What to Do in 101 Hoy Dia

1. Commenting Instructions 2

Please email your mentor and protege commenters and politely ask them to post comments on your HW 36. Politely means friendly and well-edited greetings, explicit appreciation, THE LINK TO THE RELEVANT POST, and copy and paste from the relevant instructions directly below.

The mentor comments should ideally include;
a. your best (most thought-provoking/powerful/beautiful/sharp) idea or line PLUS
b. any constructive suggestions or further questions regarding this post..

The protege comments should ideally include;
a. your best (most thought-provoking/powerful/beautiful/sharp) idea or line PLUS
b. what your post inspires them to think about and question - in terms of their own lives/situation/understanding.

Those comments should be on your blog by Wednesday 9pm. By Thursday 8:30am you should have copy & pasted them together with your copy & pasted comments to & from your (probably new) commenting-comrades as HW 37 Comments on Birth & Pregnancy Stories.

When you receive a comment please reply with an email thanking the commenter. A simple "Thanks for the comment!" would be fine - though a thoughtful and appreciative response would be even better. Also, when writing blog posts, if relevant, please specifically acknowledge inspiration/ideas/questions you got from a commenter. For instance, "The birth stories I solicited or read from other students' blogs seemed full of both joy and suffering. As Ms. D pointed out in a comment on my blog, this raises the question ...."

Here's an example of what you should email now (if your break HW has been posted on time):

Hi Mentor Bob!

A new semester of commenting begins again! Could you please, when you get the chance, check my latest post here and add a comment? The instructor wants us to collect all comments by Wednesday 9pm. Also, he's altered the instructions a bit - here's what he's asking us to request from you;

"The mentor comments should ideally include;
a. your best (most thought-provoking/powerful/beautiful/sharp) idea or line PLUS
b. any constructive suggestions or further questions regarding this post."

Thanks a lot - and by the way I'm still thinking about the comment you made last month about preparing for dying. And don't forget to let me know when there's a chance to reciprocate for your help!

Take care,
Carmelo

2. Do the drama interns survey.

3. Register your Engrade account and check your grades. If you lost the password information get it from me again - the trick is you "register" using the secret code, and then you make your own user name and password, I think.

4. Do some basic googling/wikipedia type research on aspects of pregnancy & birth that you find most interesting/important/weird/normal. Delve into some of the controversies - map some cross-cultural comparisons - explore some more stories from real people involved. This will eventually turn into HW 38 (or so) - Independent Research. Take notes and copy links on a post which you save as a draft.

5. Related to our food unit - the CIW Farmworkers Protest Tour will be coming through NYC around 1pm today - information on their current campaign.

6. Unsolicited life advice - since you're tired from waking up early today, take the opportunity to make a new (earlier) bedtime tonight. It will help you get more sleep, feel happier, do better, and cushion the shock of Daylight Savings time (on March 13).

HW 36 - Pregnancy & Birth Stories

Please collect 3-5 pregnancy & birth stories.

Please exercise consideration of your informants' privacy by not publishing any details that would reveal their identities without their permission. Potential interviewees could include your mother or other relatives, neighbors, friends, etc - anyone you know that would be willing to answer questions about their experience of pregnancy and birth. You could (maybe should?) include one interview with someone who witnessed pregnancy & birth closely (eg. a dad or partner) but the rest of the interviews should explore the experience of someone who personally experienced these situations (i.e. the birth-mother). Also, make sure that at least some of the interviews happen in person so that you can experience the emotional transformations involved. If you try to interview a pregnant lady or lady with a newborn on the subway (which might be fun) do it carefully and extra-politely!

Please preface your interviews (which could be recorded in notebooks or using audio or video) with a guarantee of privacy regarding identity. Remember to keep your questions respectful, open-ended, and non-pushy. At the end of the interview please offer your blog address and email/phone # so that your informants can see what you've written and follow up with clarifications or requests.

