Junior Theme Blog #3

Coming back from a week in Florida, I was bummed to be back in the 30 degree Chicago weather.  But knowing that I got to come back to my junior theme cheered me up!  My family drove to Florida, so I got to spend some good time reading up on junior theme material.  Then I got a rude awakening on Monday.  I completely spaced on the interview, and I had no clue who I was going to interview.  I am still at a loss as to who I should request an interview with.  I am probably going to do some research, but hopefully I will be able to think of someone quickly, in order to compile quotes more quickly.

Note to Teachers: the blog I want to be looked at is the "Tokenism at New Trier?" one from March 13th

.

Junior Theme Blog #2

Okay, this week was running smoothly...until yesterday.  I had articles printed out from ProQuest, JSTOR, and NYTimes.com.  I had gone through about ten of them, until I realized that the URLs at the top didn't end with characters.   Rather, they ended with ...  This bothered me.  I had not kept track of the URLs, since I had made the mistake of assuming that they were printed fully at the top.  At first I was devastated.  I had to comb through all the websites to retrieve the articles I had printed.  It wasted half an hour, but eventually I found them all again.  Then, to make sure that I wouldn't lose them again, I decided to put them all into my NoodleBib, and then just delete the ones at the end that I don't end up using.  I now have around 8 sources entered, and am very pleased.  I remember my sister, who was a junior 2 years ago, had finished her paper early.  The reason I remember this, though, Is because I was kept awake into the early hours of the morning by the light in her room, as she labored over her bibliography.  I am pleased that I was able to enter some of my sources now, because that means I will get to sleep longer when crunch time comes.  Even though I lost a good half hour of time that could have been spent researching, in the end, I think it had a beneficial effect.

Junior Theme Blog #1

To be quite honest, over the past weekend, I kind of bent the rules that were given to us regarding junior theme topics.  We were told to come to class on Monday with three to five why questions, and that all of our questions should be valid options.  We were told to not come to school with one solid topic that we thought would definitely be the basis for our argument in this infamous paper.  And while I did come to school with five legitimate why questions on Monday, only one stood out to me.  My question was: "Why have video games and television shows targeted at children become increasingly violent?"  Even though this question is way too broad, I though for sure that I would write mypaper in regards to this topic.

So I came to school on Monday, and thought that I would have my list of five questions ready, but really not need them because I already knew which topic I was going to address.  I was wrong.  After spending the first twenty minutes of the period running into nothing but dead ends, I felt dejected.  I could not find any good books, web articles, etc. to support my argument.  So I turned back to the remaining four questions on my list.  The one that stood out to me was about obesity in America.  Immediately, I was able to find resources for my new topic.  Doc Oc pointed out a book to me called Fast Food Nation, which seems like it would be a great read for my paper.  When all was said and done, the lesson that I learned on the first day of junior theme research was to keep an open mind.  Once I opened myself up to new ideas, the research came much more easily.  If you are stuck in a corner with this menacing paper, then just keep an open mind and you will find a way out.

Tokenism at New Trier?

Over the past two weeks, we have been discussing racial tokenism in the media.  TV shows, movies, and many other things we discussed display tokenism.  Some other things that went unmentioned were books, comic strips, and video games.  I can think of examples from all of the above that display tokenism.  Another example that was mentioned was how colleges photoshop African American faces into brochures in order to make their school seem more diverse.  I knew that these kinds of events took place at colleges.  But at high schools, where students are not yet adults? Preposterous.

...Or so I thought.  Last week, my mom went to a meeting for post-high school counselling.  She brought home a binder that all the parents received.  On the cover is some standard info: New Trier High School, class of 2012, etc.  But the one thing that stands out is the picture.  It is a clip art picture of students in graduation caps and gowns, holding diplomas.  Unfortunately, I could not find the image online, and am not tech savvy enough to know how to scan it in.  But the picture basically has four students: two African American, and two Caucasian.  Now some may think that New Trier chose this picture because it was the first one that came up in Google images.  But when I searched for this image, there were significantly more pictures with only Caucasian students. So New Trier must have combed through several pages of images in order to find this one.  Quite obviously, the ratio of white to black students at New Trier is not one to one.  So why did New Trier choose this images above all others?  Were they, like the colleges trying to give a false sense of diversity, or was there some other reason?

An extreme blog

A couple of days ago we received a copy of a quite lengthy letter that Martin Luther King Jr. wrote while imprisoned in Birmingham jail.  Throughout the letter, King makes many powerful historical connections to refute the opposition's arguments.  One of the opposition's arguments was that King was being an extremist by advocating the equal rights for African Americans.  King responds to this argument by saying: "Was not Paul an extremist for the gospel of Jesus Christ?--'I beat in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.'  Was not Martin Luther an extremist?--'Here I stand; I can do no other so help me God.'  Was not John Bunyan an extremist?-- 'I will stay in jail until the end of my days before I make a mockery of my conscience.'  Was notAbraham Lincoln an extremist?-- 'This nation cannot survive half equal.'  Was not Thomas Jefferson an extremist?-- 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal' "(4).  All of the above are very powerful examples of famous extremists who, in my eyes, were right with what they were standing up for.  But I am curious about the less famous extremists, those who make extreme decisions daily


Right after King gives the examples above, he states that "The question is not whether we will be extremist, but what kind of extremists we will be" (4).   The answer to this question was meant to be what side King, as an "extremist", would be fighting for, but this inquiry brought a different thought to my mind.  Rather than idea vs. idea, I thought more about the scale of the extremity of a choice.  I don't think you have to be famous or infamous in order to be considered an extremist.  I think i was an extremist this morning when I chose between my Colgate or Michigan State sweatshirt.  There is no neutral ground, no combination of the two.  Whichever on I chose, it would be an "extreme" decision.  Also there is the example of the Huck Finn papers we just wrote.  We couldn't fuse all five prompts into one essay, we all had to be an extremist and choose only one.  I feel that since everyone has to make these types of choices, everyone is an extremist,but feel free to argue against that.

Reconstructing the Nation

These reconstruction projects that we have been working on in class have been quite tricky.  No matter what path we choose to take, there will always be complications and criticisms.  One of those big issues is money.  The country needs money for many issues, but there is very little extra money to throw around.  There is physical damage that has to be paid for.  Schools and other public institutions that have to be built and payed for.  Almost anything that might aid the country must be paid for somehow, so the question is: where do we get all of that money?


After the war, there were not a lot of sources to get money.  Since the South lost the war, it would make sense to get money from them.  Unfortunately, all  the rich Southern plantation owners had invested their money into confederate bonds, which were now useless.  Another option is to tax cotton.  But with slavery abolished, it was very likely that there would be a decline in cotton production, since the main labor force was slaves.  Another option was to subtract from the defense budget, since the war was over.  But after a war on our own soil, our country would be especially vulnerable, so subtracting from the defense budget may make us susceptible to attacks or wars from European countries.  Almost anywhere there was money, it was untouchable.  This lack of money plagued the country.


I wonder, though, if any of the lessons that we learned back during Reconstruction are applicable today.  Obviously the economy is weak, and we need to exit this depression.  Do any of you have plans on how to get money in your reconstruction project that you think would be applicable today? And do you feel that today's issue can be dealt with the same way as it was 140 years ago?