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EMERGING CONTEMPORARY READINGS FOR
WRITERS
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EMERGING CONTEMPORARY READINGS FOR
WRITERS
FOURTH EDITION
BARCLAY BARRIOS
Florida Atlantic University
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For Bedford/St. Martin’s Vice President, Editorial, Macmillan Learning Humanities: Edwin Hill Executive Program Director for English: Leasa Burton Senior Program Manager: John E. Sullivan III Executive Marketing Manager: Joy Fisher Williams Director of Content Development: Jane Knetzger Executive Developmental Editor: Christina Gerogiannis Associate Content Project Manager: Matt Glazer Workflow Project Manager: Lisa McDowell Production Supervisor: Robert Cherry Photo Researcher: Kerri Wilson, Lumina Datamatics, Inc. Media Product Manager: Rand Thomas Manager of Publishing Services: Andrea Cava Editorial Assistant: Cari Goldfine Project Management: Lumina Datamatics, Inc. Composition: Lumina Datamatics, Inc. Text Permissions Researcher: Elaine Kosta, Lumina Datamatics, Inc. Photo Permissions Editor: Angela Boehler Permissions Manager: Kalina Ingham Design Director, Content Management: Diana Blume Cover Design: William Boardman Cover Image: Leonard Gertz / Getty Images
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,
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ISBN 978-1-319-10522-8 (epub)
Acknowledgments Text acknowledgments and copyrights appear at the back of the book on pages 483–484, which constitute an extension of the copyright page. Art acknowledgments and copyrights appear on the same page as the art selections they cover.
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PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORS Emerging/Thinking One of the fundamental facts of teaching writing is that when students leave our classrooms, they go: They go to other classes, go to their jobs after school, go hang out with friends, go into their disciplines, go into their careers, go into the world, in so many ways go back to their increasingly busy lives. The challenge for us as instructors is to help students acquire the skills of critical reading, thinking, and writing that will allow them to succeed in these diverse contexts.
Emerging seeks to address this challenge. It offers sustained readings that present complex ideas in approachable language; it encourages critical thinking and writing skills by prompting students to make connections among readings; it draws from a broad cross section of themes and disciplines in order to present students with numerous points of entry and identification; and it introduces emerging problems — such as cultural polarization (in social, educational, and political dimensions), the impact of technology (from Twitter to brain science), race and social issues (such as privilege, microaggressions, and gender roles), and the dilemmas of ethics (ways to advocate change, for instance, and the relations between art and philanthropy) — that have not yet been solved and settled.
The readings are organized alphabetically to open up possibilities for connections. (Alternative tables of contents highlight disciplinary concerns and thematic clusters.) Because they consist of entire book chapters or complete articles, readings can stand on their own as
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originally intended. However, the readings in Emerging were chosen because they connect to each other in interesting and illuminating ways. The issues under discussion resonate across readings, genres, and disciplines, prompting students to think about each selection in multiple dimensions. These resonant connections are shown through “tags” indicating central concepts treated in the selections. Several tags for each piece are listed in the table of contents, in each headnote, and for each assignment sequence — highlighting concepts such as “community,” “globalism,” “identity,” “culture,” “social change” and “adolescence and adulthood.” Thus one can see at a glance the possibilities for thematic connections among the readings. Connections with other authors are also highlighted in the table of contents, in each headnote, and through the assignment sequences (included at the back of the book; see p. 463). The assignment sequences suggest a succession of readings that are linked conceptually so that one assignment sequence provides the structure for an entire semester. (Sequences are further explained on the next page.)
Emerging/Reading Because students ultimately enter diverse disciplines, the readings are drawn from across fields of knowledge located both inside and outside the academy. Political science, sociology, journalism, anthropology, economics, and art are some of the disciplines one might expect to find in such a collection, but Emerging also includes readings from photography, public health, psychology, philosophy, epigenetics, technology, and law. The author of each selection addresses his or her concerns to an audience outside the discipline — a useful model for students who eventually will need to communicate beyond the
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boundaries of their chosen fields. Many of the readings also represent cross-disciplinary work — a photographer thinking about economics, a musician thinking about education — since the walls between departments in academia are becoming increasingly permeable.
Yet despite this disciplinary grounding, the readings, though challenging, are accessible, written as they are with a general audience in mind. The readings thus demonstrate multiple ways in which complex ideas and issues can be presented in formal yet approachable language. The accessible nature of the essays also allows for many readings longer than those typically seen in first-year composition anthologies, because the level of writing makes them comprehensible to students. Yet even the briefer readings are substantive, providing numerous opportunities for nuanced arguments.
Of course, in addition to referencing emerging issues, the title of this collection refers also to the students in first-year composition courses, who themselves are emerging as readers, thinkers, and writers. By providing them with challenging texts along with the tools needed to decode, interpret, and deploy these texts, Emerging helps college readers develop the skills they will need as they move into working with the difficult theoretical texts presented in their choice of majors — and ultimately into their twenty-first-century careers.
Emerging/Writing One of the philosophical tenets supporting Emerging is that students need to be prepared to deal with emerging issues in their jobs and lives, and to do so, they not only must acquire information about these issues
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(since such information will continually change) but also must possess an ability to think critically in relation to them. The editorial apparatus in Emerging includes the following features that will help students develop the skills needed to become fluid, reflective, and critically self- aware writers:
► Part One: Emerging as a Critical Thinker and Academic Writer. Part One presents the key skills of academic success: the ability to read critically, argue, use evidence, research, and revise.
► Part Two: Readings. Each reading in Part Two includes a variety of questions to help students practice the skills of critical thinking, explained in detail on pages 2–3.
► Part Three: Assignment Sequences. In order to stress the iterative processes of thinking and writing, eight assignment sequences are included in the back of the book, each of which uses multiple selections to engage students’ thinking about a central theme, issue, or problem. Each sequence frames a project extensive enough for an entire semester’s work and can be easily adapted for individual classes, and two of the sequences prompt students to conduct outside research.
Additionally, the apparatus accompanying each reading provides substantial help for students while featuring innovative approaches to understanding the essays and their relation to the world outside the classroom:
► Headnotes. A headnote preceding each reading selection provides biographical information about the author and describes the context of the larger work from which the reading has been
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taken.
► Questions for Critical Reading. These questions direct students to central concepts, issues, and ideas from the essay in order to prompt a directed rereading of the text while providing a guide for the students’ own interpretive moves.
► Exploring Context. In order to leverage students’ existing literacies with digital technologies, these questions ask students to use the web and other electronic sources to contextualize each reading further, using sites and tools such as Facebook and Twitter.
► Questions for Connecting. Because thinking across essays provides particular circumstances for critical thinking, these opportunities for writing ask students to make connections between essays and to apply and synthesize authors’ ideas.
► Language Matters. The Language Matters questions are a unique feature of this reader. These questions address issues of grammar and writing through the context of the essays, presenting language not as a set of rules to be memorized but as a system of meaning-making that can also be used as a tool for analysis.
► Assignments for Writing. Each reading has Assignments for Writing questions that ask students to build on the work they’ve done in the other questions of the apparatus and create a piece of writing with a sustained argument supported by textual engagement.
What’s New New readings on a wider variety of topics. Fifteen selections are
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new, broadening the range of topics in Emerging. Authors of the readings include public intellectuals, many with familiar names. For instance, novelist Michael Chabon reflects on his son’s love of fashion and the universal search for community, a place where you belong. Essayist Leslie Jamison traces the complicated path to obtaining an elusive medical diagnosis in order to consider the limits of our compassion for another’s suffering. And journalist Adrien Chen explores the influence of social media on our beliefs — and makes a case for radical empathy.
An overarching theme explores the central question of our time: How can we get along? While the readings in the fourth edition span a variety of topics — and can be read and taught any number of ways — the through-line of this edition is one of the most urgent ethical and practical questions in America today: What do we do about polarization? Divergence of opinion is part of the problem; the larger part is an increasing refusal to even talk to others who are different in terms of their politics, culture, or social position. The lack of conversation stymies any solution and initiates a solipsistic cycle that only exacerbates the problem. In a diverse and connected world, we must find a way to get along. Instructors will find the materials and advice necessary to stage productive conversations across these social and political divides in order to encourage conversation, understanding, and empathy.
New multimodal assignments throughout the book offer instructors new options for students to write and compose in a variety of media.
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Four new or substantially revised assignment sequences provide a convenient way to structure selected readings into a coherent course. They ask four challenging questions to spark students’ interest and to guide them on a substantive academic project: How Do We Face the Challenge of Race?, What Does Ethical Conflict Look Like in a Globalized World?, How Can We Get Along?, and What Is the Role of Art in the World?
Acknowledgments This collection itself has been a long time emerging, and I would be remiss not to thank the many people who contributed their time, energy, feedback, and support throughout the course of this project.
I would first like to acknowledge past and current colleagues who have played a role in developing this text. Richard E. Miller and Kurt Spellmeyer, both of Rutgers University, through their mentorship and guidance laid the foundations for my approach to composition as reflected in this reader. My department chairs during my time here at Florida Atlantic University, Andrew Furman and Wenying Xu, provided reassurance and support as I balanced the work of this text and the work of serving as Director of Writing Programs. The members of the Writing Committee for Florida Atlantic University’s Department of English — Jeff Galin, Joanne Jasin, Jennifer Low, Julia Mason, Daniel Murtaugh, and Magdalena Ostas — generously allowed me to shape both this reader and the writing program. The dean’s office of the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters of Florida Atlantic University provided a Summer Teaching Development Award, which aided in the creation of the materials that form the core of the
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Instructor’s Manual.
