Category: Uncategorized (Page 1 of 2)

The best way to talk about social change is to make sure multiple viewpoints are included and arguing why yours is the best. When doing so it strengthens your argument by showing the weakness in what others have to say. By pointing out the negatives of another viewpoint; you are making the reader stray away from that and start to support your argument more. A crucial part to this is making sure it is clear in your writing who is saying what and which viewpoint you support. Also, it is good to bring in a mixture of writing styles to argument because it will intrigue the reader. By mixing academic writing with more common writing it will make it easier for the reader to understand and pay attention. When you use academic writing you introduce more terms and more of your argument, but by including the common language you can expand on your argument in a way that it is easier for the reader to understand. When you write in a way they understand; they are more likely to keep reading and to agree more with what your saying. This gives you enough to mostly keep the reader intrigued enough to understand your points and why they should side with you.

McKibbon’s approach plays a lot into Duhigg’s three part process for change. Duhigg’s three part process of social change include strong ties, weak ties, and new habits. McKibbon touches into strong ties with the mention of getting close friends to sign a letter. And they join the big rebellion against the pipeline in which people get arrested. He touches in with the weak ties by talking about how people come together to share their ideas on change, but there is not one specific leader to the movement. A bunch of different very important people come together with their ideas and work together to create a change rather than one person being in control and ruling the movement towards change. Duhigg’s idea of new habits is also connected to McKibbon’s thought because he says instead of having a top-heavy energy system or big plants that are our source of power; that we could use solar panels and arrays instead. He replaces the current method of energy with a solution that is better for the environment and climate. McKibbon’s ideas actually play in very well to Duhigg’s ideas towards social change. All three parts of his process are obtained through out the article when he explains the process of making a change in the world’s climate.

McKibbon and Kingsolver are both creating change by trying to inform people of the trouble that is going on in our world and environment. The main reason why enough isn’t being done about the struggles and troubles in our environment is that people don’t know enough about it. So many people don’t know the extremity of what is truly going on. The best way to create change is to fill people in; let them know the truth about what is going on. Both of these authors have written books about the issues in the environment. McKibbon went more of the informative route using numbers and statistics to get the point across to his readers. The use of numbers and statistics can be useful because by people seeing what those big numbers mean for the environment can scare people. A lot of people don’t know its that big of an issue until they see those big numbers. Kingsolver went with the fiction route by using characters and a plot to explain what is going on. Her strategy is more “manipulative” as she says. The reader forms a relationship with the characters in the story. The characters then bring up these environmental issues and that is how the reader becomes informed and learns about the issues in the environment. The key to creating change is informing people of the true issue at hand and addressing the seriousness of it and the consequences if nothing is done to resolve them.

Brianna Fitzgerald

ENG 110

Professor Amy Amoroso

10/17/17

Why are there so many stereotypes in today's society?

Today’s society is full of stereotypes which are created through people’s immediate thoughts of something and generalizes it. Stereotypes often are found to be unfitting and untrue when it comes to reality. People form biased thoughts of one another based off of stereotypes and can often lead to misinterpretations of people we do not know. It is claimed that people can all fit into one stereotype type or another. Do they though? People are unique in so many ways making it hard to fit everyone into a stereotype that fits them correctly. Two people can share many traits, but no two people are exactly alike, therefore making it hard to categorize everyone. Stereotypes are so common in society , but once you look more into it and try to make the connections between people and the stereotypes you can see that they hold more false assumptions than true ones. Stereotypes can hold true to some people, but stereotypes can also offend people. For example, cheerleaders are stereotyped to be pretty, dumb, popular girls. This can be insulting to them because that is not held true to all cheerleaders. Same goes for football players. They are portrayed to be big, dumb, meathead guys. Each person is different just because they share one similar interest doesn’t automatically characterize them all the same.

Brianna Fitzgerald

ENG 110

Professor Amy Amoroso

10/12/17

Why Should We Care About Social Change?

            Social Change is the way we improve things in society. We should care about this because it is the society that we live in and can someway affect us. Changes in our society don’t just happen easily. They take time, effort, and a lot of work. People come together with one another, whether they are close or just pass by each other occasionally. Even strangers come together and form new bonds. A movement starts by someone wanting to make a change and sharing their idea. The idea is then spread through weak and strong ties including and attract more people to help make a change. I’m sure you’ve heard of a movement to change something whether it be from a friend or even something you hear around or from a teacher. You can be included in these movements. You are a part of society so you have the choice to participate in the change if you wish to. You can choose to join their side, you could just a counter side, you could even just ignore the issue if it doesn’t deem important to you. The importance in caring about social change is that this is your society it could easily effect you so you should be aware of what is going on.

