Hi Everyone,
For today's class, please work on completing Assignment #10 if you haven't already turned it in (today is the final day for submissions), or continue to work on Assignment #11 from last class. Scroll down to the Agenda for 4/28 for the specifics on Assignment #11. Have a great weekend! Mr. Parise
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Hi Everyone,
I hope you all had a good vacation. Even though the weather wasn't great, I hope you are feeling recharged and ready to finish out the year strongly! To get you back into the swing of things, here is today's assignment: Assignment #11 1. Choose any two of the articles below: A. Online learning will be hard for kids whose schools close – and the digital divide will make it even harder for some of them B. The Dangers of Covering Your Face While Black C. Will Americans wear masks to prevent coronavirus spread? Politics, history, race and crime factor into tough decision
D. 'It's like New Year's every day' as lockdowns drive increase in booze and pot sales E. Fatherhood is more visible than ever. But will dads working from home actually step up more?
F. Isolation, disruption of routine hard on children and adolescents 2. For each article write a 1/2 page to one page response/reaction that covers the following: A. Summarize the main point/take-away from the article (both can be in the same document). B. What was the most interesting, shocking, upsetting, or surprising thing that you learned, or something that think everyone should know? C. What is something that the article helped you learn about American society, more broadly? D. To what extent does the article relate to your life and personal experiences? E. What questions are you left with after reading the article? 3. Submit to Google Classroom Assignment #11 Hi Everyone,
Today you are going to continue to look at the inequalities of the COVID-19 pandemic in America, specifically the racial inequalities in infection rates and fatalities. You have today's class and class on Thursday 4/16 to continue working on the assignment below, which will be also be due on Thursday (again, you always have up to a week after the "deadline" to turn in for full credit). Assignment #10 1. Watch/read/listen to the following: A. Read: Black Americans Face Alarming Rates of Coronavirus Infection in Some States B. Read: Fauci says the coronavirus is 'shining a bright light' on 'unacceptable' health disparities for African Americans and Watch: Anthony Fauci compares race disparities of coronavirus to AIDS epidemic C. Read or Listen: read - Why the Coronavirus Is Hitting Black Americans Hardest; or listen - to the podcast version here D. Look at this "tweet storm" (read the whole thread from Nikole Hannah-Jones) E. Watch: Health and healthcare disparities in the US 2. Find and read at least two more articles of your own choosing on the topic. Make sure you choose resources that you believe to be from accurate news sources. Use this Media Bias chart to check your sources. 3. After reading/viewing the resources above, choose one of the following tasks to demonstrate your understanding and perspective on the questions that follow. 1. Create a:
A. What have you learned about the statistical connection between race and COVID-19 infection and death rates. Provide some statistics (at least 3-5) to demonstrate the connection. And in which parts of the country in particular are these connections most evident. B. What are some the reasons researchers, doctors, and sociologists believe that black Americans might be more likely to contract and die from COVID-19? Are these causes biological or social (meaning is it something genetic/biological about black Americans, or is it a result of social conditions - and if so what are those social conditions?). Would sociologists have predicted this? Are these findings about the impact of race on COVID infections/deaths in line with general health and healthcare disparities in the US? C. What is your reaction to all of this? Had you really considered the impact that institutional racism (meaning inequality/discrimination in access to political power, voting, education, employment, housing, wealth, access to healthcare, etc.) has on health. What stood out to you the most in everything you watched and read about the disproportionate impact that COVID-19 is having on Black Americans? What does it say about race in America to understand that black Americans are at such greater risk if COVID infection and death. How does it help you to understand the concept of racial privilege and/or disadvantage. D. Finally, what other questions do you have as a result of all of this? What does all of this make you wonder about? 3. Include a Works Cited page at the end of your project to cite all sources used in your final product (you do not need to cite the tweet storm). It should be structured as follows: Parise Style Citations:
Today's Assignment:
Assignment #9 1. Read once through the article Location Data Says It All: Staying at Home During Coronavirus Is a Luxury completely without stopping. 2. Then go back to the beginning and answer the following questions: A. After reading the first four paragraphs, what does the author establish as the main point/argument of the article. B. Look at the interactive graph that follows the first four paragraphs. What is this graph about (look closely at the lines above and below the center line with dates)? Whose movement is represented by the blue lines, and whose movement is represented by orange lines? And what important different between those two groups does the graph show? C. What does Dr. Ashwin Vasan mean when he says “People want to talk about this virus as an equal opportunity pathogen, but it’s really not." (according to the article which types of Americans are at greater risk of contracting the virus, and why). D. According to Adie Tomer, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who has studied the essential work force. “Covid-19 is exposing a lot of the structural disadvantages that low-income people face." What are some of those disadvantages? E. Look at the set of graphs charting the change in movement in cities with higher income disparity (the difference in wealth between the wealthiest and poorest 10%), and the set for those cities with less income disparity. What do you notice as a major difference between those two sets of cities? (what do you notice about the blue and orange lines in the higher disparity versus lower disparity cities - and what does this mean?) F. Look at the chart titled "When groups started to decrease their movement by half." For each of the following cities when did the wealthiest 10% cut their average movement in half and when did the poorest 10% cut their average movement in half:
