Alone Together by Sherry Turkle
In a 5-page essay with 5 sources, support, refute or complicate the notion that Sherry Turkle's Alone Together is a technophobic screed that exaggerates and twists information to create an unfair nightmare portrait of social media.
Acting Out Culture, Third Edition, edited by James Miller
The following assignments are modified from the ones James Miller uses in his book. Sometimes I take the liberty to quote Miller so in essence these are his assignments with my modifications added.
Chapter 1 How We Believe
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, support, refute, or complicate the notion that Stephen Asma's "Green Guilt" and Michael Eric Dyson's "Understanding Black Patriotism" provide a convincing indictment of "isms" evidenced by their dogmatic zeal, myopia, tribalism, and Groupthink. If you want, you can include Schwennesen's "The Ethics of Eating," which addresses vegetarianism.
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, support, refute, or complicate the argument that Ty Burr's "Faces in the Mirror" and Michael Sandel's "Markets and Morals" complement the theme of human degradation and "moral vacancy" in an age of excessive marketing and pathological self-promotion.
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, support, refute, or complicate the notion that Michael Eric Dyson has written an convincing argument about the crucial differences between nationalism and patriotism.
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that addresses the cultural stereotypes discussed in Michael Eric Dyson's essay and Katie Roiphe's "In Defense of Single Motherhood."
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that addresses the tribalism discussed in David Brooks' essay "People Like Us" and the "scientific racism" discussed in Debra J. Dickerson's "The Great White Way."
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, defend, refute, or complicate Debra J. Dickerson's argument that race is not an objective reality but rather a social fantasy.
Chapter 2: How We Watch
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, defend, refute, or complicate the argument that Jessica Bennett's "The Flip Side of Internet Fame" evidences a need to make new freedom of speech restrictions in the age of social media.
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that analyzes the causes of cultural stereotypes evidenced in Harriet McBryde Johnson's "Unspeakable Conversations" and Heather Havrilesky's "Some 'Girls' Are Better Than Others."
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, support, refute, or complicate the argument made by Virginia Heffernan's "The Attention-Span Myth" and Don Tapscott's "Should We Ditch the Idea of Privacy?" that the digital age has, rightly, abolished certain cultural norms and values.
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, support, refute, or complicate the argument that Charles Duhigg's "How Companies Learn Your Secrets" affirms Virginia Heffernan's examination of the attention-span myth.
Chapter 3: How We Eat
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, support, refute, or complicate Kristof's argument in "Prudence Or Cruelty?" that in spite of the food stamp abuses cited by opponents of the food stamp program, providing food stamps for the poor is moral and economic imperative over the long-term. Be sure to have a counterargument and rebuttal section at the end of your essay.
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, support, refute, or complicate the notion that eating meat is morally defensible in the context of evolution and biology and that ethical objections to meat eating are not born of eating meat but the abuses that result in the factory farming of animals. Be sure to have a counterargument-refutation section.
Addressing Francine Prose's "The Wages of Sin," write a 4-page essay with 3 sources that supports, refutes, or complicates the notion that overeating is not an illness but a moral flaw and a vice.
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that addresses the claim that Francine Prose and Caroline Knapp are criticizing cultural norms about eating that in truth are not normal at all but pathological and that these norms create a toxic eating environment in our culture.
Both McMillan and Kristof (172) use their examinations of public attitudes toward food as a platform to argue for specific changes in our official food policy. In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that explains how these recommendations compare. Can you imagine Kristof citing points McMillan raises here as evidence or support for the argument he makes about food stamps? If so, how specifically?
Both Dolnick and Francine Prose address the mythical narrative of obesity and overeating by deconstructing the myth. In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that analyzes how Dolnick and Prose deconstruct the myth of fatness.
Chapter 4: How We Learn
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, support, refute, or complicate Kohn's argument that grading is inimical to effective teaching.
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, support, refute, or complicate the notion that Rizga's essay provides evidence to support the argument that standardized testing is a canard that hurts the students' education.
