Webquest on Teen Issues in Contemporary U.S. Society

Objective: 

Use the Internet to research the problems and issues faced by teens in contemporary U.S. society.

Goals: 

In today’s Webquest, you will:

• Investigate a minimum of 5 websites with information helpful to teenagers on the issue (see Resource Section below).

• Create 2 sentences of annotation that describe the information available on each website you have chosen. Please offer evidence that the website is reliable.

• Describe the issue and how it affects teenagers in 2-4 sentences.

• Outline the potential consequences and risks associated with this teen issue in 2-4 sentences.

Upon completing the background research information through the Webquest, each student will ponder how he or she intends to present a "teen’s view" of their researched topic. It will be very important to gather information that supports the teen perspective.

Resources Section

http://www.dallas.k12.or.us/DHS_Library/web/popular.htm

http://www.csulb.edu/library/subj/opposing/

http://www.procon.org

http://www.justicelearning.org/

http://whatsyourstory.trendmicro.com/internet-safety/Home.do

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Teen-Issues/119548514724813

http://www.teenissues.co.uk/

http://kidshealth.org/teen/safety/safebasics/internet_safety.html

http://kidshealth.org/teen/sexual_health/

http://kidshealth.org/teen/drug_alcohol/

http://www.teensadvisor.com/sibling-rivalry/

http://www.teensadvisor.com/teen-dating/

http://kidshealth.org/teen/your_mind/families/divorce.html

http://www.aap.org/advocacy/childhealthmonth/prevteensuicide.htm

Homework: Brainstorm the best ways for going about collecting data on the teen issues in which you’re interested.

Visions for a positive future

Our country is in the worst economic situation of our lifetimes. We’re aware of climate change, urban blight, disparities among socio-economic classes, and explicit and implicit prejudices against persons who are attracted to the same sex. The problems in the U.S. and other western countries seem to be insurmountable.

Or are they?

If we look to an online magazine like Yes! we find others who, like us, want to envision a positive future. http://www.yesmagazine.org/

Look through their archives and find voices like your own. Below are introductory paragraphs of several articles that capture the essence of optimism. Their vision can help us to gain hope.

YES! Magazine Spring 2008: Climate Solutions
"The Greatest Danger," by Joanna Macy

If you’re really paying attention, it’s hard to escape a sense of outrage, fear, despair. Author, deep-ecologist, and Buddhist scholar Joanna Macy says: Don’t even try.

How do we live with the fact that we are destroying our world? What do we make of the loss of glaciers, the melting Arctic, island nations swamped by the sea, widening deserts, and drying farmlands? Because of social taboos, despair at the state of our world and fear for our future are rarely acknowledged. The suppression of despair, like that of any deep recurring response, contributes to the numbing of the psyche. Expressions of anguish or outrage are muted, deadened as if a nerve had been cut. This refusal to feel impoverishes our emotional and sensory life. Flowers are dimmer and less fragrant, our loves less ecstatic. We create diversions for ourselves as individuals and as nations, in the fights we pick, the aims we pursue, and the stuff we buy....

YES! Magazine Spring 2007: Is the U.S. Ready for Human Rights?

"Education, by Rights," by Liz Sullivan and Cecilia Blewer

Parents and educators propose an innovative approach to fixing New York’s public schools: rebuild the system using human rights. The El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice is a New York City high school that focuses on the holistic development of young people so that they can become informed and inspired leaders in the struggle for human rights. The curriculum reflects this focus, with an emphasis on community development projects, non-violence, and social change. The El Puente Academy was created in 1993 to reflect the values, practices, and culture of the community in which it is located. Under the leadership of Frances Lucerna, the founding principal, the school developed an integrated curriculum that teaches young people to use the knowledge and skills they learn in the classroom to achieve social justice and human rights in their own community.....

YES! Magazine Winter 2003: What Would Democracy Look Like?
"Put Some Heart Into It," by Linda Stout

What will it take to energize our work for change? Linda Stout, who spent years organizing poor people in the rural South, polled fellow organizers around the US and has this to say about what it will take to win. Many powerful movements for justice have brought us to where we are today: the women’s, labor, peace, civil rights, environmental, and other movements. All have had a major impact. All of our lives have been changed because of them....

YES! Magazine Summer 2003: Finding Courage
"Detroit Renaissance," by Shawn Rhea

When the big automobile companies left town, thousands of people moved away, businesses closed up, and neighborhoods were abandoned. But now a new Detroit is being born, founded in urban farms, local businesses, green spaces, youth engagement, the arts, greenhouses, fresh foods - a city with a place for everyone.

YES! Magazine Spring 2007: Is the U.S. Ready for Human Rights?
"Yes. We're Ready," by Larry Cox and Dorothy Thomas

Human rights are a powerful tool to break barriers, unite people in common cause, and show us the way to justice within and beyond our borders. Activists across the country are defining a new patriotism. Looking at the United States through the lens of human rights illuminates persistent inequities in U.S. society and offers an alternative view of how it can and should be changed. The United States has been rightly proud of its historical leadership in global human rights. As the country's conduct slips away from its aspirations, it is time to reclaim that leadership role by bringing human rights home. The movement for human rights in the United States promotes this alternative vision. It seeks a revolution of values in the United States that makes affirmation of human dignity and equality the center of domestic and foreign policy. ...