For this fourth edition I’d like to thank as well Wendy Hinshaw, who took my place as Director of Writing Programs at Florida Atlantic University, and Janelle Blount, who serves as Associate Director of Writing Programs, both of whom enriched this project with input, suggestions for readings, and frequent conversations about the shape of this work. Thanks to Kathleen Moorhead, who has always been a committed and engaging colleague and who offered readings and assignments for this edition as well. Valerie Duff-Strautmann’s work on the Instructor’s Manual was invaluable; I thank her for coming on board with this project.
I continue to be grateful for the many reviewers who offered helpful suggestions for the first three editions of Emerging. Their valuable feedback continues to shape the book. I also wish to thank the reviewers who helped me plan the fourth edition: Bridgett Blaque, Truckee Meadows Community College; Carole Center, University of New England; Jonathan Ceniceroz, Mt. San Antonio College; Michael Cripps, University of New England; Joshua Dickinson, Jefferson Community College; Ana Douglass, Truckee Meadows Community College; Donita Grissom, University of Central Florida; Molly Guerriero, Casper College; Laura Headley, Monterey Peninsula College; Lisa Hibl, University of Southern Maine; Wendy Hinshaw, Florida Atlantic University; Michael Piotrowski, The University of Toledo; Danielle Santos, North Shore Community College; and Carlton Southworth, SUNY Jefferson Community College.
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I cannot say enough about the support I have received from Bedford/St. Martin’s. The enthusiasm of Edwin Hill, Leasa Burton, and John Sullivan for this project was always appreciated. My editor, Christina Gerogiannis, reassured me often, kept this project moving along, and came through more than once. Cari Goldfine, in her role as editorial assistant, really helped take some of the load off my plate. I am grateful to Kalina Ingham and Elaine Kosta for clearing text permissions and to Angela Boehler and Kerri Wilson for obtaining art permissions. Matt Glazer and Sumathy Kumaran, along with her colleagues at Lumina Datamatics, expertly guided the manuscript through production. I appreciate their help, as well as the work of marketing manager Joy Fisher Williams.
My thanks to Tom Edwards, who was there when this edition started, and to Tom Elliott, Trae Ellison, and Eric Bladon who offered me support as it drew to a close. I offer this edition in loving memory of my dear and dearly missed husband, Joseph Tocio, who passed away as the third edition was going to press.
—BJB
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CONTENTS PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORS
Part 1 EMERGING AS A CRITICAL THINKER AND ACADEMIC WRITER
WHAT’S EMERGING?
READING CRITICALLY
THINKING CRITICALLY
MAKING AN ARGUMENT
USING SUPPORT
ABOUT RESEARCH
REVISING, EDITING, AND PROOFREADING
SAMPLE STUDENT PAPER
Part 2 THE READINGS
KWAME ANTHONY APPIAH
Making Conversation and The Primacy of Practice
A prominent philosopher argues, “In the wake of 9/11, there has been a lot of fretful discussion about the divide between ‘us’ and ‘them.’ What’s often taken for granted is a picture of a world in which conflicts arise, ultimately, from conflicts between values. This is what we take to be good; that is what they take to be good. That picture of the world has deep philosophical roots; it is thoughtful, well worked out, plausible. And, I think, wrong.”
► TAGS: collaboration, community, conversation, ethics, globalism, identity, judgment and decision making, politics,
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social change
► CONNECTIONS: Chen, DeGhett, Epstein, Gladwell, Jamison, Lukianoff and Haidt, Southan, Stillman, van Houtryve, Turkle, Watters, Yoshino
NAMIT ARORA
What Do We Deserve?
A writer and photographer examines three forms of economic systems — the libertarian, meritocratic, and egalitarian models — asking, “‘What do we deserve?’ In other words, for our learning, natural talents, and labor, what rewards and entitlements are just? How much of what we bring home is fair or unfair, and why?”
► TAGS: economics, ethics, social justice
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, Chabon, Coates, Fukuyama, Gilbert, Gladwell, Henig, Watters
MICHAEL CHABON
My Son, the Prince of Fashion
A novelist reflects on his son’s love of fashion and the universal search for people who will understand you and share your passions, noting, “You are born into a family and those are your people, and they know you and they love you and if you are lucky they even, on occasion, manage to understand you. And that ought to be enough. But it is never enough.”
► TAGS: adolescence and adulthood, beauty, community, culture, gender, identity, relationships, sexuality
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, Chen, Fukuyama, Gilbert, Gladwell, Henig, Provan
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ADRIAN CHEN
Unfollow
A journalist explores the influence of social media on belief. Documenting the experiences of Megan Phelps-Roper, a former prominent member of the Westboro Baptist Church, and the way social media challenged her relationship to the group, he writes, “It was easy for Phelps-Roper to write things on Twitter that made other people cringe. She had been taught the church’s vision of God’s truth since birth.”
► TAGS: adolescence and adulthood, censorship, community, conversation, empathy, identity, judgment and decision making, media, relationships, religion, social change, social media, tradition, war and conflict
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, DeGhett, Gilbert, Klosterman, Konnikova, Turkle, Yoshino
TA-NEHISI COATES
From Between the World and Me
A writer reflects on his experiences growing up as a black American, critiquing the American education system: “Why, precisely, was I sitting in this classroom? The question was never answered. I was a curious boy, but the schools were not concerned with curiosity. They were concerned with compliance.”
► TAGS: adolescence and adulthood, civil rights, education, law and justice, race and ethnicity, religion
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, Cohen, Das, Fukuyama, Gilbert, Holmes, Ma, Yang, Yoshino
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ANDREW COHEN
Race and the Opioid Epidemic
A legal analyst appraises the racial dimensions of the current United States opioid epidemic, asking, “Can we explain the disparate response to the ‘black’ heroin epidemic of the 1960s, in which its use and violent crime were commingled in the public consciousness, and the white heroin ‘epidemic’ today, in which its use is considered a disease to be treated or cured, without using race as part of our explanation?” The answer? No, we cannot.
► TAGS: ethics, health and medicine, law and justice, politics, race and ethnicity
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, Coates, Das, Fukuyama, Holmes, Lukianoff and Haidt, Yang, Yoshino
KAVITA DAS
(Un)American, (Un)Cool
A writer considers the historical roots and inherent American- ness of the concept “cool,” as well as the lack of Asian Americans represented in that category. Discussing a National Portrait Gallery exhibit, she contends that “The underrepresentation of Asian Americans in the American Cool exhibit likely has less to do with the lack of iconic and transgressive Asian Americans who embody American Cool and more to do with the fact that the exhibit’s definition of American Cool is at odds with pervasive stereotypes of Asian Americans.”
► TAGS: art, community, culture, identity, photography and video, race and ethnicity
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► CONNECTIONS: Chabon, Coates, Cohen, DeGhett, Fukuyama, Holmes, Lukianoff and Haidt, Provan, Southan, van Houtryve, Watters, Yang, Yoshino
TORIE ROSE DEGHETT
The War Photo No One Would Publish
A journalist examines the decisions around a graphic war photo that no one would publish. She writes, “Some have argued that showing bloodshed and trauma repeatedly and sensationally can dull emotional understanding. But never showing these images in the first place guarantees that such an understanding will never develop.”
► TAGS: art, censorship, empathy, ethics, judgment and decision making, media, photography and video, politics, science and technology, trauma and violence, war and conflict
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, Chen, Das, Fukuyama, Lukianoff and Haidt, Paumgarten, Provan, Singer, Southan, van Houtryve
HELEN EPSTEIN
AIDS, Inc.
A biologist and expert in public health examines a new approach to preventing AIDS: “LoveLife’s media campaign … was positive and cheerful, and resembled the bright, persuasive modern ad campaigns that many South African kids were very much attracted to.” It was a failure.
► TAGS: adolescence and adulthood, collaboration, community, conversation, culture, education, globalism, health and medicine, judgment and decision making, media,
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politics, sexuality, social change
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, Chen, Cohen, Gilbert, Southan, Watters, Yoshino
FRANCIS FUKUYAMA
Human Dignity
A prominent political scientist says, “What the demand for equality of recognition implies is that when we strip all of a person’s contingent and accidental characteristics away, there remains some essential human quality underneath that is worthy of a certain minimal level of respect — call it Factor X.”
► TAGS: civil rights, empathy, ethics, genetics, identity, science and technology, social change
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, Coates, Klosterman, Lukianoff and Haidt, Moalem, Singer, Stillman, Turkle, Watters, Yoshino
ROXANE GAY
Bad Feminist
An English professor and novelist questions what it takes to be a good feminist, deciding “I would rather be a bad feminist than no feminist at all.”
► TAGS: community, gender, identity, judgment and decision making, media, race and ethnicity
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, Chabon, Fukuyama, Gilbert, Klosterman, Lukianoff and Haidt, Serano, von Busch
DANIEL GILBERT
Reporting Live from Tomorrow
An influential social psychologist asserts that “the production of
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wealth does not necessarily make individuals happy, but it does serve the needs of an economy, which serves the needs of a stable society, which serves as a network for the propagation of delusional beliefs about happiness and wealth.”
