Week 4
Reflecting on Fridays' class discussion, what is your position on political correctness?
Write a claim the purpose of which is to lead someone to act (audience, persuasive term, action that should be taken).
Ex:
Movie theater patrons / should / boycott Universal Pictures theater productions.
Movie theater patrons / must / boycott Universal Pictures theater productions.
(but make yours about homework)
The persuasive term is your choice. The audience is your choice. The action is your choice. Be sure to qualify all three of these to narrow down the scope of your claim, which will in turn narrow the scope or your argument, allowing you to focus, focus, focus!
After designing your claim, provide two reasons and one piece of evidence for each those reasons (a total of two reasons, two pieces of evidence). This constitutes the "Grounds" portion of an argument in the Toulmin model.
Write a claim the purpose of which is to lead someone to act (audience, persuasive term, action that should be taken).
Ex:
Movie theater patrons / should / boycott Universal Pictures theater productions.
Movie theater patrons / must / boycott Universal Pictures theater productions.
(but make yours about homework)
The persuasive term is your choice. The audience is your choice. The action is your choice. Be sure to qualify all three of these to narrow down the scope of your claim, which will in turn narrow the scope or your argument, allowing you to focus, focus, focus!
After designing your claim, provide two reasons and one piece of evidence for each those reasons (a total of two reasons, two pieces of evidence). This constitutes the "Grounds" portion of an argument in the Toulmin model.
College professors / should / have less homework AND make examinations harder.
ReplyDeleteHomework is created as a forced mechanism in order to get students to study, therefor students are mainly focused about getting the homework assignment completed instead of absorbing the information that is required in order to complete the homework assignment, which puts more of the percentage of your grade on homework and less on tests, which are when you should have your A game together. Evidence: I have been in physics, I've been in calculus where students will ask what from the homework is suppose to be on the examination. When you have that connection of "get A done, so I know what will be on B" , you're not focused on why on Earth students are in the class they're in the first place.
Homework, especially with people like me, makes more work that gets in the way of the study time you need to master a concept/subject. The homework doesn't usually fit in to what you're trying to get out of a subject for your purposes and keeps the professor stuck on what content is given on the homework, making the examination watered down. My matlab class is exactly like this, where homework is given that is basic, and then the test becomes basic regurgitation.
Politicians / should not / focus on using politically correct language to be inclusive.
ReplyDeletePolitically correct language is a topic that many politicians have spent a lot of time on. Many make their speechwriters spend hours to try to make their speeches as politically correct as possible as to be as inclusive as they can. Most of this has to do with the LGBT community and minorities that which they want to include. However by doing this many of them throw away their majority Christian following who do not approve of these people groups. Political correctness at times disregards moral correctness and this is an important aspect of politicians' following as many followers are looking for them to find the middle ground between political correctness and moral correctness.
For example Ted Cruz stayed true to his moral code of Christianity and this got him a large following because Christians liked his morality rather than his large focus on politically correct language.
Political correctness should not be taken so seriously and people should stop being so offended by phrases not even designed for them. An example is when people are offended by businesses that say, "Merry Christmas". The phrase was not meant for them so they should just ignore it and let the others enjoy the statement.
ReplyDeleteTeachers/ should / make homework equally as hard as tests
It is a common occurrence that teachers make tests much harder than the homework, which makes students do worse on the exam than on the homework. Students should be tested on the knowledge that they were taught or told to learn. Therefore, the tests should reflect what the homework was like.
When students experience a test that is much harder than the homework, it greatly diminishes their motivation for the class, because even though they know how to do all of the homework, they still will never know how to complete all of the test questions and get the score they believe they deserve.
Also, when students experience a test that is much harder than the homework, the highest test scores do not reflect how much information the students retained from the class. It actually only shows how much of the material on the test was covered on the homework.
I think political correctness is an attempt by left wing politicians to force everyone to conform. If nobody can speak the way they want to without offending someone or being publicly ostracized, then they have a compliant society. Granted, political correctness started as a good thing to prevent the continuation of racist slurs and other slander. However, it has become so broad that people can hardly say anything without making someone mad.
ReplyDeleteProfessors / must / assign less homework.
If every student at Clemson University were only taking one class per semester, I think that amount of homework would be sufficient. The course load that is required by just one class is already so much work outside of actual instruction time. However, all full time students take at least four classes (12 hours) and each class has an enormous amount of work with it. It is overwhelming. With multiple due dates and times scattered throughout the week and on weekends, homework limits the opportunities (like extracurricular and social events) that students can take advantage of. I have missed several meetings of clubs that I signed up for and would like to be a part of because I was so busy with homework and making sure I finished by a certain time.