A few questions to spark your interviews - please make up your own, of course, in addition to any of these that you choose to use;

1. How did pregnancy affect you physically, emotionally, or in other ways?

2. What did you do, while pregnant, to prepare for giving birth?

3. What actions and attitudes by specific other people made your pregnancy and birth more joyous? More challenging?

4. What thoughts and feelings influenced your choice to make a baby?

5. What feelings come back to you when you remember labor and giving birth?

ETC.

For each of the 3-5 stories you collect write up;

1. A narrative paragraph or three of particularly interesting, informative, or insightful elements of the pregnancy/birth experience (what happened, how it felt, thoughts & perspectives of the interviewee, etc) along with a;

2. A paragraph more or less of analysis (from your perspective) of how that story fits in with and informs your understanding, questions, exploration of pregnancy & birth in our culture.

3. At the end of your post, please include a single 1-2 sentence description of a topic/question/issue that you feel inspired to explore as a result of learning these stories in bold.

Due Monday, Feb. 28th at 8:30am.

HW 35 - Other Peoples' Perspectives 1

Please consult peers - people around your age (±5 years) - for their beliefs and perspectives around birth (including pregnancy, babies, becoming a parent, etc.). Using questions and prompts we created together in class ask them to articulate not just their immediate opinions, but also sources, implications, and connections of their perspectives.

Record (audio, video, or notes) 3-5 people from this age group and then write a brief analysis of 2-3 paragraphs that captures the patterns you observe. Use quotes to add flavor. What topics/questions/moments/viewpoints/controversies dominate peoples' concept of birth? Did alternative or counter-hegemonic perspectives get offered? What informs your generation's understanding of birth?

Please select the majority of your interviewees from folks who don't participate in "Normal is Weird". Also, some of the interviews can be through virtual means, but have at least a couple real, face-to-face, conversations.

Due Friday, Feb. 18 at 8:30am.

HW 34 - Some Initial Thoughts On Birth

Please write 2 paragraphs of your current thinking about birth followed by a list of the questions (in order of importance) you'd like to explore in this unit.

You should attempt to work through some of the ideas and questions using some of the processes we discussed in class, rather than only typing up whatever bubbles in your mind. The goal - your best, most interesting, most powerful insights, experiences, and questions you can come up with.

Due Tuesday Feb. 15 at 8:30am.

Extra Credit for Semester

If you're hoping for a few points of extra credit to supplement your grade you had two options this semester (and now have one more);
1. Pass the semester exam.

2. Undertake a service learning project in which you volunteer to work with elderly &/or ill people in hospitals, senior centers, or elsewhere. For this option you should visit with the same people, or at least same place, 2x+ and write up your insights and experiences in 3-5 paragraphs - connecting to dominant social practices of illness & dying.

What did you notice? How did you feel? How did they feel? What social practices most supported those folks in dignity? What social practices most undermined their chance to live well? This should be posted to your blog by 8pm, Sunday , January 30th. Send me an email with the link if you've done this by the deadline so I know to check your blog.

3. Watch "Carnival Around the Central Figure" and insightfully connect it to our course in a 4-6 paragraph essay. Review here - tickets here. Again, send me an email with the link to your post before the deadline (8pm, Sunday, January 30th).

Midterm Exam

The midterm exam will be Monday, required for all, and (to restate) be entirely drawn from the list of what a person needs to know from social studies to be somewhat "culturally literate" in the U.S.

Again, I urge you to prepare for the exam - what you learn now will also help in early June when a final will be drawn from the same list.

Passing with a 33/50 or greater will lead to benefits, failing will lead to no additional penalties.

HW 32 - Thoughts following illness & dying unit

Please post a paragraph or two of your thoughts regarding dominant social practices of illness & dying in our culture.

You could, but don't have to, address one or more of the following questions:

• What's most nightmarish about our culture's practices around illness & dying?
• What alternative practices offer the most positive re-orientation in illness & dying?
• What might you do or address differently as a result of what you've learned this unit, individually and with your family?
• How do dominant social practices (DSP) around illness & dying connect to DSP around food in our culture?
  

Quote other students' insights from their speeches and blog posts if useful.

Due Friday, Jan. 21 at 9pm. Comments from T/W teams due Tuesday, Jan. 25 at 9pm as HW 33.