Unit 9:
Divided We Fall, United We Stand:
Finding Common Ground
Reading #1:
“The Night I Was Nobody,” John Edgar
Wideman
Watts (Los Angeles) Riots, 1965
Discussion:
Wideman begins with a simple – although
powerful – story of an incident of racism and
uses it to challenge the nature of the questions
we ask about racism. He eliminates the barrier
between subject and object and requires us to
look at the question from a common ground.
Discussion:
Wideman begins with a simple – although
powerful – story of an incident of racism and
uses it to challenge the nature of the questions
we ask about racism. He eliminates the barrier
between subject and object and requires us to
look at the question from a common ground.
“We ask the wrong questions” (paragraph 11).
Then, what are the right questions?
Discussion:
(1) Wideman uses weather as an extended
metaphor, or conceit, through his essay. Look
closer at how he uses the weather to describe
the town of Clovis, New Mexico and its people.
Then he moves into what he calls “our American
racial weather.” How does this metaphor help to
drive his point, arriving at the final words, “To
imagine the terrible cost of not healing
ourselves, we must first imagine how good it
would feel to be healed.”
Discussion:
(2) Let’s return to the themes of the previous
units and apply them to the writing:
a. How does he use factual evidence /
examples: Watts in 1965, Malcolm X, the
beating of a Los Angeles truck driver
(Reginald Denny)?
Discussion:
(2) Let’s return to the themes of the previous
units and apply them to the writing:
b. Where does he employ humor and is it
appropriate?
Discussion:
(2) Let’s return to the themes of the previous
units and apply them to the writing:
c. How does he counter the argument of
the inalienable rights of all citizens and
racial equality?
Discussion:
(2) Let’s return to the themes of the previous
units and apply them to the writing:
d. Does the fact that it is a personal
narrative lend itself to being biased and
hyperbolic?
Discussion:
(2) Let’s return to the themes of the previous
units and apply them to the writing:
e. What is the misconception of a “black
crisis” or a “black problem”? Why does he
call it a “national shame”?
Discussion:
Wideman begins with a simple – although
powerful – story of an incident of racism and
uses it to challenge the nature of the questions
we ask about racism. He eliminates the barrier
between subject and object and requires us to
look at the question from a common ground.
“We ask the wrong questions” (paragraph 11).
Then, what are the right questions?
Reading #2:
“Scattered Inconveniences” Jerald
Walker
Discussion:
In reading the article, what statements, ideas,
topics stand out to you as important to dissect?
Discussion:
In reading the article, what statements, ideas,
topics stand out to you as important to dissect?
Here is what I found interesting:
Discussion:
In reading the article, what statements, ideas,
topics stand out to you as important to dissect?
Here is what I found interesting:
• The title, “Scattered Inconveniences”
• “I am a racist” (para. 12)
• His brother Clyde (para. 13-17)
• Paranoia and Racism
• The effects the event has on Adrian, his son
Discussion:
What techniques does Walker employ to arrive
at his point?
Arguing with Facts
Using humor
Presenting counter arguments
Personal anecdotes
Correcting misconceptions
Finding common ground
Reading #3:
“The Clack of Tiny Sparks:
Remembrances of a Gay Boyhood,”
Bernard Cooper
Cold Reading:
In reading a text cold (without any guidance),
begin by working through what is on the
SURFACE of the text.
Cold Reading:
In reading a text cold (without any guidance),
begin by working through what is on the
SURFACE of the text.
Begin by mapping out how the text moves from
topic to topic, anecdote to anecdote, idea to
idea.
Cold Reading:
(1) Theresa Sanchez – What does she add?
(2) Grady Rogers v. Bobby Keagan – How are
these two boys stereotypes
(3) Grady’s home life v. Author’s home life
(4) Mom’s Cigarette  Lox on a bagel  The
make-out party
(5) Gerald & the Christmas Tree
(6) Discerning facts from rumors about Theresa
and about homosexuality
Discussion:
Cooper’s piece would have worked beautifully in
our unit on Personal Narratives; however, I
saved it for this unit. How does his work
approach the essential question of finding
common ground to form an effective argument?
Reading #4:
“The Urge to Merge,” Cynthia Gorney
Discussion:
Seriously, why do we care? If the essay’s topic is
too insular, too provincial for us to relate, then it
fails to reach the universal audience.
So we don’t live in Northern California, and we
don’t travel through the Caldecott Tunnel. Then
how does this have any relevance?
Discussion:
Work the basics:
(1) Find the thesis statement/paragraph(s)
(2) Look closer at the tone of the writer
(3) Dissect the argument and its support
But begin with the surface.
Discussion:
Let’s understand the two types of drivers:
Discussion:
Gorney makes some more philosophical
statements that move beyond the subject of the
essay. Focus in on these:
(1) Paragraph 9: the problems with
capitalism
(2) Paragraph 13: the theories of queuing
(3) Paragraph 14: cheaters and vigilantes
(4) Paragraph 20: the sacrifice with the
zipper
Discussion:
What does Officer Sam Morgan’s perspective
add to the essay’s point? Specifically, he takes
Gorney to a “neutral vantage point.”