YES! Online: Beyond War: What Kind of America?
"From Empire to Earth Community," by David C. Korten

We can choose a path of patient and compassionate justice that respects life, the rights of the innocent, and the rule of law in a cooperative international effort to bring the guilty to justice, as we simultaneously work to bring justice to the world by creating a world that works for all

YES! Magazine Fall 2003: Government of the People Shall Not Perish
"Expanding the Circle," by Sarah Ruth van Gelder

Three women had been working for months with the national Bill of Rights Defense Committee to convince the Bainbridge Island City Council to take on the USA Patriot Act. No one knew whether the council would support a resolution that instructs city employees, including city police, to refuse to carry out portions of the Patriot Act that violate the Constitution. One after another, islanders came to the podium, all but one calling on the council to take a stand. Then members of the council had their turn. Some spoke about the resolution's technicalities and some about its principles. But the most dramatic moment came when an older council member with short grey hair began his remarks by saying he would speak for those who could not speak for themselves. As he fought back tears, he explained that his words were for those who had given their lives in battle to protect our freedoms. These, he said, are freedoms we should not so easily give up...

The Sun Also Rises: Contemplation and Questions

The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway, chronicles a group of expatriate Americans in Europe during the 1920s. The book's title is drawn from Ecclesiastes 1:5: "The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose." Time magazine included the novel in its TIME “100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.”


During the 1920's a group of writers known as "The Lost Generation" gained popularity. Gertrude Stein used this phrase to describe the people of the 1920's who rejected American post-World War I values. Two of the best known writers among "The Lost Generation" are Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The "Lost Generation" defines a sense of moral loss or aimlessness apparent in literary figures during the 1920s. After the horror of World War I, young people felt that acting morally did not necessarily provide humans with a good life. Many good, young men went to war and died, or returned home physically and mentally wounded. Their faith in the moral guideposts that had earlier given them hope were no longer valid. They were "Lost."


The novel, The Sun Also Rises explores the lives and values of the "Lost Generation" by following protagonist Jake Barnes and several of his group of literary acquaintances from Paris to Spain, from city spectacle to rural fishing and the running of the bulls in Pamplona. Initially, Jake seeks peace away from Brett, with whom he is unable to consummate a physical relationship due to a war injury, by taking a fishing trip to Burguete, deep within the Spanish hills, with his pal Bill Gorton, another veteran of the war. Pedro Romero, a passionate bullfighter, and other European citizens serve as foils to the expatriate Americans.


Eventually, although they attempt to mask their fears through excessive drinking, the characters work through their various desires and anxieties during the fiesta in Pamplona.

Questions for Contemplation

How does Hemingway show that Jake is insecure about his masculinity? Move beyond an explanation of physicality to include spirituality, intellectual curiosity, and creativity.

What issues shaped characters’ thinking during the novel? How do these issues reflect the issues that Americans of the time were experiencing?

What technological innovations influenced the way people perceived society and the individual’s place within it?

Drinking; sex; idle talk loaded with cleverness, irony, and pity; attacking Cohn --- a scapegoat; seeking out the noise of crowds and ‘sophisticated’ scenarios… These become the modus operandi of a generation that is truly lost. How is the novel representative of the Jazz Age and the age of the ‘Lost Generation?’

WWI did impact profoundly upon every sector of the Western world. How did American literature respond to the societal transformations of the post–World War I period? Analyze the novel in the context of World War I.

How does the experience of war shape the characters and their behavior? Examine the differences between the veterans, like Jake and Bill, and the non-veterans, like Cohn.

Describe how Hemingway uses major symbols include Jake’s wound (his impotence) and water (river, bathing, and the sea) to create deeper meanings?

The Sun Also Rises is considered by most scholars to be an important novel among all novels written by Americans. But to be an important novel, it has to address more than an empirical moment; i.e., it must have universality. To ascertain The Sun’s universality, a reader must view this novel as a morality play (Everyman/ Jake vs. the war. In what ways does Jake win, and in what ways does the war win?

Hemingway’s writing style: closely analyze his sentences. Note the use of ‘and.’ His description of the landscape is so vivid yet with a modicum use of adjectives. Why does Hemingway write in this particular style? How does his writing style mirror the times in which he lived and the events he was attempting to chronicle?

Compare Jake's relationship to Brett with Cohn's relationship to Frances. How are the two relationships similar, and how are they different? Why do you think that Hemingway create these two female characters so very differently?

What qualities do Jake and Cohn share with the rest of their acquaintances? Is it safe to call them both outsiders? Why or why not?

Compare Jake and Cohn. How does the fact that Jake went to war and Cohn did not make them different from each other?

Discuss the characterization of Lady Brett Ashley. Is she a sympathetic character? Is she a positive female role model? Does she treat her male friends cruelly? In what ways do the male characters treat her cruelly? How do they treat females in general in the text?

Bill tells Jake that “sex explains it all.” To what extent is Bill's statement true of the novel The Sun Also Rises?

Why is Cohn verbally abused so often in the novel? Is it because he is Jewish? Explain. How does Cohn embody the Jewish heritage of the tradition of alienation and suffering? How does that tradition of alienation and suffering explain why Jake accepts Cohn when other characters do not?

Why does Mike attack Cohn but not Jake, whom Brett actually loves? Why does Cohn accept so much abuse?

The ‘Hemingway hero’ [some call him an ‘anti-hero’] has these attributes: a) he is doomed to be destroyed; b) he is not, however, defeated because he maintains dignity while under duress; c) he never speaks of his angst. Using this basic definition of the Hemingway hero, describe how Jake Barnes represents the typical Hemingway hero and Robert Cohn does not.

How is Count Mippipopolous similar to Jake and his friends? How is he different? What is the effect of including a character like the Count in the text?

What inferences can we as readers make about Hemingway’s point of view about non-Protestant Europeans? About persons who do not practice Christianity?

Discuss the problem of communication in the novel. Why is it so difficult for the characters to speak frankly and honestly? In what circumstances is it possible for them to speak openly? Are there any characters who say exactly what is on their mind? If so, how are these characters similar to each other?

