832 Matching Annotations
  1. Dec 2023
    1. I hold then, that there never has yet existed a wealthy and civilized society in which one portion of the community did not, in point of fact, live on the labor of the other.

      Powerful and odious

    2. There is and always has been in an advanced stage of wealth and civilization, a conflict between labor and capital.

      Wow, he comes out and says it

  2. Nov 2023
    1. Fascism is a patriarchal cult of the leader, who promises national restoration in the face of supposed humiliation by a treacherous and power-hungry global elite, who have encouraged minorities to destabilize the social order as part of their plan to dominate the “true nation,” and fold them into a global world government. The fascist leader is the father of his nation, in a very real sense like the father in a traditional patriarchal family. He mobilizes the masses by reminding them of what they supposedly have lost, and who it is that is responsible for that loss – the figures who control democracy itself, the elite; Nazi ideology is a species of fascism in which this global elite are Jews.

      Use as lens

  3. Sep 2023
    1. With the market sewn up by a group of cozy monopolists, better alternatives don't pop up and lure us away, and if they do, the monopolists just buy them out and integrate them into your enshittification strategies, like when Mark Zuckerberg noticed a mass exodus of Facebook users who were switching to Instagram, and so he bought Instagram. As Zuck says, "It is better to buy than to compete."

      This captures a central dilemma, and a new phase of digital life. Monopoly plus lock in plus protocols stopping interoperability plus network effects plus ability of big players to kill or buy competitors, we are left with few choices and rapidly deteriorating services.

    2. The temptation to enshittify is magnified by the blocks on interoperability: when Twitter bans interoperable clients, nerfs its APIs, and periodically terrorizes its users by suspending them for including their Mastodon handles in their bios, it makes it harder to leave Twitter, and thus increases the amount of enshittification users can be force-fed without risking their departure.

      This is a crucial point - control of our own data, and the freedom to move it, is essential. And we need tech giants to adhere to standards that let us move from one platform to another.

    3. Bellheads worked for big telcos, and they believed that all the value of the network rightly belonged to the carrier.

      Yes, they even claimed they owned your your cellphone number, which massively raised switching costs - if you dared switch providers you lost all your contacts - a smaller version of the Facebook lock in dilemma.

    4. Tiktok won't just starve performers of the "free" attention by depreferencing them in the algorithm, it will actively punish them by failing to deliver their videos to the users who subscribed to them. After all, every time Tiktok shows you a video you asked to see, it loses a chance to show you a video it wants you to see, because your attention is a giant teddy-bear it can give away to a performer it is wooing.

      Enshittification part 3

    5. as a way of driving publications into supplying fulltext feeds inside Facebook's walled garden. This made publications truly dependent on Facebook – their readers no longer visited the publications' websites,

      I suspect this is an important shift in how people consume news and information, especially given that so many people get their news from Facebook. It radically decontextualizes texts, and erodes understanding of rhetorical situations.

    6. Then, it started to cram your feed full of posts from accounts you didn't follow.

      I don't use Facebook, so can someone who does say if this account seems accurate? It resonates with my experience on other platforms like Twitter and TikTok.

    7. Search Amazon for "cat beds"

      What do you make of this claim - what is he saying, and what are the implications? Why is this a problem, and how much of a problem is it? How does this relate to other points made by Doctorow?

    8. Then, they die

      This is the part I'm not so sure about. I like the "life cycle" metaphor, but are companies like Google and Facebook destined to die? That seems more a question of politics than biological inevitability. With the AI hype-machine-tsunami bearing down on us, and both companies about to drive it and cash in on it, and access more venture capital, and thus buy more politicians and pay for more lobbyists and think tanks and regulations and political influence, must they in fact die?

    9. I call this enshittification,

      What can we note about the language Doctorow uses, his style of writing, and the way this relates to his persuasive strategies?

    10. so Amazon has driven prices at every retailer.

      What do you make of this claim - what is he saying, and what are the implications? How does this relate to other points made by Doctorow - how does it reinforce or connect with them?

    1. Text-to-image AI is already being used in applications from visual communication giant Adobe Inc. and chipmaker Nvidia Corp., and is starting to power the ads we watch.

      Why it matters - AI generated images are already integrated into all kinds of products we use, and used to create political advertising.

  4. Aug 2023
  5. Jun 2022
    1. But my concern tonight is the following: Why is it that here in the United States we have such difficultyeven imagining a different sort of society from the one whose dysfunctions and inequalities trouble usso? We appear to have lost the capacity to question the present, much less offer alternatives to it. Why isit so beyond us to conceive of a different set of arrangements to our common advantage?Our shortcoming—forgive the academic jargon—is discursive. We simply do not know how to talk aboutthese things.

      claim

  6. May 2022
    1. You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter'snight a traveler.

      The first sentence immediately takes you into and out of the novel. Weird huh?

    1. ou are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter'snight a traveler.

      tell me if you see this.

    1. You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter'snight a travele

      Talk about self referential - in the first sentence the author describes the readers experience of reading the first sentence of his novel. REPLY TO THIS COMMENT IF YOU SET UP HYPOTHESIS!

  7. Mar 2021
    1. “When it comes to the vaccine, the scientific achievement for which he demands credit, [Trump] and the former first lady got their vaccines secretly before they left office in January,” she declared. “Didn’t tell anyone. Didn’t signal to his supporters that it was OK even as the death toll climbed, skyrocketed.”
  8. Feb 2021
    1. al media. Tufecki argues that the previous tools we used as "defenses against institutional antibodies," meaning defense against anything or anyone that undermines democracy and/or free speech, no longer work in the age of social media, (Tufec
  9. Nov 2020
    1. I've never seen a writing program have an outcome like: Students will reflect upon and articulate how confident as writers they are, and how meaningful their writing practices and products are to them today. Imagine if most of your students left your classroom or program feeling confident about themselves as writers. Is that a meaningful and ethical outcome? I think, it can be. I know, more students would leave more interested and excited about language. Isn't that significant?
  10. Aug 2020
    1. a qualifier by stating, “This is not to suggest that guns should be banned, or that law abiding citizens should be unable to purchase firearms, or that the 2nd amendment should not be adhered to. It is merely to suggest that background checks, waiting periods, red flag laws, licensing and training should be more strictly regulated and enforced… schools [should] be allowed to take measures to increase armed security” (6).

      Good point

    1. With less than four percent of the global population, the U.S. soon accounted for more than a fifth of COVID deaths. The percentage of American victims of the disease who died was six times the global average. Achieving the world’s highest rate of morbidity and mortality provoked not shame, but only further lies, scapegoating, and boasts of miracle cures as dubious as the claims of a carnival barker, a grifter on the make.

      Horrifying but pretty accurate

  11. Jul 2020
    1. nation’s schools are more racially segregated than before the Brown v. Board decision, with African American and Latino/a children more likely than white and Asian children to attend under-resourced, high-poverty schools (UCLA Civil Rights project).

      That is true, crucial, and enormously depressing

  12. Jun 2020
    1. ED has an identity

      In these opening remarks we see a kind of "humility topos" as S mentions the honor of speaking at TED, but perhaps also aims a slight dig when saying he usually spends his time in different places - low income communities and projects and jails (he will return later to this contrast between the flash of TED and tech obsessives, and issues such as racial justice). He says he can see see TED has an identity, and identity is important. This introduces a key theme.

  13. Apr 2020
    1. Eventually many people admit, “I don’t know, I can’t explain it, I just know it’s wrong.”

      Isn't part of the discomfort people feel due to the fact that a) it asks them to imagine something implausible, and b) they may be involing a kind of Kantianism - what if everone did this?

