You didn't think I'd let Communications class go without homework, did you?

In Communications class today, we watched a  talk by Jon Ronson about psychopaths. Here it is again, for your viewing pleasure:



Your assignments for the weekend are to:

• Write your in-depth instructions. (Should be done)
• Outline your speech.
• Practice for Tuesday's speeches.
• Make your 3  speeches.
• Write 3 (short) paragraphs about 3 things you learned from the Jon Ronson video. (Please embed the video by putting the following code into your post:
  

  <iframe width="400" height="225" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/xYemnKEKx0c" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

  and then write the paragraphs.

Feudalism and crack: an extra credit opportunity for British Lit

Recently, in British Lit, we've been talking about Feudalism, and how it is similar to a certain copany any of you unch at. (Flash back to an assignment you got a while back involving creating a mnemonic to help you remember King—Lord—Vassal—Knight—Serf; remember?) Within all the other stuff we talked about that day, we also drew a comparison to Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner's "" (one of my favorite books ever) that talked about how drug dealers in inner-city Chicago run a feudal system nowadays, as well. In case you were interested, here's a 20-minute talk where one of the authors gives the basic rundown of the story:



If you're interested in some extra points, I might be willing to give some if you wrote, say, a 3¶ reflection over this video, connecting it to what you see from studying Feudalism and/or anything else (besides "TEACH-AH SO GOOD-AH!"). Just post it to your blog and watch the points roll in.

Welcome Penguin commemorates you return / arrival at TAPA.

I hate him.

So... you're back. Or here for the first time. What's up?

Here's the plan for our first day(s) of class:

• Going over the syllabus. British Lit here, English II here, and Comm here.
• Talking about required apps. Right here.
• Confirm everyone's emails are set up. Aqui.
• Check on calendars. Right this way...
• Setting up blogs. Uh huh.
• Remind about Dropbox (and add it to QuickOffice). Almost.
• Talking about TOAST. Yezzir.
• Learn about disagreeing. 

What the heck is feminism?

Near the end of chapter 5 of The Pearl, John Steinbeck reveals a key difference between men and women through Juana's thoughts about her husband, Kino. Reading this paragraph inspired me to think on the topic of feminism a bit, and really, was a great excuse to post a  TED  video.

Courtney Martin: Reinventing feminism | Video on TED.com


The assignment is to write a two paragraph writeup about The Pearl, chapter 5. Paragraph 1 should be a short summary of the chapter, while Paragraph 2 should be focused on how this video, the paragraph from the story, our in-class discussion, and your beliefs mix and match up. This is a deep response and shouldn't be something I would just read from a superficial level, so put work into this!