AF: Week One Vocab -- Box 3 -- Words in Context

Week One Vocab:  idosyncrasy, ubiquitous, ethereal, vapid, dalliance, aphorism, eschew, milieu

Here's where and how they were used:

idiosyncrasy-->idiosyncratic
What the Net diminishes is Johnson's primary kind of knowledge: the ability to know, in depth, a subject for ourselves, to construct within our own minds the rich and idiosyncratic set of connections that give rise to a singular intelligence (Carr, 143/260).

...the action became known as the Million Hoodie March.  It was a catchy and potent meme, one that neatly highlighted the racial double standards in clothing: hoodies are ubiquitous, yet young black men who wear them are regarded as suspicious by police (Thompson, 265/341).

Attention may seem ethereal — a "ghost inside the head," as the developmental psychologist Bruce McCandliss says — but it's a genuine physical state... (Carr, 189/260).

...the status update world...is a parade of narcissism — vapid, inward looking, and idiotic (Thompson, 220/341).

...I did manage to teach myself to use the system's cumbersome word-processing program and even learned a few BASIC commands.  That was just a digital dalliance.  For every hour I passed in [digital worlds], I must have spent two dozen next door [in the library] (Carr, 123/260).

For a commencement address, he dimly recalled a terrific aphorism that he'd pinned to a card above his desk..."Start many fires" (Thompson, 31/341).

Now that the context of reading is again shifting, from the private page to the communal screen, authors will adapt once more. They will...tailor their work to a milieu that...Caleb Crain describes as "groupiness," where people read mainly "for the sake of a feeling of belonging" rather than for personal enlightenment or amusement.  As social concerns override literary ones, writers seem fated to eschew virtuosity and experimentation in favor of a bland but immediately accessible style.  Writing will become a means for recording chatter (Carr, 112/260).


Here is Week Two Vocab, for anyone who wants to get a jump on it.  I would appreciate help in finding these words in the text.  Can anyone help me?  If you contributed the word, look in your notebook and see if you noted how and where the word was used in our readings.  In a pinch, come in at lunch, and I'll put you to work on my iPad, searching for the words in the digital versions.  It's easy, but time consuming.

The words:  cacophony, tautology, compendium, appendages, nihilism, ad hominem, tutelage, piddling.  

AF: Argh! I almost forgot the 16 Elements of Style

Here they are, nice and big and blue (polysyndeton):

1. tone 
2. attitude
3. diction
4. language
5. figurative language
6. figures of speech
7. detail
8. imagery
9. point of view
10. perspective
11. organization
12. narrative structure
13. form
14. syntax
15. sentence structure
16. phrasing

AF: Because OF the assembly

Kids, sorry for the Remind typo.

Anyway, if you miss a test in your AP class due to an assembly, doesn't it make sense to check in with that teacher?

I am disappointed and we have a problem now.  I am out on school business Monday, and on Tuesday, we are talking about AP test stuff and will be debriefing the Postman essay; you should not miss this.  So suddenly we're into Wednesday, and I will be starting a new unit.

Because you play in the band and have AP second period, does that mean you now have almost a WEEK extra to prepare for an end-of-unit test?

This is not fair, and it will not fly.  You have to make up this test on your own time and quickly.  You are making more work for me because I have to rewrite the test.  That is also unfair and it is irritating.  You must make up the test on Tuesday either during lunch, 6th period or after school.  The score goes in the grade book as zero on Wednesday if it is not made up.  That's it.

If those times do not work, offer me a better time, but it has to be before Wednesday.

AF

AF: Speaking of the Take Home Portion

Here it is:

Take Home Portion: due on Tuesday, September 16.  MLA format.

27.  One thing that both Carr and Thompson seem to agree on is “the juggler’s brain” – overall, multitasking does not work.  Even Thompson says, “the problem [with super-efficient multitasking behavior] is that efficiency isn’t always the goal with cognition.  If you want to deeply absorb knowledge, you often want to work inefficiently — lingering and puzzling and letting ideas sink in.”