    2. We don’t show contempt to the man who fails to change the batteries in his smoke alarms or takes his family on a driving vacation, both of which multiply the risk they will die in an accident. Driving a gas-guzzling Hummer is reprehensible, but driving a gas-guzzling old Volvo is not; eating a Big Mac is unconscionable, but not imported cheese or crème brûlée. The reason for these double standards is obvious: people tend to align their moralization with their own lifestyles

      Take the larger point that people tend to "align their moralization with their own lifestyles." But I find these examples a bit implausible. Eating a Big Mac is unconscionable? Maybe in the rarified circles Pinker moves in. Besides, the liberal virtue is signaled by driving an electric car, not a Volvo. But again, this framing seems absurd. Is that the only or main reason people buy electric cars, to "virtue signal"?

    3. They are more likely to think that other people ought to be vegetarians, and are more likely to imbue their dietary habits with other virtues, like believing that meat avoidance makes people less aggressive and bestial.

      Examples seem a bit neat and simplistic? Perhaps designed to provoke the woke NYT audience a bit. Same with smoking and hotels eg. I think it's more that some % of customers have issues such as asthma, allergies etc., and others don't like smelly rooms, whether cigarette smoke, vape odors, mold odors, etc. I'm sure there are cultural and psychological issues at play also.

      Also makes me wonder about the morality "switch." I can see the morality of eating meat from many angles, and once more, it's less about shaming some individual, or feeling virtuous, than it is thinking about the systems we participate in and the effects they have, and how these can be steered in better directions.

    4. hose who commit immoral acts deserve to be punished.

      Maybe. One question I have is that this assumes we think of morality largely in terms of individual beliefs or actions. But when I think of the really big problems that I feel carry the most weight, I find myself confronting structures and systems of power, blocks of economic interest, networks of institutions and influence, ideologies etc. For example, I think it's quite immoral that people die in the US because they can't afford basic things like insulin, due to a messed up healthcare system. I can point to executives from big Pharma, and think they are in some sense immoral. But really they are players in a system whose morality I find fault with.

    5. hat can be turned on and off like a switch,

      I wonder about this very dualistic "on/off" framework. Isn't moral reasoning integrated into many other kinds of thinking and feeling? Can't it exist on more of a spectrum? Can't I imagine the moral dimensions of an issue from many angles, or try to consider it from several different frameworks, perhaps with different moral assumptions?

      This again sounds like Chomskyan linguistics - there are "switches" in the "organ" or language and so we automatically process language in certain ways. We have no choice. But not sure the analogy works, or perhaps leads him to oversimplify.

    6. impulse to avoid harm, which gives trolley ponderers the willies when they consider throwing a man off a bridge, can also be found in rhesus monkeys, who go hungry rather than pull a chain that delivers food to them and a shock to another monkey.

      The examples of a moral sense in primates is fascinating, and to my mind, is one of the strongest arguments for the idea that there may be strong moral pre-dispositions in humans that are in some broad sense connected to evolutionary processes (themselves not purel natural). The work of Franz de Waal is perhaps most impressive in this regard. He gives many other examples - chimps that will "go on strike" if partnered with another chimp to do work that requires two, yet given vastly unequal reward (eg cucumber versus grape. Chimps hate cucumbers but will eat if very hungry, while grapes are their favorite).

      De Waal also shows pretty convincingly that there are different cultures within spacies, and these can vary a lot.

    7. he starry heavens above and the moral law within.

      Fascinating move. Studying morality is like studying astronomy, and just as grand and noble a venture. Again, naturalization at work.

    8. . Morality is not just any old topic in psychology but close to our conception of the meaning of life.

      Quite the centrality move. His topic is one of the most important topics in existence, with dramatic implications for how we approach the meaning of life.

    9. human moral sense turns out to be an organ of considerable complexity,

      Morality is "an organ." He says the same thing about language, (I think takes that phrase from Chomsky.) It's not that such an approach is necessarily entirely wrong, but seems too narrow, and subtly pushes the reader (in this case the general reader of NYT Magazine) to accept a whole set of assumptions before the game has really begun.

    10. moral illusions

      interesting move - compares "moral illusions" to "visual illusions." But many of the "illusions" he goes on to describe are really thought experiments cooked up by philosophers, and some of these seem problematic. Even his "illusion" example, of the tendency to lionize Mother Teresa over Gates and Borlaug, seems to rest more on ignorance than illusion. Most people don't rate Borlaug because they've never heard of Borlaug. I'm familiar with writers such as Hitchens on Mother Teresa (esp. his rather uncharitable The Missionary Postion) so it never occurred to me she should top the list. I suppose one could ask why our culture values Gates and M. Teresa so much, but that's a far more complex question. By comparing moral illusions and visual illusions, he smuggles in the idea that morality is a "sense" that can be tricked. Again - there is interesting research suggesting that our emotions and moral intuitions may have evolutionary roots, and they influence each other. But that's a more nuanced argument.

    11. a new field is using illusions to unmask a sixth sense, the moral sense. Moral intuitions are being drawn out of people in the lab, on Web sites and in brain scanners

      Classic Pinker. This new field is "unmasking" the sixth sense, our moral sense. He could say evo psych researchers are making arguments, and one way of thinking about morality is that it shares some similarities with physical senses, although the analogy is obviously partial at best. "Real" academics "unmask," revealing the pre-existing truth of an underlying human nature that we can identify through brain scans and lab work. The way he argues is very similar to Chomsly (as linguist) and echoes Chomskyan theory.

      Pinker describes a fascinating, rich new area of research. But he moves quickly to naturalize key terms and claims, trying to move a lot outside argument before he begins. If we accept this initial framing (or don't notice it) then much of the rest follows.

    1. hey are more likely to think that other people ought to be vegetarians, and are more likely to imbue their dietary habits with other virtues, like believing that meat avoidance makes people less aggressive and bestial.

      Examples seem a bit neat and simplistic? Perhaps designed to provoke the woke NYT audience a bit. Same with smoking and hotels eg. I think it's more that some % of customers have issues such as asthma, allergies etc., and others don't like smelly rooms, whether cigarette smoke, vape odors, mold odors, etc. I'm sure there are cultural and psychological issues at play also.

    2. e starry heavens above and the moral law within

      Fascinating move. Studying morality is like studying astronomy, and is just as grand and noble a venture. Again, naturalization at work. Not to say he's wrong, but that his rhetoric - the way he frames, names, defines and persuades, subtly asks that we think of morality largely as biological and natural. But other ways of thinking about morality certainly exist, and this way of talking tends to eliminate them from consideration.

    3. t’s not hard to see why the moral reputations of this trio should be so out of line with the good they have done

      Pinker presents the examples of Gates, Borlaug and Mother Teresa to illustrate one of his main points - that we are vulnerable to "moral illusions," and these illusions are like tricks that can be played on our physical senses.

      This is an important theme, and it is also tied to another claim he will explore, namely that we can through reflection and training and education, learn to arrive at less "automatic," reactive forms of moral reasoning, and arrive at moral conclusions that are better, smarter, and more accurate (plus we'll need this, he suggests, to tackle problems like climate change).

    4. The Moral Instinct,”

      The title captures much of his project - Pinker wants us to think of morality as an "instinct," something largely unconscious, biological, and part of our human nature. It is part of our evolutionary shaping.

      This is likely to intrigue and surprise many readers, as this isn't how we normally think of morality.

    5. hen they consider throwing a man off a bridge, can also be found in rhesus monkeys, who go hungry rather than pull a chain that delivers food to them and a shock to another monkey

      The examples of a moral sense in primates is fascinating, and to my mind, is one of the strongest arguments for the idea that there may be strong moral pre-dispositions in humans that are in some broad sense connected to evolutionary processes (themselves not purely natural). The work of Franz de Waal is perhaps most impressive in this regard. He gives many other examples - chimps that will "go on strike" if partnered with another chimp to do work that requires two chimps to collaborate, yet are given vastly unequal reward (eg cucumber versus grape. Chimps hate cucumbers but will eat if very hungry, while grapes are their favorite).

