J.T. #4

I feel as if I am in a pretty good place with my paper. This week I completed my annotated bibliography, which took a pretty long time. It was helpful while I was writing my paper because I could look there to see what major points I got from my different sources. I also listened to my interview that I conducted last week to write down direct quotes to put into my paper. I have completed my paper. The one part that I have struggled with is successfully addressing the other side. I am going to keep working on it today to make it stronger. With where I am now I am hoping to have a final by Friday.

J.T. #3

The most stressful part of my junior theme so far was finding an expert on my topic to interview. I emailed at least 15 people and only a few responded. Only 1 of them said that they would be happy to do it. I interview her today and she was very helpful and gave great, thorough responses. I was able to accomplish the one thing that I did not have much control over for the paper. I have been working on a rough draft of my paper for most of the day today and I am close to being done. I have also completed citing all of my sources into noodle bib, so all I have left for that aspect are my annotations. The hardest part of all of this has just been getting started and getting all of the ideas out and flowing. Once that starts, it’s all downhill (in a positive way). Right now I am struggling with choosing my quotes for my body paragraphs and making sure they are the strongest and wisest ones. I feel pretty good about my position with the paper right now.

J.T. #2

So far for my junior theme I have collected many articles from my research and have annotated them all to see what materials I have to use to create my paper. I have also read the book To Hell With All That by Caitlin Flanagan. I am probably going to end up reading another book as well because I was not able to get as much as I wanted out of this book although it did have some great insights for my paper. The one thing that I have struggled with is figuring out what information will support my paper and what is pointless information. I wrote my intro and thesis statement, but I am not too sure about my map and the paragraph overall yet. I am hoping I will be able to get some feedback this weekend or early in the week about it.

J.T. #1

It has finally begun, the one, the only junior theme! This is the time in every junior’s life that unbelievable stress is supposed to kick in. Thanks to Mr. Bolos and Mr. O’Connor the stress may not be as bad as it is in other American Studies or regular English classes. Our junior theme is incredibly different than other classes, as our whole course has been this whole year. When I first started brainstorming topics I thought I would do something leaning towards a medical aspect, but I couldn’t think of something that really clicked for me. Mr. Bolos and Mr. O’Connor have shut down some of my ideas, but now as I look back it was rightfully so. My overall question now is why are American women still responsible for the majority of household labor? I was surprised to find so many statistics on this topic of men vs. women within a household, but there are a lot out there. It is interesting because most families with children are two career families (both the husband and wife work) yet the mother is responsible for most all of the duties at home as well and does the most child care. I am anxious to find out the reasoning behind it all, especially since the times of all women only being the housewife and the men working to make all of the money are over.

should we treat them or not?

As I was looking through the Chicago Tribune a story came up about a woman who came to the U.S. from Mexico illegally. She used someone else’s identification to access health care. She had cervical cancer and did not have medical insurance in Mexico. When she came to Chicago she got three rounds of chemotherapy at the University of Chicago Medical Center, costing $530,000 in care. The argument that she made was that she did not put anyone in danger and was only doing it so she wouldn’t be in pain anymore.
This raises the question, is she a criminal? Although identity theft and fraud are crimes, is there also a moral question of the entitlement to medical care? Should everyone be entitled to health care and insurance, no matter what the cost? This is a major question within U.S. citizens, so should the people who are here illegally be treated?

LOOK FAST!

After leaving class today I really started to think critically about my surroundings. The first thing I saw was a locker decorated for the varsity basketball team; I realized that there wasn’t an announcement about them having an unfortunate loss last night. It is interesting because the only time anything about sports or achievements of anyone in the school is if they are the best. It is unfortunate that our community is like this. The saying if you aren’t first, you’re last really sums up how the New Trier community is. This does not only apply to activities at school either. There have been many tragedies that have gone on while I have lived in this area and it seems like it is the worst community to be in during hard times. It is as if people become embarrassed of their down times and have to cover it up because their persona of perfection is gone. I think it is a horrible way to live life. There are going to be ups and downs and times in the middle and that is life. I think people need to be more open and glorify the small things in life as well or else no one will appreciate life unless the grandest events happen. Everyone needs to get a reality check on life and really realize what it is all about.
What have you noticed about New Trier? What are your thoughts about how everyone acts?

want to join the Mickey Mouse Club?

TV tokenism has been a major theme within our American Studies class this year. Going back a few decades, Annette on the Mickey Mouse Club became the most well know and famous mouseketeer because she was the most ethnic looking person on TV during the 50’s. They used her most on the show for that purpose. They wanted to show the best of what America was. This completely goes along with the idea of TV tokenism. It has been going on forever. She was the only person on the show that was ethnic looking. It is interesting that it is not just a current idea for shows to succeed. The Mickey Mouse Club was the most popular show for kids for many years. It is unfortunate that shows like this are not able to stay around anymore. I feel like there aren’t any shows like this on TV currently.

Did your parents watch the Mickey Mouse Club when they were growing up? Don’t you feel like there aren’t any real American icon shows anymore? Doesn’t it seem like most everything on TV is trash?