For Thursday: Stanley, "Jackie's Goodbye" (pp.379-408)

Original Art from the National Journal issue with "Jackie's Goodbye"

REMEMBER: No class on Tuesday--just finish/turn in Paper #1 to my office. Then start reading and responding to the questions below...

For Thursday: Stanley, “Jackie’s Goodbye” (pp.379-408)

Definitions:

deplorable (379)

incredulous (380)

burgeoning (383)

sporadic (385)

tenuous (390)

extraneous (392)

cognition (395)

euthanasia (400)

panacea (403)

mandate (406)

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: Why is Alzheimer’s a relatively recent disease, one that we didn’t think a lot about 100 years ago? Related to this, why has so little been done to a disease that now affects around 5 millions people, “with more than 400,00 new cases each year—numbers that are expected to double by 2050”?

Q2: Why did Jim Crabtree call the triple-murder of his wife and mother by his father a “mercy killing”? Though she calls this “particularly chilling,” is Stanley at all sympathetic with his story? Why or why not?

Q3: When talking about Alzeheimer’s we typically talk about the victims, but in Stanley’s essay she talks about another set of victims—the patient’s family/caregivers. How does Alzeheimer’s afflict everyone related to the disease, and in some cases, prove just as deadly to those not afflicted with it?

Q4: Though not all of us will get Alzheimer’s or have to care for anyone who does, why is this still an important essay for us to read? What weaknesses of modern American life does this reveal? What are our cultural “blind spots” both as individuals and as a nation? What does Stanley want us to see/recognize about ourselves in this piece? 

For Tuesday: Van Meter, “Follow Me” (pp.363-376)

Link to the Vogue article: http://www.vogue.com/865148/kate-upton-model-social-media/

DEFINITIONS:

counterintuitive (366)

synergy (367)

überthin (or über itself) (367)

jargon (371)

cheeky (372)

scrutiny (372)

voyeuristic (373)

palpably (373)

outliers (375)

bodacious (376)

QUESTIONS: Answer TWO of the following...

Q1: Van Meter writes, “There’s no such thing as living in the moment anymore. Thanks to social media, every event, from the Super Bowl to the State of the Union, from the Olympics to your best friend’s wedding, now happens in real time and “real” time” (373). What does he mean by using real time once in quotes and once without? What are the two kinds of “real” he’s referring to, and why might our constant need to document life create a “real” inside the real?

Q2: Why do modeling agencies now demand that models have Twitter and Instagram accounts? Why do models now have to be more than models, but actual brands, tweeting and revealing their lives?

Q3: Discussing her presence on social media, Kate Upton said, “People think I am an expert on social media, but I am still trying to figure it out, too. How much do you want to put yourself out there?...Well, I am out there. There’s no turning back for me” (368). How do you think she means this statement? Does she feel she’s gone “too far”? What consequences might there be for a model who becomes too successful and too visible on social media?  How might this relate to Amanda Hess’ article?

Q4: The Chinese supermodel Liu Wen explains that “Chinese people have a word. We say, Not you happy—you have to make everyone happy. To share the happy. That is very important” (370). How might this statement represent not only the modeling/advertising world, but also the internet in general? How can a single person’s social media be about making “everyone happy”? 

Paper #1: The Virtual Conversation due Tuesday, September 6th by 5pm

There’s no such thing as living in the moment anymore. Thanks to social media, every event, from the Super Bowl to the State of the Union, from the Olympics to your best friend’s wedding, now happens in real time and “real” time” (Van Meter, “Follow Me”)

For this paper, I want you to respond (writing is a response, remember?) to the conversation started by our three writers: Hess, Lewinsky, and Van Meter. This is a conversation about the brave new world of the internet, and how we ‘play’ our lives on it—for better or for worse. The virtual world is a paradox, since we know it’s fake and can be easily manipulated, and yet, we spend more and more time on it, to the exclusion of real life and real moments. So is the internet real and are the abuses of the internet real crimes creating real monsters and real victims?

Your paper should develop one of the following questions by introducing the conversation and giving your ideas/responses:

• Does the Internet encourage the idea that life is a video game where you create a persona, collect followers, and destroy your opponents?
• Is the Internet rigged for men and biased against women?
• Does the Internet merely shine a new light on an old problem: we enjoy the pain of others?

Note that you can disagree with any of the above questions and spend your response arguing against it. However, whether you agree or disagree with the writers, you must QUOTE from at least TWO of the essays in question for support. Use them to respond to, support your ideas, or simply to bring people up to speed with the conversation. We’ll discuss how to integrate quotations into papers according to MLA format in our next class. Remember, the goal of this paper is to respond to a conversation: tell people what it is, who’s engaging in it, and how you contribute to the discussion. It’s as simple as that.

