Knew That

Seattle Times on Report: Health-care disparities shortchange minorities, poor

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Here's an article K. Cleveringa found on the topic. Quotes from a New Republic article (which is a legit source).

And incredibly, it combines the Expert Performance Movement we talked about in child soccer and the number and type of words addressed to children in differing economic levels.

And, be sure to read the readers' comment section for some good back and forth. I'm not sure I agree with this guy's conclusions about when it all went wrong--and the numbers aren't there to back it up as far as church going is concerned.

Organization and Process

Here’s the process we’re walking (or running) through.

Tomorrow in class, we’ll look for evidence/quotes from the three books and deal with grading.

1) What are the obstacles that you think are the most important/fixable
a. Find 2-4. (For rough drafts)
i. Put in your own words
b. Find page numbers and quotes to help define these obstacles.
i. Explain the quotes (For final drafts)

2) What are the solutions to those obstacles as presented in the books
a. Find 1-2 solutions
i. Put in your own words (for rough drafts)
b. Find page numbers and quotes to help define the solutions
i. Explain the quotes (For final drafts)

3) What are the solutions you or your classmates have come up with?
a. Put 1-2 in your own words
b. Find evidence outside the books to support your ideas.

Organization options
Paragraph 1: Intro (hook, background, thesis)
Paragraph 2: Obstacle 1 (define using texts)
Solution to obstacle (define using texts, outside sources)
Other solution to obstacle (define using texts, outside sources)

Consider adding depth to each body paragraph—add an example of the obstacle and solution from the texts or from other source.

For ex: (obstacle) Angela Whitiker struggled to complete her degree because she lacked reliable childcare. –find quote that explains family structure from CM and/or childcare dilemma in N&D’d

(solution) She would have been able to complete her degree more quickly if she didn’t have that concern and instead could have put her children in a clean, safe, predictable environment, like the ones proposed by Ready By Five.—quote Ready by Five website.

Paragraph 3: Obstacle 2 (define using texts)
Solution to obstacle (define using texts, outside sources)
Other solution to obstacle (define using texts, outside sources)

Paragraph 4: Obstacle 3 (define using texts)
Solution to obstacle (define using texts, outside sources)
Other solution to obstacle (define using texts, outside sources)

Paragraph 5: Obstacle 4 (define using texts)
Solution to obstacle (define using texts, outside sources)
Other solution to obstacle (define using texts, outside sources)

Paragraph 6: C-A: Some might say, others might say, I say. (Right before end or right after intro is a good place for this) Acknowledging the other ideas is a good start.
Conceding/Defeating them as top priorities will be more credible and convincing, thus putting you on the fast track to better score for C-A.

Paragraph 7: Conclusion

Counter Arguments

Here's a particulary clear explanation of how to deal with Counter Argument:

Rebuttals and Main/Faulty/Return Paths

Unlike many forms of writing, academic arguments will often include discussions of possible objections and counterarguments to the position being advanced. Academic arguments typically take place in disciplinary communities in which a variety of competing or divergent positions exist. When preparing to 'speak' to the community by writing an argument, writers are aware of the arguments against which they must build their claims, and of the counterarguments which are likely to emerge. Dealing with counterarguments and objections is thus a key part of the process of building arguments, refining them, interpreting and analyzing them. There are several main reasons for introducing counterarguments and objections.

1. It demonstrates that the author is aware of opposing views, and is not trying to 'sweep them under the table'. It thus is more likely to make the writer's argument seem 'balanced' or 'fair' to readers, and as a consequence be persuasive.

2. It shows that the writer is thinking carefully about the responses of readers, anticipating the objections that many readers may have. Introducing the reader to some of the positions opposed to your own, and showing how you can deal with possible objections can thus work to 'inoculate' the reader against counterarguments.

3. By contrasting one's position with the arguments or alternative hypotheses one is against, one clarifies the position that is being argued for.

When dealing with objections or counterarguments, authors tend to take one of 3 approaches.

Strategic concession: acknowledgment of some of the merits of a different view. In some cases, this may mean accepting or incorporating some components of an authors' argument, while rejecting other parts of it.

Refutation: this involves being able to show important weaknesses and shortcomings in an opponent's position that demonstrate that his/her argument ought to be rejected.

Demonstration of irrelevance: showing that the issue in question is to be understood such that opposing views, while perhaps valid in certain respects, do not in fact meet the criteria of relevance that you believe define the issue.

Rewards for Students

Here's an article from today about attempts to deal with the ambition gap.

(AND, if you comment on this article, you get a point. Should you?)

Is the isolation over?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/us/08lehigh.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=foreclosure

Scroll down and click on the video.
Slideshows are good too.

Are you seeing more of this, and is this having an impact on how we see those in poverty?

Monday, March 02, 2009

Day 39

English 102 Lesson Plan Day 39

Bonus Points

Meet in Labs tomorrow.

Rough Drafts due end of period tomorrow (500 half-good words)

Hand back "Discovery Drafts"—a couple of examples

Grades/Essays for 1130 class

Sample Essay available

Now, for some help with the rough draft:

Pick your top three from the list

How do we help Angela Whitiker overcome these sources of economic friction?

What are the solutions offered by the books?
Research for some of these is in your books

What are our original solutions?

Research for these topics is encouraged.

Education
1. Parenting
2. Collect at state level and spread equally
3. Emphasize
  1. CQ+PQ
  2. Math/Science
  3. Right Brain
  4. Learn to Learn
  5. Collaborators
4. Tougher tests
5. Longer school days
6. Longer school years
7. Universal Preschool
  1. Head Start
8. College Aid
9. Increase vocational/trade programs
10. Classes through work
Health Care
1. Expand congressional health care to 47 million w/o coverage
2. Portable coverage
3. Isolation
1. Protest
  1. Social Activism
2. Change Housing rules/styles
  1. We've tried large projects
  2. We've tried easier loans
3. Credit Crisis
4. Required class in teacher prep.
5. Immigration reform
6. Language classes
7. News catching up with this?
Family Structure
1. Shift focus of sex ed
2. Leadership
Transportation
1. Mass transit
Information
1. Expand broadband
2. 211
Child care
1. Universal pre-school
2. Expand government care
3. Be more generous with paid leave
Social Capital
1. Parenting
2. End "marriage penalty"
3. Promote marriages in PSA's etc
4. Require classes for license
5. Allow gay marriage
6. Leadership/Bully Pulpit
Human Capital
1. Parenting
2. Word of the Month
3. Gear Up
4. Attendance rewards
5. Grade rewards
6. Big Brothers
7. Peer Mentors
8. DARE
9. Parenting classes
  1. Tough love
10. "Stable, predictable environment, good behavior is rewarded +practice"
11. Universal Preschool
12. Personal finance classes
13. Public Speaking classes
14. Leadership/bully pulpit
Increase minimum wage to living wage
Wage Insurance
Other?
1. Faith Based programs?
2. Volunteering
3. Reaching out/Mission work
Prohibitions?
1. Make divorce harder, for ex
2. Smoking/Drinking
3. Number of children
Censorship?
Mandates?
What about drugs/alcohol?
Opportunities /Pathways

