Shattered Glass

1. According to the movie, there are several processes involved in writing. First, a topic on which to write must be sought. Then, the gathering of information and note-taking. Next, the actual writing. After the work is written, it is reviewed and edited by the editor. The facts are also checked. The writers talk about their work amongst themselves, too. Then the work is revised and turned in for publication.

2. Stephen Glass collected data by (supposedly) going to where the news was happening. He went to a Republican convention to see what the young Republicans did during down time. He also supposedly went to a meeting between a software corporation and the kid accused of hacking it. While he was allegedly where the news was happening, he took notes. He then used these notes to write articles.

3. The ethical issue I see emerging in the movie is that of the falsehood of publications. It seems as though Stephen Glass made up his stories in order to become popular and make money. Perhaps the real news stories were dull, so he made up his own to capture attention. It seems as though he made his stories up because none of the people or places he referred to could be traced (he lied about his sources). Another ethical issue that took place in the movie was the firing of the editor. The editor stood up for his writers when they were required to do a lousy assignment by complaining to the boss, and as a result the boss fired the editor and promoted one of his favorite writers to the editor position. The writer who was promoted was not qualified to be an editor, but the boss put him in that position merely because he liked him.

Shitty First Draft

When Lamott uses the phrase "shitty first draft" she is referring to the first horribly written paper that writers, even professional ones, write. This is the paper on which you write down your initial ideas, even if you write them incoherently. Your ideas do not even necessarily have to go anywhere. The first draft is the one that no one will see. Your writing can even be childish; it doesn't matter for a first draft--you write whatever you want. It can also be way longer than it should be. It is really just a very unedited version of the paper. Sometimes shitty first drafts help you realize what you actually want to write about. After you write your first draft, you clean it up for your final draft. She writes, "Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts . . . A friend of mine says that the first draft is the down draft--you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft-- you fix it up . . . And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth, to see if it's loose or cramped or decayed, or even" (2). I fix up my shitty first drafts by taking the advice that has been written on my papers. For example, I added a paragraph to my literature review and I made corrections to my works cited page. I will continue taking advice from Dr. Seloni and Bee to make my paper as good as I can.

Covering

One thing I cover is the fact that I am not particularly religious. I cover this because I live in a predominately Christian society and I do not want people to think that I am an untrustworthy, evil devil worshiper because I am not religious. This is not the case. I realize that many people probably would not think this way--at least openly--even if they are religious, but there are the radical people too who would. Another thing I cover is my intelligence. I feel like if I speak all intellectual like, people will think I am a nerd or "uncool". This is probably why I hang out with natural science majors, but when I am around other people I sometimes cover. I also used to cover the fact that I am in the middle class. Growing up, I was friends with the kids of doctors and lawyers. In other words, they were rich. I wanted to fit in with them, so I dressed like them and I drove a (really old) BMW in an attempt to cover up my middle class status. Now I don't really care about my class because all my friends went off the ritzy private schools and I go to a college where most of the students are middle class.

MLA Practice

Liza Burby's article from Better Homes and Gardens magazine is about the contrast between the fun kids have at parties and going to school when they are young and the boredome they experience in junior and senior high school. Russ Quaglia says, "The sense of fun and adventure they have in going to school and learning new things begins to wane by third grade when they've learned the basic skills . . . By seventh grade, with their hormones kicking in and their peers being paramount in their lives, their lament is, 'School is so boring!'" (Quoted in Burby 108).

Activity 33

One important even from my childhood was when I decided to start studying music. I wanted to be like my older brother, who played the guitar. So, I first started with guitar lessons when I was seven years old. I found that I really enjoyed reading and performing music. My love for music inspired me to learn how to play the flute in fourth grade. Since then, music has played a big role in my life. When I was in junior and senior high school, music was what I concentrated on. I participated in many honors bands and band festivals. When I was a senior, my high school dream came true--I qualified for the Pennsylvania State Wind Ensemble, where I ranked 5th in the state.

Studying and performing music itself has brought me great joy and a sense of accomplishment, but it also has other advantages. For one, I have made many good friends in band, including my boyfriend. Even my band director became a good friend of mine. I have gotten to work with and meet many different directors and students from across the state, which broadened my musical knowledge and my social spectrum. I have gotten to travel different places and see what they are like. In addition, I have learned that music education is every bit as academic as every other academic area, and that it should not be cut from schools. Last year, I joined IUP's Concert Band. I really liked working with college level musicians and conductors. Unfortunately, I have not been able to fit any ensembles in my schedule lately. I do believe, however, that my musical talent will help me in my professional career as an elementary teacher, since elementary teachers are encouraged to be creative and artistic. My musical studies started at that one vital moment when I asked my mom to sign me up for guitar lessons when I was seven years old.