            Discuss your experiences with multitasking.  Be specific.  Have you made any changes in your work habits as a consequence of reading Carr or Thompson?  What are some work strategies to combat distraction that these technology writers recommend?

28.   Describe your experience of summarizing Carr or Thompson on the Google doc with a small group of your peers.  What opportunities or possibilities does this use of technology suggest to you?

29.    What one thing from the summer homework have I not asked you that you would like to share?  Is there an insight or new knowledge that you have acquired that you have not had the opportunity to discuss?

30.   What technology out on the horizon has you excited or worried?

Take Home Portion- Ms. Fletcher

Regarding the homework assignment/test extension due on Tuesday- how do you want us to write it? I was thinking of just writing the question and a response, but then I read "MLA format". Can I still type up the question and response with the 12 pt. font, double spacing, and correct heading, or do you want some kind of paragraph sequence?
Thanks!

AF: Check this out! Can I send him the blog link?

Books Are Endangered Species

I'm not sure if anyone really goes on here anymore, but when I saw this, I just felt like it's something I should share. Anyway, someone just posted this on Twitter and I don't know who actually said it. I personally prefer physical books over electronic ones so I suppose it's why this particular photo caught my attention.

 

AOTD Discussion Questions

• Postman suggests that all public discourse takes the form of entertainment. Agree/Disagree explain. What is "form"? How it the term used here?

• Why can it be argued that the "news of the day" is a symbolic construction? 

• How does the medium of communication which dominates a particular age influence how we think, how we communicate, and thus, influence our culture?

• What did Marshall McLuhan mean when he said "the medium is the message"?

• What is public discourse?

• In discussing the transition from a print to television based epistemology Postman uses the river as an analogy. How would you explain his use of this analogy?

• In the age of print why did public discourse tend to be characterized by a coherent and orderly arrangement of facts and ideas. What cognitive or intellectual capacities or skills are required of print which may not be required of a visual medium of communication such as film or television?

• What is "now this" world view?

• Why do we live in a "peak-a-boo" world?

• How is our understanding or the news, politics, education, sports shaped or influenced by the biases of television?

• Is television's bias toward the entertainment function of communication reflected in our major institutions i.e. education, politics, news, sports, family?

• What kind of conversations does television permit? What are the intellectual tendencies it encourages? What sort of culture does it produce?

• What are the upside and downsides of a television-based and/or print-based epistemology?

• What does it mean to say that television news is de-contextualized?

• You are the producer of a television news show how would you manage the form and content of the news in order to attract and keep viewers, in order to foster understanding, reflection and insight?

• What is meant by the credibility of a news presenter?

• It is suggested that "on television credibility replaces reality as the decisive test-of truth-telling". What does that mean?

• How does an audiences impression of the person presenting the news Influence their impression of the news?

Statements to Discuss

• Television now controls the flow of public discourse in our country.

• In the Age of Television our information environment is completely different from colonial America.

• Television presents information in a form which renders it simplistic, non-substantive, non-historical, and non-contextual.

• In our culture we are never denied the opportunity to amuse ourselves. The television screen always wants you to remember that the imagery is always available for your amusement and pleasure.

• Cultural life is slowly being redefined as a perpetual round of entertainment.

• Technology has both benefits and costs for a culture.

• New technology has the capacity to alter a culture's news, politics, social relations, commerce,, and religion

• Television serves us quite useful when providing pure entertainment.

• It is a threat to culture when it turns serious modes of discourse e.g. news, education, and religion into forms of entertainment.

• To combat the potential negative influences of television we need to educate people about the way in which a technology functions as a medium of communication and influence the nature, role, and function of information in a culture.

• Only through an awareness of the structure and effects of television, through a demystification of media, will we be able to gain some measure of control over mediums of communication e.g. television, the computer, electronic mail, interactive video and so forth.

• We need to become more media-conscious.

• How can we use education to control our technological mediums of communication?

• American television limits freedom of expression and choice because its only criterion for merit and significance is popularity.