Journal #4

Alissa's Presentation - Leggings as Pants?
I enjoy how Alissa always manages to bring humor into the discussion. I really enjoyed the way she ran it - as a meeting and not simply a presentation.
In her argument, she utilized a great fashion article from The Wall Street Journal (not that IT was great, just the way she used it). She used it to frame her argument and to bring relevance to her argument - that leggings are considered a "hot trend" in modern fashion. A majority of the agents she brought up are those who are positively affected by the use of leggings as pants (i.e. retailer, designer, model, and manufacturer). I also think that looking at the argument from a feminist perspective is important, because women can either see it as degrading or empowering - there is no "one way" of thinking and no clear wrong/right answer. I think it all comes down to why women wear leggings as pants - do they do it to feel beautiful? To get noticed by men? To be the center of attention? Or, do they do it because it's comfortable? Because they feel empowered? To me, that is vitally important.

Mark's Presentation - Should College Athletes Get Paid?
Mark's argument is one that I had honestly never considered before. I have heard people complain about the scholarships and favoritism that some athletes receive - I had no idea that there was an argument for the opposite extreme: to pay athletes. To me, the most the important part of Mark's presentation was when he mentioned that many athletes do not graduate from college and that many have switched their majors because their class schedules interfere with their practices. Is the point of a university to encourage athletics and to "create" big name athletes, or to educate people? Doesn't it seem counterproductive to attend school to receive an education and have to work that around a sport?

Loren's Presentation – Environmental Crisis
I really enjoyed when Loren talked about striking a balance between the human race and nature. Often, when I hear complaints about environmentalists it is about the radical environmentalists who are against a certain kind of progress or reproduction. I think that this balance that he mentioned is key to raising awareness of the environmental crisis. Also, while I think it is crucial to instill in people the seriousness of the topic, I also believe that it should presented in a semi-optimistic way, because if it is presented with the attitude of, “we’re screwed,” it will discourage people from participating in raising awareness, as they may not see a reason to.

Eddie's Presentation – Senior Citizens Driving
I thought that Eddie’s counter argument of ageism is very important in his presentation. This topic is one that could be very sensitive for elderly people and could bring potential problems within families. I thought it was great that he included the idea that by taking away this independence of senior citizens, there can be a tremendous amount of pressure and responsibility placed on the individual’s family. I think that this issue is one that everyone can relate to – everyone has his or her own stories about their own experiences with elderly drivers!

Journal #3

TOPIC: The use of bibliotherapy (focusing specifically on adolescents/young adults and fiction such as Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel Speak).

First and foremost, the thing I have learned the most about this topic is that it is spoken about very generally. I have found quite a few sources that mention it in passing, but do not take the time to delve deeply into its multifaceted approaches and uses. Most recently, I was able to find an article that focused on the cons of bibliotherapy (“The Lion, the Witch, and the Drug Addict: “Bibliotherapy,” One Danger in Self-Help Books for Children…by Susan Smith of Globe & Mail in Toronto, Canada). Although this article mostly discusses the use of bibliotherapy in young children, it is still a prevalent idea – that a person (in this case, an adolescent) will look to a book for help in lieu of an adult. For adolescents, I think this could be the case if an individual wanted to choose his/her own books as a sort of “self diagnosis.” This should be cautioned against because of the devastating effects that this could have, depending on a person’s mental state (note the effect that The Catcher in the Rye had on Mark David Chapman – not a fault of the book or its messages, but the way it was interpreted by him).

Right now I’m focusing a lot on Speak and doing research about it…so bear with me.

One of the most helpful sources I found was Laurie Halse Anderson’s blog, Mad Woman in the Forest. She is outspoken against the censorship of books and, on her blog, spoke directly about the direct link between books and healing. One of her posts, written on June 5, 2011, was titled “Stuck Between Rage and Compassion.” In this post, she argues against AYA fiction being censored, “Books don’t turn kids into murderers, or rapists, or alcoholics. (Not even the Bible, which features all of these acts.) Books open hearts and minds, and help teenagers make sense of a dark and confusing world. YA literature saves lives. Every. Single. Day” [Her emphasis]. She goes on to talk about the influx of letters/emails she has received from teenagers who read her books and thank her for helping them come out of a dark place. I found two articles discussing Anderson’s novel Speak specifically – one is a book review by Sally Smith in the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, published in Mar. 2000, the other is “Politicizing Young Adult Literature: Reading Anderson’s Speak as a Critical Text” by Janet Alsup, published in the same journal in Oct. 2003.

So that’s where I’m at right now…I haven’t really found much research about specific incidents where bibliotherapy has been used and the results that it had. I plan to find some, but we’ll see!