Week 13: Robert Putnam, Our Kids

 Monday:

Robert D. Putnam, Our Kids, 227-61

Study Questions

Wednesday:

Working Draft of Essay # 3 Due

Bring in three copies of your draft

Study Questions (Monday):
1. According to Putnam, what is to be done about inequality?

2. How does Putnam's solutions to inequality compare to the solutions that Krugman discusses in his review of Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-first Century?

Week 12: Robert Putnam, Our Kids

Monday:
Putnam, Our Kids, 117-34
Double Entry Reflection Journal
Upload your paper to turnitin.com before class. Turn in a hard copy on Monday with the appropriate supporting documents (see the prompt).

Wednesday:
Veterans' Day. No class. 

Week 11: Robert Putnam, Our Kids

Monday:
Putnam, Our Kids, 46-79
Study Questions

Wednesday:
Putnam, Our Kids, 80-117
Study Questions

Study Questions (Monday):
1. According to Putnam, what has led to the differences in family types?

2. What types of evidence does Putnam use to make his argument? If you disagree with his argument, how would you go about challenging it?

Study Questions (Wednesday):
1. How does Putnam's description of parenting styles connect to his earlier discussion of families?

2. How does Putnam's discussion of parenting relate to our earlier discussion of Gladwell?

Week 10: Inequality & the American Dream

This week we will begin our third unit centering on inequality and the American Dream. To do so we will read two texts in conversation with one another, Paul Krugman's "Why We're in a New Gilded Age" and Robert Putnam's Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis. Both Krugman and Putnam are interested in inequality, but Krugman is principally interested in income inequality while Putnam is primarily interested in inequality of opportunity. These distinctions will become clearer as we discuss these works over the next few weeks.

Monday:
Paul Krugman, "Why We're in a New Gilded Age"
Before you read the article look up the following terms in a dictionary: labor, capital, income, wages. 
Triple Entry Reflection Journal 
Working Draft of Essay #2

Wednesday:
Robert Putnam, Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis, 1-45

Friday: 
Third TLC/GLA must be completed. 

Study Question
Study Question (Wednesday):
1. According to Putnam what is the American dream? What are the causes of its decline?