      De Waal also shows pretty convincingly that there are different cultures within spacies, and these can vary a lot.

    6. Morality is not just any old topic in psychology but close to our conception of the meaning of lif

      Quite the "centrality move." His topic is one of the most important topics in existence, with dramatic implications for how we approach the meaning of life.

    7. moral sense turns out to be an organ of considerable complexit

      Morality is "an organ." He says the same thing about language, (I think takes that phrase from Chomsky.) It's not that such an approach is necessarily entirely wrong, but seems too narrow, and subtly pushes the reader (in this case the general reader of NYT Magazine) to accept a whole set of assumptions before the game has really begun.

    8. a new field is using illusions to unmask a sixth sense, the moral sense. Moral intuitions are being drawn out of people in the lab, onWeb sites and in brain scanners, and are being explained with tools from game theory, neuroscience and evolutionary biology

      Pinker writes that this new field is "unmasking" the sixth sense, aka our moral sense. He could say evo psych researchers are making "arguments," and one way of thinking about morality is that it shares some similarities with physical senses, although the analogy is obviously partial at best. "Real" academics "unmask," revealing the pre-existing truth of an underlying human nature that we can identify through brain scans and lab work. The way he argues is very similar to Chomsly (as linguist) and echoes Chomskyan theory.

      Pinker describes a fascinating, rich new area of research. But he moves quickly to "naturalize" key terms and claims, trying to move a lot outside argument before he begins. If we accept this initial framing (or don't notice it) then much of the rest follows.

    9. moral illusions

      Interesting rhetorical move - compares "moral illusions" to "visual illusions." But many of the "illusions" he goes on to describe are really thought experiments cooked up by philosophers, and some of these seem problematic. Even his "illusion" example, of the tendency to lionize Mother Teresa over Gates and Borlaug, seems to rest more on ignorance than illusion. Most people don't rate Borlaug because they've never heard of Borlaug. I'm familiar with writers such as Hitchens on Mother Teresa (esp. his rather uncharitable The Missionary Postion) so it never occurred to me she should top the list. I suppose one could ask why our culture values Gates and M. Teresa so much, but that's a far more complex question. By comparing moral illusions and visual illusions, he advances the idea that morality is a "sense" that can be tricked. Again - there is interesting research suggesting that our emotions and moral intuitions may have evolutionary roots, and they influence each other. But that's a more nuanced argument.

    1. He has survived other challenges to his presidency — including the Russia investigation and impeachment — by fiercely contesting the facts arrayed against him and trying to control the public’s understanding of events with streams of falsehoods.

      He could even accomplish this during hurricane Maria, in Puerto Rico. He went there and claimed only a few dozen had died, bullying local officials, who desperately needed aid, to agree, then contested all the other numbers. But in fact it was over 3000, on par with Katrina and 9-11. But because it was far enough away, and the real numbers trickled in slowly, he could get away with the false numbers.

  14. Mar 2020
    1. re all needed in this project, this fight, this work, these labors.

      I guess one question worth asking is whether this speech creates allies and calls to action everyone? Again, not to use white fragility as excuse, but given how all this is framed, will this help cause action and movement, or acrimony and misumderstanding?

    2. It is to say that problematizing their own Whiteness should reveal this kind of painful paradox: that good work, done by conscientious White people, can still kill people of color by codifying White language supremacy.

      But I don't see where they have codified white supremacy (unless this happens by default whenever anyone white uses language) or how they have killed people of color.

    3. All of these decisions are made by judging others by our own standards, and inevitably finding others wanting,deficient

      This seems far too simple - these problems can't be boiled down to the decision to judge "others by our own standards." School shootings, the sudden irruptions of anti immigrant and anti globalization sentiments aren't one thing and aren't explicable in terms of intent or individual judgment.

      It seems as if he is gathering together a vast set of horrible things and reducing them to something very simple.

    4. White language supremacy as the status quo in our classrooms and society

      I wonder if one can reframe that. Standards exist - they always do. And standards sometimes are established in ways that reflect the backgrounds and norms of the dominant group, and can intentionally or unintentionally exclude and oppress. But they don't always, and we still need standards of some kind. So in India, there is a battle over whether Hindi can be the one dominant standard, and others should be forced to use it (street signs used to be in both English and Hindi, and with the rise of fascist, far right Hindu nationalism, are now only in Hindi). A person speaking English in northern India might be resisting dominant standards, while that same person giving a lecture in the US could be imposing white language supremacy?

      Also - isn't part of our job as writing teachers to provide access to dominant discourses, and to the discourses of professional and academic life. These are in some way hegemonic disocurses, but one can teach these in a variety of ways, including through a critical lens. But as Delpit suggests in Other People's Children, teachers can aim to provide "access to the codes of power of "Standard" English,"

      She argues many teachers fail to reveal the rules of the culture of power since they are "frequently least aware of the linguistic and cultural power they hold. As a result, these teachers impede the academic and social success of "other people's children" who need to survive in a society that demands fluency in "Standard" English for economic and political success.

      Inoue seems to ignore these inds of fraught, complex debates. Or more generously, his purpose is outrage and action and a call to arms. And in this I think he is partially successful.

    5. How does it feel to be the problem?

      If I can try to answer honestly, I guess I've always assumed white people as participants in white racism ARE part of "the problem" in some significant sense. So that part doesn't make me feel uncomfortable. What makes me confused and unsettled is the way this frames issues and constructs problems..

    6. Revolution.

      Moving to labor based assessment, or interrogating language practices in composition will start a revolution? This is where I get a bit vexed. I'm mostly on board with what I think is the main purpose here, but I find myself frustrated when I try to correlate the language and the actual objectives. Revolution? How about we survive the pandemic and demand everyone have healthcare, childcare, affordable high quality public education, a liveable min wage, serious efforts to deal with climate change (a green new deal) and similar programs that would radically change everyone's everyday lives? If that's what he means by revolution, OK. But if it he just means changing assessment practices and teaching language ideologies? Then I'm unimpressed.

    7. to stop saying shit about injustice while doing jack shitabout it.

      Seems a reasonable critique of much academic posturing. The funniest example is perhaps the star radical academics at places like Yale who talk about Marxism and post structuralism and many other isms, but ended up being on the wrong end of labor disputes several times when grad students or food workers asked for things like health insurance or better conditions or a union.

    8. SO VIDYA’S ENGLISH IS WHITE? SOUTHERN INDIANS ENGLISH IS WHITE?

      Ignore - not in original. I think what I was getting at was that the idea of "white language" is far too simple. My wife is from southern India. Hindi is the national language but English is spoken by many in the south as a kind of resistance (it's complicated). I've seen Indian men swear at her because they wanted/expected her to speak Hindi (she knows just a few words) and would speak English to them in reply. But recent Hindu nationalists hate English (it is the language of the (white) colonizer, as well as the language of resistance for some in the South). She also speaks a very proper, British English. So is she speaking "white" English? Does "white" English change when spoken by a brown person who is being attacked by another brown person who wishes to impose their nativist linguistic preferences and silence her? It all seems a bit simplistic and one-dimensional.

    9. o say American whiteness.

      I looked up reviews of Takaki (looks fascinating). But his argument seems to be that American notions of a republic presupposed a form of subjecthood and citizenship that was in some sense white. Or it took a set of values relating to citizenship (disciplined, productive, virtuous, self-possessed, etc.) that were associated with whiteness. I guess one hears this today in things like Sarah Palins talk of "real America" and "real Americans," and Trump supporters "I want my country back." But Inoue's intepretation of this seems very grim. The polity is forever defined by whiteness and white supremacy? Can't citizenship and what it means to be a republic change? By 2050 (if we haven't destroyed the planet) we will be marjority minority.