Read closely and analyze one of the longer passages in which Hemingway describes bulls or bullfighting. What sort of language does Hemingway use? Does the passage have symbolic possibilities? If the bullfighting passages do not advance the plot, how do they function to develop themes and motifs?

The bullfights are like a morality play within a morality play. The young matador is an example of the ‘Hemingway hero,’ and the bulls are allegorical constructs. What purpose do the bullfights serve metaphorically/ symbolicall? What do the bullfights imply about the lives of the “Lost Generation?”

Brett personifies the mythological fertility goddess. Note how the festival goers worship her in the bacchanalian frenzy. Eros is destructive. Cohn, Mike, Pedro are done in by Brett. Jake, because of his wound, is spared. Create an analysis of Lady Brett Ashley as symbolic of the female gender according to the worldview of Hemingway.

The Fiesta: the pagan festival coincides with a religious festival. There are lots of possibilities to think about here: e.g. Jake and then Brett entering a church and their thoughts at those moments; the parallels between the pagan and the Christian. Both are ways to cope with the debilitating darkness that keeps Jake awake at night. Choose one or more moments and analyze it/ them in the larger context of the entire text.

The Sun Also Rises, with its stress on nihilism and absurdity, is a study in Existentialism. What qualities of Existentialism emerge in the text?

Deconstruct Hemingway’s writing style. Closely break apart his sentences. Note the use of ‘and.’ His description of the landscape is so vivid yet with a minimum use of adjectives. The last paragraph of the book in tandem of a string of short, simple sentences. His style complements his theme. Describe the theme of the book in conjunction with Hemingway’s writing style.

--- adapted from resources provided by Harry Anderson, book discussion leader, Harmony (RI) Library

Ideas for youth activism

As the school year comes to an end, it's time to tie together some loose ends. Think what you have accomplished this year! You've use a plethora of literacy skills to expand your thinking and your knowledge of your cultural worlds. You've tapped into a depth of abilities within you to explore other people's viewpoints and to extend the 'you' who is a student, citizen, and learner.

Now it's time to look ahead as well. As you leave your classmates to embark on new experiences and opportunities to learn, you also have the potential to leave a lasting impression on others. You have the ability to make an impact --- to leave an imprint --- to change the world.

How will you do it? What will you do to make a difference?

I invite you to peruse the links below. They are a small potion of the variety of inspirational websites that offer ideas about "Youth Activism." When you engage in youth activism, you join with others of your same age group who also want to create a better tomorrow for all the world's citizens. Explore these links, make connections with your own areas of interest, and declare a means for your own life as a U.S. youth to have meaning beyond your peer group.

You can make a difference!

http://www.blogcatalog.com/topic/youth+activism/

http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=2269

http://www.empowerchange.org/

http://www.dosomething.org/

http://www.peaceactionme.org/tenth-annual-youth-activism-gathering

http://www.freechild.org/youth_activism_2.htm

http://gcyp.wikispaces.com/Methods+of+Youth+Activism

Film Trailers for Inherit the Wind: Student Projects

Here are the urls for the student-composed film trailers for the Inherit the Wind final project.

http://www.margretsproject.blogspot.com/
http://www.andrea-inheritthewind.blogspot.com/
http://www.emma-inheritthewind.blogspot.com/
http://www.inheritthewindkayla.blogspot.com/
http://www.inheritthewind1.blogspot.com/
http://www.lawrence09.blogspot.com/
http://www.inheritthewind14.blogspot.com/
http://www.creationismvsdarwinism.blogspot.com/
http://www.hopewecanbelievein.blogspot.com/
http://inheritthewindproject09.blogspot.com/
http://www.fortunaproject.blogspot.com/
http://www.charlies1inheritthewind.blogspot.com/
http://www.breakingawaysociety.blogspot.com/
http://www.inheretthewind.blogspot.com/
http://www.emilyx126.blogspot.com/
http://www.inheritthewindissues.blogspot.com/
http://www.inheritthewindcreationismdarwinism.blogspot.com/
http://www.creationismdarwinism.blogspot.com/
http://www.inheritthewindendingproject.blogspot.com/
http://www.inheritthewindscienceversusreligion.blogspot.com/
http://www.franklinhigh-trav.blogspot.com/
http://www.inheritthewindamanda.blogspot.com/
http://www.itwproject.blogspot.com/
http://www.inheritthewindkate.blogspot.com/

Film Trailer as Composition

Inherit the Wind Final Project: A Contemporary Film Trailer

Project Overview:
You have finished reading/ viewing Inherit the Wind, by Lawrence and Lee, and now you are ready for your final project. You are going to create the script for a ‘film trailer’ to inspire others to experience this text. The ability to build an intelligent discussion around the viewing of a film is very important. In your film trailer, you are going to describe a contemporary/ current version of the film. Think of it as a version of the text that’s going to be released in 2010.

You will create a blog, which is an internet publication that you, as a composer, can access from any computer with internet. Your finished product will have twenty sections: each section represents a frame of the trailer. You’ll incorporate 20 graphics, 20 excerpts from the Lawrence and Lee print text, and 20 interpretations that you draw from research you have already conducted.

Resources for reviewing the play and film

http://www.shsu.edu/~his_www/tah08/scopestrial.pdf

http://www.smusd.org/1679206516174780/lib/1679206516174780/_files/Inherit_the_Wind-theme,_motif,_prof.help,_act_1,act_3.ppt#256,1,Inherit the Wind: Themes, Motifs, and Symbols

http://www.doesgodexist.org/SepOct96/ExposingTheLieInheritTheWind.html

http://thedispersalofdarwin.wordpress.com/2009/03/28/inherit-the-wind/

Introduction:
You will unveil your film trailer to a prospective audience through identifying an essential question and developing a blog narrative that entices the viewer to learn more about the plot through the ways you answer that essential question.