Sample Essay, Duplicating AW’s Success

Brian Stump

Mr. Peters

English 102

6 March 2008

Up and Out of Poverty:

While sitting in your apartment and studying your bullet-hole ridden dining room table, you realize this is not the life you want to live. So you go to college and try to get a degree, but you aren't able to feed your five children and yourself, pay all the bills, work, and go to college at the same time. This was Angela Whitiker's life; an example of a single, poor mother trying to raise her children and move out of poverty at the same time. There are a few things that the government can do to make it easier for the poor to work their way out of poverty, as well as a few things that society could do to change our culture. However, there are still a few things that are up to the individual for them to work their way out of poverty. Duplicating Angela's success is difficult, but there are a few ways to increase the ability of people to move out of poverty.

Moving out of poverty is ultimately up to the individuals. They themselves have to be the ones to push themselves to work hard to improve themselves so they can move out of poverty. For some of the poor, ambition is a major problem because they don't want to spend the time to improve themselves. "[A] rising number of young Americans in recent years [have] spent their free time watching television and surfing the Internet" (Friedman 354). It would be more beneficial if these people would read and study on their own to better themselves rather than sitting in front of the TV doing nothing. But there are a few that want to move out of poverty and are willing to work towards their goal. Those people, like Angela Whitiker, find that moving out of poverty is very difficult and help from society and the government would be greatly helpful.

The government could make it easier for the poor to work their way out of poverty. According to Class Matters, 39 percent of people who are hired for a job climb their way out of poverty (Muhammad 231). So if the government increased the availability of jobs, such as by hiring poor people for a highway cleanup crew, it would greatly increase the chance of the hired people moving out of poverty. In Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich suggests that the working poor need higher wages just to survive. Today, low wage workers are earning less than they did 27 years ago (Ehrenreich 203). "In the first quarter of 2000, the poorest 10 percent of workers were earning only 91 percent of what they earned in the distant era of Watergate and disco music" (Ehrenreich 203).

However, an increase in the minimum wage is also a double edge sword. The wage increase would immediately benefit the poor and would give them the opportunity to move up in class. On the other hand, it would discourage specialization such as a college degree because the poor would not see a need for a higher education since they would be doing fine without it. Education is very valuable in order to move out of poverty and we should not discourage it by increasing minimum wages. Thirty-five percent of the poor who get at least a two year college degree move out of poverty (Muhammad 231). If more scholarships and grants were awarded to the poor, more of them would rise out of poverty and we would hear more success stories similar to Angela Whitiker's.

In addition, the government could also provide a way for the poor to get affordable child care and housing. For many minimum wage workers, paying for child care and housing is just too much. In Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich mentions how many other countries compensate workers lack of descent wages with benefits such as childcare and affordable housing:

Most civilized nations compensate for the inadequacy of wages by providing relatively generous public services such as health insurance, free or subsidized child care, subsidized housing, and effective public transportation. But the United States, for all its wealth, leaves its citizens to fend for themselves-facing market-based rents, for example on their wages alone. (Ehrenreich 214)

Since the poor have to fend for themselves, there is no way a single mother without any help could get out of poverty. Today, "reliable child care is just too expensive, even for middle class families" (Ehrenreich 214). It's no wonder that it took Whitiker six years to get a two year degree at a community college when she had to constantly take care of her five children. Affordable housing is another major problem of the poor, and for some "[t]he home is a car or a van" (Ehrenreich 214). With government help, the poor could live in actual houses instead of cars, in some cases, and those who want to go to college would be able to in a timely manner because they wouldn't have to constantly take care of their children.

Another way to help the poor move out of poverty is to increase social capital. For the poor, having someone to help share costs is very beneficial. In Whitiker's case, having a husband allowed her to finish her college degree, which led to a better paying job and therefore she moved out of poverty and into the middle class of America. "[O]f poor single mothers who marry, 56 percent are lifted out of poverty" (Muhammad 231). If a poor, single mother is able to marry a supportive husband, there is a good chance that they will move up in class and out of poverty. However, this is not a very common occurrence and should not be heavily relied upon. Only 1.4 percent of poor, single mothers actually get married every year, so if you do the math, only 0.78 percent, or 78 of every 10,000 poor mothers actually get married and move out of poverty every year.

Overall, duplicating Angela Whitiker's success is difficult, and much of the responsibility to move up in class is on themselves. Those of the poor that do desire to work their way out of poverty and chose not to live the low class life find that moving up is incredibly difficult, and the government and society should lend a helping hand to those struggling out of the hole of social disparity. With a helping hand, the poor that are willing can and will move out of poverty and we will have successfully duplicated Angela Whitiker's inspiring success.

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Check out the graphs, too.