G. Reread the last two paragraphs of the article (copied below), and provide your reaction? Lots of people are talking about the impact this pandemic is having on those who have lost their jobs -- and the economic toll this will take on those people and the country as a whole. But do you think that as a nation/society we are giving enough attention/credit to those with relatively low-paying jobs that are deemed "essential." The people who must continue to go to work, interact with people, and put their lives at risk. Are we really thinking about the sacrifices that these people are making so that society can still function. Yes, most are probably happy to still have a job and have the ability to continue to earn a living (because they need to!), but they must put themselves at much more risk of contracting the virus compared to those who are able to work from home (and who are usually making more money while doing so). How must it feel to be required to go to work, and put yourself at risk, when you know that people with much higher paying jobs are much more likely to be able to work from home, and be much less likely to get sick? "Ms. Benjamin, the home care worker, said she was proud to be essential but would feel better with assurances that she could be taken care of if she fell ill. 'I just really want people to understand that it’s hard right now to go to work and live for other people,' she said. 'I want to make sure that they know we’re all in this together. Everyone is scared, but the world is in this together.'" Hi Everyone,
It's movie day! Assignment #8: Watch one of the documentaries listed below. After watching the film complete a one to two page (double spaced) review of the film. You review should be structured as follows: Paragraph 1: A general summary of the film. Paragraph 2: Discuss the most surprising, shocking, or maddening aspect of the film. What inspired you? Or angered you? Paragraph 3: Explain something that you learned about American society from the film that you hadn't known before and think that everyone should know. Turn on your sociological perspective! Paragraph 4: What further questions do you have after watching the film? What do you wonder about? What would you like to know? Upload your completed film review to eBackpack Assignment #8 - Documentary Film Review Film Choices: College Inc. The business of higher education is booming. It’s a $400 billion industry fueled by taxpayer money. But what are students getting out of the deal? Critics say a worthless degree and a mountain of debt. Investors insist they’re innovators, widening access to education. FRONTLINE follows the money to uncover how Wall Street and a new breed of for-profit universities are transforming the way we think about college in America. Right to Fail Thousands of New Yorkers with severe mental illnesses won the chance to live independently in supported housing, following a 2014 federal court order. FRONTLINE and ProPublica investigate what’s happened to people moved from adult homes into apartments and find more than two dozen cases in which the system failed, sometimes with deadly consequences. Documenting Hate: New American Nazis In the wake of the deadly anti-Semitic attack at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, FRONTLINE and ProPublica present a new investigation into white supremacist groups in America – in particular, a neo-Nazi group, Atomwaffen Division, that has actively recruited inside the U.S. military. Continuing FRONTLINE and ProPublica’s reporting on violent white supremacists in the U.S. (which has helped lead to multiple arrests), this joint investigation shows the group’s terrorist objectives and how it gained strength after the 2017 Charlottesville rally. Separated: Children at the Border The inside story of what happened to immigrant children separated from their parents at the border. The film explores the impact of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy, and how both Trump and Obama dealt with minors at the border. Weinstein FRONTLINE investigates how Harvey Weinstein allegedly sexually harassed and abused dozens of women over four decades. With allegations going back to Weinstein’s early years, the film examines the elaborate ways he and those around him tried to silence his accusers. Poor Kids Through the stories of three families told over the course of half a decade, FRONTLINE explores what poverty means to children in America. Generation Like Thanks to social media, today’s teens are able to directly interact with their culture — artists, celebrities, movies, brands, and even one another — in ways never before possible. But is that real empowerment? Or do marketers still hold the upper hand? In Generation Like, author and FRONTLINE correspondent Douglas Rushkoff (The Merchants of Cool, The Persuaders) explores how the perennial teen quest for identity and connection has migrated to social media — and exposes the game of cat-and-mouse that corporations are playing with these young consumers. Do kids think they’re being used? Do they care? Or does the perceived chance to be the next big star make it all worth it? |
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