11
1. Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and assignment below: (2005.6)
Most of our schools are not facing up to their responsibilities. We must begin to ask ourselves whether educators should help students address the critical moral choices and social issues of our time. Schools have responsibilities beyond training people for jobs and getting students into college.
Adapted from Svi Shapiro
Assignment: Should schools help students understand moral choices and social issues? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observation.
12
2. Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and assignment below: (2005.6)
The media not only transmit information and culture, they also decide what information is important. In that way, they help to shape culture and values.
Adapted from Alison Bernstein, “Artists Thrive on Freedom and Freedom Thrives on the Arts”
Assignment: Do newspapers, magazines, television, radio, movies, the Internet, and other media determine what is important to most people? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observation.
13
3. Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and assignment below: (2005.10)
1. Success in life is largely a matter of luck. It has little correlation with merit. And in all fields of life there have always been people of great merit who did not succeed.
Karl Popper, Popper Selections
2. As Colin Powell said, “there are no secrets to success. Don’t waste time looking for them. Success is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.”
Adapted from Barry Farber, “Selling Points”
Assignment: Is success in life earned or do people succeed because they are lucky? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
14
4. Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and assignment below: (2005.10)
1. Celebrities have the power to attract “communities” of like-minded followers; they provide an identity that people can connect to and call their own. Celebrities are trusted; they stand for certain ideas and values to which followers can express allegiance.
Adapted from William Greider, Who Will Tell the People?
2. Admiration for celebrities is often accompanied by contempt for “average” people. As we focus on the famous, other people become less important to us. The world becomes populated with a few “some bodies” and an excess of “near-nobodies.”
Adapted from Norman Solomon and Jeff Cohen, Wizards of Media Oz
Assignment: Is society’s admiration for famous people beneficial or harmful? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
15
5. Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and assignment below: (2005.10)
This is a time for shallowness. Seriousness is so rare these days that we tend to make all kinds of allowances for those who only seem to possess it. In this way, shallow ideas are not recognized for what they are, and they are increasingly mistaken for deep thoughts.
Adapted from Margaret Talbot, “The Perfectionist”
Assignment: Do we live in a time when people do not engage in serious thinking? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
16
6. Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and assignment below: (2005.10)
Nowadays nothing is private: our culture has become too confessional and self-expressive. People think that to hide one’s thoughts or feelings is to pretend not to have those thoughts or feelings. They assume that honesty requires one to express every inclination and impulse.
Adapted from J. David Velleman, “the Genesis of Shame”
Assignment: Should people make more of an effort to keep some things private? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
17
7. Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and assignment below: (2005.11)
Beauty is not a quality in people or in objects themselves. It exists in the mind that perceives those objects, and each mind perceives beauty differently. To seek real beauty, in some absolute sense, is pointless. Where one person sees beauty, another may even see the opposite. For this reason, we all ought to accept our own perceptions of who or what is beautiful, and not be influenced by the perceptions of others.
Adapted from David Hume, “Of the Standard of Taste”
Assignment: Should our perceptions of beauty be influenced by the perceptions of beauty of other people? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observation.
18
8. Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and assignment below: (2005.11)
There are situations where flattery is mandatory: The bride is always beautiful. If we look at someone's artwork, we are obliged to say something complimentary to the artist. If we visit someone with a new baby, we are required to say the infant is cute. In such situations, to say nothing is interpreted as rudeness. We compliment each other because we understand that flattery makes life run smoothly.
Adapted from Richard Stengel, You're Too Kind: A brief History of Flattery
Assignment: Is praising others, even if the praise is excessive or undeserved, a necessary part of life? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observation.
19
9. Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and assignment below: (2005.11)
Conflict is not necessarily bad, and it does not necessarily indicate a failed interaction. It is a signal, a message that says, "Things aren't working around here. We've got to do something different." Thus, conflict can be a catalyst-a motivating force-encouraging people to interact and communicate in ways that are more satisfying. Conflict can actually benefit people by pushing them to make necessary changes.
Adapted from Beverly Potter, From Conflict to Cooperation
Assignment: Is conflict helpful? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observation.