Guest Speaker: Richard Sterling

Here's a brief bio:

Richard Sterling is the executive director of the National Writing Project. Formerly he was a faculty member at Lehman College, where he was also director and founder of the Institute for Literacy Studies, a research unit of CUNY. He also directed and founded the New York City Writing Project and the New York City Mathematics Project. In 1992 he received a grant from the DeWitt Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund to develop a national project of teacher research groups in 12 cities across the U.S. As national director of this Urban Sites Network, he worked with teachers and faculty from all regions of the country to develop a body of practitioner-based research documenting educational practice. Richard Sterling is working to extend the work of the Urban Sites project to both rural and urban settings and to develop ways to close the gap between university researchers in education and practitioners in the field. His publication highlights include co-authoring ”The National Writing Project: Scaling up and Scaling Down,’ in Expanding the Reach of Reform: Perspectives from Leaders in the Scale-Up of Educational Reform (RAND, 2004). He is currently working on projects for new teachers under a grant from the Stone Foundation and on issues of adolescent literacy under a grant from the Carnegie Corporation. Since 2003, Mr. Sterling has chaired the advisory group to the College Board's National Commission on Writing in America's Families, Schools, and Colleges.

See you on Monday,
Carlton

Music Homework

Hi everyone,

I hope everything is going well and that you enjoyed the topic of movies and TV. I thought it was interesting to see how our notions and values of love, family, gender roles, violence and moral relativism can be shaped through this medium as well as desensitized with much exposure to visual media.

Next week is a double feature. We'll spend the first half covering Music. So for homework, look at any top list of most popular music (BillBoard, ITunes, etc.). Pick any song in the top 5 and look up the lyrics. Bring a copy of the lyrics as well as a paragraph analysis on what values the lyrics convey.

After we cover Music, we'll have time to work on group projects, so bring any material or ideas you've gathered!

Have a good week,
Carlton

Movies and TV Homework

Hey guys,

We apologize for the delay in posting homework. Next week we will be discussing the effects of movies and television. To prepare, please write one page explaining how a particular movie or television show portrays college life and how accurate (or inaccurate) this portrayal is based on your own college experiences. If you have extra room, you can also discuss to what extent these shows/movies are affected by actual college life, and to what extent actual college life is influenced by these shows/movies. Have fun with this assignment, and see you next week!

Laura

Video Game Week

Hello Golden Bears,

As you may have heard, next class will cover the issue of video games and its effects on minds. Next week's homework will take the form of an interview. As usual, it need only be one page double-spaced.

As we saw in the video clip in class today, one of the marketing researches conducted interviews with people he considered to belong to cults. What he found was that many of these people, regardless of what cult they belonged to, gave similar reasons for their membership.

Although video game players are not necessarily cult members (although your assignment may argue otherwise), interview someone you know who plays a lot of video games for your assignment. The purpose of the interview is to uncover why someone will be as committed to playing video games as they are. Although I do not have any set questions you must ask, some suggested questions can be

• What is it about video games that is so satisfying to the player?
• What motivations do video game players have for playing games for long hours?
• Have they ever missed important events or commitments to play video games?

Also, pay close attention to the kind of language used by the video game player's responses. Is there any sort of value system that his/her language reflects (ie., as we saw in the video clip in class, much of the cult members' language had to do with inclusion and being part of a greater community. One interviewee even said, "It is all about being part of the Tribe.")

Once again, have fun and be creative with the questions. Try to get at the heart of what motivates avid video game players.

Yours,

David

Advertising Homework

Hi everyone,

We hope you all had a fun time today doing "media-free activities." That "surround sound stereo speakers" was pretty amazing, huh?

So homework for next week:

1. Project prospectus (one per group)

2. Advertising homework: find a print or online advertisement with a male or female on it (no write-up).


That's it, and have a good week!
Carlton