What is a film trailer? A ‘film trailer’ is an advertisement for a future film that will be exhibited in the future at a cinema. Film trailers have now become extremely popular on the internet. Of some 10-billion videos watched online annually, movie trailers rank #3, after news and user-created video. Trailers consist of a series of selected shots from the film being advertised. Since the purpose of the trailer is to attract an audience to the film, these excerpts are usually drawn from the most exciting, funny, or otherwise noteworthy parts of the film but in abbreviated form and without giving away the ending. For this purpose the scenes are not necessarily in the order in which they appear in the film. A trailer has to achieve that in less than two and a half minutes, the maximum length allowed by theaters.

What is an essential question? An essential question is a question you pose as a central organizing principle. All information that is collected is helps the audience to learn answers to the essential question you have proposed. Essential questions help to clarify why people have different kinds of ideas. Have you ever wondered where ideas originate? This project is designed to encourage you to become a self-conscious learner, exploring not only the what, but also the how and why of knowing. The project focuses on the nature of truth and reality and the role in the world each of us has constructed. The project challenges you to become an independent, introspective, and self-motivated learner. This project will embrace the nature of ideas via three different, but very much related ways of zooming in to look at the world: (1) the human; (2) the natural/biological; and (3) the spiritual. Through the use of ethical and moral themes, you will confront, examine, and explain personal and social belief systems.

What is a blog? The word ‘blog’ is short for ‘Web log.’ A blog is a specialized site that allows an individual to share a running log of events and personal insights with online audiences. You will use a pseudonym, or a false name, when posting your blog for audiences on the internet.

Some ideas for the foundation of essential questions tied to Inherit the Wind:
1. Individual rights and the good of society
2. Creationism and Darwin’s theory of evolution in our contemporary world 3. The possible incompatibility of science and religion
4. Freedom of speech and pluralism in a democratic society
5. Separation of church and state in a democratic society
6. Fundamentalism in the United States: Impacts on the contemporary political scene
7. Loss of privacy rights in times of national security
8. Dividing lines: Geographic differences that lead to different points of view
9. Freedom to think and believe outside institutional constraints
10. Inevitability and need for progress in uncertain times
11. The relationship between self-esteem and self-worth
12. The value and chaos of multiple perspectives as means of human progress
13. Reconciling culture, custom, and tradition with changing times
14. Censorship and the pursuit of the common good: Irreconcilable differences?
15. Controversies and successes: The American Civil Liberties Union

Gathering your thoughts --- and materials you’ve already constructed
Now it’s time to start. When do you begin? Begin by assembling the materials you have already created during the Inherit the Wind unit. What can you draw out of these materials to use in your film trailer? They can help you to draw ideas for this project; let them serve as your initial brainstorming.

These include:

a) Camera devices they did and should’ve used in the black-and-white version of the film
b) Five (5) talking points for each of two non-fiction articles from the 2005 New York Times about ‘intelligent design’
c) Reviewing Act One/ Previewing Act Two: Interpreting Select Lines

d) The famous court scene in the film text: Characters, the color of their clothes, and the symbolic meaning behind the colors you identified
e) Research about Inherit the Wind from five sources (2 websites, 3 authored works)

Go for it! This is new media composition in the classroom for the 21st century learner: you.

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (1902) is a novella of journey into the corruptibility of humankind. Like the narrator, Marlow, Conrad piloted a small steamboat up the Congo River. This area was then being ruthlessly exploited as the private property of King Leopold of Belgium. Conrad became morally shaken and physically ill from the experience. While some of the experiences in Heart of Darkness are autobiographical, much is imaginary, as is indicative of fiction.

Conrad, in 1897, just a short time before Heart of Darkness, wrote:

"The thinker plunges into ideas, the scientist into facts--whence, presently, emerging they make their appeal to those qualities of our being that fit us best for the hazardous enterprise of living. They speak authoritatively to our common-sense, our intelligence . . . It is otherwise with the artist. Confronted with the same enigmatical spectacle, the artist descends within himself, and in that lonely region of stress and strife . . . he finds the terms of his appeal. His appeal is made to our less obvious capacities [less obvious, that is, than intelligence and common sense] . . . The changing wisdom of successive generations discards ideas, questions facts, demolishes theories. But the artist appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom . . . He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to that sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty, and pain; to the latent feeling of fellowship with all creation--and to the subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity that knits together the loneliness of innumerable hearts . . . which binds together all humanity--the dead to the living and the living to the unborn."

Heart of Darkness asks questions of epistemology, or what knowledge becomes valued over other knowledge; of the history of a brutal era of imperialism; of social and cultural conventions and their transmission; of psychology, or the private inner lives of humans; of religion as an institution; and, of literature as a form of a work of art. Like Kurtz’ journey back into time through his jungle environment, we, as contemporary readers, question our own particular versions of what is good, dark, and real about being human.

[1]

Questions for Contemplation[2]

1.
It has been said that Heart of Darkness by Conrad illustrates how “the darkness of the landscape can lead to the darkness of social corruption.” What does this statement mean? How can one’s environment --- whether an environment of the natural world or of the human-created society --- affect one’s actions, feelings, and morals? Is this statement believable or not? How have humans changed, grown, and fallen in demise through social corruption? What kind of changes lead to “progress” for the good of all? What parallels might you draw between Marlow’s journey in Heart of Darkness and the journeys of contemporary western society? In what ways can social change foster climates of hope?

2.
Heart of Darkness seems to blur the line between the so-called “advanced” society of Europe and the “primitive” society of Africa. What makes one culture “civilized” and another “savage” in the eyes of the western world? Are these distinctions valid? Do you think that the culture you live in is “advanced” or “civilized”? Why? Why not? What peer-reviewed, scholarly research might you draw in as support for your position?