► TAGS: adolescence and adulthood, conversation, culture, empathy, judgment and decision making, psychology
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, Chabon, Klosertman, Ma, Moalem, Serano, Stillman, Yang
MALCOLM GLADWELL
Small Change
A journalist probes the effects of social media on social activism and protest, claiming that social media campaigns are most successful when they ask little of participants. Differentiating between the strong and weak ties that bind us, he contends, “weak ties seldom lead to high-risk activism.”
► TAGS: civil rights, Facebook, social change, strong tie, technology, Twitter, weak tie
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, Chen, Epstein, Konnikova, Turkle, von Busch, Yoshino
ROBIN MARANTZ HENIG
What Is It about 20-Somethings?
A science journalist considers the appearance of “emerging adulthood,” answering the question, “21 grow up” by tracing the emergence of this new life stage.
► TAGS: adolescence and adulthood, economics, identity, psychology, science and technology, social change
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, Chabon, Chen, Gilbert,
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Klosterman, Konnikova, Lukianoff and Haidt, Paumgarten, Singer, Turkle, Watters
ANNA HOLMES
Variety Show
A blogger and editor discusses the way the term diversity has lost meaning in corporate and cultural environments, noting that rather than engendering social change, the term “has become both euphemism and cliché, a convenient shorthand that gestures at inclusivity and representation without actually taking them seriously.”
► TAGS: civil rights, culture, identity, media, race and ethnicity, social change
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, Coates, Cohen, Das, Gay, Gilbert, Lukianoff and Haidt, Watters, Yoshino
LESLIE JAMISON
Devil’s Bait
A novelist and essayist writes about attending a Morgellons conference, and the nature of belief. Investigating reality, our relationships with our own bodies, and how we relate to others, she concludes, “wanting to be different doesn’t make you so.”
► TAGS: community, empathy, health and medicine, identity, judgment and decision making, psychology
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, Chabon, Epstein, Fukuyama, Gilbert, Stillman, Turkle
CHUCK KLOSTERMAN
Electric Funeral
A cultural critic and ethicist explores the nature of villainy in a
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digital age by looking at two controversial figures, Kim Dotcom and Julian Assange, both assisted by the inevitability of technology. “The future makes the rules,” he argues.
► TAGS: culture, ethics, media, politics, science and technology, social change, social media
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, Chen, Cohen, Gilbert, Konnikova, Lukianoff and Haidt, Paumgarten, Singer, Turkle, van Houtryve
MARIA KONNIKOVA
The Limits of Friendship
A science journalist answers questions about the limits of friendship in the digital age. It turns out there is a natural limit to how many people we can really know, a specific number known as the Dunbar Number. As we press up against that limit in social media we’re also changing the ways in which we relate to others. She asks, “So what happens if you’re raised from a young age to see virtual interactions as akin to physical ones?”
► TAGS: community, culture, identity, media, psychology, relationships, science and technology, social change, social media
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, Chen, Epstein, Friedman, Gilbert, Klosterman, Pollan, Singer, Turkle
GREG LUKIANOFF AND JONATHAN HAIDT
The Coddling of the American Mind
An attorney and a social psychologist inspect the rising use of trigger warnings and the increase of speech restrictions on college campuses. Using the term vindictive protectiveness to
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describe the impulse to punish those who may, even accidentally, create discomfort for others, they argue the current focus on emotional well-being negatively affects student thought processes and “presumes an extraordinary fragility of the collegiate psyche.”
► TAGS: adolescence and adulthood, censorship, civil rights, education, identity, law and justice, psychology, race and ethnicity, social change, trauma and violence
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, Chen, Coates, DeGhett, Fukuyama, Gay, Gilbert, Holmes, Klosterman, Ma, Moalem, Serano, Singer, Stillman, Turkle, von Busch, Yoshino
YO-YO MA
Necessary Edges: Arts, Empathy, and Education
An internationally famous cellist argues that the arts are essential to education, adding a necessary element of empathy. He warns us that “what is dangerous is when the center ignores the edges or the edges ignore the center — art for art’s sake or science without a humanist and societal perspective. Then we are headed for doomsday without knowing it.”
► TAGS: art, collaboration, culture, education, empathy, globalism, science and technology
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, DeGhett, Fukuyama, Klosterman, Provan, Southan, Turkle, von Busch, Yang
ROBINSON MEYER
Is It OK to Enjoy the Warm Winters of Climate Change?
An associate editor for The Atlantic considers the individual pleasure felt in response to warmer winters. He voices the
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unease that surrounds this enjoyment, asking, “How much should we really be enjoying weather so unseasonal, so suggestive of the consequences of climate change, when we’re doing so little to combat the larger phenomenon?”
► TAGS: ethics, globalism, judgment and decision making, science and technology, social change
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, Epstein, Gilbert, Gladwell, Pollan
SHARON MOALEM
Changing Our Genes: How Trauma, Bullying, and Royal Jelly Alter Our Genetic Destiny
A doctor explains the mechanisms of epigenetics, in which environmental conditions and lifestyle choices change our genetic code. Epigenetics explains how a regular bee becomes a queen; it also explains how bullying can have consequences across generations. He cautions, “the choices you make can result in a big difference in this generation, the next one, and possibly everyone else down the line.”
► TAGS: adolescence and adulthood, food and agriculture, genetics, health and medicine, science and technology, trauma and violence
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, Chabon, Chen, DeGhett, Fukuyama, Lukianoff and Haidt, Pollan, Serano, Stillman, Watters
NICK PAUMGARTEN
We Are a Camera
A journalist documents the rise of the GoPro, a point-of-view
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video camera. Popular among skiers, surfers, and increasingly just everyday folk, these cameras allow us to record our lives. But how are these cameras changing the nature of experience? “Now the purpose of the trip or trick is the record of it. Life is footage.”
► TAGS: art, culture, economics, empathy, media, photography and video, relationships
► CONNECTIONS: DeGhett, Klosterman, Ma, Provan, Singer, Southan, Watters
MICHAEL POLLAN
The Animals: Practicing Complexity
An award-winning professor and journalist explains, “‘Efficiency’ is the term usually invoked to defend large-scale industrial farms, and it usually refers to the economies of scale that can be achieved by the application of technology and standardization. Yet Joel Salatin’s farm makes the case for a very different sort of efficiency — the one found in natural systems, with their coevolutionary relationships and reciprocal loops.”
► TAGS: collaboration, economics, education, food and agriculture
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, Fukuyama, Gilbert, Ma, Moalem, Wallace
ALEXANDER PROVAN
The Future of Originals
A magazine editor examines our conception and valuation of the concept “original” in a time when technology makes
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copying easier and copies of a quality nearly indistinguishable from the original. What is the role of museums in a world where digital images and 3D reproductions proliferate? Concerned by the relationship between representation and technology, he writes, “I’m unsure what, if anything, ‘original’ and ‘copy’ mean, given that everything so frequently and promiscuously manifests as objects, images, texts, series of zeros and ones.”
► TAGS: art, culture, ethics, science and technology, tradition
► CONNECTIONS: Das, DeGhett, Klosterman, Ma, Paumgarten, Singer, Southan, van Houtryve, von Busch
JULIA SERANO
Why Nice Guys Finish Last
A biochemist and transgender activist reveals the ways in which our culture’s treatment of men contributes to rape culture. The idea that “nice guys finish last” subtly encourages men into offensive behavior. We need to dismantle that system of thinking in order to combat rape culture. She writes that “we won’t get to where we want to be until the men-as- predator/sexual aggressor assumption no longer dominates our thinking. It’s difficult to imagine getting there from here,” she admits, “but we’re going to have to try.”
► TAGS: culture, empathy, gender, identity, media, race and ethnicity, relationships, sexuality, social change, trauma and violence
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, Chabon, Coates, Epstein, Gay, Gilbert, von Busch, Yang, Yoshino
PETER SINGER
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Visible Man: Ethics in a World without Secrets
An ethicist examines issues of privacy in the connected digital world: “The modern Panopticon is not a physical building, and it doesn’t require the threat of an inspector’s presence to be effective.”
► TAGS: censorship, ethics, law and justice, photography and video, politics, science and technology, social change
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, Chen, Gilbert, Klosterman, Konnikova, Paumgarten, Turkle, van Houtryve, von Busch, Watters, Yoshino
RHYS SOUTHAN
Is Art a Waste of Time?
A freelance writer and blogger evaluates the relevance of art within the philosophical framework of Effective Altruism, whose goal is “doing as much good as you possibly can with your life.” He asks, “if we were to consult our magic utilitarian consequences calculator, how often would it tell us to bother making art at all?”
► TAGS: art, community, economics, empathy, ethics, globalism, judgment and decision making, social change
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, Das, DeGhett, Epstein, Klosterman, Ma, Paumgarten, Pollan, Provan, von Busch, Wallace, Watters
SARAH STILLMAN
Hiroshima and the Inheritance of Trauma
A journalist unearths the trans-generational effects of trauma on families and communities by looking at survivors of the atomic
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bombing of Hiroshima. She observes, “A wide range of studies have examined evidence of ‘secondary trauma’ in the children of Holocaust survivors, the wives of Vietnam veterans, and, more informally, in the families of U.S. veterans who’ve faced PTSD after deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.”