I-SEARCH

When I was first considering what to research, I thought about social issues that are not very popular. I wanted to write about something that many people don't know about. As I was browsing the web for something to research, I stumbled across something dealing with sex trafficking. I read more about it and what I found was alarming. Since most people don't know it exists in the United States, I wanted to write about it so others could read about it. As an elementary education major, I am interested in the health and well-being of children, so I wanted to write exclusively about juvenile sex trafficking--it narrowed down my topic too. I found a lot of sources published by the government, and some accounts of sex trafficked victims themselves. I found other sources from reliable newspapers and news networks. Some other sources were written by professors who lead sex trafficking awareness centers at their universities. After looking through all my sources, I concluded that sex trafficking in the United States is more of a problem than most people think it is, and something needs to be done about it. First, I tried to contact agencies that deal with sex trafficking victims, including Indiana's Children and Youth Services, but only one agency out of the 13 I contacted were willing to be interviewed by me. Since interviews were then out of the question, I decided I would get better results if I send a questionnaire to IUP students to see how much they know about sex trafficking. Finding participants is the only problem I have had so far, and I have to rewrite my methodology section to fit my new research method. I think I wrote a good literature review so I am proud of that.

Paraphrasing

Oftentimes, students use too many direct quotes while note-taking. Consequently, they use too many of these direct quotations in their final research papers, which exceeds the limit of having 10% of the final paper directly quoted. Therefore, while note-taking, you should make it a goal to limit the amount of word-for-word material you write down (Lester, 1976).

In-Class Blogging

I really don't like anything about my hometown, but one social change I would make is to eradicate racism. One year when I was in high school, Miss Pennsylvania came to my school to sing and talk to us in the high school auditorium. She was African American and all the the redneck racist people acted really rudely toward her. It was so bad that the teachers in my school announced that they were never going to invite another black guest to the school. One reason why so many people in my rural, Western Pennsylvanian hometown are racist is probably because there are only a handful of black people in the town, therefore many people aren't familiar or knowledgeable about black people, so they fear them or pass inaccurate judgments. One thing I would do to tip an anti-racist epidemic would not be to stop inviting black guests into the town, but instead invite more of them so that people will understand them better and become more familiar with them.
I am an education major so I thought the chapter on Sesame Street and Blues Clues was most influential. I think that not enough money is spent on education in this country and that our education system is seriously lacking. An uneducated society is, of course, a bad thing. In addition, I think that many parents do not pay as much attention to their children's education as they should. It is good to have a television show that can effectively teach children, especially if they are not getting an education from any other source.
As mentioned before, I hope to one day teach children. I think the Stickiness Factor is one thing I will consider when teaching. The whole point of teaching is so that students understand and remember information. If I make my lessons sticky, then my students will be more likely to remember them. As demonstrated in the Columbia Records advertising, simply getting the customers physically and actively involved in something makes a message sticky. Therefore, when writing lesson plans, I will come up with ways to get my students actively and physically involved in the lessons so that they remember them.

The Power of Context Discussion Questions

1. Bernie Goetz was a man who boarded the subway in 1984 in Manhattan. When four black youths approached him and asked him for money, he shot them. He claims that one's smile set him off. Some people see Goetz as a hero because the four black men he shot turned out to have criminal records. Others see him as a cold-blooded murderer. I see him as a cold-blooded murderer too. The men were not threatening his life, so he cannot validly claim he shot them in self-defense. In addition, it is not his job to rid the streets of criminals--that's what police officers do. If he were bothered by young men pestering him for money, he should have reported it to someone who could legally do something about it instead of shooting them. He's clearly not right in the head.