    10. Just because our students of color are linguistically rich does not mean that by default those riches can be exchanged in your classroom economies if the economy is not set up to accept those riches.

      As he dials his argument back a little here, and clarifies it, I'm more on board. Understanding and celebrating the diversity of language practices our students have, and relativizing powerful standards makes sense.

      But...while these linguistic riches should be celebrated, don't we also have to be attentive to the fact that they may not purchase what the students want outside the classroom, or even in other disciplines? If part of the job of first year writing is to help students gain transferable competencies and practices that will help them in their other classes, don't we need to teach certain "standard" or "powerful" forms?

    11. I want to help you in the right way, and that takes time for me to know. It will take time, so please, come back tomorrow, and maybe then I’ll be ready to share my food.”

      This seems like a strange version of the conservative idea of "moral hazard," and the "teach a man to fish" rather than "giving him a fish" idea. What is odd is that I doubt very few in the audience hold such views.

      What is the "hunger" of non-white students? Is it one thing? Do my Brahmin students whose parents came from Delhi, and are secretly quite racist and identify wiith upper class white culture, and my Nigerian-American student whose parents are doctors, and my Afghan refugees, and my first gen working class African American student who wants to be an engineer - do they all have the same "hunger"? Do they all inhabit English the same way? Do they all want me to sit with them and listen and ask if they are suffering and whether I read their languaging properly?

    12. I’m saying, we must change the way power moves through White racial biases, through standards of English that make White language supremacy. We must stop justifying White standards of writing as a necessary evil. Evil in any form is never necessary.

      I'm potentially on board with some of this, but I'm desperate for a more concrete grounding and explanation of what he means. I need white standards of English explained and illustrated (the NCTE Frameworks doc seems a bad example - he never explains how it is racist, and seems to dither over whether it even is). And do students really not need to master the discourses of power and professionalism? Really? Have you asked them? How about you take a poll, or conduct a wide ranging data analysis. "They only need it because we keep teaching it." So if we stop teaching argument analysis and academic discourse, they won't need it in all their other classes? If we stop teaching technical communication, they won't need it? I'm confused. Doesn't much of this depend on the kind of writing class your are teaching? He seems to lump all writing classes together. I can imagine a writing class where the focus is language ideologies and the ways in which racist discourses operate, and which critically examines standards, and examines how all kinds of excluded language forms work and are important. But must all classes do this, regardless of institutional context or the goals of students?

    13. that White racial habitus,

      There is just one? As a "Pakeha" from New Zealand, a term non-native people use in NZ from those who are not Maori, and which has been adopted by most white people as an identity, and as someone who feels pretty scially awkward and habitualy out of sync with the habitus, I find this...weird.

    14. “Do I understand you enough? Am I making you suffer? Please help me to read your languaging properly.”

      This seems a useful component of teaching. But it also seems a rather therapeutic approach to teaching. Aren't there other dimensions? Don't teachers also know something students don't, and isn't part of their job to help students learn this? Is it only writing teachers who should do this - should chemistry teachers, and history teachers also take this stance - or only composition teachers, and if so, why?

    15. The presence of their White bodies perpetuates historical racial injustices. Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

      I worry I am missing something important here. But the implication seems to be that since the mere presence of white bodies perpetuates racism, white bodies must be removed, or we must have a huge adjustment in the balance of white and non-white bodies? The latter is of course something we hope for, and has been happening in the field, but is that all it takes - proportional representation and the racism and killing stops? I am confused and concerned.

    16. g of problems aboutmy own existential writing assessment situation, a continual articulating of paradoxes in my judgement that complicate how I make judgements, how I read and make meaning of the symbols my students give me and that I give back to them,

      This all sounds like good pedagogy.

    17. Freire’s Pedagogy of The Oppressed

      James Paul Gee has a sympathetic but also critical take on Freirean pedagogy that points out the ways in which it is ultimately coercive and does in fact privilege a particular set of principles and conclusions. That doesn't make it bad - but Inoue's account accepts the idealized version of Freirean pedagogy.

    18. If you use a single standard to grade your students’ languaging, you engage in racism. You actively promote White language supremacy, which is the handmaiden to White bias in the world, the kind that kills Black men on the streets by the hands of the police through profiling and good ol’ fashion prejudice.

      I'm pretty agnostic on assessment standards. In fact I'd say I'm pretty skeptical and wish we could do away with them, finding other frameworks and incentive systems, as exists at some univerisities (UCSC, Reed, etc.). But how on earth can one connect this to black men being shot in the streets? There is much more to a teacher than a rubrc. How much does the teacher care about the student, reach out to her, make herself available, etc etc.? What if the teacher has a really flexible, sophisticated, labor based assessment system, but is really hostile and unsupportive?

    19. t takes conditions of White language supremacyto make our judgements about logic, clarity, organization, and conventions a hand grenade, with the pin pulled.

      This is harsh judgment - I shudder to think that is what I do. It's a chillng metaphor. It "feels" false, but perhaps I am inhabiting the kind of denial and defensiveness he disgnoses.

    20. White and stand in front of students, as many White teachers have before you, judging, assessing, grading, professing on the same kinds of language standards, standards that came from your group of people

      This I find hard to parse. White bodies perpetuate white language supremacy by being white, and white bodies automatically perpetuate racism, just as "black bodies attract unwarranted police aggression by being black."

    21. but through your body in a place like this or in your classrooms, despite your better intentions. Let me repeat that to compassionately urge you to sit in some discomfort: White people can perpetuate White supremacy by being present. You can perpetuate White language supremacy through the presence of your bodies in places like this

      This is really interesting and provocative, but I'm not sure how to interpret it as I don't think I quite understand what he is saying here. I recognize this language from chapter 4 of Yancey's Backlash. He talks of "racially saturated white spaces," and gives accounts of what it is like to feel as if these spaces were designed for white people, and the ways white people feel at home in them. I guess I can see this in relation to all the names, pictures, statues, etc., on places like campuses, although as a foreigner so much of this doesn't feel quite as Yancey describes even though I'm white. I think there is something in this, although again, I wonder if this oversimplifies the ways in which such dynamics operate.

      At the same time, Inoue seems to take this point in a stranger direction. White languge supremacy is perpetuated through the presence of the white bodies in the audience. So is the answer...removal?

    22. If our goal is a more socially just world, we don’t need more good people. We need good changes, good structures, good work that makes good changes, structures, and people

      Amen

    23. But finding fault ain’t the point. C

      Now that does seem insincere. Finding fault seems a pretty huge, explicit, central part of this entire piece. And there's not necessarily anything wrong with finding fault. But why say that isn't the point?

    24. You are with me. You too are speaking, have spoken.

      Inspiring, but perhaps also a bit unsettling to the academics of color who don't feel they fully want to be spoken for in this way.

    25. hey’ve been paid off too many times to even recognize the bribes.Many even think they earned the brides they take.

      One of the more provocative claims. This certainly set off a lively discusion on the WPA listerv.

    26. Who has been allowed to name people, places, things,the processes of writing and revision, theories of rhetoric? Who has named your sky? Who has named your writing, my friends? Who has named your pedagogies? Who has named your ways of judging language, my colleagues of color?

      This seems a call to action (as much of the first section of the paper is) that is certainly worth considering.

    27. about mostly economics, laziness, or bad values

      This seems a bit straw man-ish, and to conflate many things in an odd way.

      I don't know any academics who argue racist problems are mostly about economics, or laziness, or bad values. This seems strange. No (or very few serious) academics would argue laziness or bad values cause social problems. Some would argue there is a complex relationship between racist ideologies and economic policies.

