Category: Unit 2

Hey everyone! Here’s your homework.

1. BEFORE Thursday’s class, I would like you to post the question you want to investigate for UNIT TWO (The Curiosity Report) on the OpenLab. This should not be a yes or no question, but something you can spend a few weeks really investigating. It must be a question– not just a topic. So, if you’re interested in the issue of domestic violence, you might want to know:  why do victims stay in abusive relationships? or:  how does someone become an abuser? or: what resources are available for people who try to leave?  You will also need a copy of this question in class. It can be written by hand or printed out. 

If you’re stuck, take a look at the unit (UNITS tab, at the top of this webpage,) or do ten more minutes of internet research to see what you find!

2. Find at least one source (article, video, blog, Wikipedia post, standup routine, Ted Talk– the possibilities are endless!) on your topic. Try to find something useful to answering your question. Again, if you’re investigating why victims stay in abusive relationships, you might look for a statistical study or you might look for a blog by a person who was in an abusive relationship.  I don’t know how to tell you word length here because we’re looking at so many genres, but don’t be skimpy. No 50 word articles or 30 second videos (unless it’s a SUPER powerful 30 seconds.)

 

 

Hey everyone! Your homework for the weekend is to read and annotate these excerpts from “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” HERE. I will collect the annotations. This is short, but it’s not easy to read, so leave yourself a little time. 

Please also fill out the SOAPSTONE worksheet I handed out in class (the one with the monsters. If you lost it, HERE is an extra copy. I’m gonna collect this too!

In case you are interested, here is some background on the speech from TIME magazine.

I have posted the upcoming essay assignment under UNITS (UNIT TWO.) There’s no assignment yet, but start thinking about what topics or questions you’d like to investigate. So far, some of the things we’ve discussed in class are: Police violence (educating cops/ educating citizens/ screening), climate change, domestic violence, immigration, equal pay for genders and races, Empowerment of women, Gandhi—history of nonviolent resistance, history of DR, history of Haitian revolutions, lasting effects of American Revolution (both nationally and internationally), student justice, education, funding for arts education, Family/ Heritage, Albanian tradition, free speech in 2019, The two-party political system, the mental health system, gun violence/ gun control and prison reform. 

Keep in mind, if you start with a topic (like domestic violence, let’s say), you’ll need to narrow it down to a question to investigate. For example: Why do women stay in situations in which they’re being abused, or: what are the laws in place regarding domestic abuse, or: what is the correlation between mass shooting and domestic abuse (that is, since domestic abusers are much more likely to commit mass killings, are there any laws in place to restrict their access to firearms? Why or why not?) We will work together in class to come up with a good question for investigation.

Aisse Tounkara

10/16/2019

Professor Hall

                                                     

     From rereading this time I actually learned a lot. I’ve foreseen a lot of important stuff the first time I read it. Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers all signed the Declaration of Independence. Out of all the founding fathers Jefferson himself held the most slaves. In the Declaration of Independence it states that all men are created equally. According to the Declaration it states “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness”. This is interesting to me because I skipped past this part. To me this is saying that these are rights for all people. This can relate back to when Slavery was being abolished. Thomas Jefferson included this in the Declaration so the people who were enslaved now have rights and etc. It also says something about Justice. This idea of Justice can mean a lot of different things. 

 

My plan of “attack” to better understand the declaration of independence is to look up words I do not understand. I will also use my clues around the word to try and understand it. What I mean by understand to comprehend what the sentences are saying.

After using my plan of “attack” It actually helped me understand better what I was reading even though it was a couple of words that made a huge difference. I understood the reasons why the founding fathers were pleading for freedom. They wrote how the king was inhuman and unfair. They felt they were not treated fairly. How the government was corrupted  and did not take encounter of what was their property. I also noticed how the patriots said they would take all responsibility for declaring independence. This includes all the citizens and all the states. This was a very brave move. One thing I don’t understand is why Jefferson’s paragraph about slavery was crossed out when it also has to do with violating  inalienable rights. The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness was definitely taken away from “slaves”.  As I read I also took notice on how it looked like they did try to cooperate with the kings laws and make it better. The king did not consider changing laws for the better they stated in this text. I also understood the homes of the patriots were invaded because in the text it spoke about the king in forcing invasion on the homes of the people. Looking up these words helped me understand the more detailed stuff better. It helped me view their side and where they were coming from. Compared to the first time I knew there were reasons but I did not quite understand them and now I do.