Also, there is so much homework that it does more harm than it does good. A little homework, in my opinion, is a good thing. You practice the material, brush up on things you struggled with in class, and master the things that you have a grasp on. However, when homework assignments are graded for accuracy and you have 3 assignments due on the same night by 11 pm, you have to decide where you're going to cut corners. You spend so much time and energy on one assignment that by the time you finish it you dread the next assignment and will do anything just to get through with it. The other night I was working on math and engineering. I finally finished my two math assignments and then started on my engineering homework (which was due at 10) at 9:30. I was exhausted. I had no motivation whatsoever to find the correct answer, so I just gave up after a couple of tries and made a 37% on the assignment. So, professors should stop assigning so much homework because it limits the college experience outside of the school work and it discourages the intrinsic motivation of students to succeed.
I believe political correctness was an attempt to right past wrongs and now the process has just gone too far. We stopped calling black people certain words because we wanted to bury the past of slavery and oppression along with it. Today, political correctness has become the process of correct labels as not to offend anybody, as if any wrong was ever done to them. Someone who is short is now "vertically challenged." It's an attempt to acknowledge someone or something, but at the same time singles it out.
ReplyDeleteProfessors / should / assign more homework.
Homework is an extremely important means of practicing the skills a student learns in his or her class. Without this very important concept, it is easy for the skills and ideas learned to belittle in one’s mind. Practice is necessary for the understanding of skills and ideas, and homework in necessary as a means of practice. To promote this practice and create deeper understanding, professors should assign more homework.
Especially in college, the ratio of material learned and material learned outside class is approximately 20%/80% respectively. Having more homework, that is, more homework that holistically covers all the material in a course, would undoubtedly be a great benefit to students. While more homework would force more time to be spent on a particular course, it would reap future benefits by decreasing the amount of studying done in the future.
I believe political correctness stems from a desire for minority groups to be respected and treated well politically and socially. It's purpose was to decrease toxicity towards minority groups but sometimes now it can stop fair criticism which is unhealthy.
ReplyDeleteSaying something that may be "offensive" shouldn't be political suicide as long as its critical and not purely insulting.
Professors / should / assign the same amount of homework
The amount of homework currently is healthy and creates a good balance between short class times and large amounts of content that needs to be learned. Students go to each class for only less than 3 hours for an entire week. With the amount of content that needs to be learned, homework creates a guideline on what content need to be learned or how to apply concepts learned in class in more complex problems. Graded homework also forces people to make a serious attempt at doing it which gives them a more accurate outlook on what they need to learn or practice on. In my experience, homework had helped me in classes where we learn basic concepts with limited class time and had to learn to apply them on our own. In my opinion, skills such as math and writing must be mostly honed outside of the classroom.
The term political correctness refers to minority groups and the use of language. It's purpose is to not disrespect and discriminate against them, it used to show equality between all groups so that there are no sides. The majority it is used is when speaking about race or sex.
ReplyDeleteProfessors/ should/ assign an adequate amount of homework
The amount of homework that must be assigned I believe that should always be the professor's job, depending on the lecture the class is on and the level of difficulty and practice the new material needs, the teacher should assign the amount of homework students have to do so that they understand the new material and know what is going on in the class and be able to progress. If the material is easy it may not require homework, but for difficult one the teacher should decide how much will be needed. One reason this would be good is students will be understanding the lecture and another is the professor will be able to tell if any students will be lacking behind needing some help.
Political correctness is the idea of communicating things in a way that does not offend another person or group of people. Being politically correct is almost impossible to do and can distort the meaning of what someone is trying to communicate. Even so, most people try to be politically correct and upset as few people as possible.
ReplyDeleteProfessors/ should/ assign a reasonable amount of homework
Homework, even though most people dread it, is an important part of the learning process and therefore should not be eliminated. It is not the idea of homework I disagree with but rather the volume of homework and/or how long it takes to complete some homework. Homework time should not exceed 30 minutes each day per class. Exceeding this time frame not only leads to busy work rather than learning but also it inhibits the ability for students to enjoy time away from school and be kids while they can. By having small quizzes frequently, a professor would be able to judge whether enough homework is being assigned. Good scores indicate students are grasping the concepts while poor scores reflect the need for more practice, possibly in the form of more homework.
After Friday's class, I think that I have a better grasp on what political correctness is. I still don't quite understand why it is such a big deal to so many people though. I don't want to seem ignorant when I say that though. I know that many people out there get much more offended much easier than I do. Sometimes I just find it hard to understand topics that I cannot fully relate to.
ReplyDeleteCollege Professors / should / assign less time-consuming homework assignments.
I believe that homework is essential in a properly-functioning college-level class. What I disagree with is the amount of homework that some teachers give to their students. Like practice for any sport, overworking your athletes can only bring them to physical and mental pain or stress. Stress is a very prevalent side effect of homework, especially in college. In addition to this, excess homework also takes time away from college students' free time. They could be using this time to study for or get ahead in classes.