2. Contrary to what Malcolm Gladwell says, I believe that people with tangled psychological pathology are more sensitive to their environments than those who are completely sane. He pretty much suggests that people don't have control of themselves in certain situations--he says that environment determines how people behave. He writes, "The Power of Context says that the showdown on the subway between Bernie Goetz and those four youths had very little to do, in the end, with the tangled psychological pathology of Goetz, and very little as well to do with the background and poverty of the four youths who accosted him, and everything to do with the message sent by the graffiti on the walls and the disorder at the turnstiles" (150-151). Shooting four people on the subway is very serious. Maybe people who normally wouldn't break the law jump the turnstiles because everyone else is doing it. That is pretty minor and the environment--the environment in which everyone else is committing some minor crime in the shady subway--probably does effect how people behave to some extent. I am a little skeptical when Gladwell says that Goetz's disturbed pathology has very little to do with the fact that he shot four people on the subway. I think he would have shot those four men had they all been in Burger King, because I think Goetz's mere craziness caused him to shoot those people in cold blood. People do get shot in fast food restaurants and convenience stores. There are people who shoot other people in cold blood who aren't in a shady environment at the time, so I wonder how Gladwell would justify that. I consider myself completely sane and I wouldn't even consider applying for a gun permit. But if for some reason I did have a permit to carry a gun, I wouldn't shoot four people with it if they asked me for money on the grungy subway, because I believe I am sane enough to control myself and prevent myself from doing that. I believe this is true of most people, and that only crazy people would shoot someone in cold blood no matter the situation they are in when it happens. I believe that positive environments are more likely to affect behavior than negative environments because most people want to be happy and good rather than criminal, and they can control themselves in negative situations unlike some people with pathological disorders.

English Undergraduate Conference

I went to Panel 1, "A Research Identity: Four Fictional Females" and Panel 4, "Blackberry Picking", "Fan Fiction Ruined My Life", and "Depictions of the American Woman in Desperate Housewives". For Panel 1, four undergraduate English Education/English majors talked about papers they wrote that dealt with fictional female characters in different pieces of literature. The Color Purple, Beauty and the Beast, The Awakening, and Howl's Moving Castle were the four pieces of literature. Each student talked about why they chose the characters they did and how they went about analyzing them. They walked us through the steps they took to write their papers--first they chose their topics, then they went to the library to find sources, then they wrote their first drafts and had them peer edited, and so on. They also talked about the difficulties they had writing the papers. I liked how they all said that they had fun writing their papers because they wrote them about topics that interested them--they got to choose their own topics and theses. It is hard to write a lengthy paper about something you hate or are not interested in.

For Panel 4, three undergraduate students also talked about papers they had written. One student talked about how women are portrayed in the show Desperate Housewives. This show makes being a housewife seem better than many people think it is. The show makes being a housewife seem like a respectable job, which it is. Another girl talked about how she pretty much became addicted to "Fan Fiction"--writing fan-based fictional stories on a website for viewers and other writers to read. She wrote about pirates, telling us that Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies encouraged her to write. She became so busy with writing Fan Fiction that she did not practice enough for an audition to be accepted into IUP's music education program, so she was not accepted. She then wrote about how Fan Fiction ruined her life. She is an English major now. Another girl wrote about the poem "Blackberry Picking". She described how it is dangerous to give in to temptations. I liked "Fan Fiction Ruined My Life". Her narrative was moderately entertaining and well written.

Tipping Point Chapter 2

In Chapter 2 of The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the three types of people who are responsible for helping to start social epidemics. These three types of people are: connectors, mavens, and salesmen. I thought the most interesting part of his argument dealt with Paul Revere and William Dawes. Most everyone in this country knows who Paul Revere was but I bet hardly anyone, including me, has ever heard of William Dawes. Although Paul Revere and William Dawes had the same intention--to warn people about the British soldiers' plans--Paul Revere made history and William Dawes did not. It turns out that Paul Revere made history because his message spread more readily and progressively than Dawes's did because Paul Revere was a connecter--a social butterfly who knew who to tell the information to. Gladwell writes, "And Dawes was in all likelihood a man with a normal social circle . . ." (58) I like history and I thought it was interesting that there is another side to Paul Revere's story that no one knows about simply because William Dawes did not have the right social skills to start an epidemic. Gladwell refers to David Hackett Fischer's book, Paul Revere's Ride, as part of his research. He uses evidence from this book to show that Dawes's message did not spread very well.

Compare and Contrast Reading

I like to read novels mostly. I have read novels from a variety of different genres, but lately I have been reading classic literature romance novels. Within the past year I read Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, and Jane Eyre. The novels I have read recently are similar to Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point in that they are all stories. Malcolm Gladwell takes his research and turns it into something that is almost like a story to make it more interesting to read. I know that Jane Austen's books are based on observations that she made about life back then just as Malcolm Gladwell's book is based on observations he has made. The classic literature I read does not involve any research, however, but The Tipping Point does. Malcolm Gladwell tries to prove a point whereas a lot of romance novels are read merely for pure enjoyment. I pay more attention to books I have to read for school but when I read books for my own enjoyment I am more lax about it.