      This seems to conflate a strain of conservative thinking (poor people of color are poor because they make bad moral choices, or are lazy) with certain popular leftist arguments that class and economics drive many racial problems. But one is left wondering who makes these arguments and why they are lumped in this way.

    28. et still find that our students of color struggle and fai

      This may be a pet peeve, but I feel many in the the discipline fail to think sociologically about these kinds of questions, and focus far too much on what is right in front of their noses - language, assessment, feedback, etc. Consider, for example, Ira Kaznelson's When Affirmative Action Was White, and Rothstein's The Color of Law. They describe how the huge, transformative public policy programs of the New Deal and Fair Deal, as well as areas like housing policy, lending, zoning, etc. gave enormous, staggering, transformative boosts to white Americans, while systematically excluding people of color. The largest middle class the world has known was created through a slew of programs that people of color were excluded from, and a whole set of policies, esp, housing and lending and zoning and penal, made sure to engrave racism in our schools, housing, urban geographies, prisons, and in wealth accumulation (most family wealth is generated via the transfer of housing value from one generation to the next). Obviously many other forms of racism were important, but this huge framework of laws, regulations, and policies both reflected racism, and were absolutely crucial in reproducing it, with affects the have an enormous impact today.

      Yes racism is overdetermined. I'm just skeptical that how teachers assess or give feedback to students in first year university writing classes matters much. I say that (I hope) not defensively or out of a sense of guilt or to deflect blame. I just think we could change everything about how we give feedback and assess writing (we could even follow Inoue's "labor based" model of assessment) and this would change...nothing.

      Furthermore, from my perspective, the great strains and stresses on universities that I see doing the most to undermine education come largely from the neoliberalization of higher ed - the relentless defunding of public ed and shifting of costs to students, in order to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest; casualization of labor, deprofessionalization, adjunctification, the explosion of class sizes to save costs, etc etc. Those things drive pedagogy in many ways. Most of our writing teachers teach 5 sections of 30 students, and sometimes other sections at community college. They work 70-80 hours a week. Their feedback and assessment practices are driven largely by these material considerations. In such situations poor students, first gen students, students of color, may suffer most as they don't have all the support and familiarity with university that other students do. These kinds of issues seem largely ignored by Inoue, although I imagine he must be aware of them.

    29. internally jailed

      I can't quite figure out what this means. Beyond that, the text seems to establish a set of equivalences that seem hard to square, even if they are meant figuratively. There is the literal caging of people of color, esp. African Americans, driven by racism. Assessing and giving feedback to student writing is also racist, part of a racism that imprisons people of color disproportionately. In this we figuratively imprison our (colored only?) students and ourselves (all teachers?)

    30. Yes, the ways we judge language form some of the steel bars around our students and ourselves --we too maintain White supremacy,

      This seems at the heart of his argument, that the way academics assess, and give feedback to students of color, maintain white supremacy. I think it is in some sense possible to varying degrees, but seems to oversimplify, or ignore, mountains of research, and huge debates on this very topic. There is, for example, evidence that under-served students, and poor students of color, benefit most from first year writing classes, where the conventions of academic discourse are decoded, and where, in their first year, they get to meet a teacher who knows them by name, is a small class where they know other students, etc. That is, there is a lot of research to suggest that these classes are where students are able to find a sense of belonging, connection, support, etc.

    31. brothers and sisters of color,

      Intrigued by the "us" created here. On the one hand it's everyone of color vs. everyone who is white. This clarifies in some sense what he will go on to say. But it also lumps together different minorities in ways that sweep away a lot of very difficult issues. For examine, at SDSU there are far, far more faculty from India and China in the Humanities (most foreign born) than there are African Americans. These people tend to come from middle and upper middle class backgrounds, and from environments where access to high quality education is relatively available. My sense is this is also true in the field of rhet/comp.

      My kids are an example of that demographic, and my eldest daughter seems to want to go into academia. My sense is that she has very, very little in common with the US prison population, and although she may at some point experience some kinds of racism, it's odd to imagine she is oppressed, or ever will be, in anything like the ways particular groups of people of color are in the US. I hesistate to speak for the faculty of color with backgrounds from India, Pakistan, China, Japan, etc., but my guess is most would feel somewhat similar.

      Inoue, as he says, is white and Japanese, and I also wonder how much he has in common with the racialized population of US inmates.

    32. but the fact that I must ask for your patience to do this is evidence of the White supremacy that even we, conscientious teachers of writing, are saturated in.

      Again, I'm not sure how to read this, but one (perhaps ungenerous) interpretation is that this seems a bit coercive, and to once more smuggle in assumptions rather than arguing for them. I don't know who is demanding he "must" ask for patience. If he hadn't asked, or had just explained why he wanted to do this, would anyone have objected, or even been that surprised? Furthermore, white supremacy certainly exists. It exists in many, many aspects of our lives, and has profound affects. But the sequencing of audience address in keynote speeches at 4C's seems a place where white supremacy does not have all that much purchase. Perhaps the term "white supremacy" itself is part of the problem? I'm not sure of the rhetorical benefit of lumping everything from his felt need to ask for patience, to micro-aggressions, to slavery into one category. This is not at all to trivialize his concerns, or try to evade his argument, but to suggest we need to keep our eyes on the big drivers and manifestations of white supremacy.

    33. I know you are good people. And because I love you, I will be honest with you, and it may hurt. But I promise you, it hurts not because I’ve done something wrong, but because I’m exposing your racial wounds.

      This is a really interesting set of sentences. It echoes the intro to George Yancey's Backlash: What Happens When We Talk Honestly About Racism in America. Yancey's book emerged from his "Dear White America" columns for the NYT, and the ferocious, staggering racism with which these columns were received by some white Americans. The book asks white readers to think honestly and deeply about impulses to deny, ignore, or get angry when racism is discussed. But I have several reactions to Inoue's framing. 1) It could be a way of asking white readers to do the kind of careful introspection Yancey describes.2) it could be a way of framing things that constructs in advance objections or challenges as "hurt" and resentment at hearing Inoue's "honesty," his revealing of racial wounds. It also frames things in terms of love/hate, honesty/dishonesty, wounding/healing. In this scenario, if I disagree with Inoue am I necessarily accusing him of doing something "wrong," or refusing racial healing? This second framing seems to move things away from the space of argument and debate and into some other space. Perhaps that space is valuable in some ways. But this framing carried into the later online discussions of Inoue's text, and was used by some to dismiss critique as refusal to acknowledge racial injury or refusal to acknowledge the reality if racism in the U.S.

    34. How Do We Language So People Stop Killing Each Other, Or What Do We Do About White Language Supremacy?

      The title seems to suggest an equivalency - white language supremacy is implicated in people killing each other. But like much of the speech, there seems a potential tension between the performative, the provocative, and the declarative. It is certainly provocative - white language supremacy is announced as the focus. It is to a large extent presupposed, and that is one of the frustrations of the piece. But perhaps that misreads his purpose, which may be to provoke and perform and agitate for a serious conversation around vital matters?

  15. Sep 2019
    1. ndfulness.(Indeed,thequestionthatfloatseternallyatthetopofTwitter’sWebsite—“Whatareyoudoing?”—cancometoseemexistentiallyfreighted.Whatareyoudoing?)Havinganaudiencecanmaketheself-reflectionevenmoreacute,since,asmyintervieweesnoted,they’retryingtodescribetheiractivitiesinawaythatisnotonlyaccuratebutalsointerestingtoothers:thestatusupdateasaliteraryform

      This is really interesting but very complex. It requires far more unpacking.