Hey everyone! For Thursday’s class, please:

1. Post your plan for rereading the Declaration on Open Lab
2. Reread the Declaration (using your plan!) Remember, you can focus on one particular section, or reread with one guiding question in mind (“What do they mean by ‘justice?'” “What do they mean by ‘Independence?'” “How far are they willing to go for freedom?” “Why might some states have been reluctant to sign?”)
3. On Open Lab write a response of at least 250 words in which you explain what you learned from rereading. If you like, you can also write what you’re still confused about. You may combine your plan for rereading in the same post (the plan for rereading doesn’t count toward the word count, but it doesn’t need to be a separate post.)

The Declaration Of Independence was a letter written to the king of Britain pleading independence, signed by 56 men  including Thomas Jefferson. As I read the draft of this letter the main thing I noticed was the words, paragraphs and sentences crossed out. Although they were crossed out it showed their true emotions and how they felt towards what they were pleading about. For example, “He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die,^[4] he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the LIBERTIES of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the LIVES of another.” This paragraph was crossed out in the draft it kept rambling about what the king was doing giving specific examples on what he was doing and how it was wrong. As you can see the emotion put into this writing saying how they truly felt about the kings action and not just an overview of the problem. My opinion of this whole draft is that they let emotion  take over and let their thoughts just flow as they wrote this. Which is how writing a draft works. Therefore this showed me how strongly they felt while writing The Declaration. These people put their all into the country we are in that is free thanks to them. It is sad that we barley acknowledge them like they acknowledged us when risking it all including their lives to make this country free and FAIR. After reading this it made me want to believe in something as much as they did. It made me want to change or do something in my society even at home no matter what it is. I want it to be something I believe in just like in The Declaration Of Independence.

Aisse Tounkara

Difficulty Paper

10/12/2019

                                           Declaration of Independence

 The Declaration of Independence was a document written by Thomas Jefferson and our founding fathers on July 4th 1776. Pushing for Independence wasn’t easy but they found a way to do so.Sometimes reading a text may be complex. Especially when there is something that you don’t understand or are knowledgeable on. In the first draft of the Declaration of Independence it states “He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly and continually for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. I don’t understand what Thomas Jefferson necessarily means by that when he adds that to the Declaration. It is very mysterious and unfamiliar to me. He’s talking about the rights of people but he himself had over 200+ slaves. So when you say right of people what are you specifically referring too by that. The Declaration of Independence starts of with details of Great Britain and etc. In the first draft of the Declaration slavery is described in a formal way but as you get to the final version it is no longer there anymore. 

   Great Britain have caused a lot of damage. What slows me down is the fact that the Declaration of Independence was designed to get slaves free but to also get their independence from Great Britain. It also states “ He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt out towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. This is something that I understand because when it comes to war, this is what usually occurs. The founding fathers did a lot of work when it came down to the nation.

 

Hey everyone– hope you had a good 3-day weekend– our last weird weekend for a while. We DO meet this Tuesday!  And the homework for class is to read, annotate and write a difficulty paper (at least 250 words) on the First Draft of the Declaration of Independence HERE . Remember to read the crossed out parts, which are the parts that got deleted in the final draft. The final draft of the Declaration is HERE for your reference. I did hand these out in class, as you’ll recall. POST YOUR DIFFICULTY PAPER ON THE OPEN LAB BEFORE CLASS.

This is an important assignment– you’re not going to have to write a big long paper on the Declaration for Unit 2  (unless you want to) but you won’t be able to do your next paper if you start getting behind now! This is a very important step in Unit 2.

Also, remember what we read  about difficulty: “When we ask you to identify your reading difficulties, we are actually asking you to take notice of what you believe is hard to understand in a text.It might be hard to understand for different reasons– because it is perplexing, obscure, mysterious, remote, strange, unfamiliar, uncomfortable, disconnected, meaningless, confusing, ridiculous, contradictory, hypocritical, inconsistent. In other words, we urge you to take notice of whatever slows down or brings to a halt the physical activity of reading, leaving you mystified, wondering why, what how” (Salvatori and Donahue 2). I will also add, the difficulty paper should be much more YOUR words than those of the Founding Fathers!! 

 

(Below are some alternate cover possibilities to our revised book. We’ll talk about these in class)