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.