And for fun, here's how they'll be impacted by Obama's new tax plan

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Day 37

Lesson Plan Day 37 English 102

From Yesterday's YHR—Part of Angela's Problem
Essays
1. Much better on thesis statements
  1. Especially compared to last spring
2. Pretty good on support, although your RESEARCH SKILLS need work. Take Calhoon-Dillahunt's class.
3. MLA improving
4. Ready by Five—Biggest problem is finding good evidence
  1. Mary Nelson's essay
Calendars/Grade Changes
1. Friday—"Discovery Drafts" in the computer lab C210—500 words by end of period (20 points)
2. Monday—Sample Essays, continued discussion
3. Tuesday---Computer Labs (C210), In-class Rough Draft—500 words (20 points)
4. Wednesday/Thursday: Scoring and Peer Edit Rough Drafts, bring 4 copies.
5. Friday—Final Drafts due—50 points towards final draft scores.
In same four groups
Nickel and Dimed Evaluation Chapter
1. Friction (205)
  1. Define and give examples
2. Also 213-214
  1. What are her solutions?
3. How would this help Angela/Juan Peralta/others?
David Brooks
1. First Article
  1. Breaking down the capital further
2. Second Article
  1. What works, according to Brooks?
The World is Flat
1. The Right Stuff
2. The Untouchables
3. This is Not a Test
4. Dirty Little Secrets
The Stimulus Plan

Essays back Monday for 1130 class

How the Stimulus Plan Impacts Angela Whitiker

NYTimes breaks it down

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090214/ap_on_go_co/stimulus_stakes_who_gets_what

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Day 36

Lesson Plan Day 36 English 102

In four groups
1. I'd like us to have some notes we can keep up and refer to as we build the ideas from book to book.
2. We'll start with Class Matters, then deal with Nickel and Dimed, then David Brooks, then The World is Flat.
3. By the time we're done, we'll have lots of options for HOW to duplicate her success.
4. The next step is for you to pick and choose which options you think will be the most successful.
Shadowy Lines That Still Divide
1. On the surface
2. in reality
3. unlike to change because
4. likely to change because
Duplicating Angela Whitiker's Success
1. Human Capital
  1. Define and give example
    1. What's the strength of this approach?
    2. What's the weakness of this approach?
2. Social Capital
  1. Define and give example
    1. What's the strength of this approach?
    2. Weakness of this approach?
Nickel and Dimed Evaluation Chapter
1. Friction (205)
  1. Define and give examples
2. Also 213-214
  1. What are her solutions?
3. How would this help Angela/Juan Peralta/others?
David Brooks
1. First Article
  1. Breaking down the capital further
2. Second Article
  1. What works, according to Brooks?
Essays back, with some notes if time. If not, please bring them back tomorrow for discussion/questions.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Day 35

Lesson Plan Day 35 English 102

Angela's Climb Slide Show
Questions (hand in)
In groups
1. On the surface,
2. in reality,
3. unlike to change because
4. likely to change because
Duplicating Angela Whitiker's success
1. Human Capital
2. Social Capital

Homework: Read David Brooks. Underline/Take notes. He's gold for this essay.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Over the Weekend

Letters about student expectations From previous post.

Start up Risk Takers, Friedman's latest editorial

Good article on the FAFSA and making it less complicated.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Credit Crisis

Here's a 10 minute visualization of the credit crisis. It's not closely related to the topics we're studying, but still worth watching:

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

West Valley Welcomes Walmart!

Ground breaking today.
Add another dot.

Day 33

English 102 Lesson Plan Day 33

Essay back in about a week. May take longer due to longer essays.
College Dropout Boom/No Degree, No Way Back slideshow
College Dropout Boom questions
1. Groups of four=6-7 questions per student
2. Questions Due Monday
Homework: Angela Whitiker's Climb
1. 202-218 by Monday
  1. Questions to "x" by Monday
2. 219-233 by Tuesday
  1. Hand in questions on Tuesday

All along ask: How Can We Duplicate Angela Whitiker's Success?

Angela Whitiker’s Climb

Angela Whitiker's Climb

a. What test is Angela Whitiker about to take?
b. What does she expect will happen if she passes?
c. What were the conditions of her home life while she studied?
d. What was the cost of the entrance exam?
e. What did her parents do for work?
f. What had happened in her life by the time she reached the age of 23?
g. How does the article describe the neighborhood of Englewood and Ms. Whitiker's life there?
h. What did Ms. Whitiker do to keep her family out of the projects?
i. What role did Ms. Whitiker's son Nicholas play in the family's life?
j. Why was the outpouring of help from New York Times readers not enough to "materially change" the family's living conditions?
k. Why did Ms. Whitiker feel that the Robert Taylor Homes were "beneath her"?
l. What kind of perils and indignities did Ms. Whitiker and her family face when they were living in the projects?
m. How do the stories about Ms. Whitiker's car illustrate how her life was at the time?
n. In what ways did Ms. Whitiker's life change after she met Vincent Allen?
o. What was Nicholas' response to Mr. Allen's position in their lives?
p. What was the main focus of Ms. Whitiker's life between 1996 and 2002?
q. What was Ms. Whitiker's experience in nursing school like?
r. What was her reaction to her exam results?
s. Why was her son Willie not present at Ms. Whitiker's and Mr. Allen's wedding? How did Nicholas dress, and what was his mother's reaction?
t. How did Ms. Whitiker ultimately fare academically? Why was this not enough to land a job in a teaching hospital?
u. Why was working at the hospital on the South Side "unnerving"?
v. What kind of work was she doing?
w. How did Ms. Whitiker's income last year compare with that of other American workers? How did her rise to middle-class wages affect her relationships?
x. How did Ms. Whitiker's parenting strategies change?
y. Why is Ms. Whitiker's income not necessarily enough to make her life financially stable?
z. What luxuries do other people with similar income enjoy that Ms. Whitiker does not?
aa. What effect does Ms. Whitiker's working hours have on her and her family?
bb. What goals is Ms. Whitiker working toward? Which seem within reach, and which seem like long-shot dreams?
cc. What is Ms. Whitiker's ideal of middle-class perfection?
dd. How does her ideal compare with reality?
ee. In what ways has Ms. Whitiker's success come "too late" for Nicholas and Willie? What "painful decision" did she make regarding Willie?
ff. What goal did her daughter Ishtar accomplish?
gg. How and why is Ms. Whitiker trying to keep it "in perspective"?
hh. What aspiration does she have in mind for her son John?
ii. Why did Ms. Whitiker take a second job and what is it?
jj. What does she say is the most important thing in life?