    2. “Ifanything,it’sidentity-constrainingnow,”Tufekcitoldme.“Youcan’tplaywithyouridentityifyouraudienceisalwayscheckinguponyou.IhadastudentwhopostedthatshewasdownloadingsomePearlJam,andsomeonewroteonherwall,‘Oh,right,ha-ha—Iknowyou,andyou’renotintothat.’”Shelaughed.“Youknowthatoldcartoon?‘OntheInternet,nobodyknowsyou’readog’?OntheInternettoday,everybodyknowsyou’readog!Ifyoudon’twantpeopletoknowyou’readog,you’dbetterstayawayfromakeyboard

      This is one of the most powerful ways the new era of social media differs from past eras (early internet, days of America online, web 2.0, etc)

    3. Sopartiessimplybeganbanningallcameraphonesinalast-ditchattempttopreserveprivacy.

      Problem 5: surveillance

    4. Forthem,participationisn’toptional.Ifyoudon’tdivein,otherpeoplewilldefinewhoyouare.

      Problem 4: this is a rather terrifying statement. Many end up feeling forced to participate to avoid being defined by others.

    5. Shebeganfuriouslydetaggingthepictures—removinghername,sotheywouldn’tshowupinasearchanymore.

      Potential downside 3: loss of control of your images and words.

    6. “Thesetechnologiesallowyoutobemuchmorebroadlyfriendly,butyoujustspreadyourselfmuchmorethinlyovermanymorepeople.”

      Potential downside number 2: can detract from real relationships and spread people too thin to invest in connections that matter.

    7. Theycanobserveyou,butit’snotthesameasknowingyou.”

      Potential downside number 1: false sense of connection that can waste emotional energy.

    8. “Ioutsourcemyentirelife,”shesaid.“IcansolveanyproblemonTwitterinsixminutes.”

      How equally available is this? Doesn't it require "mini-celebrity" to work?

    9. AfterfollowingSeery’sTwitterstreamforayear,I’mmoreknowledgeableaboutthedetailsofherlifethanthelivesofmytwosistersinCanada,whomItalktoonlyonceeverymonthorso.

      This is interesting, but does it also raise certain questions and problems? Does it make sense to know more about a stranger's life, who you will likely never meet, than about your sisters?

  16. Aug 2019
    1. o suggest that guns should be banned, or that law abiding citizens should be unable to purchase firearms, or that the 2nd

      Snape is a genius, his take on gun control is magical.

  17. Dec 2018
    1. elders

      Odd expression - seems rather old-fashioned.

    1. automatically informed” (Boyd 177). It is dangerous because the less effort we put into teaching and developing skills involving technology the bigger the divide will grow. CNN describes the dispute between digital natives and digital immigrants as a “war” (CNN). War is an extreme way to describe digital literacy. War is a dire situation in which lives are lost, property is destroyed, and economies are ruined. While digital literacy is not as extreme as actual war it is comparable.

      This seems a long wayt from a complete body paragraph, and it isn't clear how you will connect the CNN story to Boyd.

    2. Although The label digital native is appropriate it also creates some misconceptions ab

      Boyd argues.....

      Make sure to stress you are giving an account of Boyd's claims.

    3. Natives and they “The c

      words missing?

    4. technology.

      All human societies use technology.

    5. In this essay I am going to be analyzing the excerpt from Boyd as well as comparing her excerpt to other works.

      See the prompt and try to echo the language used in it.You are going to use outside sources to extend, illustrate, complicate, etc., Boyd.

    6. A divide is starting to form between the technologically advanced and those who are not

      This relates rather vaguely to Boyd, but again it's very broad and "technology" remains highly ambiguous.

    7. technological revolution, technology

      Could clarify. "Technology" = everything, from the wheel, to toasters, to quantum computing.

    1. society are enormous problems and saying that being able to understand technology can solve these is a huge presumption. It takes Boyd’s argument and takes it to the next level. Also in, “Learning to Bridge the Digital Divide,” James writes that “men in mid-life whose work skills are no longer in demand, whose modest educational achievements have left them ill-equipped even to want to become computer literate.”

      These connections seem too general. James appears to be saying it is hard to retrain older workers. That is a long, long way from Boyd's argument.

      Perhaps consider using someone like Caulfield to explore how critical digital literacy might be taught (thus extending B).

    2. They do this by taking Boyd’s claim which is generally about “digital natives” and expanding it to all people. This puts the argument into a broader scope making it seem more urgent now that it affects all people, not just the teenagers who grew up with technology. It also makes the argument more effective by placing the blame for the digital divide on the users of the technolog

      See also https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/technology/digital-divide-us-fcc-microsoft.html

      You need to first explain Boyd's claim about digital inequality in detail, and present quotations from her, then explain the outside source, present quotations, and explain the connections back to Boyd.

    1.  He states that, “its contributors can choose which area they want to write about, which, in theory, means they only produce content where they are most qualified to do so.” This shows how Wikipedia could actually have a lot of factual

      This seems a rather vague connection. it is also very brief. You need to find more, better connetions, or choose a different text that examines the educational potential of wikipedia.

    2. gets a bad look

      revise

    3. ut people’s lives are increasingly made by software systems and algorithms.” Some things that people decide in their lives are based off of stuff that they find off the Internet. People want reassurance with things in their lives, and a way to do this is by using search engines like Google to see how they should perform certain tasks.  This extends the idea of how algorithms affect the thinking of the youth and the decisions that they make on a regular basis through what they search up on search engines.

      Good - but this needs a lot more development. Talk in more detail about how the Primer extends and illustrates Boyd's work. For example, what are some other problems and issues raised about algorith,s?

    4. ulfield extends on how the youth should work the websites they are using. Another outside source is by Caulfield which is titled “Using Google Reverse Image Search”, which maps out perfectly how to tell the background of a picture and the source for where it c

      Good - but there is more you could say about the tips Caulfield presents.

    5. mple, he says to follow four moves which ar

      This is for fact checking web sites you are unfamliiar with.

    6. chapter from a book by Mike Caulfield titled “Four Strategies” extends on this idea of critical digital literacy by offering ways for the youth to use proper website analysis.

      Well put.

    7. are questions that the youth should be asking themselves while searching on different websites for informatio

      Good.

    8. In this paper, I will present Boyd’s main claims and the ways that outside sources extend the main claims that Boyd makes

      Good

    9. expands on the ideas of how the youth today are digital native

      No, she cricizes this rhetoric and argues it is a damaging way of understanding digital literacy.

    10. Because teens grew up in a world in which the Internet has always existed, many adults assume that youth automatically understand new technologies.

      Good

    1. nlike “literacy” and the other outside source, this article was made for every age, with no specific audience, just to try to inform how and in what ways people are manipulated on the internet from a day to day basis. Throughout Rose-Stockwells article, he highlights the commotion about digital natives, and shows off that nobody can outthink technology like what the older generations expect the youth to be able to do.

      Interesting, bu you need to link Rose-Stockwell to Boyd. So present a claim Boyd makes, plus a quotation to illustrate it, then explain how Rose-Stockwell's work extends and illustrates Boyd, and present quotes that show this.

    2. “​Every time yo

      Introduce all quotations.

    3. e is Why students Can’t Google Their Way to Truth by Sam Wineburg and Sarah McGrew. Appealing to logos, the article shows off the digital native generation does not know what’s reliable from what, with many confused. One study Boyd focuses in on that claim that the youth do not know how to use the internet correctly to find out if the source is a reliable or not. The study conducted happened with Stanford students(some of the smartest youth in the USA) proved that even one of the most prestigious schools still have student that cant decipher if the source is reliable or not. “One task asked students to determine the trustworthiness of material on the websites of two organizations: the 66,000 mem

      This is promising. You should line up the claim from Boyd, give a quote from Boyd, then explain how Wineburg and McGrew extend and illustrate Boyd. Use quotes from M and W that you can link back to Boyd.

    4. When Boyd uses ethos in this manner, she makes an extremely strong persuasive claim. B

      This is good, but the paper isn't about analyzing strategies, so this isn't really needed.