► TAGS: genetics, health and medicine, psychology, trauma and violence, war and conflict
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, Coates, DeGhett, Epstein, Gilbert, Lukianoff and Haidt, Moalem, Paumgarten, Serano, Turkle
SHERRY TURKLE
The Empathy Diaries
A sociologist specializing in science and technology investigates the effects of social media and personal devices on the development of empathy, arguing that technology inhibits conversation and personal development. “But these days we find ways around conversation. We hide from each other even as we’re constantly connected to each other. For on our screens, we are tempted to present ourselves as we would like to be.” The solution? Put down the phone, and have a conversation.
► TAGS: adolescence and adulthood, conversation, empathy, relationships, science and technology, social media
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, Chen, Epstein, Gilbert, Jamison, Klosterman, Konnikova, Ma, Mann, Paumgarten, Provan, Singer, von Busch, Watters, Yoshino
TOMAS VAN HOUTRYVE
From the Eyes of a Drone
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A photographer explores the weaponization of drones in words and images. “The trend of drones used by government security forces is only likely to increase, and some companies such as Amazon are lobbying to put drones to commercial use too.” How do we reconcile the artistic and recreational potential of drones with their deployment in war?
► TAGS: ethics, photography and video, science and technology, war and conflict
► CONNECTIONS: Das, DeGhett, Klosterman, Paumgarten, Provan, Singer, Southan, Stillman
OTTO VON BUSCH
Crafting Resistance
A professor of integrated design argues for the connection between crafts and activism, examining how crafts can resist consumer culture and the underlying power structures of society: “Fashion may be an identity struggle between belonging and independence, but it is a struggle manifested as part of our social skin, and it is often made from materials open to our intervention.”
► TAGS: art, beauty, civil rights, collaboration, community, culture, economics, globalism, social change, tradition
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, Chabon, Ma, Provan, Southan, Turkle, Yoshino
DAVID FOSTER WALLACE
Consider the Lobster
A famed novelist and essayist ponders the moral complexities of enjoying the Maine Lobster Festival: “And it takes a lot of
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intellectual gymnastics and behaviorist hairsplitting not to see struggling, thrashing, and lid-clattering as just such pain- behavior.”
► TAGS: empathy, ethics, food and agriculture, judgment and decision making
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, Fukuyama, Ma, Moalem, Pollan, Watters
ETHAN WATTERS
Being WEIRD: How Culture Shapes the Mind
A journalist examines the work of an anthropologist who argues that much of the work done in the social sciences erroneously assumes that American minds represent certain universals. What happens when researchers use Americans as models? “Given the data, they concluded that social scientists could not possibly have picked a worse population from which to draw broad generalizations. Researchers had been doing the equivalent of studying penguins while believing that they were learning insights applicable to all birds.”
► TAGS: community, culture, economics, education, globalism, psychology
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, Das, Epstein, Fukuyama, Gilbert, Holmes, Konnikova, Lukianoff and Haidt, Ma, Serano, Southan, Turkle, von Busch, Wallace
WESLEY YANG
Paper Tigers
A contributing editor to New York magazine looks at Asian culture and its effects on Asian American self-esteem and
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success. “It is a part of the bitter undercurrent of Asian- American life that so many Asian graduates of elite universities find that meritocracy as they have understood it comes to an abrupt end after graduation.”
► TAGS: adolescence and adulthood, civil rights, community, culture, economics, education, identity, race and ethnicity
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, Das, Gilbert, Holmes, Ma, Watters, Yoshino
KENJI YOSHINO
Preface and The New Civil Rights
A professor of constitutional law argues, “The reason racial minorities are pressured to ‘act white’ is because of white supremacy. The reason women are told to downplay their child- care responsibilities in the workplace is because of patriarchy. And the reason gays are asked not to ‘flaunt’ is because of homophobia. So long as such covering demands persist, American civil rights will not have completed its work.”
► TAGS: civil rights, community, conversation, identity, law and justice, politics, race and ethnicity, social change
► CONNECTIONS: Appiah, Chabon, Chen, Coates, Cohen, Das, Epstein, Fukuyama, Holmes, Lukianoff and Haidt, Serano, Southan, Watters, von Busch, Yang
Part 3 ASSIGNMENT SEQUENCES
SEQUENCE 1
How Is Technology Changing Us?
MARIA KONNIKOVA, The Limits of Friendship
SHERRY TURKLE, The Empathy Diaries
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NICK PAUMGARTEN, We Are a Camera
ROBIN MARANTZ HENIG, What Is It about 20- Somethings?
CHUCK KLOSTERMAN, Electric Funeral
PETER SINGER, Visible Man: Ethics in a World without Secrets
Assignments
1. KONNIKOVA
2. KONNIKOVA AND TURKLE OR KONNIKOVA AND PAUMGARTEN
3. KONNIKOVA, TURKLE, AND HENIG
4. KLOSTERMAN AND ONE OTHER OR SINGER AND ONE OTHER
We tend to think of technology as a neutral tool for connection, but as the readings in this sequence make clear, technology such as social media influences our growth, development, and the ways in which we connect to others. These assignments examine the impact of technology not only on our world but also, more profoundly, on what it means to be human.
► TAGS: community, conversation, culture, empathy, ethics, identity, media, photography and video, psychology, relationships, science and technology, social media
SEQUENCE 2
How Do We Face the Challenge of Race?
ANNA HOLMES, Variety Show
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TA-NEHISI COATES, From Between the World and Me
ANDREW COHEN, Race and the Opioid Epidemic
GREG LUKIANOFF AND JONATHAN HAIDT, The Coddling of the American Mind
KENJI YOSHINO, Preface and The New Civil Rights
ETHAN WATTERS, Being WEIRD: How Culture Shapes the Mind
WESLEY YANG, Paper Tigers
Assignments
1. HOLMES
2. HOLMES AND COATES OR COHEN
3. LUKIANOFF AND HAIDT, HOLMES, AND COATES OR YOSHINO, HOLMES, AND COHEN
4. WATTERS AND ONE OTHER OR YANG AND ONE OTHER
Race remains a contentious issue even after decades of work toward civil rights and despite the reality of a diverse and deeply interconnected world. Notwithstanding any progress made in legal and political arenas, race continues to have fractious social and cultural implications. This sequence of assignments considers the factors that cause race to persist in order to foster conversations on why racial categories continue to have such critical relevance to our world.
► TAGS: civil rights, community, culture, diversity, education, empathy, globalism, identity, psychology, race and ethnicity, social change, tradition
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SEQUENCE 3
How Does Gender Shape Us, and How Do We Shape Gender?
JULIA SERANO, Why Nice Guys Finish Last
ROXANE GAY, Bad Feminist
MICHAEL CHABON, My Son, the Prince of Fashion
MALCOLM GLADWELL, Small Change
DANIEL GILBERT, Reporting Live from Tomorrow
Assignments
1. SERANO
2. SERANO AND GAY
3. CHABON, SERANO, AND GAY
4. GLADWELL AND ONE OTHER OR GILBERT AND ONE OTHER
Gender is a fundamental category of identity that can be simultaneously enabling and disabling to our growth as human beings. But although gender works to determine who we are and who we can be, we also have the ability to change the meaning of gender for ourselves and our world. These assignments explore the consequences of our current system of gender and the ways in which we can work to alter the meaning, function, and relevance of gender.
► TAGS: adolescence and adulthood, community, culture, gender, identity, judgment and decision making, psychology, relationships, sexuality, social change, tradition
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SEQUENCE 4
What Does Ethical Conflict Look Like in a Globalized World?
SARAH STILLMAN, Hiroshima and the Inheritance of Trauma
TORIE ROSE DEGHETT, The War Photo No One Would Publish
TOMAS VAN HOUTRYVE, From the Eyes of a Drone
KWAME ANTHONY APPIAH, Making Conversation and The Primacy of Practice
DAVID FOSTER WALLACE, Consider the Lobster
Assignments
1. STILLMAN
2. STILLMAN AND DEGHETT
3. STILLMAN, DEGHETT, AND VAN HOUTRYVE
4. APPIAH AND ONE OTHER OR WALLACE AND ONE OTHER
Living in a globalized world doesn’t mean we all have to get along; it does mean, however, that we must learn how to mediate cultural differences in order to solve the problems we face in common with others. War, conflict, and terrorism are the alternatives. This sequence of assignments examines an array of issues related to peace and conflict. The essays and assignments suggest tools and concepts needed to advocate for ethical solutions to conflict in a globalized world.
► TAGS: censorship, community, culture, empathy,
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ethics, globalism, law and justice, media, photography and video, politics, trauma and violence, war and conflict
SEQUENCE 5
How Can You Make a Difference in the World?
MALCOLM GLADWELL, Small Change
RHYS SOUTHAN, Is Art a Waste of Time?
KENJI YOSHINO, Preface and The New Civil Rights
NAMIT ARORA, What Do We Deserve?
HELEN EPSTEIN, AIDS, Inc.
ROBINSON MEYER, Is It OK to Enjoy the Warm Winters of Climate Change?
Assignments
1. GLADWELL
2. GLADWELL AND SOUTHAN
3. GLADWELL, SOUTHAN, AND YOSHINO OR GLADWELL, SOUTHAN, AND ARORA
4. EPSTEIN AND ONE OTHER OR MEYER AND ONE OTHER
Few of us are completely happy with the world around us, but each of us can work toward the world we want to see. Advocating for change is a fundamental ability we can choose to exercise. The readings in this sequence offer strategies and tools for creating small- and large- scale social change.