3.
In Heart of Darkness, Kurtz is depicted as an upstanding European who has been transformed by his time in the jungle—away from his home, away from familiar people and food, and away from any community moral support that might have helped from his demise into a life of terror and madness. What implications does Conrad make about westerner away from the western society? Are those valid implications? Can contemporary western society move ahead through lessons learned from non-western societies? If so, how?

4.
Kurtz’s dying words are a cryptic whisper: “The horror, the horror.” What “horror” could Kurtz have been talking about? Is there more than one possibility? Why do you think Conrad made this scene so ambiguous? To what degree do humans have horror within them? Has Africa moved beyond its own “horrors” toward a sense of shared community? If so, how? If not, why not?

5.
Some readers claim that Heart of Darkness is strictly a political novella. Others, however, say it’s really a story about the human condition. What is the condition of being human, according to Conrad? How can contemporary society draw lessons from this text?

6.
Heart of Darkness can sometimes seem to readers like an incredibly dark, depressing story that paints civilizations in a very negative light. Did it seem this way to you, or did the story contain any positive moments? If so, what were they? Why did they seem positive? What lessons of hope can we draw from the text?

[1] Adapted from http://mural.uv.es/rosegar/critica1.htm, Mark Dintenfass, Professor of English

[2] Adapted from http://school.discoveryeducation.com/lessonplans/programs/heartofdarkness/

One Hundred Years of Solitude: Links and Helpful Information

I’ve been feeling a little guilty lately. I have professed my love for Gabriel Garcia Marquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude so much that several of my students have chosen it for an independent reading assignment. A long and clever tale that chronicles one hundred years in the lives of Jose and Ursula Buendia, the book seems to have baffled some of my students.

So I’ve spent some time surfing the ‘net and finding some links that I think may offer some of my students --- and others --- a few ideas for deconstructing the text through sociocultural analysis. I hope these help! Happy reading….

CF

The first link is a 1999 profile of the author from The New Yorker magazine. It describes his relationship with his family members, inspirations from his youth that fostered his love of writing, and his complex relationship with Latin America and its politics.

http://www.themodernword.com/gabo/gabo_power.html

This second link is the speech Gabriel Garcia Marquez made as he accepted the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982: “The Solitude of Latin America.”
http://www.themodernword.com/gabo/gabo_nobel.html

The third link is a New York Times interview with Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/06/15/reviews/marquez-talk.html

The next link is the Wikipedia entry for One Hundred Years of Solitude.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Hundred_Years_of_Solitude

The subsequent link is a compilation of motifs, themes, and symbols for One Hundred Years of Solitude on the Spark Notes website.
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/solitude/themes.html

The following is a link to a series of reading group guide questions to One Hundred Years of Solitude.
http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides_O/one_hundred_years_of_solit1.asp

The following New York Times book review from 1970 was published soon after One Hundred Years of Solitude’s release.
http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/06/15/reviews/marque-solitude.html

The next link is to an instructor’s notes regarding the text, written for students to consider as they attempt to deconstruct themes of One Hundred Years of Solitude as well as to write using magical realism.
http://www.hotchkiss.k12.co.us/HHS/nobelnov/marquez.htm

The following Amazon.com.ca website listing for One Hundred Years of Solitude contains a fascinating review that may be of some use to student researchers.
http://www.amazon.ca/Hundred-Years-Solitude-Oprahs-Book/dp/0060740450

The next link is an essay about the ways that “death” is considered in One Hundred Years of Solitude.
http://www.themodernword.com/gabo/gabo_paper_simpson.html

The following is a college student’s paper about loss of innocence in One Hundred Years of Solitude.
http://www.geocities.com/relishguy/ggm0.html

A library card is needed to log into Ebsco Host and read the following peer-reviewed article from the Journal of Iberian and Latin America Studies, 2003: “Magical Realism in the Americas: Politicised Ghosts in One Hundred Years of Solitude, The House of the Spirits, and Beloved,” by Stephen M. Hart, University College, London.
http://0-web.ebscohost.com.helin.uri.edu/ehost/pdf?vid=3&hid=108&sid=425cd0b5-1d61-419a-84bf-9581a3c13b7a%40sessionmgr107

Also available on Ebsco Host is the following article: “Apathy and the Politics of Identity: Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude and Contemporary Cultural Criticism,” by Krapp, John, LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory, 10436928, 2001, Vol. 11, Issue 4.
http://0-web.ebscohost.com.helin.uri.edu/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=108&sid=425cd0b5-1d61-419a-84bf-9581a3c13b7a%40sessionmgr107&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=a9h&AN=4393788

Connecting the 1920s to today's American society

The 1920s in the United States was a time of flappers, Prohibition, ballooning of businesses into corporations, and visions of the American Dream. At that time, citizens of the United States believed they lived in a meritocracy--- a place where individuals could overcome obstacles of poverty, language barriers, socio-economic class distinctions, and racism.

Yet, with changes in society also came a sense of new morality. The federal government abandoned social reforms and left millions of Americans without adequate food, housing, work conditions, or healthcare. People worked long hours to maintain a minimal standard of living. Women fought hard for the right to vote, but they did not share their husband's financial credit until nearly 50 years later. Newly formed corporations banded together to shut down labor union movements and (expensive) safety condition upgrades.

Today, it's typical to look back on the 1920s and see it as an era of change, of turmoil, and of unbridled optomism. F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby captures the idealism, the individualism, and the recklessness of the 1920s. Yet the 1920s has lessons for us in contemporary society to learn as well.

According to NY Times columnist Adam Cohen, The Great Gatsby speaks to contemporary American beliefs in self-improvement, self-invention, and dreams. Cohen says, "And we are the nation that after the debacles of Vietnam and Somalia, still views itself as having a calling to wage war on terrorism worldwide.... we are Gatsby, flawed in a flawed world, but unable to resist the pull of the green light."

