Warning the literary canon could make students squirm

ENC1101 Miami Dade What’s Really Important about Trigger Warnings Questions
Subject
Humanities

Course
enc1101

School
Miami Dade College

Question Description
Read the story on page 873 Soraya Chemaly: What’s Really Important about “Trigger Warnings"

Answer the following questions in a word document

Comprehension

1. Chemaly claims that arguments about trigger warnings are proxies for discussions of “deeper problems” (1). What are these problems?

3. Chemaly writes that our sense of empathy is “informed by epistemology, status, and stereotypes” (5). What does epistemology mean? How is this term related to empathy?

4. According to Chemaly, “the idea that any trigger warnings constitute censorship is not only incorrect but also definitively misleading” (8). Why?

5. What are trigger warnings fundamentally “about”? Do you agree or disagree with Chemaly’s point?

Purpose and Audience

2. Where does Chemaly address opposing arguments? How effectively does she refute them?

3. Does Chemaly make concessions to those with opposing points of view? If so, how do these concessions affect your view of her argument?

Style and Structure

1. Chemaly begins her argument by mentioning Jennifer Medina’s essay “Warning: The Literary Canon Could Make Students Squirm.” Why do you think Chemaly begins this way?

3. How does Chemaly use cause-and-effect in her essay? Point to specific examples.

4. Vocabulary Project. In paragraph 1, Chemaly says, “Conversations about trigger warnings, however, seem more and more like superficial proxies for ones about deeper problems on campuses regarding diversity, equality, the corporatization of education, and, the dreaded word, privilege.” What is a proxy? Where else in the essay does Chemaly use this term? In each instance, what point is she trying to make?