► TAGS: art, civil rights, collaboration, community,
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conversation, culture, economics, empathy, ethics, identity, judgment and decision making, law and justice, politics, psychology, race and ethnicity, relationships, social change, tradition
SEQUENCE 6
What Should Be the Goal of an Education?
YO-YO MA, Necessary Edges: Arts, Empathy, and Education
MICHAEL POLLAN, The Animals: Practicing Complexity
TA-NEHISI COATES, From Between the World and Me
WESLEY YANG, Paper Tigers
DANIEL GILBERT, Reporting Live from Tomorrow
GREG LUKIANOFF AND JONATHAN HAIDT, The Coddling of the American Mind
Assignments
1. MA
2. MA AND POLLAN
3. MA, POLLAN, AND COATES OR YANG
4. LUKIANOFF AND HAIDT AND ONE OTHER OR GILBERT AND ONE OTHER
Education is a political act, since the choice of what is taught, studied, and learned encodes a set of values and a particular way of looking at the world. As students, you might have a particular investment in the ends of education and, certainly, you have ideas about the goals for your own education. These assignments explore
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education as it exists today and as it may take shape in the future.
► TAGS: adolescence and adulthood, art, community, culture, education, empathy, identity, psychology, race and ethnicity, relationships, social change, tradition
SEQUENCE 7
How Can We Get Along?
FRANCIS FUKUYAMA, Human Dignity
SHARON MOALEM, Changing Our Genes: How Trauma, Bullying, and Royal Jelly Alter Our Genetic Destiny
LESLIE JAMISON, Devil’s Bait
ADRIAN CHEN, Unfollow
SHERRY TURKLE, The Empathy Diaries
Assignments
1. FUKUYAMA
2. FUKUYAMA AND MOALEM OR FUKUYAMA AND JAMISON
3. FUKUYAMA, MOALEM, AND CHEN OR TURKLE
4. RESEARCH PROJECT
Polarization is an increasing problem. People aren’t simply disagreeing with each other; they’re refusing to listen as well. This lack of communication often leads to conflict and only exacerbates issues of polarization. The readings in this sequence of assignments explore what happens when we don’t get along while offering tools of
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empathy and understanding that each of us can use to resolve this problem.
► TAGS: adolescence and adulthood, community, conversation, culture, empathy, ethics, genetics, identity, judgment and decision making, psychology, relationships, social change, social media, trauma and violence
SEQUENCE 8
What Is the Role of Art in the World?
RHYS SOUTHAN, Is Art a Waste of Time?
TORIE ROSE DEGHETT, The War Photo No One Would Publish
TOMAS VAN HOUTRYVE, From the Eyes of a Drone
KAVITA DAS, (Un)American, (Un)Cool
ALEXANDER PROVAN, The Future of Originals
OTTO VON BUSCH, Crafting Resistance
Assignments
1. SOUTHAN
2. SOUTHAN AND DEGHETT, VAN HOUTRYVE, OR DAS
3. PROVAN, SOUTHAN, AND DEGHETT, VAN HOUTRYVE, OR DAS OR VON BUSCH, SOUTHAN, AND DEGHETT, VAN HOUTRYVE, OR DAS
4. RESEARCH PROJECT
We may think of making art or other creative activities as somehow set apart from the “real world.” Aesthetic
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activities might appear to be about pleasure and recreation. These readings instead ask you to consider the ways in which the arts can change the world and reveal the deep connections between creative activity and politics, culture, and social change.
► TAGS: art, community, culture, economics, ethics, politics, science and technology, social change, tradition, trauma and violence, war and conflict
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ALTERNATIVE CONTENTS BY DISCIPLINE
ARTS
MICHAEL CHABON, My Son, the Prince of Fashion
KAVITA DAS, (Un)American, (Un)Cool
TORIE ROSE DEGHETT, The War Photo No One Would Publish
YO-YO MA, Necessary Edges: Arts, Empathy, and Education
NICK PAUMGARTEN, We Are a Camera
ALEXANDER PROVAN, The Future of Originals
RHYS SOUTHAN, Is Art a Waste of Time?
TOMAS VAN HOUTRYVE, From the Eyes of a Drone
OTTO VON BUSCH, Crafting Resistance
BUSINESS
NAMIT ARORA, What Do We Deserve?
HELEN EPSTEIN, AIDS, Inc.
ROBIN MARANTZ HENIG, What Is It about 20-Somethings?
NICK PAUMGARTEN, We Are a Camera
MICHAEL POLLAN, The Animals: Practicing Complexity
OTTO VON BUSCH, Crafting Resistance
ETHAN WATTERS, Being WEIRD: How Culture Shapes the Mind
WESLEY YANG, Paper Tigers
EDUCATION
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TA-NEHISI COATES, From Between the World and Me
HELEN EPSTEIN, AIDS, Inc.
GREG LUKIANOFF AND JONATHAN HAIDT, The Coddling of the American Mind
YO-YO MA, Necessary Edges: Arts, Empathy, and Education
MICHAEL POLLAN, The Animals: Practicing Complexity
WESLEY YANG, Paper Tigers
ENGINEERING, TECHNOLOGY, AND COMPUTER SCIENCE
ADRIAN CHEN, Unfollow
FRANCIS FUKUYAMA, Human Dignity
ROBIN MARANTZ HENIG, What Is It about 20-Somethings?
CHUCK KLOSTERMAN, Electric Funeral
MARIA KONNIKOVA, The Limits of Friendship
YO-YO MA, Necessary Edges: Arts, Empathy, and Education
ROBINSON MEYER, Is It OK to Enjoy the Warm Winters of Climate Change?
NICK PAUMGARTEN, We Are a Camera
ALEXANDER PROVAN, The Future of Originals
PETER SINGER, Visible Man: Ethics in a World without Secrets
SHERRY TURKLE, The Empathy Diaries
TOMAS VAN HOUTRYVE, From the Eyes of a Drone
HEALTH, MEDICINE, AND NURSING
ANDREW COHEN, Race and the Opioid Epidemic
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HELEN EPSTEIN, AIDS, Inc.
LESLIE JAMISON, Devil’s Bait
SHARON MOALEM, Changing Our Genes: How Trauma, Bullying, and Royal Jelly Alter Our Genetic Destiny
SARAH STILLMAN, Hiroshima and the Inheritance of Trauma
HUMANITIES
KWAME ANTHONY APPIAH, Making Conversation and The Primacy of Practice
NAMIT ARORA, What Do We Deserve?
ADRIAN CHEN, Unfollow
TA-NEHISI COATES, From Between the World and Me
KAVITA DAS, (Un)American, (Un)Cool
HELEN EPSTEIN, AIDS, Inc.
FRANCIS FUKUYAMA, Human Dignity
ROXANE GAY, Bad Feminist
DANIEL GILBERT, Reporting Live from Tomorrow
MALCOLM GLADWELL, Small Change
ANNA HOLMES, Variety Show
LESLIE JAMISON, Devil’s Bait
CHUCK KLOSTERMAN, Electric Funeral
MARIA KONNIKOVA, The Limits of Friendship
GREG LUKIANOFF AND JONATHAN HAIDT, The Coddling of the American Mind
YO-YO MA, Necessary Edges: Arts, Empathy, and Education
SHARON MOALEM, Changing Our Genes: How Trauma,
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Bullying, and Royal Jelly Alter Our Genetic Destiny
ALEXANDER PROVAN, The Future of Originals
JULIA SERANO, Why Nice Guys Finish Last
PETER SINGER, Visible Man: Ethics in a World without Secrets
RHYS SOUTHAN, Is Art a Waste of Time?
SARAH STILLMAN, Hiroshima and the Inheritance of Trauma
SHERRY TURKLE, The Empathy Diaries
OTTO VON BUSCH, Crafting Resistance
DAVID FOSTER WALLACE, Consider the Lobster
WESLEY YANG, Paper Tigers
KENJI YOSHINO, Preface and The New Civil Rights
NATURAL SCIENCES
DANIEL GILBERT, Reporting Live from Tomorrow
ROBIN MARANTZ HENIG, What Is It about 20-Somethings?
MARIA KONNIKOVA, The Limits of Friendship
ROBINSON MEYER, Is It OK to Enjoy the Warm Winters of Climate Change?
SHARON MOALEM, Changing Our Genes: How Trauma, Bullying, and Royal Jelly Alter Our Genetic Destiny
NICK PAUMGARTEN, We Are a Camera
MICHAEL POLLAN, The Animals: Practicing Complexity
SARAH STILLMAN, Hiroshima and the Inheritance of Trauma
DAVID FOSTER WALLACE, Consider the Lobster
ETHAN WATTERS, Being WEIRD: How Culture Shapes the
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Mind
SOCIAL SCIENCES
NAMIT ARORA, What Do We Deserve?
ANDREW COHEN, Race and the Opioid Epidemic
TORIE ROSE DEGHETT, The War Photo No One Would Publish
HELEN EPSTEIN, AIDS, Inc.
FRANCIS FUKUYAMA, Human Dignity
DANIEL GILBERT, Reporting Live from Tomorrow
MALCOLM GLADWELL, Small Change
ROBIN MARANTZ HENIG, What Is It about 20-Somethings?
