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? 

Week 3: The Writing Process

This week we will begin to discuss the writing process. The cornerstones of college composition is that "writing is a process" and that "writing is revision." In high school you most likely wrote essays and you most likely wrote them in a single sitting. If drafting or revising were required of you, you probably fixed a comma or a run on sentence. College writing will require more of you than just these simple edits. In this class you will be required to provide the following in your final portfolio: a copy of your invention exercises; a polished working draft; peer review; revision activities; an editing log; and a writer's memo. Wednesday's reading from Rules for Writers explains this writing process in much more detail.

In addition to this, we will also be finishing the chapter on schooling and working on how to summarize.

Monday:
No class. Labor Day. Kiss a worker in celebration! Use the extra day to get ahead on your Wednesday reading. Don't save it for Tuesday night.

Wednesday:
Robert Putnam, Our Kids, 158-90
Rules for Writers, 1-17, 19-22, 76-77
Check your COC e-mail account

Friday:
First TLC Workshop/GLA must be completed. 

Wednesday Study Questions:

DIRECTIONS (READ ME): Throughout our term, I will assign you study questions. These questions are due at the beginning of class and must be typed with a proper header. You must be prepared to hand these in at the beginning of class. In other words, answers handwritten during class will not be accepted. Unless I state otherwise, your answers should be about a paragraph long. When dealing with primary texts, you should quote directly from the text using MLA standards. Our discussions in class will stem from your answers to these questions. You need only to write one paragraph in response to these questions and you should formulate it in the "paraburger" format outlined in "How to Write a Successful Paper."

1. According to Rules for Writers, what makes for a good summary? 

2. Explain the writing process in your own words. 

3. Summarize today's reading from Our Kids in a single paragraph. Think about what details to include and which to exclude. What would a reader unfamiliar with the text need to know?  Whatever you do, don't be like this kid.

Week 2: When Schools Work Don't Work

In week two we will continue to develop on those skills and insights that we made last week. We will continue to work on our reading skills and as such we will be using the skills that we discussed last week. We will also use the Double Entry Reflection Journal that we used this week. As we move to slightly more difficulty reading on Wednesday we will even use a Triple Entry Reflection Journal.  

Last week our reading focused on the mindsets that lead to productive learning. This week we will look at ways in which our schools could be better. On Monday, we will discuss Marilyn Elias's "The School-to-Prison Pipeline" and David Leonhardt "The College Dropout Boom." Both Elias and Leonhardt discuss how schools and colleges often don't serve working class and minority students particularly well. Indeed, sometimes they actually help funnel students into the criminal justice system. On Wednesday, we will be following up this discussion with Robert D. Putnam's Our Kids. We will be reading more of Putnam's work later in the semester but his chapter on schooling seemed particularly relevant to our first unit. Putnam is concerned with the very different schooling that affluent and poor students receive in this country. As you read Putnam's work think about what works for wealthy students and what interferes with working class students' education.  Below you will see what you need to do for the week. Make sure to update your planners!  

Monday:
Read:
David Leonhardt, "The College-Drop Out
Marilyn Elias, "The School-to-Prison Pipeline" 
Due:
Double Entry Reflection Journal 

Read:
Robert D. Putnam, Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis, 135-58 
Due:
Triple Entry Reflection Journal 
Note: You must bring in all the assigned texts for purchase to class today. You will earn 10 points of HW credit for doing so.