Brianna Fitzgerald
 ENG 110
 Professor Amy Amoroso
 10/9/17
 In order to make a change in society, social habits and involvement play a big part. In the article, “From Civil Rights to Megachurches” Duhigg states, “ And at the core of his churches growth and his success is a fundamental belief in the power of social habits”. This quote shows that even back in time of the civil rights movement social ties and interactions played a huge part in making a change. People had to come together and talk to one another to make any change possible because no one person is able to do that alone. This idea relates a lot to what Hallward said about social cohesion in “How Telling Our Silenced Stories Can Change the World” which was, “It’s a tool that helps people drop into the most heartfelt story they can tell, because when we speak of what is most person, it’s the most universal. That is the way that other people can connect and it brings the story, where people seem so different, so they can find their way to each other, and it brings it out finally into the larger culture”. (hallward 8:40) This quote shows that by talking about things and relating to what another has said can form ties between society and actually allow for a change that will improve our society.

Most of this part of the reading was fairly familiar to me. We learned about this situation going all the way back to elementary school. We always learned about Martin Luther King Jr. around his birthday and every year we would watch the same movie about his life and what he did. Rosa Parks was also very commonly talked about in school around the same time we talked about Martin Luther King Jr. I had always heard about the situation of Parks on the bus and people boycotting the bus, but I hadn’t heard about the court case or how King was reluctant to help at first. Duhigg states, “It grows because of the habits of a community, and the weak ties that hold neighborhoods and clans together” (Duhigg 87) It referring to movements and revolutions. This shows true as he relates back and touches on it multiple times throughout the piece. King wasn’t on board until someone he had a tie with was on board, and when the community was all on board to make a change and help go against the segregation laws against blacks. Duhigg touches on examples of this quote many times throughout the writing. Many people only wanted to help with the revolution because they either had ties with Parks, King or someone else involved in the movement. This shows it is true that people want to help and feel pressured to help when they have a tie with someone who is helping or when they saw how many people were involved and didn’t want to stick out from the others.

Brianna Fitzgerald

Professor Amy Amoroso

ENG 110

9/20/17

Our society today has a vision of the perfect girl, why is that? She is envisioned as a thin beautiful girl with long legs and a big butt. She has perfectly clear skin and long flowy hair. This isn’t a stereotype for just females though. Boys are expected to have buff big arms with perfectly chiseled abs, and luscious hair. Why is it that we hold our society to such high standards? If members of our society differ from this example of “normal” we feel bad about ourselves and begin to feel shameful of our appearance. People will go to extreme measures to try and get themselves to look like these stereotypical norms, whether it be eating disorders, unhealthy amount of working out or even surgical procedures. Boys and girls all over the world struggle with eating disorders because they feel shame in the way they look. Our society today is a big culprit of body shaming which leads to people thinking and acting this way. This stereotype is spread by ads and commercials and shopping catalogs and the perfect thing or toned models featured in their ads. Yes, I understand that’s advertising however, not everyone looks like the models included in those magazines. By sharing true depictions of what people of our society truly look like and share our stories with body shaming we can improve the amount of people who struggle with these issues

Brianna Fitzgerald

Professor Amy Amoroso

ENG 110

9/14/17

In my opinion, yes. Social cohesion is the tendency of people to talk openly with one another and form trusted relationships. Anne Hallward creates her radio talk to make it safer and more comfortable for the people sharing their stories. With the radio, there is no visual exposer, therefore, people are less able to recognize people while telling their stories and it is overall more comfortable for the person sharing because it is a more private place to share. Also, with her radio show, she is sharing with more schools that it would be more helpful to have a GSTA and an antidiscrimination policy. These both protect the students in their school environment and is creating a safe place for them to talk about how they feel and give them a place to feel like they fit in.  It is important for everyone to have a place where they fit and can talk freely without feeling judged. A GSTA is the perfect place to do that and has already helped so many kids who were struggling to feel better and find a place to feel ok. She has not only created a safe place to talk as her radio show, but also influences schools to create a safe place to talk so I believe she is very much promoting social cohesion in multiple ways.

Brianna Fitzgerald

Professor Amy Amoroso

ENG 110

9/13/2017

                I fully agree with the points that Hallward makes in her Ted Talk. We should be talking more, and just because some topics are more touching or hard to talk about doesn’t mean we should ignore them. I really admire how Hallward dedicated her life to talking about and bringing up topics that people don’t want to talk about and to be that person that makes it ok to talk about anything that you have been keeping inside and feel ashamed about. In Anne Hallward’s Ted Talk, “How telling our Silenced Stories can Change the World”, Hallward states, “…[w]hen we tell these kinds of stories, it begins to change the culture.” (Hallward 6:50) Once people start to tell their stories, it makes other people feel better about their stories and want to share their struggle. When people share their stories, it helps others relate and come to terms with the shame they’ve been feeling and help them realize that there was no reason to feel ashamed after all. Everyone all over go through so many struggles and just because we aren’t talking about them doesn’t mean you should feel ashamed. There isn’t a major thing in my life that I can remember that I have been keeping secret and have felt shame about, however, I can relate to this quote on a lesser note. In all my classes I struggle with sharing my ideas and asking questions, but once other people in the class begin to share their stories and ideas I begin to feel better about sharing and working up the courage to raise my hand. Though my situation is far less extreme than anything Hallward brought up in her Ted Talk, almost every person who listens to this will be able to relate to it in some way, whether it is a personal experience of their own or even something that reminds them of a friend. Which is why I find Hallward’s talk and what she is doing with her life very admiring and motivating to want to help other people.