CHUCK KLOSTERMAN, Electric Funeral
MARIA KONNIKOVA, The Limits of Friendship
NICK PAUMGARTEN, We Are a Camera
JULIA SERANO, Why Nice Guys Finish Last
PETER SINGER, Visible Man: Ethics in a World without Secrets
SARAH STILLMAN, Hiroshima and the Inheritance of Trauma
ETHAN WATTERS, Being WEIRD: How Culture Shapes the Mind
WESLEY YANG, Paper Tigers
KENJI YOSHINO, Preface and The New Civil Rights
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THEMATIC CONTENTS AESTHETICS
MICHAEL CHABON, My Son, the Prince of Fashion
KAVITA DAS, (Un)American, (Un)Cool
TORIE ROSE DEGHETT, The War Photo No One Would Publish
HELEN EPSTEIN, AIDS, Inc.
YO-YO MA, Necessary Edges: Arts, Empathy, and Education
NICK PAUMGARTEN, We Are a Camera
ALEXANDER PROVAN, The Future of Originals
RHYS SOUTHAN, Is Art a Waste of Time?
TOMAS VAN HOUTRYVE, From the Eyes of a Drone
OTTO VON BUSCH, Crafting Resistance
CATEGORIZING PEOPLE
MICHAEL CHABON, My Son, the Prince of Fashion
TA-NEHISI COATES, From Between the World and Me
ANDREW COHEN, Race and the Opioid Epidemic
KAVITA DAS, (Un)American, (Un)Cool
HELEN EPSTEIN, AIDS, Inc.
ROXANE GAY, Bad Feminist
ROBIN MARANTZ HENIG, What Is It about 20-Somethings?
ANNA HOLMES, Variety Show
LESLIE JAMISON, Devil’s Bait
GREG LUKIANOFF AND JONATHAN HAIDT, The Coddling of the American Mind
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JULIA SERANO, Why Nice Guys Finish Last
WESLEY YANG, Paper Tigers
KENJI YOSHINO, Preface and The New Civil Rights
FEELING AND THINKING
KWAME ANTHONY APPIAH, Making Conversation and The Primacy of Practice
MICHAEL CHABON, My Son, the Prince of Fashion
ADRIAN CHEN, Unfollow
TA-NEHISI COATES, From Between the World and Me
TORIE ROSE DEGHETT, The War Photo No One Would Publish
HELEN EPSTEIN, AIDS, Inc.
FRANCIS FUKUYAMA, Human Dignity
ROXANE GAY, Bad Feminist
DANIEL GILBERT, Reporting Live from Tomorrow
MALCOLM GLADWELL, Small Change
ROBIN MARANTZ HENIG, What Is It about 20-Somethings?
LESLIE JAMISON, Devil’s Bait
MARIA KONNIKOVA, The Limits of Friendship
GREG LUKIANOFF AND JONATHAN HAIDT , The Coddling of the American Mind
YO-YO MA, Necessary Edges: Arts, Empathy, and Education
ROBINSON MEYER, Is It OK to Enjoy the Warm Winters of Climate Change?
NICK PAUMGARTEN, We Are a Camera
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JULIA SERANO, Why Nice Guys Finish Last
RHYS SOUTHAN, Is Art a Waste of Time?
SARAH STILLMAN, Hiroshima and the Inheritance of Trauma
SHERRY TURKLE, The Empathy Diaries
DAVID FOSTER WALLACE, Consider the Lobster
ETHAN WATTERS, Being WEIRD: How Culture Shapes the Mind
GETTING ALONG
KWAME ANTHONY APPIAH, Making Conversation and The Primacy of Practice
NAMIT ARORA, What Do We Deserve?
ADRIAN CHEN, Unfollow
TA-NEHISI COATES, From Between the World and Me
ANDREW COHEN, Race and the Opioid Epidemic
KAVITA DAS, (Un)American, (Un)Cool
HELEN EPSTEIN, AIDS, Inc.
ROXANE GAY, Bad Feminist
DANIEL GILBERT, Reporting Live from Tomorrow
MALCOLM GLADWELL, Small Change
ANNA HOLMES, Variety Show
LESLIE JAMISON, Devil’s Bait
MARIA KONNIKOVA, The Limits of Friendship
GREG LUKIANOFF AND JONATHAN HAIDT, The Coddling of the American Mind
YO-YO MA, Necessary Edges: Arts, Empathy, and Education
54
MICHAEL POLLAN, The Animals: Practicing Complexity
JULIA SERANO, Why Nice Guys Finish Last
SHERRY TURKLE, The Empathy Diaries
KENJI YOSHINO, Preface and The New Civil Rights
GLOBAL PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS
KWAME ANTHONY APPIAH, Making Conversation and The Primacy of Practice
NAMIT ARORA, What Do We Deserve?
TORIE ROSE DEGHETT, The War Photo No One Would Publish
HELEN EPSTEIN, AIDS, Inc.
ROBIN MARANTZ HENIG, What Is It about 20-Somethings?
YO-YO MA, Necessary Edges: Arts, Empathy, and Education
ROBINSON MEYER, Is It OK to Enjoy the Warm Winters of Climate Change?
SHARON MOALEM, Changing Our Genes: How Trauma, Bullying, and Royal Jelly Alter Our Genetic Destiny
NICK PAUMGARTEN, We Are a Camera
MICHAEL POLLAN, The Animals: Practicing Complexity
RHYS SOUTHAN, Is Art a Waste of Time?
SARAH STILLMAN, Hiroshima and the Inheritance of Trauma
TOMAS VAN HOUTRYVE, From the Eyes of a Drone
OTTO VON BUSCH, Crafting Resistance
DAVID FOSTER WALLACE, Consider the Lobster
ETHAN WATTERS, Being WEIRD: How Culture Shapes the
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Mind
WESLEY YANG, Paper Tigers
GROWING UP
MICHAEL CHABON, My Son, the Prince of Fashion
ADRIAN CHEN, Unfollow
TA-NEHISI COATES, From Between the World and Me
HELEN EPSTEIN, AIDS, Inc.
DANIEL GILBERT, Reporting Live from Tomorrow
ROBIN MARANTZ HENIG, What Is It about 20-Somethings?
MARIA KONNIKOVA, The Limits of Friendship
GREG LUKIANOFF AND JONATHAN HAIDT, The Coddling of the American Mind
SHARON MOALEM, Changing Our Genes: How Trauma, Bullying, and Royal Jelly Alter Our Genetic Destiny
JULIA SERANO, Why Nice Guys Finish Last
SARAH STILLMAN, Hiroshima and the Inheritance of Trauma
SHERRY TURKLE, The Empathy Diaries
WESLEY YANG, Paper Tigers
ME AND WE
KWAME ANTHONY APPIAH, Making Conversation and The Primacy of Practice
MICHAEL CHABON, My Son, the Prince of Fashion
ADRIAN CHEN, Unfollow
KAVITA DAS, (Un)American, (Un)Cool
HELEN EPSTEIN, AIDS, Inc.
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FRANCIS FUKUYAMA, Human Dignity
ROXANE GAY, Bad Feminist
MALCOLM GLADWELL, Small Change
ROBIN MARANTZ HENIG, What Is It about 20-Somethings?
LESLIE JAMISON, Devil’s Bait
MARIA KONNIKOVA, The Limits of Friendship
JULIA SERANO, Why Nice Guys Finish Last
RHYS SOUTHAN, Is Art a Waste of Time?
SHERRY TURKLE, The Empathy Diaries
ETHAN WATTERS, Being WEIRD: How Culture Shapes the Mind
WESLEY YANG, Paper Tigers
KENJI YOSHINO, Preface and The New Civil Rights
MEDIA AND CULTURE
MICHAEL CHABON, My Son, the Prince of Fashion
ADRIAN CHEN, Unfollow
KAVITA DAS, (Un)American, (Un)Cool
TORIE ROSE DEGHETT, The War Photo No One Would Publish
HELEN EPSTEIN, AIDS, Inc.
ROXANE GAY, Bad Feminist
DANIEL GILBERT, Reporting Live from Tomorrow
CHUCK KLOSTERMAN, Electric Funeral
MARIA KONNIKOVA, The Limits of Friendship
YO-YO MA, Necessary Edges: Arts, Empathy, and Education
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NICK PAUMGARTEN, We Are a Camera
ALEXANDER PROVAN, The Future of Originals
JULIA SERANO, Why Nice Guys Finish Last
PETER SINGER, Visible Man: Ethics in a World without Secrets
RHYS SOUTHAN, Is Art a Waste of Time?
TOMAS VAN HOUTRYVE, From the Eyes of a Drone
ETHAN WATTERS, Being WEIRD: How Culture Shapes the Mind
WESLEY YANG, Paper Tigers
RIGHTS AND WRONGS
KWAME ANTHONY APPIAH, Making Conversation and The Primacy of Practice
NAMIT ARORA, What Do We Deserve?
ADRIAN CHEN, Unfollow
TA-NEHISI COATES, From Between the World and Me
ANDREW COHEN, Race and the Opioid Epidemic
TORIE ROSE DEGHETT, The War Photo No One Would Publish
HELEN EPSTEIN, AIDS, Inc.
FRANCIS FUKUYAMA, Human Dignity
MALCOLM GLADWELL, Small Change
ROBIN MARANTZ HENIG, What Is It about 20-Somethings?