    5. Boyd trys to use logos with this quote, which isn’t as persuasive as her ethos, due to the fact that she didn’t give us enough info, or legit studies. She only really says she met with a lot of teens.

      Again - this isn't the point of the paper.

      I suggest you read the prompt for paper 3.

    6. n’t supposed to be seen. If Boyd would have claimed that the term digital native came from Barlow, her audience could even be persuaded stronger about that term coming off as negative.

      This section is meant to analyze an outside source and explain how it extends, illustrates, complicates etc. Boyd.

    7. Boyd does not want her audience(which is predominantly parents) to not fear  “children’s natural-born knowledge”, a fake fact coming from Barlow’s work

      Not really her main point. Try to capture why she thinks the rhetoric of the digital native is problematic - what does it result in, and why?

    8. Barlow is a well known poet who came up with the term “native” versus “immigrant”, which basically means the eople born into the digital world are the natives, while the parents are essentially immigrants.

      Don't focus on Barlow. Focus on Boyd's argument. Barlow is a figure from the past (and from the band The Grateful Dead).

    9. Boyd says, “The suggestion that many take from Barlow’s proclamation is that adults should fear children’s supposedly natural born knowledge

      You haven't said who Barlow is. This isn't a useful quote to use. Try to find quotes that capture the essence of her claims, not quotes that are nearest the beginning of the text.

    10. negative

      Problematic.

    11. I will go over Boyd and the other articles, strengthening Boyds claims with research and data given, also highlighting concerns and assumptions.

      Try to use the langauge of the prompt. That is, talk about how you will extend, illustrate, or compliate etc. Boyd's text.

    12. hy Students Can’t google Their Way to Truthby Sam Wineburg and Sarah McGrew, and This Is How Your Fear and Outrage are Being Sold for Profitby

      See MLA citation guidelines - article titles are in quotation marks (book titles in italics).

    13. ave some crazy views to some

      Not sure why this is included - I am unaware of anyone who thinks she is crazy.

    14. this generation doesn’t know to take in all of the information being given, even if they know how to use all of these sites, and finally, the term digital natives is completely unfair.

      This doesn't capture her main claims accurately. Go back to the text.

    15. ople believe adults should fear kids’ natural ability of knowledge

      She doesn't claim this (it's from a quote by Barlow).

    16. the sense it hides the challenges the majority of the youth face in this world of networking.

      Good

    17. author Danah Boyd who is a

      Give a more precise account of who she is (you can use Wikipedia).

    18. research’s t

      Check apostrophe use

    19. The digital world. Something many uses,

      Watch grammar - fragments and agreement. Eg "many people USE computers," not "many people USES computers."

      Small extra credit opportunity. Look up "sentence fragments," "comma splices," and "subject verb agreement."

      Give a brief defintion of each, a give a few examples from your writing on this blog.

    20. Google and Facebook, very prominent huge mainstream sites and search engines.

      Watch out for fragments (there is no verb in this esmternce).

    1. Boyd coined the terms “digital native”

      She didn't coin these terms. Others did. She analyzes them.

    2. “It’s Complicated, The Social Lives of Networked Teens”

      No quotation (just italics)

    3. age of technology”, one has countless resources made available at their fingertips through

      People have...at their..(nicer agreement)

  18. sarahsblog376309888.wordpress.com sarahsblog376309888.wordpress.com
    1. young people do with technology…”(2:22). This is one of the first problems that Boyd mentions in her text that is carried with the term digital natives that many often assume. Yes, any parent can tell you that their son or daughter has helped them with technology a good amount of times but with what applications? Was it learning how to navig

      Conections are unclear - how is coding related to the quote? The quote mentions researchers being interested in researching young people. You say this connects to parents noting their kids use tech, but maybe don't code. I don't see a connection to Boyd. If you aim to connect to Boyd, state it.

    2. Bennett also brings up Jack, an example of a student who was created based off of scientific research and statistical data.

      I don't follow - Jack was created? Is he a "composite" of several people?

  19. riyathakur35.wordpress.com riyathakur35.wordpress.com
    1. al media as well as the internet can be looked upon as a learning portal for teens to gain new forms of powerful knowledge. It is a common place that teens go to when doing projects, finding new information and, to engage with others. Danah Boyd, author of

      say more about topic, why matters, why care. Cases?

    2. teaches at New York University. In this paper I will explain the main claims and use other articles to support them, and reflect on my research to see how it has established my position.

      I will use these articles to extend and illustrate Boyd...

    3. ou back from an opportunity you didn’t even know was out there because you didn’t have the correct exposure. This ties back to Boyd’s claim saying that although Google is a site that students are brought up to use, there are many pitfalls which include a biased algorithm which lead people to get different results. It is crucial for the public to be informed on how the search engine works and the thought process behind it. This can help them be aware of why they are getting the results they are getting as well as to open their eyes to do more research so they know if what they are seeing is the full story.

      say more about their arguments - why algorithms matter, how they can influence our lives, and how they can cause problems

    4. therefore leaking a form of bias

      awkward

    5. immune

      unaware

    6. Another topic that Boyd covers is the influence of algorithms, how they’re created and how they affect each person. Boyd explains how each person has a different algorithm that forms when they use a search engine- such as google. This algorithm is based on the person’s previous searches which includes likes and dislikes. For example Boyd writes “ Increasingly, the results people get from search engines like Google are highly personalized and dependent on what Google knows about the person doing the query, including demographic information, search query history, and data obtained through social media” (p.186)

      SHe thinks should be part of critical digital literacy education

    7. mation needed isn’t at their reach and how they are unable to dig deeper to get what they are looking for. This is because they have been brought up with information much more easily accessible and at an easy reach rather than having to use basic research skills such as going throug

      Can you find other examples and other quotes to connect back to Boyd and develop the analysis?

    8. h”, P

      Splice

    9. hereas adults are looked at as “digital immigrants” because they are having to learn the ways of technology at a later age and weren’t born into a digital age.

      Fragment

    10. that

      of

    11. e influence of algorithms and the scheme behind fake news and the type of effects it condu

      Good overview

    12. “Its Complicated: the social lives of networked teens”

      MLA

  20. emilyfrws100.wordpress.com emilyfrws100.wordpress.com
    1. tremendously. They did about half as well as the other students in the class.’” Schaffhauser effectively extends and illustrates Boyd’s claim that socioeconomic inequality is a driving factor in the digital divide between students

      Nice work

    2. digital divide, Bowles raises insights into trends of technology use and h
    3. Essentially, Bowles’s claim complicates Boyd’s claims because she proposes a contrasting claim regarding the relationship between socioeconomic status and screen time. A possible reason for this discrepancy could stem from the fact that Boyd’s book was published in 2014, while Bowles’s article was publishe

      Complcates and extends?

    4. These claims have been extended

      You are going to extend etc.

    5. “It’s Complicated: the Social Lives of Networked Teens”

      MLA - italics for book titles

    1. Another part of digital literacy has to do with algorithms and most people, including students, don’t understand what they are or how they work. Boyd believes that the lack of knowledge of algorithms because trust in web engines and other things on the internet that may be biased. I think that people should know basics about algorithms like: what they are, how they are used, what websites use them, and why they are biased.  Boyd writes, “The results that a search engine produces may reveal biases in the underlying data, or they may highlight how the weights chosen by engineers prioritize certain content over others(185).” Boyd writes this in the context of people trusting the order of Google’s results page for being reliable. In reality, Google is a for-profit company with the goal of acquiring the most profit. Which their algorithms will reflect their objective and manipulate which websites get ranked higher. But Google is still considered to be a very trustworthy site that teachers recommend to their student perpetuating the cycle. This is because people are unaware of the algorithms and their bias. Sam Wineburg is a Professor of Education and History at Stanford University and the author of Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts  and Sarah McGrew teaches in the Stanford Teacher Education Program and together they wrote an article talking about the three things student should know about how to choose a trustworthy site from Google. In “Why Students Can’t Google Their Way to the Truth Fact-checkers”, Sam Wineburg and Sarah McGrew wrote, “Instead of trusting Google to sort pages by reliability (which reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how Google works), the checkers mined URLs and abstracts for clues. They {professional fact-checkers} regularly scrolled down to the bottom of the search results page in their quest to make an informed decision about where to click first.” This gives insight on how professionals find the truth and trustworthy websites. This extends Boyd’s argument by giving options for a solution and it shows that even though Google is biased that you can find good websites if you know how.

