Group Blog Analysis

Examine the work that the other blog groups have done this term and identify your favorite elements.  Are there particular discussion threads that demonstrate clear, critical thinking and mature discourse?  Are there interesting, thought-provoking posts that invite group participation?  Are there clever examples of gadgets and/or graphics, embedded videos, or hyperlinks?  What is your favorite blogging moment from the other group blogs?

What We've Got Here Is Two Similar Characters.

Lucas Jackson and Randall Patrick McMurphy serve as iconic American heroes, brazenly defying authority, helping a group of emasculated men recover some semblence of their manhoods in the face of an oppressive authority. Moreover, each takes on a Christ-like role, leading his respective disciples (prisoners or mental patients) toward dignity, suffering and deteriorating under the burden of leadership, and eventually sacrificing himself in a selfless defiance of the demand for conformity. Discuss some of the more interesting parallels between the characters. How do Kesey and the director/screenwriter of Cool Hand Luke cast their main characters as a religious figures? What significant differences exist between the two?

What "reptillian hot buttons" is this Snickers ad pushing?

Fast Food Frenzy

Morgan Spurlock's extreme diet demonstrates the hazards of consuming too much fast food. Since so much of the American diet contains processed, fatty items, obesity has become a significant, widespread epidemic. Does Spurlock's documentary effectively identify the problem and offer a solution? Is his experiment a valid one, and does he treat the issue fairly? How do his film-making techniques compare to Michael Moore's? Which part of Supersize Me did you find most effective?

Buy! Buy! Buy!

In The Persuaders, Clotaire Rapaille claims that consumers respond to unconscious cues that push "reptilian hot buttons" in our brain and bypass rational decision-making. Select an ad (from TV, print, radio, or the internet) and analyze its subrational content. What does the ad tell you about American culture in general and the target consumers in particular? What "reptilian hot buttons" does the ad push? Share your insights with your blog group in a well-developed discussion thread. You can find clips to many television commercials at advertisementave.com.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

As you read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, consider the targets of Ken Kesey's narrative: the hospital, with its emasculating nurse and sadistic orderlies, stifles individual expression (read male urges) and renders the patients both figuratively and literally impotent. The novel's "Combine," an allegorical representation of the oppressive forces of conformity in Kesey's world, and its main enforcer, Nurse Ratched, systematically prey on the men's neuroses and alienate them from their own free-spirited natures.

The book has received much criticism (and been banned in many schools) for its apparent misogyny (the female characters are either castrating nurses or prostitutes) and racism (the African American orderlies are charicatured as cartoonishly sadistic "black boys"). Do you think such criticisms are fair? What challenges does having a narrator who is a paranoid schizophrenic, often divorced from reality, present for the reader?

After the novel won wide acclaim, Kesey became a cultural icon, traveling around the country in a bus (Further) with a group called the Merry Pranksters. How did the novel help usher in the cultural changes that defined the 1960's?

A History of Segregation

As you watch the documentary Deforce and consider the factors that have led to Detroit's current state, speculate about what steps we need to take to improve economic and social factors in the Detroit Metro Area.  Like many urban centers, Detroit suffers from a pervasive, systematic segregation along racial lines.  How does this segregation influence the local economy and shape Detroit's future?

The Racial Prism

With the election of Barack Obama in 2008, many pundits declared America's racial problems over.  Still, as the recent protests in Ferguson, MO indicate, many of the old biases and mistrusts remain. Are we still suffering from the wounds of slavery, or have they healed over (or, as Langston Hughes observed, are they "fester(ing) like a sore" below the surface)?  To what extent do racial biases play a role in daily life here at Groves High School?  Does the self-segregation that we can observe in the cafeteria, in the hallways, in the classrooms indicate a pervasive problem, or does it indicate a natural (and harmless) urge of people to hang out with people like themselves?  Also, the Detroit News Special Report that you read in class chronicles a history of Detroit that might seem different to people of different backgrounds.  To what extent do people filter their life experiences through a prism of cultural bias?

Dolls and Body Image

Many writers and filmmakers who address gender issues cite dolls, specifically Barbie, as a significant influence on female body image.  In Tough Guise, Jackson Katz implies that the increased musculature of action figures leads boys to feel inadequate and overcompensate with violent behavior.  But how much of an influence on gender-related body image can a toy really exert?  The Onion mocks such concerns with its piece about Bratz dolls with enormous heads.  The Simpsons playfully grapples with the issue in "Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy."  To what extent has your body image been influenced by dolls and action figures?

Visual Data

Whether it's the racial representativeness of police departments or the accuracy of weather predicting, graphs have the ability to present complicated data in a visually sensible way.  Choose one (or more) of the graphs from this eclectic collection from fivethirtyeight.com and write about it.  What do you find interesting or telling about the graph?  How does the graph communicate information in a way that numbers (tables) can't?