Tipping Point Summary: Intro. and Chapter 1

In the introduction and the first chapter of his book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell raises awareness of the tipping point in order for us to realize how social epidemics occur. He says that the tipping point is "[T]hat one dramatic moment in an epidemic when everything can change all at once . . ." (9) Social epidemics work like a sickness, such as the flu, does. He argues that the three epidemic characteristics are "[O]ne, contagiousness; two, the fact that little causes can have big effects; and three, that change happens not gradually but at one dramatic moment . . ." (9) He uses specific examples, such as the Hush Puppies and syphilis epidemics, to demonstrate how epidemics take place and what factors are necessary for them to occur. He says that the three necessary factors are: the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context. He argues that it only takes a few people to start a social epidemic and that the trend must be convincing or catchy in order for it to "stick". He also argues that the circumstances in which a social epidemic start are important. He concludes the chapters with research questions which he will explore in later chapters.

Brainstorming About My Social Action Research Project

I have tons of things I want to research. My mom and I always watch documentaries dealing with social issues--my mom is really big into that kind of stuff. I haven't decided on a specific topic to research in this class yet, but I'm thinking about researching something along the lines of how the United States has an impact on sweatshops in another country. I have to think about it further. I am passionate about equal rights for women and homosexuals, but I have already written research papers on these topics. I want to write about something I have never written about before and that's not really cliche. If I do not do a research paper about sweatshops, I think I will do another topic that deals with people being exploited. The exploitation of people is meaningful to me. I feel sympathy for people who are exploited and I think it is morally wrong. In addition, I am an elementary education major and I enjoy children. The exploitation of children is not uncommon in some countries.
Social action research is important to me because I do not want to be ignorant of the problems that go on in the world. If I know that they exist, I can raise awareness and hopefully people will join together to come up with solutions for the problems. Preventing the exploitation of people will certainly improve the standards of living for many people and make the world a better place.
In order to conduct the research, I hope to use articles from sources such as newspapers and magazines. I do not know anyone who has been exploited, so I won't be able to interview anyone. I bet I can find a documentary I can use though.

Activity Five

The Family in the U.S.A.

• 2.5 kids and a white picket fence
• fast food instead of homemade food
• both parents working
• soccer moms
• hectic schedules
• high divorce rate
• gay couples/ gay couples adopting
• daycare and babysitters
• women beginning to have children in their 30s
• single moms
• extended (and sometimes immediate) family spread all over the country
• holiday gatherings
• more than one car
• family traditions
• pets
• blended families
• food stamps (in this economy)

My ideas come from thinking about my own family as well other families I know. And stereotypes. To expand on these ideas, I could give specific examples or statistics. I would probably need official government websites in order to find statistics. I could do simple interviews in order to give specific examples.

Diversity and Social Changes

To me, diversity means how different people are in terms of race, religion, culture, language, gender, class, and age. Social changes are ideas or practices within a society that undergo reformation. For example, the Civil Rights Movement, which integrated black and white people in schools and other public places, was a social change.

I think diversity is important in my personal life, my profession, and my academic life for several reasons. I love to learn about different cultures. Just yesterday I met a man from Nigeria and it was interesting to hear what he had to say about his life. I know that with familiarity comes acceptance. The more familiar I am with people who are different from me, the more willing I will be to accept them. I believe this is true of everybody. I think it is important to work with different people in groups for school projects for the same reasons: to learn about them and to become familiar with and accepting of their practices and beliefs. As a teacher, I may encounter students from different backgrounds. It is important to me to teach students about different cultures and such so that they too will be accustomed to and accepting of different people. Diversity in the student population can help my students and me learn about people's differences.

Since I am a white person who, for the most part, speaks the same language and shares the same morals with most of the mainly white people around me, the most important social changes I have experienced deal with gender. These social changes, however, happened before my time. I can vote and go to school, and I don't have to settle for being a housewife if I don't want to. Women's Rights movements have created social changes that allow me to be, for the most part, equal to men.

I already mentioned the Civil Rights movement, but it is a good example of promoting diversity through social action. Integrating blacks and women into schools promoted diversity. It is actions such as these--those that bring many different people together--that promote diversity.

On a daily basis I don't experience any issues dealing with diversity. I always experience diversity but I never experience any problems with it. I chat and ride the bus with foreign people. They speak English so there is no language barrier.

I really like to learn about the inequalities that women face in society today and I am actually taking a Women's Studies course this semester that is partly devoted to that. In my Educational Psychology class last year I learned a lot about diversity and social issues that arise among elementary school students. So whatever is left can hopefully be explored in this class. Other diversity and social change topics I'm interested in are: poverty, universal healthcare, immigration, sweatshops, and climate change.