What area of the 1920 interests you? How is this topic still an issue in contemporary American society today? In what ways are Americans still fighting against systems, institutions, and structures of society that prevent its citizens from reaching the American Dream?

Research the idea. Look in books and magazines. Journal about it. Talk about it with others. Try to learn and make sense of the ways that Fitzgerald spoke to both his own generation and ours.

Creating a digital portfolio for seniors

"What are digital portfolios

and how can we use them?"

During the school year, students will collect and organize projects, photos, and artifacts into a multimedia format that represents and signifies accomplishments. Students revisit, revise, and rethink earlier work and recreate themselves in new and reflective ways through their digital portfolios as the year progresses.

Where do we start?

First, create a folder titled, "Digital portfolio, [your name], term one."

Second, save in this file the work you have already constructed in digital form so far this year. Here are the items you should save.

• Floyd and Morman scholarly article deconstruction: A "changing culture of fatherhood": effects on affectionate communication, closeness, and satisfaction in men''s relationships with their fathers and their sons.
• your critical analysis of The Chosen
• outside novels' webquest

Third, revisit the memoir writing brainstorming you have compiled thus far:

• memory map visualization and drawing of a special childhood event
• Questions for Memoirists (adapted from Nanci Atwell)
• "My American Dream" writing prompt
• timeline of my memoiro-worthy life events.

Create a new Word file. From the items listed above, cull a list of the ten best possible topics for writing your own personal memoir.

Fourth, when you're done with the first three items, visit with Ms. Fortuna. You and she will review the digital portfolio you've created thus far and identify together one memoir-worthy topic on which to write.

Fifth, draft out a memoir. Use MLA format and no more than 350 words. This memoir is due after Columbus Day break. Happy remembering!

Outside reading texts for Fortuna's 12 Honors students

Part of the English 12 Honors curriculum is a requirement for students to read two texts independently, derived from the following list of titles.

Please spend the whole class today and for homework tonight finding as much information about each criteria as possible. Please note each criteria below as you surf the web.

Anyone who posts a thoughtful comment about an individual title on this blog will receive 5 extra credit points. However, please register your pseudonym with Ms. Fortuna before submitting your comment. Thanks!

Website url
Plot summary
Themes and arguments
Scholarly/ academic research titles

Diamant, Anita, The Red Tent

Dubus, Andre III, House of Sand and Fog

Garcia Marquez, Gabriel, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Guterson, David, Snow Falling on Cedars

Gruen, Sara, Water for Elephants

Hosseini, Khaled, The Kite Runner

Irving, John, Cider House Rules

Kingsolver, Barbara, Prodigal Summer

Maclean, Norman, A River Runs Through It and Harrison, Jim, Legends of the Fall

Maguire, Gregory, Wicked

Morrison, Toni, Beloved

Paton, Alan, Cry the Beloved Country

Pearl, Matthew, The Dante Club

Plath, Sylvia, The Bell Jar

Updike, John, Gertrude and Claudius

What are the consequences of teen decisions to do illegal drugs?

Teen Drug Abuse
Ellie

· Life-threatening
o “Alcohol kills 6 ½ times more teenagers than all other illicit drugs combined.” (1)
· Use when pregnant can cause baby to be premature and cause deformity.
· Causes dependency
o “The body craves the drug in a similar way to needing oxygen” (3)
· Decreases appetite.
· Toxic
· Addiction
· Hurts your brain.
· Causes homicidal and suicidal thoughts.
o “In the United States, approximately three-fourths of all deaths among persons aged 10--24 years result from only four causes: motor-vehicle crashes, other unintentional injuries, homicide, and suicide.” (2)
· “Behaviors associated with drug abuse now are one of the largest factors in the spread of HIV infection in the United States.” (5)
· Make bad decisions
· Affects how you feel and act
· Memory loss
· Paranoia
· Fatigue
· Irritability
· Intense hunger
· Depression
· Anxiety
· Psychotic reactions
· Impairments in learning and memory
· Declining grades
· Illegal
· “Loss of interest in activities and hobbies that were once pleasurable” (4)
· “Underage drinking costs the United States more than $58 billion every year.” (1)
· “More than 60 percent of teens said that drugs were sold, used, or kept at their school.” (1)

Works Cited

(1) Teen Help LLC. "Statistics on Teenage Drug Use." Teen Drug Abuse. Undefined. . 7 June 2008. .

(2) "National Drug Statistics Summary." Adolescent Substance Abuse Knowledge Base. 2007. . 7 June 2008. .

(3) Drug Addiction & Drug Abuse. 2007. . 7 June 2008. .

(4) "Treatment." Sonoma Center for Change . 2008. Sonoma Center for Change LLC. 7 June 2008. .

(5) "Facts on Drugs." NIDA for Teens. . NIDA. 7 June 2008. .

Cultures of Intimidation

“Power” has many components. Certainly, it can be a way to bring about change for the greater societal good. Power is often defined as the capacity to influence others' behavior.

But not all persons who are powerful seek to spread goodwill. In fact, society today is full of persons who use power to intimidate others. They’re known variously as bullies, tyrants, oppressors, persecutors, intimidators, tough guys, tormenters, or thugs.

Whatever the label, people who use power for selfish gain try to make others feel small, afraid, and powerless. A reason for an intimidator’s behavior might be as simple as a desire to be liked. Sometimes tough guys are angry or frustrated, or they may have been bullied by someone else.

Types of intimidation include physical, verbal, and relational.

Since using power in negative ways is a learned behavior, can’t behaviors be changed? So what do suburban youth think can be done to protect others from tormentors?