College Dropout Boom Questions

What was Andy Blevins doing in the summer of 1995?
b. Where had he been before taking the job at the supermarket warehouse?
c. What was his wage? How did it compare with that of his parents?
d. What decision was he faced with after he started working?
e. What is one of the largest and fastest-growing groups of young adults in America?
f. What statistic about Americans in the mid-20's has shown a marked change?
g. Why has the American system of higher learning been considered "a great equalizer"?
h. According to the article, what effect does economic advantage appear to have on graduation rates?
i. What trend did the Department of Education discover in a recent study?
j. How action has Lawrence H. Summers taken in response to the news of a widening gap between rich and poor students?
k. How are poor and working-class students faring in a climate wherein more people are earning college degrees?
l. Why does a college education seem to matter more now than it once did?
m. How has the trend in economic mobility changed over the last generation?
n. In what ways are colleges increasingly diverse? In what ways are they not?
o. How do you interpret the "joke" about diversity at Harvard?
p. What effect might a person's upbringing have on his or her expectations concerning college?
q. What disparity in income can be seen between a college graduate and a non-graduate?
r. What are some of the barriers to higher education for students from low-income families?
s. How has the University of Virginia attempted to help students from low-income families?
t. What steps is Leanna Blevins taking to help students from low-income families?
u. What effect has affirmative action had on college admissions?
v. What changes to the affirmative action policy have been proposed?
w. How does Mr. Blevins describe the positive and negative aspects of his life?
x. In what ways is the "conventional wisdom" about equality in education "not quite right"?
y. What challenges do colleges faces in determining how or whether to help students from low-income families?
z. What decision is Mr. Blevins facing, and what action has he taken so far?

Higher Education Questions

-How should income, race, legacy, athletics and test scores factor into college admissions decisions?

-If a low-income student, a high-income student and a legacy student have equal test scores, should one be given advantage over the others in being admitted to a college? If so, which one? Why or why not?

-Do employers place too much emphasis on college degrees for hiring and promotion decisions? Why or why not?

-Should private colleges and universities undertake to diversify their student population by income level? Why or why not?

-Should the government offer incentives to colleges and universities to provide access to low-income students? If so, how? If not, why not?

-Should everyone work toward achieving a college degree? Why or why not?

In the Basemet of the Ivory Tower

Here's an article a number of you have mentioned in essays or discussion.

Here's a key passage:

America, ever-idealistic, seems wary of the vocational-education track. We are not comfortable limiting anyone’s options. Telling someone that college is not for him seems harsh and classist and British, as though we were sentencing him to a life in the coal mines. I sympathize with this stance; I subscribe to the American ideal. Unfortunately, it is with me and my red pen that that ideal crashes and burns.

Sending everyone under the sun to college is a noble initiative. Academia is all for it, naturally. Industry is all for it; some companies even help with tuition costs. Government is all for it; the truly needy have lots of opportunities for financial aid. The media applauds it—try to imagine someone speaking out against the idea. To oppose such a scheme of inclusion would be positively churlish. But one piece of the puzzle hasn’t been figured into the equation, to use the sort of phrase I encounter in the papers submitted by my English 101 students. The zeitgeist of academic possibility is a great inverted pyramid, and its rather sharp point is poking, uncomfortably, a spot just about midway between my shoulder blades.

For I, who teach these low-level, must-pass, no-multiple-choice-test classes, am the one who ultimately delivers the news to those unfit for college: that they lack the most-basic skills and have no sense of the volume of work required; that they are in some cases barely literate; that they are so bereft of schemata, so dispossessed of contexts in which to place newly acquired knowledge, that every bit of information simply raises more questions. They are not ready for high school, some of them, much less for college.

I am the man who has to lower the hammer.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

The Early Catastrophe

30 million word gap by age 3

The Number One Emailed Story

On the NYTimes:
"Student expectations cause grade disputes"

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Day 31

English 102 Lesson Plan Day 31

Bonus Points?
H/I Self-Critique
Take Home Critique Returned
How to Grade the Essay
1. Sample Essay
How to cite a web site
1. In text
2. MLA works cited
3. Using Word with Office 2007 and later
College Dropout Boom, video
Homework: Class Matters--No Degree, No Way Back to the Middle Class
Final Drafts Due: Thursday February 19^th. Bring one copy to turn in and intro/conclusion for you to read from.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

A Vision of Students Today

Weekend links

YHRepublic Editorial on Financial Aid to Illegal Immigrants

YHRepublic Editorial on Guest Worker Program

Downturn dilemma: Foreign professionals and worker visas

As joblessness soars, employers are under mounting pressure to save U.S. jobs by laying off foreign professional workers first, a scenario that for many H-1B workers triggers a frantic search for a new employer to sponsor them so they don't have to go back home.

Military Path to Citizenship (Friedman might say, why not do the same with college degrees?)

Our Greatest National Shame, editorial by NYTimes writer, Nick Kristof
hint: This guy is in COLLEGE.

Day 30

English 102 Lesson Plan Day 30

Complete Peer Critique
Read each essay aloud in class.
Complete Self-Critique, including outline
Take Home Critique
How to Grade the Essay
1. Who wants to be brave tomorrow?
College Dropout Boom, video
Homework: Class Matters--No Degree, No Way Back to the Middle Class
Final Drafts Due: Thursday February 19^th.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Lesson Plan Day 29

1. Bonus Points
2. News of the day
3. Peer edit in same topic groups where possible
4. Write 2-3 questions you'd like to have answered.
5. Number paragraphs on each essay.
6. Hand out (and apologize).
7. Explain your questions to your peers.
8. Read silently and mark as you go.
9. Complete work sheet, including scratch outline.
10. Discuss.
11. Hand back and hand in essays for next class to evaluate

12. Reading homework
Class Matters: The College Dropout Boom and No Degree, No Way Back to the Middle
We will be discussing College Dropout Boom starting next Tuesday and No Degree, No Way Back to the Middle starting next Friday.

Retraining, YVCC, Minimum wage

From today's paper:
Unemployed retraining at YVCC

Give Tiered Minimum Wage a Try

And, heard on the radio coming in
City of Yakima asking for federal stimulus money for-
Underpasses
Downtown streetscaping
Capital Theater

Charles Ross (legislative rep 14th district) asking for state money for--
Zepheal Stadium resurface
Parking at JM Perry
Design for Ready by Five building

Finally,
Barbara Glover of Wine Yakima Valley says, strong sales and 13% increase in tickets to Red Wine and Chocolate over last year.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Day 28

English 102 Lesson Plan Day 28

Bonus Points?
News: Farm labor coming back; Financial aid for undocumented students
The writing process
Finish work on Thesis statements
1. CLICKERS!
2. JUDGING EACH OTHER!
  1. SHAME!
  2. GLORY!
Outline sample essay
1. Ready by Five
2. Washington Learns
Due Dates, part two
Rough Drafts Due Friday: Bring four copies.
Final Drafts Due: Thursday February 19^th.