ANNA HOLMES, Variety Show
CHUCK KLOSTERMAN, Electric Funeral
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MARIA KONNIKOVA, The Limits of Friendship
GREG LUKIANOFF AND JONATHAN HAIDT, The Coddling of the American Mind
SHARON MOALEM, Changing Our Genes: How Trauma, Bullying, and Royal Jelly Alter Our Genetic Destiny
JULIA SERANO, Why Nice Guys Finish Last
SARAH STILLMAN, Hiroshima and the Inheritance of Trauma
TOMAS VAN HOUTRYVE, From the Eyes of a Drone
OTTO VON BUSCHE, Crafting Resistance
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EMERGING CONTEMPORARY READINGS FOR
WRITERS
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Whenever we solve problems or make decisions, we use critical thinking because we gather, evaluate, and apply knowledge to the situation at hand.
Part One EMERGING AS A CRITICAL THINKER AND ACADEMIC WRITER
IN SOME CLASSES, such as biology, sociology, economics, or chemistry, what you learn and what you’re tested on is content — a knowledge of terms and concepts. In contrast, what you need to learn in a composition class is a process — an approach to reading and writing that you will practice with the essays in this book, in class discussions, and by responding to essay assignments. This class is not just about the readings in this book but also about what you can do with them. What you will do with them, of course, is write. And yet it’s not entirely accurate to say you’re here to learn how to write, either. After all, you already did a lot of writing in high school, and if you couldn’t write, you wouldn’t have gotten into college. But you will learn a particular kind of writing in this class, one that may be new to you: academic writing — joining a conversation by researching, weighing, and incorporating what others say into your own work in
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order to make a point of your own. You’ll use academic writing throughout your college career, and the skills you learn in this class will also help you throughout your life. That’s because academic writing involves critical thinking — the ability to evaluate, assess, apply, and generate ideas — an essential skill no matter what career you choose. Thriving in a career — any career — is never about how much you know but about what you can do with the knowledge you have. College will prepare you for your career by providing you with knowledge (your job here is part memorization), but college will also help you learn how to evaluate knowledge, how to apply it, and how to create it. These are the skills of critical thinking.
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What’s Emerging? The Readings College is also, of course, a time for change. You’re not just moving into your career — you’re moving into a new phase of your life. In this sense, you might think of yourself as an emerging thinker and writer, one who builds on existing skills and expands them in an academic context. In some ways, emerging is also very much the theme of the readings. Each was chosen to give you an opportunity to practice critical thinking through academic writing. But each one also concerns an emerging issue in the world today, something you might have already encountered but also something you will have to deal with as you move on in your life.
Take, for example, Kwame Anthony Appiah’s selections “Making Conversation” and “The Primacy of Practice,” taken from his best- selling book Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. Although Appiah is a noted philosopher, he’s also very skilled at writing to everyday readers like you and me. At the same time, his argument — about how to get along with others who are different from us — requires a lot of thinking. Comprehension is not so much the issue. Appiah lays out his argument logically and supports it with many kinds of evidence (as you will learn to do as well). But the ideas he proposes about cosmopolitanism, about the relationship between what we do and what we value, and about how practices change over time, will require you to think about the implications of his argument, and that kind of work is the start of critical thinking. Figuring out what’s in
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the text is challenging, but even more challenging is figuring out what’s not in the text: the examples that would challenge Appiah’s argument, or new areas where his ideas have value, or modifications of his argument based on your experience or on other things you have read. That’s critical thinking.
Other essays invite you to do critical thinking to unearth the ideas that drive the essay. For example, Michael Chabon’s “My Son, the Prince of Fashion” appears on the surface to be a simple narrative about a father taking his son to Paris Fashion Week. As a narrative it’s easy to follow and maybe even enjoyable to read. But it also works with several ideas about masculinity, sexuality, fashion’s relation to hip-hop culture, identity, and family. You just need to do a little critical thinking to find them. What follows will help you do that thinking.
The Support To support you, each of the readings comes with a set of tools to help you develop your skills as a critical reader, thinker, and writer:
Tags. If you look in the table of contents and at the end of each headnote, you’ll find that each reading comes with a number of tags. These tags give you a quick sense of the topics — such as gender or technology — covered in the reading.
Headnotes. The headnotes that appear before each reading provide context. In addition to finding out about the author, you’ll learn about the larger context of writing from which the reading is taken, so that you can have a sense of the author’s overall project or the other issues in conversation at the time of the essay’s
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publication. Headnotes help you prepare for the reading by giving you a quick sense of what you’re about to encounter.
Questions for Critical Reading. As you read the headnotes, you may find that you are already developing questions about the selection you’re about to read, questions that can serve as the basis of your critical thinking. Your own questions can be supplemented by the Questions for Critical Reading at the end of each selection, which are specifically designed to focus your reading and thinking in ways that will develop your critical thinking skills while helping you produce the writing asked of you in this class.
Exploring Context. The Exploring Context questions use technology to deepen your understanding of the essay and its context in the world. These questions also underscore the fact that the readings have a life outside of this text where their ideas are discussed, developed, refuted, and extended — a life to which you will contribute through your work in this class.
Questions for Connecting. These questions prompt you to apply your critical reading and thinking skills by relating the current reading to other selections in the book. Connecting the ideas of one author to the ideas or examples of another author is a key skill in critical thinking.
Language Matters. The Language Matters questions at the end of each reading will help you practice skills with language and grammar by asking you to look at how meaning is created in these readings. Thinking critically about the language used by these authors will help you think critically about the language you use in your writing as well, so that you can take these insights back to
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your own writing.
Assignments for Writing. These questions provide opportunities to join the conversation of these essays. Your instructor may assign these to you or you may wish to use them more informally to help you develop a deeper understanding of the text. Occasionally, these assignments might be multimodal, which means you might respond to them using other tools besides just writing.
Assignment Sequences. There are also a series of assignment sequences in this text; your instructor may choose to use or adapt one for your class. They’re termed sequences because each assignment builds on the one that came before. In this way, you’ll get to see how your understanding of a reading changes as you work with it alongside other readings from the text. As you return to previous readings while developing a central theme of thinking through these assignments, you will refine your critical thinking skills by paying close attention not only to each text but also to the relationships among groups of texts.
Fortunately, just as you’ve entered class with many writing skills, so too do you enter with skills in critical thinking. Critical thinking, after all, involves processing information, and we live in an information-rich world. So chances are that many of the things you do every day involve some kind of critical thinking; this class will hone those skills and translate them into the academic realm.
For now, it might be helpful to focus on six skills you might already use that correspond to aspects of academic writing and that also will
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enable you to thrive in the world at large: the abilities to read critically, think critically, argue, support, research, and revise.
The Writer As you develop these skills in this class, you will emerge not only as a stronger thinker and writer but also as an individual ready to enter your chosen discipline and thereafter your career. The writing you will do within your field may look very different from the writing you do in this class, but the moves you make within your writing for this class — your ability to form and support an argument — will remain the same. Moreover, you will come to find that people working within a discipline never write only for members of that discipline; they write for the general public as well. An engineer will write very specific, very complicated documents for other engineers but will also need to communicate with business associates, salespeople, managers, customers, and investors. No matter what you end up studying, you will need to communicate the concerns of your discipline to others.
The readings in Emerging offer good examples. Contrast, for example, the way neuroscientist Sharon Moalem writes in “Changing Our Genes: How Trauma, Bullying, and Royal Jelly Alter Our Genetic Destiny,” intended for a general audience, with the way he writes in “Hemochromatosis and the Enigma of Misplaced Iron: Implications for Infectious Disease and Survival,” which he wrote with Eugene D. Weinberg and Maire E. Percy for the journal BioMetals. Notice, first, that he writes with others when publishing within his field; collaboration is very common in the sciences. Notice, too, the difference in the opening of the journal article, which I have included
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with its MLA citation:
Hereditary hemochromatosis is a genetic condition whereby too much iron is absorbed through the diet (Jazwinska 1998). In people with hereditary hemochromatosis, iron overload of parenchymal cells may lead to destruction of the liver, heart, and pancreas. Two mutations (C282Y and H63D) in a “non-classical” HLA class-I gene named HFE have been found to be associated with hereditary hemochromatosis (Feder et al. 1996). (135)
Moalem uses a very different, very specialized language that probably only makes sense to others in the discipline (parenchymal, HLA class-I gene), and he and his coauthors cite others in their field as they begin to make their argument (“Jazwinska,” “Feder et al.”). The article also includes tables that summarize their research and has a full works cited page. Moalem does not use any of these features when writing for us as general readers. Yet in both pieces he works to articulate an argument and support it with evidence: What differs is how it is written and how it is supported. In this class, you will learn the basic ways of thinking and writing necessary for academic arguments. Should you become a neuroscientist like Moalem, you will learn the specific elements of writing like a neuroscientist in your discipline.
Writing is a lifelong skill. As you practice academic writing, you will emerge as a stronger thinker, one capable of communicating your own ideas. You will take that ability with you as you move through your college career and then later as you move into your profession.
And it all begins with reading critically.
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Reading Critically We live in a world saturated with information. Mastering the ability to read critically is crucial to managing these demands, since doing so allows us to select just the information we’re looking for. So crucial is this skill to our survival today that we don’t even think about it anymore. Indeed, you probably read for information on the web or on your phone every day, and you probably find what you need, too.
Yet while it seems intuitive, reading involves a kind of critical thinking. Though reading is a way to find information, you may find it difficult to find the information you need in these readings. They are probably not the kinds of texts you’ve read previously in your life or educational career, so they might feel very difficult. That’s OK. They’re supposed to be challenging, because dealing with difficulty is the best way to develop your skills with critical thinking. Critical thinking is like a muscle: You have to work it in order for it to grow. In other words, if you didn’t have to think about what you read in this class, you wouldn’t be doing any critical thinking at all.