Viewpoints on War

What do you think about war? These public service announcements were created by suburban youth to help others consider the issue. Leave your comments on our blog.

Bullying has got to go!

Dave is a student at Taylor High School who's been researching different points of view about Oppressors. He's created a Graffitti Wall that illustrates what famous persons have said about his issue of interest.

Here are the quotes he's found that discuss intimidation in its various forms.

"The bullying stopped when I claimed myself and proved that I wasn't afraid." Randy Harrison

"Bullying wasn't okay in elementary school and it isn't okay now, especially when it comes in the form of a U.S. Supreme Court decision." John Doolittle

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." Eleanor Roosevelt

"People who fight fire with fire usually end up with ashes." Abigail Van Buren

"Eagerness to please attracts bullies and bores." Mason Cooley

"Courage is fire, and bullying is smoke." Benjamin Disraeli

"Everyone who wants to do good to the human race always ends in universal bullying." Alduous Huxley

"True courage is cool and calm. The bravest of men have the least of a soothing, bullying insolence, and in the very time of danger are found the most serene and free." Lord Shaflesbury

What do you think about these quotes? What do you think about people who torment others?

Write your comments on this blog and help us to gain further insight into this topic, as imbalanced power relationships just won't seem to go away in public schools, in the workplace, and in society as a whole. Maybe you can help us to make some progress.

Music Montage: War and Its Casualties

Hi. I'm Jarred.

This is a Music Montage where several pieces of music that I chose will speak to the various points of the views different people hold about the issue of war. The songs chosen were Civil War by Guns ‘N’ Roses and Burn It Down by Avenged Sevenfold. They both hold strong points of view on the topic of war and of people that surround all, in war and our daily life.

As you read the lyrics, they can clearly represent the struggle between one human and another. These humans have it hard and are in something that is not at all civil. They are fighting more than just a war; they are fighting one another. Humans fight constantly; they find themselves being betrayed and cast out from others because “it feeds the rich while it buries the poor.” Humans without power are the ones that risk their lives.

Along their time in battle, they lose hope because they do not have the help and support from others at every moment. “You're on my back when the water gets too deep for you to breathe, a crutch for you that won't always be there.” War is a battle, but not just between two countries: it is so much more than that, because the humans fight to survive, almost like high school students trying to stay above all, keeping their status as being popular and on top of the pyramid.

Keeping your head up is not an option, because only the strong will survive in the real world. It is not like high school where you can fake your way through the harm you feel from others. Soldiers must trust other soldiers, keep the faith, never doubt anyone, and follow orders to stay out of the “groceries store” of dead soldiers.

There is nothing civil about war; it is a dangerous place full of death, full of lies, full of hatred, breeding of leading and deceiving humans and their lives. These soldiers get led “in a human grocery store” that is always open because war does not stop, not in night, not in morning. You may not mourn those lost, for war does not wait, for “falling away, can't buy back time.”


Lyrics

Civil War by Guns ‘N’ Roses and Burn It Down by Avenged Sevenfold

"What we've got here is failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach...So, you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it! Well, he gets it! N' I don't like it any more than you men." * a
I can't trust anyone, witness and see it in my eyes Now I can understand, put faith in you for the last time It's sorrow that feeds your lies Falling away, can't buy back time

I don't need your civil war It feeds the rich while it buries the poor Your power hungry sellin' soldiers In a human grocery store Ain't that fresh

You're on my back when the water gets too deep for you to breath A crutch for you that won't always be there Hide in the dark another day, the fear in you is here to stay So keep the * away from me and learn to trust the words I say

You chose the wrong side (it feels so right)I won't help you, let you rot away (despise what you say) Run towards the light exposing your soul (we won't be there by your side) Salvation's dying (somebody's crying)We're all gone in the end, sweet child we'll miss you No, so far away, far away

My hands are tied For all I've seen has changed my mind But still the wars go on as the years go by With no love of God or human rights 'Cause all these dreams are swept aside By bloody hands of the hypnotized Who carry the cross of homicide And history bears the scars of our civil wars

And I don't need your civil war It feeds the rich while it buries the poor Your power hungry sellin' soldiers In a human grocery store Ain't that fresh I don't need your civil war

Converse behind my back, but now I'm here Need no one to comply with me though everyone that I defeat Don't need you, * camaraderie, this rage will never go away One king to watch the horsemen fall

Look at the hate we're breeding Look at the fear we're feeding Look at the lives we're leading The way we've always done before

I don't need one more war Whaz so civil 'bout war anyway

Digital natives and the discourse of a generation

At the end of this month, high school students will take a break from academic studies to enjoy sunshine, the outdoors, travel, games, summer jobs, and relaxation. It’s also a time of transitions. Sophomores become upperclassmen; athletes rise in status onto varsity teams. Clubs, activities, and community service become embedded as part of a larger equation of identity for resumes. Soon, SATs will help establish pathways to college and career. College visits will follow.

To the high school students who read this blog, you are a child no more. You are a young adult who’s made some initial decisions about your life and future. You’ve traveled a very long path to be at this sometimes tenuous, sometimes wonderful moment in time. Before you take that last step off your high school campus for the summer, I’d ask you to take a few moments to think about life as it was for you as one of America’s children, especially in your role as a student. You can also help those of us in the field of education to know your generation a little bit more, if you will. (Please note that the comments to this blog are pseudonyms. Anonymity offers a certain freedom.)

Consider the Native American proverb, “No river can return to its source, yet all rivers must have a beginning.” How do you look back on your years of formal education? Are you nostalgic? Relieved? Reticent? Why? Do fond memories of simpler times resonate? Or was life never really simple? Do life lessons that once seemed traumatic now seem just an awkward stage, even cathartic? What was it like for you to be a learner at the cusp of a new millennium?

Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American poet and essayist, said, “Not in his goals but in his transitions is man great.” Life when Emerson wrote surrounded small New England community enclaves; discourse rose primarily from family and religion. Your life is very different. How did the society and culture in which you were nurtured create pathways for your academic integration into school culture? Pesky calls you “a digital native” due to the complex technology in which you have been emerged. He says:

It is now clear that as a result of this ubiquitous environment and the sheer volume of their interaction with it, today’s students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors. These differences go far further and deeper than most educators suspect or realize. http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

Do you agree with his statement? What advise to you have to offer to educators? If you were given the power, what institutional changes would you incorporate for other students in public schools who follow you? To what degree do you feel that school has been a microcosm of society? What were the best parts of school? What challenges continue as you become an upperclassman?

Dr. Michael Welch, a cultural anthropologist and digital enthnographer from Kansas State University, recently uploaded a short video to YouTube called Web 2.0, the Machine is Using Us. The video discusses how the Web is changing how and how fast humans around the globe communicate. After you view the film, offer a socio-cultural critique of Wesch’ argument. Is his view accurate? Why or why not?

As you think about your answers to these questions, I’d like to thank you on behalf of educators in the United States everywhere. You have offered us vicarious links to the energy and enthusiasm of our own youth. You’ve also introduced us to many new ways of knowing our own worlds. A part of you will live on with us and in the students we’ll help to grow as learners in the future to come.

The Barefoot Photographers of Tilonia

The Barefoot College in Tilonia, India, began in 1972 with the conviction that solutions to rural problems lie within the community.

“It is the only college in India built by the poor for the poor and for the last 34 years managed and controlled and owned by the poor following the life-style and work-style of Gandhi. It is based on very simple living, eating, and working and people come for the challenge rather than the money. No one in the college can earn more than $100 a month.”

Interested in learning more? Go to http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=2382&utm_source=ed0408&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=21_BFtxt6

to click on the thumbnails below to see the work of the Barefoot Photographers of Tilonia and learn about the Barefoot College's projects.

Adapted from Yes! magazine

The Barefoot College campus was designed by a semi-literate Barefoot architect and was built by a team of Barefoot architects, Barefoot solar engineers, and Barefoot water engineers. The college collects rainwater from the roofs of the campus and stores 400,000 liters of water in an underground tank built under a community stage. The open-air theater can seat an audience of 5,000 for performances. The college is fully solar electrified and powers its computers, photocopying machines, media center, pathology lab, and 700 lights and fans of its administrative offices, classrooms and living spaces with sunlight.

What do you think about the work of the Barefoot Photographers? What are the lives of these intelligent, resourceful, and motivated people like in comparison to yours? In what ways do the issues that interest you connect to the issues that interest the Barefoot Photographers? Add a comment!

Connecting to Society Across the Centuries

As someone who is nearing the half century mark, I look at the world differently than I did when I was very young. For example, I remember muttering, "Why do we have to study history?"

My life guides rose to their full height and told me what so many kids are told: "We can learn from the mistakes of the past so we don't repeat them." Their voices were strong and their demeanors were intimidating. I believed them.

Now, as I look back across four decades, I realize the lessons we can learn from history are about much more than mistakes. Studying history is about coming to understand the lives of humans who came before us.

Voltaire said, "All the ancient histories, as one of our wits say, are just fables that have been agreed upon." Why do we create fables about our ancestors? Aren't fables lies for children? If we think of fables as short allegorical narratives, then we, as humans, must need to have a central moral compass to our society, right?

History, or more precisely, the stories of the lives of humans who have lived in decades, centuries, and even millenia past, provide some of that moral stability we seem to seek. What narratives of the recent or even very distant past help us to form meaning for contemporary life today? And how do the life stories of humans from the past instill in us so many of the customs and conditions of our mode of living today?

Post to this blog with your ideas about society, history, morality, fables, and narratives. Draw in real stories of real human experiences from the past and help us to figure out more about our human society today.

Welcome to our Society, Issues, and Identity Blog

This blog is dedicated to persons who are curious about the ways humans behave as part of society. A group of us will be using this space to share our thoughts throughout a series of weeks and conversations.

We began by brainstorming a list of all the groups to which we belong. Our examples illustrated many different types of groups – academic level, GPA rank, gender, ethnicity, hierarchy of age in family, number of siblings, race, social groups, religious affiliation, socio-economic status, among others. We realized that each of our groups is like a "piece" of who we are. As a metaphor for those pieces of self, we created a pie graph of our various groups.

Afterward, we composed free verse identity poems (no rhyme, no meter) that combined lots of information about ourselves. We remembered that interesting poems use rich description; imagery; alliteration; metaphor; simile; assonance; and, allusions. We titled our poems, suggesting overall themes about our unique identities.

We thought about and defined culture as shared ways of thinking, viewing, and knowing the world. We talked about how culture rises from a combination of family, friends, life experiences, schooling, groups, media, and societal connections. This combination of influences causes each person to view the world in different ways.

We have chosen to read print texts that interest us, too. Our texts reflect more than good narration, however; they each involve issues in which we have interest. Our early investigations into our issues of interest involved extending our own points of view to think about how other people in groups might feel about our issues. We read some position papers in Teen Ink magazine, and then we wrote early position papers. We may change our initial opinions about the issues as we learn more, but that's okay. We will continually reflect and grow as thinkers and knowers of our worlds.

To understand why different people interpret issues in different ways, we're considering a wide variety of cultural influences on individuals. Importantly, as we do so, we learning both about ourselves and each other. We shared important cultural artifacts with our interest groups.

This blog will allow us to share our ideas more fully than if we just wrote in journals or chose a few significant friends or peers to listen to our thinking. This blog is evidence of our participation in a social network of learners.