Farms, Students, Buy American and Science

Bad economy good for farm labor needs

More on Student Aid Bill

Room for Debate in the Buy American clause of the stimulus.

Letting Scientist off the Leash

You may have noticed that one of my lifelines actually came from the N.I.H. — an agency not known for taking risks. I could write pages about the last presidential administration’s disastrous approach to science. However, for whatever reason (and I suspect it was dumb luck: the exception that proves the rule) George W. Bush appointed an N.I.H. director who was both visionary and an adept leader — Elias Zerhouni. Dr. Zerhouni changed the process for awarding grants, which had become inbred and conservative. Among other steps, he created a series of special awards — for “Pioneers” and “Innovators” — to fund highly risky research, and it is one of these that I was the recipient of.

As we think about how to heed President Obama’s call to “put science back in its rightful place,” I wonder if this should also be the time to rethink the basic foundations of how science is funded. Could we stimulate more discovery and creativity if more scientists had the security of their own salary and a long-term commitment to a minimal level of research support? Would this encourage risk-taking and lead to an overall improvement in the quality of science?

As we consider the monumental challenges facing our generation — climate change, energy needs and health care — and look to science for solutions, it would behoove us to remember that it is almost impossible to predict where the next great discoveries will be made — and thus we should invest broadly and let scientists off their leashes.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Day 27

English 102 Lesson Plan Day 27

Bonus Points
News—This is a good example of Argument and C-A.
New Sample Essay
The writing process
Thesis statements—powerpoint?
On the board.
1. CLICKERS!
2. JUDGING EACH OTHER!
  1. SHAME!
  2. GLORY!
Outline sample essay?
Due Dates?

Friedman on H1B Visas

From today's NYTimes:

Leave it to a brainy Indian to come up with the cheapest and surest way to stimulate our economy: immigration.

“All you need to do is grant visas to two million Indians, Chinese and Koreans,” said Shekhar Gupta, editor of The Indian Express newspaper. “We will buy up all the subprime homes. We will work 18 hours a day to pay for them. We will immediately improve your savings rate — no Indian bank today has more than 2 percent nonperforming loans because not paying your mortgage is considered shameful here. And we will start new companies to create our own jobs and jobs for more Americans.”

Dream Act part two

1) video from PBS
2) NYTimes

And, BREAKING NEWS:

Bill: financial aid to illegal immigrant students
The Associated Press

OLYMPIA, Wash. Illegal immigrant students could get state financial aid for college under a bill being considered by Washington state lawmakers.

State Rep. Dave Quall, a Democrat from Mount Vernon who sponsored the bill, says many of these students are moved to the United States by their parents at an early age, are groomed in the American education system, and it wouldn't be right to deny aid to qualified illegal immigrant students.

The measure would expand current law to allow illegal immigrant students to be eligible for a state need grant program, which provided around $182 million in financial aid for 72,000 students in 2008.

The House Higher Education Committee has scheduled a Wednesday afternoon hearing on the bill.

The illegal immigrant financial aid bill is House Bill 1706.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Day 25

English 102 Lesson Plan Day 25 (Half way through quarter)

Bonus Points—V-Day and Feb 12^th for Yakama Artistic Expressions at Larson Gallery, 7pm
Due by the end of the day: A thesis statement
1. What is the effect of X on the Yakima Valley in the New Flat World?
2. What is the main point of the paper?
3. What is similar and what is different about the proposal and TWIF?
4. Some say X, others say Y, I say Z.
Sample Thesis statements
Sample Essays
Time to research, ask questions, write.
Rough Drafts Due Thursday
1. This is about pushing you to get SOMETHING done.
2. Some place to start

Ready By Five

YHR article

Ready by Five website

Gates website

The Details at Gates on Early Learning Strategy (pdf)

Ready by Five at ESD 105

Another YHR article

Sample Essays

NEW! Ready By Five Sample Essay:

DOWNLOAD FILE

Dream Act Sample Essay 1:

DOWNLOAD FILE

Dream Act Sample Essay 2:

DOWNLOAD FILE

Minute Men Sample Essay 3: (Needs more TWIF)

DOWNLOAD FILE

Monday, February 09, 2009

Farm Robots

Wired Article

Discover

Gizmodo

Guest Workers

TODAY'S NEWS: Push for guest workers

Foreign Workers for seasonal jobs, recession or not

Economy puts squeeze on Wine Industry

Guest Workers in Yakima (last may)

Editorial on Guest Workers

Day 25

English 102 Lesson Plan Day 25

1030 class move to G111
In your groups—
1. Quotes
2. Links
3. Assemble one list for quotes and one for links.
Links from last Friday and today.
Tomorrow, bring storage device for lab work-come here first to find out where.

Rough Drafts Due February 12th

Weekend Links

In Defense of WalMart

Cuts to Stimulus Package in Senate bill

Physics v. Medicine in Senate version.

Throwing Schools Out The Window in Senate version

meanwhile...

What to do about Yakima's Crumbling Schools?

Friday, February 06, 2009

Unflat 2: Too Sick

Unflat 1: Chinese Air Pollution

How to Argue, Monty Python Style

Leadership and Parenting

and not leadership:

Day 24

English 102 Lesson Plan Day 24

Good news for people who love bad news.
Quiz The Quiet Crisis, This is Not a Test, How Companies Cope
The Unflat World
Links aplenty.
Homework for Monday

5 quotes, minimum, from Friedman that relate to your topic
Two web resources that relate to your topic

Rough Drafts Due February 12th

Friedman on Immigration

Here's a great article on High Fences and Big Gates from TF.

Snokist and the Flat World

Snokist packs it in.
Key quote

Observers said the fresh side of Snokist's business became a victim of significant changes in the growing and packing industry that now require handling large volumes of fruit to meet the demands of worldwide buyers.

Snokist, with its growers having smaller acreages, struggled to compete.
"This is the end of an era for a quality company," said Keith Mathews, manager of the Yakima Valley Growers-Shippers Association. "There are, in fact, tremendous pressures on smaller growers to stay competitive."