Strategies for Reading Critically There are a number of steps you can take to help you read these essays critically:
Acknowledge that the reading is hard. The first step is to acknowledge any difficulty you’re having — recognizing it forces you to activate consciously your skills with critical thinking. That is, when you admit it’s hard then you can work hard on it.
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Keep reading the essay. The second step is to just keep reading, even if you feel you don’t understand what you’re reading. Often, the opening of an essay might be confusing or disorienting, but as you continue to read, you start to see the argument emerge. Similarly, the author might repeat key points throughout the essay, so by the time you complete the reading, what seemed impossible to understand begins to make sense.
Write down what you did understand. After you’ve completed the reading, you might still feel confused. Write down what you did understand — no matter how little that might be and no matter how unsure you are of your understanding. Recognizing what you know is the best way to figure out what you need to learn.
Identify specific passages that confused you. Identifying specific passages that you did not understand is an important strategy, too. By locating any points of confusion, you can focus your critical thinking skills on those passages in order to begin to decode them.
Make a list of specific questions. Make a list of specific questions you have, and then bring those questions to class as a way of guiding the class’s discussion to enhance your understanding of the reading.
Discuss the reading with peers. The questions accompanying the reading will give you some help, but your peers are another valuable resource. Discussing the reading with them allows you and your classmates to pool your comprehension — the section you didn’t understand might be the one your peers did, and vice versa.
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Reread the essay at least once, or more. Finally, reread the essay. Reading, like writing, is a recursive process. We read and reread, just as we write and revise, and each time we get a little more out of it.
Annotating While reading, one of the things you’ll want to search for is the author’s argument, the point he or she is trying to make in the selection. In addition, you’ll want to search for concepts, terms, or ideas that are unique or central to the author’s argument. Reading with a pen, highlighter, laptop, tablet, or sticky notes at hand will help you identify this information. In academic terms, you will be annotating the text, adding questions, comments, and notes while highlighting material you feel is important in some way; annotation is the start of critical reading because it identifies the most important information in the essay, and that’s exactly the information you need to think about.
You might think of annotation as keeping a running guide of your thoughts while reading. That way, when you return to work with the essay, you have the start of your critical thinking. There are a number of things you might want to pay attention to during this process:
Look for the author’s argument. What is the overall point the author wants to make? Consider this one of the central tasks of your reading and annotation, both because you will want to engage this argument and because it will model for you how you can make your own point about the issue.
Mark key terms, concepts, and ideas. Pay special attention to
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any words or phrases in italics or quotation marks. Often this indicates that the author is either introducing an idea and will then go on to define it or making an especially important point. Critical thinking often involves ideas, so it’s important for you to locate and identify the ideas of the essay and crucial points often relate to the argument.
Mark information you will need again. For example, there may be certain quotations that strike you as important or puzzling. By annotating these, you will be able to find them quickly for class discussion or while you are writing your paper.
Mark words you don’t understand. Look them up on the web or on your phone. This process will enhance your comprehension of the essay.
Ask questions in response to the text. Don’t assume that the author’s words are gospel truth. Your job as a critical thinker is to evaluate everything the author says based on your knowledge and experience. Whenever you locate a mismatch between what the author says and what you think, note it with a question about the essay.
Summarize key points in the margin. Summarizing the key points will help you map the overall flow of the argument. This process will help you comprehend the essay better and, as with locating the argument, will help you see how to structure your own writing as well.
HOW TO ANNOTATE A READING
Read with a pen, a highlighter, or sticky notes at hand.
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Use your laptop, tablet, or phone to take notes.
Look for the author’s argument.
Mark key terms, concepts, and ideas.
Mark information you will need again.
Mark words you don’t understand.
Ask questions in reaction to the text.
Summarize key points in the margin.
Let’s look at an example, an annotated excerpt from “Electric Funeral,” Chuck Klosterman’s essay about fame and infamy in the digital age:
Let’s look at how these annotation strategies work. For example, in this passage you would want to mark any terms you don’t understand, such as postmodern, as well as terms the author may be using to form ideas, such as non-monetary capitalism. Another set of strategies, though, involves questions you have in reaction to the text, each of which can serve as a point for rereading the text, and relations you see between
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the text and other essays you have read or your own life experience. Each question you ask or comment you make during your initial reading of the text gives you a new direction for reading the text again — both for an answer to your question and for support for any alternative position you want to take.
Returning to the text and reading it again refines your reading, making it more critical. Rereading is not something we usually do if we’re just reading for comprehension; generally we understand enough of what we read that we don’t have to read it again. But in an academic context rereading is essential, because critical reading goes beyond comprehension to evaluation — determining the accuracy and applicability of the information and ideas of the text. And before we can evaluate, we have to know the key points that need evaluation. The Questions for Critical Reading located at the end of each selection will help you in this process by focusing your rereading on a significant point in the essay — a particular term, concept, or idea that will allow you to read and think critically. Rereading Klosterman’s essay with these questions in mind might cause you to pay attention to those parts of the selection where he discusses villainy and examines two internet figures, Kim Dotcom and Julian Assange. These discussions might feel like stories when you read the essay for the first time, but returning to the reading through the Questions for Critical Reading might prompt you to look more closely at how Klosterman uses these two figures to discuss the nature of villainy in relation to technology.
Glossing the Text Each of these texts is taking part in a larger conversation about a
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particular topic. You might find parts of a reading confusing because you are jumping into the middle of a conversation without knowing its complete history. At times, then, you will want to go beyond annotating the text by using a skill called glossing. A gloss is a quick explanation of a term or concept — think of it as a quick summary of the conversation that has come before what you are reading. You probably already know what a glossary is — a list of terms and their definitions. Some words have already been glossed for you. When you provide your own glosses for a text, you’re building your own sort of glossary, filling in technical details you need to understand the text as a whole. There are a number of techniques you can use to gloss parts of the text while you read and annotate it:
Look at the context. Often you can determine a quick sense of a term or concept by looking at the surrounding context or the way the author uses it.
Use your phone. Using a smartphone to look up a word or term can help you confirm what you learn from the context.
Use Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a controversial tool in academia because it has no single source of authority. Instead, everyone writes it, everyone edits it, and anyone can change it. In most cases, you won’t want to use Wikipedia as a source for your writing. For one thing, your writing is about critical thinking, which is about ideas, and Wikipedia is more centrally concerned with factual information. At the same time, because it contains so much knowledge, it’s a useful source for glossing because it can give you a quick sense of not only a technical term’s meaning but also its history.
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Use a search engine. Wikipedia is not the only source for information on the web. Indeed, each of its entries includes links to other sites used in compiling the information on that page. Thus you can also do a web search to find a quick gloss.
Let’s look at an example of how you might gloss a text as you read and annotate it. Here’s a short passage from Francis Fukuyama’s “Human Dignity”:
The context of this quotation helps, too. Fukuyama is discussing how Nietzsche foresaw the implications of natural science for human dignity — specifically the possibility of a ranking or hierarchy of humans. These glosses can help you understand Fukuyama’s larger argument about human dignity.
Reading Visuals You may notice that many of the texts you read contain visual elements
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such as images or graphs. These, too, are opportunities for critical reading. After all, every text is an image and every image is a text.
Consider the page you are reading now. Though not readily apparent, it has a number of visual elements — the font selected for the text, the color of the print, the amount of empty or white space around the text and in the margins. Normally, we don’t pay attention to the visual elements of printed texts. That’s because printed texts are designed to minimize their visual elements so that you can focus on the meaning of the words on the page. But imagine how the meaning of these words would change if they were printed in bold or if they used a
.
Visual texts often invert this relationship, bringing the visual elements into the foreground and letting words sit in the background or letting them work with or against the meaning suggested by the visual elements. The words and the images together make meaning and, as in all the texts you will read, this meaning is open to interpretation and analysis. In this sense, reading a visual text isn’t all that different from reading any other kind of text, and you will want to use many of the same skills with critical reading that you would use with other selections in this book:
Identify the elements. To begin reading a visual text, make note of each of its elements — not only any words it might contain but also each visual item included in the overall image. Each object you see is an element. Think of each element as a sentence. Together, these elements express meaning just as the sentences of a paragraph do. When you identify each element, you are using
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your skills with annotation.
Identify the connections. Once you’ve located the elements, think about the relationships between them. Do the visual and textual elements reinforce each other or do they work against each other? What meaning is the author trying to convey in each case? Remember, authors don’t include visual elements randomly. If it’s there it has some sort of connection to the point the author wants to make or to the feeling the author wants the reader to have.
Analyze and interpret the whole. Just as you would with other readings in the book, you will want to analyze and interpret the visual image as a whole. This again involves critical thinking because you will need to think about not only the explicit meanings — what the image as a whole says — but also the implicit meanings — what the image as a whole implies.
Reading Arguments Finding an author’s argument, as we’ve already noted, is a basic goal as you approach each reading. But reading an author’s argument involves a broader set of skills. Identifying the argument — locating and summarizing it — is the first step of that process. After that, there are a number of questions you can ask yourself in order to understand not only the argument but also its context and the ways in which the author has chosen to pursue that argument. Working through these questions will help you understand the essay more fully; it will also make you more aware of these issues in your own writing.
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