So sad, ultimate loyalty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3TM9GL2iLI

another doc

"The Crisis"

Morgan,

I can't upload the study guide, so please do your best on additional paper.
The above is a link to a new document I created; if you cannot get this to work, I don't know what to tell you. Sorry!

"The Crisis"

Read the following essay by Thomas Paine and identify the persuasive appeals and rhetorical devices on your study guide.  BE PREPARED FOR TOMORROW WITH SEVERAL EXAMPLES FOR EACH SECTION TO RECEIVE CREDIT!

T-PAINE'S "THE CRISIS"

Your examples in each box can be direct quotations (in part or full) or simple summaries of a section. FOR EXAMPLE, under "Pathos," you can briefly describe the child analogy he gives about the man he sees outside the pub but under "Antithesis" you can easily quote "I call not upon a few but on all," perhaps underlining or italicizing the opposing images. SO, I just gave you two.

This will be on the midterm, and if we do not have a significant number of you tomorrow who have completed it, we will not go over it and you will be responsible for its information on your own. AKA DO YOUR HOMEWORK!

Brad Devore found lyrics for apathy Band: Dope Song: We Are

http://www.mp3lyrics.org/d/dope/we-are/

Shane's Response

At first this gave me a feeling of outrage in that this principal would want to strip the individuality and culture out of these students. I don’t really understand how a person in their right mind could say something like this. I do understand that the principal wants there to be less racial and ethnic segregation but this is not the right approach to complete this goal. I can’t say that I even agree with any of this, the only thing I can say is that the principal dose not see in anyway raciest because he does not discriminate against any particular race or ethnic group.

I think that Prager has a point in that we judge people too much based on the race and ethnic group. Prager is saying that we need to focus less on our race and ethnic group and more on our common goal of education. This is a good goal but denying people there ethnicity is not the way to accomplish this. I think it is impossible to teach this way because it is seen throughout history that you cannot suppress people’s race or ethnicity.

Haleigh's (Awesome) Post

Just wow, this dude is just wrong. You shouldn't make people forget or not care about their ethnics and who they really are. I am a very not-violent person, and this letter just made me so mad, you know? I made my dad read it so he could rant and rave with me. I truthfully think that that speech should be crumpled into a ball and set on fire in a trash can. And yes some people "harp on superficial characteristics" as skin color or how we dress, but I see it as something that binds us together and gives us individuality. No one has the exact same skin color which gives us individuality, and how we dress kind of defines our "groups" and what we are labeled as. What he wants to do is take away what give us our characteristics, because for me what makes me me is my pride in my Philippine culture, the bright colors of my clothes (and my awesome skinny jeans) and make up, and my hand-me-down jewelry. But then again, as my dad keeps saying, we should get back to education, he thinks schools have strayed from the path of just teaching. But he and I both disagree about the choice against no longer talking abou drugs, or practicing safe sex (dont blush Ms.McCarthy). This letter hits all the sensitive areas and it basically designed to get the reader upset or angry. I really like that little jab at the end about the pledge.

Who's going to be the last to post?!?!?!

As I mentioned, a prize (of my choosing, which you know will be corny) will be reward to the last post of the night before 11pm...HOWEVER, for those of you still in the running (probably on purpose), make sure you at least COMMENT on someone's post soon so that you get full points!

I am THOROUGHLY enjoying reading your responses...I know I'm a dorky English teacher, but I deeply appreciate the thought and time you are putting into your responses; heck, I'm reading these at 10pm on Friday night!  PLEASE read other people's ideas and feelings about this controversial topic, even if you don't respond; I think we can all benefit from a little mind expansion.

Thank you for being you.  I LOVE this class.

Sakoya's response

After reading Prager's speech i experienced mixed feelings. I did agree with some of his points but mostly i strongly disagreed with them. The point i strongly disagreed with in the speech was when he wanted to eliminate clubs and classes that taught or celebrated ethnic values. Yes, we are all Americans but we should also be able to celebrate and educate others on the culture which we are from freely and students wouldn't be able to do that by eliminating the clubs or classes that "exercised" this. Prager also contradicted himself by saying that the only identity he would care about would be the individual identity. By establishing a dress code Prager isn't allowing the students to express them selves as individuals. Pragers attempt to completely eliminate profanity is ludicrous and seems to be a hard to task to accomplish. Prager can't be everywhere monitoring students vocabulary. I'm not saying that using profanity in a learning environment is okay to do, but as teenagers we really don't think twice about it especially when communicating with friends. Since we are teenagers and should know right from wrong Prager would think that we wouldn't need classes like sex education, but in a time like now where there is a increased rate in teen pregnancies students would need these classes. The fact that prager is trying to change the school to better education is great, but some of his rules are past extreme.