Des O'Rourke, an agricultural economist and now owner of a firm that analyzes global fruit marketing trends, said the cooperative model is a difficult one to sustain in the current economic environment.

"Snokist has a legacy of having a lot of small growers. They have had a difficult time over the last few years," O'Rourke said. "The integrated packer-shippers have been able to develop the new orchards and get into supplying higher-value apples."

Marshmellow Test

It's Marshmallows.
But you shouldn't read this until you've done all your homework.
No. Really. Don't.

College isn't for everyone?

Seattle PI on Gap at the Top

Japan running out of engineers

And this:

Please Don't Go To College
17 May 2008 07:04 pm

From the new issue, an article on post-secondary education by a professor who fails many of his students:

America, ever-idealistic, seems wary of the vocational-education track. We are not comfortable limiting anyone’s options. Telling someone that college is not for him seems harsh and classist and British, as though we were sentencing him to a life in the coal mines. I sympathize with this stance; I subscribe to the American ideal. Unfortunately, it is with me and my red pen that that ideal crashes and burns.

Sending everyone under the sun to college is a noble initiative. Academia is all for it, naturally. Industry is all for it; some companies even help with tuition costs. Government is all for it; the truly needy have lots of opportunities for financial aid. The media applauds it—try to imagine someone speaking out against the idea. To oppose such a scheme of inclusion would be positively churlish. But one piece of the puzzle hasn’t been figured into the equation, to use the sort of phrase I encounter in the papers submitted by my English 101 students. The zeitgeist of academic possibility is a great inverted pyramid, and its rather sharp point is poking, uncomfortably, a spot just about midway between my shoulder blades.

For I, who teach these low-level, must-pass, no-multiple-choice-test classes, am the one who ultimately delivers the news to those unfit for college: that they lack the most-basic skills and have no sense of the volume of work required; that they are in some cases barely literate; that they are so bereft of schemata, so dispossessed of contexts in which to place newly acquired knowledge, that every bit of information simply raises more questions. They are not ready for high school, some of them, much less for college.I am the man who has to lower the hammer.

CNN Sued for 1.3 Billion

Over this video
Chinese "goons and thugs" make "junk" with "poison"

Aspargus and Drugs

A Stalk-umentary.

Ugly

The new unemployment numbers are out:

*January job losses: 598,000

*Job losses from Nov-Jan: 1.8 million

*Unemployment rate: 7.6%

*Unemployed workers: 11.6 million

Ready By Five

Web site

Universal Preschol pro/con

C-A
Use your navigation skills here.

Immigration

Immigration Crackdown threatens bumper crop

Crackdowon taking a bite out of apple industry?

H2A Visa

H2A Changes

H2A in Washington State

Zirkle

Zirkle

Global Horizons

Global Horizons

New Business in Yakima Valley

Blueprint Yakima

Yakima County Development Association

Wine Yakima Valley

Downtown Yakima

Downtown Futures Initiative

PNUHS?

Pacific Northwest University of Health Science

Education and future business.

Vertical Farms

Vertical Farms

Thursday, February 05, 2009

Essay options

Education
1. East Yakima Early Learning Yakima, ESD 105 and Gates
2. The DREAM Act
3. Washington Learns
4. YVTech building/Vocational Education overall
5. The role of YVCC/Community Colleges overall (new buildings/collaborations)
6. Obama/Gregoire stimulus plans
The future of Agriculture in Yakima
1. Food Safety concerns (Organics? Disease?)
2. The Fresh Market v. Concentrate
3. Aspargus and South American trade agreements
4. The Apple Juice Capital of the World? Selah?
5. Trademarks/patents and inventions—ROBOTS!
6. The Unflat world
  1. Fuel costs
  2. Vertical farms
  3. Food safety going the other way.
  4. Local-vores.
1. Immigration:
  1. McCain-Kennedy Immigration bill
  2. Changes to H2A and H1B
    1. Zirkle
    2. Global Horizon
    3. Microsoft
    4. Effects of immigration crack down already in place.
  3. Unflat world
    1. Nativist movements such as Grassroots Yakima and The Minutemen.
    2. Current wall being built/crackdown by ICE
    3. Nickel and Dimed labor pool.
2. Propose a new business model based on what you have read.
  What will be the new niche in Yakima? How can Yakima use the Flat World to our advantage?
  1. Tourism
  2. Distribution centers
  3. Wine
  4. Black Rock
  5. Jail beds

Day 23

English 102 Day 23

Quiz Tomorrow over The Quiet Crisis, This is Not a Test and How Companies Cope
How Companies Cope
1. Somebody made me a powerpoint!
2. I swear to god, everything is online if you know how to look for it.
3. Think: Key Words and Synonyms.
In big groups for essay topics
1. What topic within this subject interests you. Why?
2. Here's the way many of these work: Take the topic and filter it through TWIF.
  1. Ex: YVTech (we could do this with East Yakima Early Learning, too)
    1. What would TWIF say about tech schools?
    2. What would TWIF like about them?
    3. What would they not like?
      1. The Right Stuff
      2. The Quiet Crisis
      3. The Untouchables
3. I will help—for example, Washington Learns and Dream Act.
4. You will help me, too.
5. Where will you find quotes from Friedman.
  1. Index
  2. Amazon
  3. Google book search
  4. Google using topics and "flat world"
  5. Friedman's page in NYTimes. (search box at bottom of page)
For tomorrow:
1. Unflat:
  1. Too Sick
  2. Too Disempowered
  3. Too Frustrated

Too Many Toyotas

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Day 22

English 102 Day 22

Quizzes
1. Point Disputes?
Quiet Crisis Bottom Line
This is Not a Test: my notes
How Companies Cope
1. Somebody made me a powerpoint!
2. I swear to god, everything is online if you know how to look for it.
3. Think: Key Words and Synonyms.
In big groups for essay topics
1. I will help—for example, Washington Learns and Dream Act.
2. You will help me, too.
For tomorrow:
1. Unflat:
  1. Too Sick
  2. Too Disempowered
  3. Too Frustrated
  4. Too Many Toyotas

Dream Act Against

Here's one

Here's one, sort of

Dream Act: Pro

Here's one
Here's another
and another

Washington Learns

Here's the final report (pg 51 for CA)

Here's a PPT of the stats

Here's the search page from Seattle Papers

Here's an Editorial from Seattle PI

Weakest Link in WA Learns

Beyond Washington Learns

Seattle Times on WA Learns

One more on College Education and the scholarship offer

Washington Learns and funding

Teachers and Washington Learns

More on Financing

WA Learns and Math and Science

Summaries, Arguments and General Information on Friedman

Open Source working for you: Wikisummaries for TWIF

Here's a quick guide to argument essays.
Friendly and easy to read.