Discussion:
What does Officer Sam Morgan’s perspective
add to the essay’s point? Specifically, he takes
Gorney to a “neutral vantage point.”
Now we can hear a change in her tone. Change
usually means a thesis.
Discussion:
What techniques does she employ to arrive at
this thesis?
Arguing with Facts
Using humor
Presenting counter arguments
Personal anecdotes
Correcting misconceptions
Finding common ground
Reading #5:
“Mean Cuisine” Sallie Tisdale
Discussion:
(1) Even though Tisdale presents her essay with
a disparaging tone toward dieting, calling it “a
strange world” (2) in which she starves herself
on purpose, leaving her with “dead eyes” (7)
and then promotes the “anti-dieting movement”
(21), she still manages to find common ground
by the conclusion of the essay. Do you agree?
Discussion:
(2) Tisdale is more concerned with the
psychological and spiritual consequences than
with the physiological (I struggle to say) benefits.
Look particularly at the following paragraphs:
Paragraphs 7-8
Paragraph 17
Paragraphs 19-20
Paragraph 30
Discussion:
(3) At the heart of the essay is point about
human nature and its struggles with:
approval and self-approval
control and self-control
guilt and shame
forgiveness and acceptance
Reading #1:
“Media & Democracy: The Daily Me or
the Daily We?” Cass Sunstein
Premise:
A possible misconception: That
technology does not broaden our
perspectives but rather it can limit or
“filter” our perspectives.
Premise:
A possible misconception: That
technology does not broaden our
perspectives but rather it can limit or
“filter” our perspectives.
And this is dangerous to our
democracy.
Premise:
A possible misconception: That
technology does not broaden our
perspectives but rather it can limit or
“filter” our perspectives.
And this is dangerous to our
democracy. This is the “Daily Me.”
Discussion:
(1) In paragraphs 1-5, he explores how
“you are able to see exactly what you
want to see, no more and no less” (1).
Is this dangerous? And “of course,
everyone else has the same freedom
that you do” (5). Is that even more
dangerous?
Discussion:
Example: TiVo, a television recording system, is designed, in
the words of its website, to give “you the ultimate control
over your TV viewing.” It does this by putting “you at the
center of your own TV network, so you’ll always have access
to whatever you want, whenever you want.” TiVo “will
automatically find and digitally record your favorite
programs every time they air” and will help you create
“your personal TV line-up.” It will also learn your tastes, so
that it can “suggest other shows that you may want to
record and watch based on your preferences.”
Discussion:
Example: Broadcast.com has “compiled hundreds of
thousands of programs so you can find the one that
suits your fancy…. For example, if you want to see all
the latest fashions from France 24 hours of the day you
can get them. If you’re from Baltimore living in Dallas
and you want to listen to WBAL, your hometown
station, you can hear it.”
Discussion:
Example: Sonicnet.com allows you to create your own
musical universe, consisting of what it calls “Me Music.”
Me Music is “A place where you can listen to the music
you love on the radio station YOU create…. A place
where you can watch videos of your favorite artists and
new artists.”
Discussion:
Example: Sonicnet.com allows you to create your own
musical universe, consisting of what it calls “Me Music.”
Me Music is “A place where you can listen to the music
you love on the radio station YOU create…. A place
where you can watch videos of your favorite artists and
new artists.”
Discussion:
“Unanticipated encounters,
Example: Sonicnet.com allows you to create your own
involving
unfamiliar
and
musical universe, consisting
of what it calls “Me
Music.”
Me Music is “A place where you can listen to the music
even
irritating
topics
you love on
the radio station YOU
create…. A and
place
where you can
watch
videos of are
your favorite
artists and
points
of
view,
central
new artists.”
to democracy and to
freedom itself” (Sunstein)
Discussion:
(2) Look closer at the two distinctive
requirements (social preconditions) for
a well-functioning system of free
expression, according to Sunstein. Do
you agree with both? What do we gain
and lose from both of these
requirements?
Discussion:
“Censorship is indeed a threat to
democracy and freedom. But an
exclusive focus on government
censorship produces serious blind
spots” (para. 12)
Requirements for a System of Free
Expression:
1. People should be exposed to
materials that they would not have
chosen in advance.
Requirements for a System of Free
Expression:
1. People should be exposed to
materials that they would not have
chosen in advance. (like school?)
Requirements for a System of Free
Expression:
1. People should be exposed to
materials that they would not have
chosen in advance. (like school?)
2. Many – or most – citizens should
have a range of common
experiences. A social glue.
Discussion:
(3) If, like Sunstein, you desired a
deliberative democracy, then how can
the Internet be both a promise and a
threat?
Discussion:
(3) If, like Sunstein, you desired a
deliberative democracy, then how can
the Internet be both a promise and a
threat?
Daily Me or the Daily We?
Thesis:
“Unanticipated, chance encounters –
with people and ideas – are
fundamental to democracy” (para. 25).