Activity One

As a young child, I sometimes wrote silly books that I also illustrated. When I reached school age, I distinctly remember one activity that my teachers had us do. We used to write stories in which we included our week's vocabulary words. Other than that I do not remember writing extensively. I of course wrote on worksheets in class and for homework, but it was never anything lengthy. In sixth grade, I did a project for which I had to write a research paper about a future career I would consider. This was the first research writing paper I had ever written. In junior high school I never wrote anything really important. Ninth grade was when I actually started writing work that taught me what I know about writing. From ninth through eleventh grades, although I did learn more about writing, I did not practice it very much. It was not until AP English in my senior year of high school that I practiced over and over the fundamentals of writing. My teacher taught us well. Although the class was stressful and I wrote an analysis on a piece of literature almost every week, it all paid off in the end. I passed the AP test, which gave me college credit for English 121. Most of the writing I did for that class was analyses of pieces of literature, however we did write one extensive research paper. I took English 101 last year, which was pretty easy. We watched several movies and wrote analyses about them and that was about it. We also kept a journal in which we wrote reflections about current events or other topics. I did write some lesson plans last semester since I am an education major. Growing up I sometimes wrote poems for fun. I always wrote rhyming ones that were humorous. I once wrote and illustrated a children's book for my junior high health class. It was pretty fun.

For the most part, I find writing easy. I have a hard time writing conclusions and sometimes I write too much and have a hard time pairing things down. I guess I just have a lot to say. I sometimes have trouble writing analyses; I end up summarizing. I am getting better at that though. It has been awhile since I have written an analysis so I'm a little rusty. I think good writing takes a lot of practice and quite frankly I haven't had to practice it very much since my senior year in high school. Hopefully taking this class will get me back into the swing of things.

I have always enjoyed reading novels. When I was really young my parents used to read to me a lot. I read Dr. Seuss books and other elementary books when I was learning to read. When I got older I read Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary books. I then got into the Harry Potter books. I read a lot of junior high level books for my seventh grade reading class. In high school I liked to read the same kind of books I do now; classic literature, Mary Higgins Clark's suspense novels, and some other contemporary novels like The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons. I hope to begin reading Jared Diamond books pretty soon, which aren't exactly novels but I've heard they're really interesting. I hate to read textbooks!

I have attempted to write short stories and novels but they always end up being terrible. Like I said, I used to dabble here and there with poetry but it was only for my own amusement. I have never kept a diary.

I regularly write emails and I text all the time (except when I'm in class of course). I email my advisor all the time because I always have questions. I don't very often write formal emails or letters, but I did have a section on how to write them in a class I took last semester. I really haven't had to write reports or minutes for anything either. I was once the treasurer for Spanish Club in high school but I hardly did anything. I kept track of the money and that was it.

When I was a little kid, my brother (who is almost eight years older than me) and his friends would always make fun of me in a clever way. They would always call me names or say things about me in my presence, but I was too young to know what anything they said about me meant. They would laugh, and I knew they were making fun of me so I would laugh along with them even though I had no idea what they were talking about. Other than that people spoke to me normally, in words I could understand.

I don't speak a foreign language fluently (although sometimes I like to think I do) but I did study Spanish for five years in high school. Sometimes my boyfriend, who also studied Spanish for several years, and I like to set our phones in Spanish and text that way. It's pretty funny. Since I'm not fluent in Spanish I find it easier to say everything in English.

I think essay and assignment writing is similar to other writings in that they give us opportunities to learn different writing styles, new words, and they give us the opportunity to learn and write about a variety of different subjects. I think essay and assignment writings are directed more toward teaching us the nuts and bolts of writing itself. Of course, it depends on what type of essay or assignment writing you're doing. I think other writings leave more room for thought and creativity.

Most of the time I only write because I have to for some class. Usually my only audience is the teacher or professor who reads it, and my mom who proofreads it. I usually write about books I've read or I write research papers. Occasionally I write papers in which I get to express my opinion the entire time. However, most of the time I write opinion-based papers it's after I've read an article or something for which I have to write an opinion-based paper. I like to write papers for which I get to freely rant and rave. But I don't get those opportunities very often.

My name is Sara Durante. I am 20 years old and I am a sophomore Elementary Education major. I went to Brookville Area Junior-Senior High School. I play the flute and have participated in IUP's concert band. I am a member of Sigma Alpha Lambda and Phi Eta Sigma Honor Societies. I enjoy volunteering in the community. I also enjoy studying Spanish. I love animals, especially cats. I have a sister and brother who went to Penn State. My boyfriend Isaac is a freshman at IUP. He studies pre-optometry. We both went to the same high school. Lately I have been spending a lot of time doing crafts. I like to draw and watch movies too.