Here's a link to NYTimes site for Friedman.
Videos on environment, oil addiction, flat world (including Daily Show)
plus recent columns

Here's a link on what the recession means to education. and what education means to jobs.

Buehler? Buehler?

42 seconds in.
Hawley Smoot Tarrif Act.

Stimulus Bill: Buy American?

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Day 21

English 102 Lesson Plan Day 21

Handing Back Essays
Talent and Practice.
See me's—inside essay= quick; grades or end of essay=probably longer/office hour questions?
Stimulus is in the Senate.
1. Jobs, or
2. Jobs plus remake the economy?
  1. Broadband is a good example.
  2. Science, research, health care, pre K, green tech, even arts.
Dirty Little Secrets
This is Not a Test Notes
http://v.blog.sohu.com/u/vw/2005417 (at about 9 minutes to about 12 minutes)
Homework: Read How Companies Cope
Tomorrow in class, we'll work on essay topics.

Monday, February 02, 2009

Day 20

English 102 Lesson Plan Day 20

Bonus Points for Blog (February points start now)
Quiz The Untouchables and The Right Stuff
Correct quiz
Who are the Untouchables?
What is the Right Stuff?
1. This is key to your essays on business/education
Essays returned to 1030 and 1130 classes.
1. Essays returned to 930 class by Wednesday.
Please bring essays back tomorrow so I can explain how to read my comments.
1. 24 hour rule
Homework: Tuesday: This is Not a Test
1. Wednesday: How Companies Cope
2. Thursday: The Unflat World
3. Friday: 11/9 v 9/11

Links from weekend below.

Friday, January 30, 2009

Day 19

English 102 Lesson Plan Day 19

Essay progress.
Your second essay.
1. I'll focus links on this next week
  1. Washington Learns
  2. Distribution/Tourism/Other
Links for today. I must be stopped.
Reading for the weekend: The Quiet Crisis.
1. Tuesday: This is Not a Test
2. Wednesday: How Companies Cope
3. Thursday: The Unflat World
4. Friday: 11/9 v 9/11
Quiz Monday.
Comments on blog for BP due Monday. Don't rush a bunch in this weekend. If you want to go back in time and comment, start on Wednesday of this week and go through today. Plenty of stuff to post on just in those few days. (Like 24, so far)
Did I say Quiz Monday?

The Untouchables
The Right Stuff

U-Make Quiz: For each chapter--

5 True False
5 Multiple Choice
5 Matching
Please provide a key.

Stump the Chump?

Triple Convergence

The Triple Convergence (page numbers are approximate, but off)

203: First around 2000, all ten flatteners started working together

Second, people started getting it.

Third: China, India, USSR all joined in

204: Convergence I: Simultaneous improvement of complimentary goods, reinforced each other
206: II: People needed time to get comfortable w/ the "horizontal" playing field.

Like distance ed?
The previous model was vertical silos.

179: went from top down to side to side
211: III: Add 3 Billion People

182: Prev. it had been NA, West Europe, Japan and East Asia with similar education, wages, workforce size "Gentlemanly competition"
183: Some countries simply skipping a step—like cell phones in China

184: Zippes in India: Generation Z.
185: You can innovate without having to emigrate
229: The other triple convergence:

com bust (actually helped the world, but scared us)
9/11
Enron
Other things?

X-box; 100 channels of tv; reality tv;

198: Politicians in 2004 were not educating us, they were making us stupid
Now the real IT revolution is about to begin

The Great Sorting Out
234: from command and control to connect and collaborate

238-39: Dissolving of feudal, national and religious id, giving universal citizenships

(NOW, 1989?)

COUNTER ARGUMENT, HERE'S WHY PEOPLE ARE BURNING THINGS DOWN AT WTO MEETINGS:

BIG PAGES 237-239: Mixed blessing: Bumping up against the world of friction
Nickel and Dimed; which are sources of friction we should try to protect?
What extent should we lean against the current for the sake of values the global market can't supply? (Religious faith; national pride; social cohesion—copyrights? Worker protections; min. wage—see today's paper)
- (Global min wage?)

Sorting Out:

India v. Indiana: 240: wow. Whose values to protect?
242: Where do companies start and stop?
Whose values will govern a particular company and whose interest will that company respect and promote? GM goes, so goes America. But not today.
210: IBM and Lenovo: Would you call this an American company? A Chinese company?
212: Rolls Royce and Germany and Russia

248: Command and Control to Collaborate and Connect:

Colin Powell and Google and blackberries
213: Amy's job and blackberry
250: Wal-Mart and our conflicting identities. Walk through this one up to page 250
216: When you flatten the world, you take humanity out of life
216: Vioxx example
253: Who Owns what? Intellectual Property:

Napster; video; Google Books;
The Blog? The film? Chapbooks?
What about Amy's work?

218: AOL Passwords, in your will?
255: Death of a Salesman

220: Tommy all anyone cares about today is price.
But fat is what gives meat it's taste

221: What about politics?

Wall party (labor and far right social crowd)
- v. Web Party (conservatives in Business and social liberals who want a connected world)

Globalization 1-3

Globalization 1.0
1. 1492-1800
2. Shrank the world from large to medium
3. Countries and muscles
  1. Horse/steam power
  2. Inspired by religion or imperialism or both
  3. Where does my country fit in?
  4. How can I go global and collaborate with others through my country?
Globalization 2.0

1800-2000
From medium to small sized world
Interrupted by Great Depression and WWI/II
Multinational corporations

Dutch/English, Industrial Revolution
Looking for market and labor
Powered by steam/rail
Then telecom (telegraph, phones, pc, satellites, fiber optics)
Breakthroughs in Hardware
1. Steamships, rails
2. computers
Where does my company fit in?
How does it take advantage of the opportunities?
How can I go global and collabaorate with others through my company?