REQUIREMENTS:

• At least 3-4 pages double spaced
• Integrates quotations from at least 2 of the essays in class
• Cites quotations according to MLA guidelines with a Works Cited page
• Typed with an attempt at proofreading
• Due TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6th BY 5pm

For Thursday: Lewinsky, “Shame and Survival” (pp.133-148)

LINK TO THE ARTICLE: http://www.vanityfair.com/style/society/2014/06/monica-lewinsky-humiliation-culture 

DEFINITIONS:

Schadenfreude (135)

Notoriety (136)

Indemnification (137)

Resuscitated (139)

Narcissistic (140)

Surreptitiously (142)

Imbroglios (142)

Derision (143)

Obliquely (143)

Pundit (145)  

Bonus: Prufrockian (139)

QUESTIONS: Answer TWO of the following…

Q1: Far from simply calling out men for misogyny in this essay, Lewinsky also singles out the cruel indifference of other women. What charges does she level at her fellow women, and why does she feel that women—even women known as feminists—were so eager to throw her under the bus?

Q2: How does Lewinksy’s essay directly respond, in some sense, to Amanda Hess’? Though Hess is talking about on-line stalking and Lewinsky is discussing a pre-internet scandal, how are the two related? In other words, how might one essay help us understand the other?

Q3: Why does Lewinsky’s name keep coming up in the “national conversation?” What does she represent for both political parties, and why does she characterize this continuing attention as “abuse”?

Q4; According to Lewinksy, quoting the historian Nicolaus Mills, we have entered a “culture of humiliation.” What caused this? Did new technology, like the internet, create this? Or was it already here, and factors of modern life have merely intensified it? How does her story exemplify this “culture of humiliation”?

Link to Amanda Hess' article

If you don't have the book yet, you can find a link to the entire article here: https://psmag.com/why-women-aren-t-welcome-on-the-internet-aa21fdbc8d6#.re0fgwv26

For Tuesday: Hess, “Women Aren’t Welcome Here” (pp.51-72)

NOTE: There is some disturbing material and graphic language in a few passages of this essay. However, it’s important for the author to reveal the language of her stalkers so we understand what she’s going through. Feel free to skim/skip these passages if they disturb you, but also consider that this language could be directed at any of us—so we might have to deal with it at some time whether we want to or not (which is her point in writing the essay).

PART I: Definitions (define the following words even if you think you know them; and don’t be afraid to look them up if you don’t!)

1. Noxious (52)                     6. visceral (61)

2. misogyny (54)                  7. unequivocal (61) 

3. ruse (57)                            8. proliferated (66)

4. vitriol (59)                        9. banality (67)

5. vagabond (60)                  10. Sisyphean (69)

PART II: Questions: answer TWO of the four questions in a short paragraph—at least a few sentences. These are not “yes” or “no” questions, meaning they require a little thought and have more than one clear answer. Try to respond to the questions as specifically as possible using support/ideas from the article and avoid answers like, “yes, because that’s what it said,” etc.

1.         On page 61, Hess explains that “one person is feeling the reality of the Internet very viscerally: the person who is being threatened...It’s a lot easier for the person who made the threat—and the person investigating the threat—to believe that what’s happening on the Internet isn’t real.” Why do you think Internet crimes/harassment seem less “real” to everyone but the victim? Why do victims seem to have less right that perpetrators?

2.         What does Hess mean when she writes that “On the internet, men are tourists and women are vagabonds” (60)? Why does the internet, in her opinion, privilege men over women, and why can’t women find a stable ‘home’ there?

3.         According to the article, why do many people, including Twitter, object to policing the internet? Even though terrible abuses are occurring every day, what stops companies and/or the government from protecting victims like Hess? What makes this such a complicated and hot-button topic?

4.         Hess, a victim of online harassment and rape/murder threats, claims there is a “monetary penalty for being a woman” (67). Why do women have to pay more for the right to be online and enjoy the same freedoms as men? 

Welcome to the Course

Welcome to Freshman Composition I, Sections 13 and 16.

This is a first-semester writing course that strives to accomplish two goals: (a) show the connection between reading and writing, and (b) make writing part of a local or global conversation with other writers. Once you become knowledgeable about a given topic, you can then add to the conversation with your own writing, which extends this discussion into new avenues of thought (or connects to old ones). Writing should never be something done to fill up space or to sound ‘smart’; the goal of writing is to communicate to an audience that shares your concerns, but may have never considered the topic from your point of view. Writing—and publishing your writing—has never been easier or more accessible than it is now. With a potential audience of millions on the internet and elsewhere, the burden is on you to actually have something to say!

Bookmark this page, as I will post daily reading assignments here, as well as paper assignments, handouts, and other announcements. Also, be sure to buy the books for the class as soon as possible--we will start reading next week! You can find these books in the ECU bookstore. Please let me know if you have any questions--you can e-mail me at jgrasso@ecok.edu. 

REQUIRED TEXTS (2):

·        The Best American Magazine Writing 2015. Ed. Holt.

·        Harden, Escape From Camp 14.