Homeboy Industries

Listen to this TedTalk by Father Greg Boyle. What is his argument? What rhetorical strategies does he use to make his argument. Are those strategies effective? Also, reflect on how this argument, and how the pieces we have read about gender shape the way you think about people who are different than you. Do not limit yourself in talking strictly about gender, but in any way that you are different from others.

List of things we read recently:
Women's Brains
Professions for Women
I Want a Wife
Walk on By
Barbie Doll
Those Winter Days
My Papa's Waltz

Rhetorical Analysis

Reagan's Address after Challenger Tragedy

Read this awesome speech. What rhetorical strategies does Reagan employ to convey his feeling about the tragedy that caught the country so off guard? Complete a rhetorical analysis of the speech.

Choose One

 To what extent should ethical considerations influence our decision making process?

On Compassion

A Hanging

Lies We Tell Kids

Reference at least one of these pieces.
or
Write about a time when you were faced with an ethical dilemma/decision and what factors you considered when making that decision. What were the consequences?

Creativity?

Authors Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman published “The Creativity Crisis” in Newsweek.com in July 2010. They reported that the Torrance Test, a test of creativity that has been administered to millions of people worldwide in 50 languages, indicates that the public’s “creativity quotient” has steadily crept downward since 1990. In their article, Bronson and Merryman cite the claim of Professor Kyung Hee Kim at the College of William and Mary: “It’s very clear, and the decrease is very significant.” Kim reports that it is the scores of younger children in America—from kindergarten through sixth grade—for whom the decline is “most serious.” Bronson and Merryman state that “[t]he potential consequences are sweeping. The necessity of human ingenuity is undisputed. A recent IBM poll of 1,500 CEOs identified creativity as the No. 1 ‘leadership competency’ of the future. Yet it’s not just about sustaining our nation’s economic growth. All around us are matters of national and international importance that are crying out for creative solutions, from saving the Gulf of Mexico to bringing peace to Afghanistan to delivering health care. Such solutions emerge from a healthy marketplace of ideas, sustained by a populace constantly contributing original ideas and receptive to the ideas of others.” One possible approach to this reputed decline in creativity is to explicitly teach creative thinking in school. Write to your school board explaining what you mean by creativity and arguing for or against the creation of a class in creativity.

What are we celebrating this Sunday?

Respond to the question in the title. No need to comment on anyone's answer, unless they are totally off base.