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, support, refute, or complicate John Taylor Gatto's argument that school is not about education but rather about indoctrinating students into being malleable sheep, non-thinkers, and childish consumers who are sorted into "their rightful place" in the social and economic hierarchy.
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that explains how Gatto and Rose are attempting to rewrite the conventional norms regarding class, learning, and intelligence. In making your thesis, consider how the two essays complement the other.
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that supports, refutes, or complicates the notion that the triumph we learn of in Bell Hooks' essay "Learning in the Shadow of Race and Class" is that Hooks overcame Alexander Inglis's six basic functions (mentioned in John Taylor Gatto's essay) and instead of becoming indoctrinated became truly enlightened. Is it possible that she was both indoctrinated and enlightened? Explain.
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that analyzes, in the context of Rachel Toor's 'Unconscious Plagiarism," the difference between legitimate modeling that is a form of healthy plagiarism and immoral plagiarism.
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that explains how Kozol's essay "Preparing Minds for Markets" supports Mike Rose's main argument in his essay "Against School."
Chapter 5: How We Work
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that compares the way Louis Uchitelle (342) and Matthew Crawford (368) explore the emotional life of work and how work affects our happiness, contentment, and self-esteem. To what extent does Uchitelle's argument about the psychological damage wrought by unemployment recall or help reinforce Crawford's claims about the emotional satisfactions afforded by working with your hands?
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, write a review of DePalma's essay that you think Uchitelle might offer. To what extent would Uchitelle's review find parallels in the social and economic hardships profiled here and his argument regarding the emotional costs of unemployment?
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, write an assessment of how the messages in Catherine Rampell's essay (388) and Matthew Crawford's (368) compare with one another. Does Rampell's attempt to explode the myth of the "slacker generation" remind you in any way of Crawford's desire to rewrite the boundary between white-collar and manual labor? Do these writers challenge such stereotypes in order to say similar or different things about the meaning and value of work?
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that compares the way DePalma (353) profiles immigrant workers with the way Ehrenreich (380) explores the working poor. Based on the argument she makes here, which specific aspects of DePalma's essay do you think Ehrenreich would find most persuasive? Why?
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, show how McClelland's examination of the psychological pressures she experienced on the job (394) compare to the portrait of the unemployed Louis Uchitelle (342) presents? Do you find any similarities or parallels in the ways each essay explores this issue?
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop an argumentative thesis that addresses whether it is appropriate, or not, to use the business model described in Hochschild's essay (418) as a way of making the "mutually beneficial transaction" between parents and a surrogate mother. Consider Barbara Ehrenreich's essay (380) about how the experience of being poor complicates this business model.
Chapter 6: How We Connect
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, write an essay in which you speculate about how Lovenheim (458) might respond to the argument Silver is advancing about "the quagmire of social media friendship." Do you think Lovenheim would find much commonality between this argument and the portrait of contemporary neighbor relations his essay presents? How or how not?
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, write an essay in which you speculate how Morozov (449) would respond to the "digital detox" retreat Suddath depicts (500)? Given his own argument about the dangers of access and "openness," do you think Morozov would regard the retreat's efforts to disconnect from the digital world to be a viable solution? How or how not?
Write a 4-page essay (with 3 sources) in which you evaluate how Kotkin's examination of home and roots compares to Silver's discussion of online friendship (444). Does Silver's essay, in your view, confirm or complicate the conclusions Kotkin draws about Americans' increasing commitment to place and each other?
Write a 4-page essay (with 3 sources) in which you identify and assess the parallels connecting Lovenheim's examination of neighborhoods (458) and O' Brien's discussion of empathy (464).
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that explores the ways O'Brien's investigation into empathy provides us with a useful context for thinking about the experiment of "unplugging" that Claire Suddath profiles (500). What specific aspects of O'Brien's thesis about the "empathy deficit" do you think are most directly in line with the goals of the "tech addicts" Suddath describes?
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that explains how Rosin's essay (484) can be seen as a critique of the views that Suddath explores (500).
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