Globalization 3.0

After 2000
From small to tiny/flat world
Not countries. Not companies. Individuals.
Not horsepower, not hardware, but software
Where do I fit in?
How can I, on my own, collaborate with others globally?
Driven by every corner of the world (not Europe and America)

The Freedom to Write

Here's why China is still behind us in ideas and why our freedoms matter.

From a post titled, The Freedom to Write:

We take it for granted. In China, not so much. Liu Xaobo was arrested last December for signing a petition calling for peaceful reform of the Communist dictatorship. PEN is organizing online to seek Xaobo's freedom. You can read the text here. More info, including a sample letter to the Chinese government, here.

Why Not Let Cities Set Minimum Wage

The logic isn't there, but here's a law that bars it in Michigan.

Cost of Tuition

Here's a good article from NYTimes on the subject.

Conclusion, growing out of reach for many.

Over all, the report found, published college tuition and fees increased 439 percent from 1982 to 2007 while median family income rose 147 percent. Student borrowing has more than doubled in the last decade, and students from lower-income families, on average, get smaller grants from the colleges they attend than students from more affluent families. '

“If we go on this way for another 25 years, we won’t have an affordable system of higher education,” said Patrick M. Callan, president of the center, a nonpartisan organization that promotes access to higher education.

“When we come out of the recession,” Mr. Callan added, “we’re really going to be in jeopardy, because the educational gap between our work force and the rest of the world will make it very hard to be competitive. Already, we’re one of the few countries where 25- to 34-year-olds are less educated than older workers.”

Drop out rates and minimum wage

http://reportcard.ospi.k12.wa.us/summary.aspx?year=2007-08

The argument doesn't seem to work.
Compare 2000 to today.
The numbers should be increasing with wages, but they are dropping.

A Cleaner Stimulus Package or a Bigger One

David Brooks, again, on what he'd like to see.
He's a center leaning conservative who openly supported Obama earlier and now has some ideas on how to improve the house bill.

Paul Krugman's take. Here's a left leaning columnist who wants to see a bigger stimulus. And he just won the Nobel Prize for Economics.

Friedman Got Pied

Last year on Earth Day

Why? Biodiesel, globalization, market forces, technology.

Google Earth and Terrorists

The Flat World Gives and Takes

Criminals have used telephones and mobile phones since they were invented. Drug smugglers use airplanes and boats, radios and satellite phones. Bank robbers have long used cars and motorcycles as getaway vehicles, and horses before then. I haven't seen it talked about yet, but the Mumbai terrorists used boats as well. They also wore boots. They ate lunch at restaurants, drank bottled water, and breathed the air. Society survives all of this because the good uses of infrastructure far outweigh the bad uses, even though the good uses are - by and large - small and pedestrian and the bad uses are rare and spectacular. And while terrorism turns society's very infrastructure against itself, we only harm ourselves by dismantling that infrastructure in response - just as we would if we banned cars because bank robbers used them too.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Ag Exports Keep Growing

Here's a link that helps explain why we trade with other countries

Key stat:

Exports from Washington of agricultural commodities were valued at $9.26 billion in 2007, a 38 percent increase from 2006, accor-ding to a news release from the state Department of Agriculture.

10 Flatteners

And Agriculture

Friedman's achive

From the NYTimes

Day 18

English 102 Lesson Plan Day 18

Look for essay topics that interest you.
I'm going to talk for awhile
1. Globalization 1-3
2. Ten Flatteners.
3. Triple Convergence.
Your turn
1. America and Free Trade
  1. What's the main idea?
  2. What's our advantage?
Your turn, part two
1. Untouchables
  1. In groups
    1. Definition
    2. Example from book.
    3. Example locally.
Homework: Read: The Right Stuff

Please, make it stop

Here's an article I wish I didn't know about--More bonuses.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

The Big Fix

Here's a great source for information on the stimulus and what Leonhardt thinks we should do.

Key quote--note the bold I've added:

So for the first time in more than 70 years, the epicenter of the American economy can be placed outside of California or New York or the industrial Midwest. It can be placed in Washington. Washington won’t merely be given the task of pulling the economy out of the immediate crisis. It will also have to figure out how to put the American economy on a more sustainable path — to help it achieve fast, broadly shared growth and do so without the benefit of a bubble. Obama said as much in his inauguration speech when he pledged to overhaul Washington’s approach to education, health care, science and infrastructure, all in an effort to “lay a new foundation for growth.”

Day 17

Lesson Plan Day 17, Winter 2009

Essays back in about a week
The final essay will combine pieces of all three books. Make some connections.
Policy on revision
1. Save Everything.
2. It's not where you start it's where you finish.
3. You may select one of the three essays you are writing to REVISE for an improved score.
4. These will be due the second to last day of class.
5. You can't get a lower grade by doing this.
Keep the idea of improvement in the front of your mind.
It starts all the way back here, at the beginning of talking about it. You should be listening for ways into the assignment based on the book and discussion.
Improve on this part. Take more notes. Ask questions during class. Interrupt me. Write down your ideas. Read the chapter twice.
Here's my take on the book:
1. Very well organized
2. Organized like a good essay
  1. Intro/History/Background
  2. Business
  3. Education
  4. Counter Argument
  5. Conclusion
Essay options and due dates, subject to change.
What stood out from the first chapter?
1. Globalization 1.0-3.0
10 Flatteners
Triple Convergence
Read: The Untouchables for Thursday.

The Case for Doing Nothing

The case for doing nothing.
Very few are making this argument (and I'm not one of them). Even Republicans think it's a good idea to pump huge amounts into the economy to get it moving (see "Foreclosure Alley" video for what might be coming north). But there's the "tough love" approach too, and it fits into Friedman's "This Is Not a Test" chapter.

Here's a sample quote:

Many of the Do-Nothings argue that a painful recession is the best way to destroy America’s runaway culture of irresponsibility and debt. Economic turmoil, after all, has a way of grounding Americans.

Dramatic belt-tightening across the board is the only way, they say, to stop the endless cycle of borrowing. “Our standard of living needs to come down to the point where it can be supported by organic output,” says Schiff.

Frieman on Colbert and Stewart

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/103197/september-24-2007/thomas-l--friedman

I can't get Colbert to play with current flash version.
Sorry. Try at home.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=114978&title=Thomas-Friedman

Same with Daily Show.