      Intersting, it moves fro malgorithms to fact checking. And it's pretty general.

      Try using this text instead. https://datasociety.net/output/algorithmic-accountability-a-primer/

    2. ematics, logic and algorithms, and teaches you a new way to think about the world.” This shows the importance of teaching students coding that is just more than the saying that the future is computers. Students need to understand technology ,which starts with coding, to become digital citizen. Boyd and Schaffhauser claims people need to be taught technical skills and when the only thing required to be taught is about being safe in chat rooms, there is a lot more things that

      Good. Try to find more connections back to Boyd and use textual evidence.

    3. not preparing teens for college or to be digitally literate citizens. Which is the reason why Boyd talks about technical skills in her book. The Children’s Internet Protection Act is the only thing required by the federal government to be taught about the internet. This act forces schools to have two certificates making sure students are safe when using the internet. The extent of the teaching required by the 21st Century Act, which is under the CIPA, is schools must educate “minors about appropriate online behavior, including interacting with other individuals on social networking websites and in chat rooms, and cyberbullying awareness and response.” This is a great Act for protecting our children, but this is the only curriculum required by the government to be taught

      Good, but could develop this paragraph, and the analysis in it. Find more connections and use quotes to discuss.

    4. When Myspace was popular,

      Boyd notes that...

    5. A large claim in Boyd’s chapter is the lack of standardized technical skills being taught or introduced to students

      Need to describe as a claim. This seems like a topic.

    6. that

      who

    7. The digital era has progressed to a point where students can not be functioning citizens without digital literacy.

      Say more - this is important.

    1. use technology to our advantage because it has become such a major part of the modern day life.

      Too broad

    2. , she argues for the use of technology,

      broad

    3. claim to Patricia Wallace’s paper on Internet Addiction Disorder and Youth. I will explain how Patricia Wallace complicates Boyd’s claim of arguing for the use of technology in our youth, an

      Can you xplain how coplicates in more detail, or more precisely?

    4. “Its Complicated”

      MLA

    1. as, eac

      splice

    2. ated through Eli Prasier’s, current Chief Executive of the viral media sharing platform Upworthy, Ted Talk explaining and giving examples of these “filter bubbles”

      First explain her claim (Or Boyd's)

    3. The filtering aspect of Tufekci’s argument is further

      Unclear

    4. one on Facebook without the knowledge of their users as many of those who were affected by the data harvesting were unaware their information was being harvested to begin with.

      Need more - another text perhaps?

    5. ing app, thisisyourdigitallife, created by Cambridge Analytica that was in need of testing and was presented as an exchange if people used the app they were given one to two dolla

      Maybe mention use of data for voter supprssion?

    6. users, as stated by Tufekci “…the

      Integratin of quotes

    7. Tufekci’s article “Facebook’s Surveillance Machine” extends her original position, that the surveillance of social media has negatively impacted society rather than helping it in any way.

      Explain her intitial text and position first.

    8. This paper will analyze Tufekci’s claim that the surveillance of social media on their users has harmed society rather than helping to further it, and other articles that have extended, illustrated, and complicated her claim.

      Good.

      Intro could do more to illustrate and explain th issue and why people care.

    9. Zeynep Tufekci who is a writer

      See her other qualifications

    10. There are sides of the argument claiming that there are beneficial factors of surveillance on consumers through these social media platforms

      Reframe

    1. aulfield, he presents a list of four moves that help users’ fact-check what they are reading online which further extends Boyd’s argument that the youth needs new literacies. One of Weinberg “moves” m

      Perhaps you could talk about critical digital literacy (Boyd) then move to Caulfield? Alternataively, find an outside source that talks specifically about wikipedia and digital literacy, and connect taht to Boyd.

    2. tional gap but takes a different approach as to what should be done about

      OK this is a better text to use.

    3. You are terrified of your own children since they are natives of a world where you will always be immigrants” (Boyd 17

      I don;t think Barlow's work is a good source to use. It is very old and Boyd cites it as what is wrong.

    4. (Weinberg).

      Are you discusng Weinburg or Caulfield? I'm confused.

    5. 181). Youth need to learn how to challenge the biases and premises of the material they are looking at online. They need to be able to break down a source and figure out if it is a reliable one. These types of skills will only set them ahead in the future. Their ability to find and produce credible sources/research will give them a great advantage when finding a job later. Ther

      Good.

    6. digital divide.

      Isn't this a new topic? If so, create a new paragraph.

      Also, try to capture Boyd's account of digital inequality more fully and precisely, with more textual evidence.

    7. assert that this is why there needs to be more of a focus on technology use in schools, so kids are not at a disadvantage for not having the same privileges as others.

      Good. See also this recent piece: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/technology/digital-divide-us-fcc-microsoft.html

      It may help you develop this line if analysis.

    8. New York Times

      Italics (see MLA).

    9. chnologically literate. Not all children growing up in a technological age are considered a ‘digital native’ because they have not had the privilege of having access to technology at any time and we cannot leave them behind. T

      Good, but try to refer back to the specifics of the source text in order to establish concrete connections. Otherwise it can seem as if you are talking generally and loosely about topics in both texts.

    10.  In the article “Digital Natives, Digital Assumptions?”

      Who is the author?

    11. verlooked, “It is possi

      Quote introduction and integration

    12. cceed, “Be

      Problem integrating quote. See They Say.

    13. remote

      word choice (I don't follow what "remote" means here)

    14. In this paper, I will evaluate Boyd’s main claims and use outside sources to extend and challenge this aspect of her argument.  

      Good

    15. presented with the same opportunities to learn technology, but their needs to be a new established prioritization of teaching youth for future success.

      Go back to text (and handouts). This isn't really her overall argument.

    16. weather

      sp

    17. digital immigrants, are not equipped to teach the younger generations the right approach

      Are you sure she says this? Go back to text.

    18. r have been taught the proper skill set of appropriate technology use.

      Good.

    19. today’s youth technologically literate, also known as Digital Natives

      Not the same thing - need to clarify

    20. without technology

      Digital technology (humans have experienced technology for millenia).

    1. ts to hijack your brain. They hire the best designers and engineers to crack the code and use brain hacking techniques to make their users check their phones constantly. They come up with features in the forms of likes, heart-shaped icons, streaks, and followers. The only purpose of these apps — thriving in the attention economy market — is to trigger our brains into the instant gratification lifestyle, ultimately exploiting our mind’s weaknesses.”

      Good - but needs far more development and more detailed connections back to Mcnamee, Tufecki etc.

    2. , the effectiveness of which depends on gaining and maintaining consumer attention.

      not sure I follow - need fuller explanation

    3. he primary objective for all social media companies is to make money through advertisements, meaning that they are careless when it comes down to our mental health.

      Explain more fully

    4. Social media

      He claims that...

    5. t investors at Facebook. Golumbia, who is a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, teaches digital studies and theories. In this paper I will identify the problems that these authors have made evident with social media and I will evaluate several solutions presented by other authors as well.

      Good - but do more to intro problem, what is entailed. why we should care.