John L. - Prager's Speech

As i read over this there were many more things that I do not agree with the things i can agree with from my own opinion. I do agree with a couple of his idea but not many. I do want to point out that this is my opinion.

I do not agree on a lot of what he is changing. One of many is that he will end all non-american celebration from the school.Myself i think these are the things that bring us together and not tear us apart as i am thinking he is trying to portray here. My opinion on is that many people like me like to embrace other cultures and learn more about them and what they do for a living and how they celebrate traditions around there society. Another thing I did not agree on was that he was going to end clubs that divide the students on what they do. To me this makes me thing that he is going to drop all the clubs. Because if there is more than one club at the school then you are already dividing students on certain things. Another thing i caught as i was reading was that he says "Your clubs will be based on interests and passions", but what he doesn't add is that all the clubs are going to be more about american culture and nothing else. Like me many students do not want a dress code. Even though i wear a collared shirt and blue jeans almost everyday it think students should represent themselves on how they dress. The dropping of self-esteem programs shocked me. Some people like to do these programs to make them feel much better than they already do toward themselves. Ending the classes that could keep students from doing bad things could bring a negative turn to the school. Most the the students parents will come to the school/school board to make the school show these programs to the students to teach the rights and wrongs to certain things. One thing i missed was that he says "If the only extracurricular activities you can imagine being interested in are those based on ethnic, racial, or sexual identity, that means that little outside yourself really interest you." Many people like to learn more about where they came from and how they got to where they were from them and how much it has changed since that time. "If you want classes taught in your native language... this is not your school." As i read this I read this I thought to myself, I don't really know any classes that taught in different languages other than the language classes that are taught at our school. I do think though that if the student doesn't have a good grasp on English that we do give the student notes in there native language

I do agree on some things he does address. One of which would be would be to not care about the the students race. As i read over it one more time i say that it also says "honor" the ethnicity of the student. When i saw this it made me think that he wouldn't care about the other cultures and disregard any traditions or celebrations they might celebrate. He does mention that the only thing a person should be recognized is by your individual identity. I think most students already do this by voices there opinions to other students/friends. I do also like he is trying to make students who are not native to America take and learn English. And that he is making every student know and learn how to decipher the different tools used in the English language. i think this essential because most of the students are going to become future voters and it would be a good idea to learn how to understand more about everyone is saying. The last thing I sort of agree on is the language used during school. I do think the language of the students should be more formal and there should be less obscene language. Myself i do tend to drop a "F bomb" every once in a while but i am trying my best not to say those words. Most people learn these words form there parent s and think it is alright to say them and don't think there are any consequences for saying these words.

There were a couple of things I was confused on. One of these were that they wouldn't teach any language other than English. Prager also said that there would be clubs to learn languages you do not already speak. I thinks this i sorta contradicting what he is saying in the speech. Another one of these things is that he says there will be clubs on based on interest and passions. As i read that i automatically thought maybe students want to learn about other cultures and languages.

I do like how Prager is trying to embrace students with more american culture. he does show that he cares a lot more about America than he does anywhere else. I think he is trying to ASSIMILATE students that come from different cultures. I don't like how he drops everything about other cultures ,which I would keep as many as i could for students to learn more about certain cultures.

T-Time's Response

After reading Prager's speech my first response was that it is a bad idea to eliminate race and ethnicity divisions. However, I have to agree with what he is trying to do. Without separations everyone would be seen as equal and only what you do is what matters. While I do agree with what he is saying, I think that some parts of it are a bit extreme. For example banning the clubs that will cause division. A club is going to cause division because its a group of people that believe or like something and a whole different group of people might hate that same thing. I also have to disagree with the dress code because what you wear has nothing to do with learning and people are still pretty much equal if they're wearing different clothes. While somewhat extreme Prager's plan seems okay to me because it focuses on increasing academic success while there is equality.

I agree with Prager when he says that we harp on certain characteristics such as skin color and the languages we speak. It shouldn't matter. We are way to caught up in that and forget about who people really are. We seem to have a system of stereotypes, where we don't accept people just because of the way they look.

Prager's opinion about education is that it should only be American based things. I agree with this but I don't think its a good idea to completely forget about other cultures. Learning about other cultures and different languages is a good thing because it expands our horizons. Only learning English and American topic/ideas makes someone very one dimensional because they haven't been exposed to anything else. It could be optional to learn about other cultures instead of completely getting rid of it. That way people who wanted to learn more could and others don't have to.

I do not think that it would be possible to teach this way because schools are made up of so many different races and ethnicities that it would be very difficult to change what is taught this much. I feel like if there was a school that was like this no one would go there because like I said before the students there would be very one dimensional. Students from other schools would be more exposed and this would make them more competitive for like college and jobs. I also think that many students would get bored with what was being taught and there wouldn't be much variety.