ROGATE 8: What the world eats compared to what you eat

After viewing the TIME photo essays about what the world eats, take your own photo in your kitchen with your family's one week food supply. Include: approximately how much your family spends on food per week. What are some of your family's staples? Favorite foods? I can't wait to see your photos! I'll take a photo as well.

ROGATE: 20% Project!

Write a blog post about your plan for your 20% project. Describe what you want to learn about and why you chose your topic. Also include:

• Materials you anticipate needing and using

• Anticipated roadblocks/obstacles/barriers

• List of people (be specific as you can) whom you can consult for this project

GT Seminar I: The DNA Dilemma: A Test That Could Change Your Life

In a few paragraphs, write your personal reaction to the TIME article we read in class, "The DNA Dilemma: A Test That Could Change Your Life." Be sure to include what you feel to be your personal limits when it comes to genome sequencing. How much would you want to know? What would you not want to know? Take the perspectives of other stakeholders as well and describe what you would do as the doctor/geneticist/genetic counselor, the parent, and the child. 

ROGATE 7: Teens and the Media

As we near the end of our unit, you should be more than ready to answer the question: Does advertising influence or reflect teen culture?

For your blog post, you will write at least 4 paragraphs. Make connections between advertising/the media and teen culture. Use at least one quote from one of your articles. You will be evaluated on your ability to make connections about how advertising influences and/or reflects teen culture and on your ability to incorporate research into your writing.

DUE: Post on your blogs by the end of class on Wednesday, January 9

Reflections and Resolutions

REFLECT: What did you learn about yourself in 2012? About the world? About life? 

RESOLVE: What do you resolve to do in the new year? What do you resolve not to do?

OR

REBUFF: If you're anti-New Year's resolutions, explain why!

Feel free to express your thoughts in a traditional blog post format or through a poem or other type of creative writing.

ROGATE 8: Thinking deeper about First Amendment rights

Religion. Speech. Press. Assembly. Petition.

What lingering questions do you have about the five freedoms? What are you still wondering? Think beyond the surface, and go deeper with your questioning. Avoid simple questions and answers.

For example, perhaps you're still thinking about Commonwealth v. Twitchell or the limits of free speech. Perhaps you want to know more about famous examples of young people exercising freedom of expression and/or having their rights violated or ignored. Maybe you want to look further into how art has been used as not only a means of expression, but protest. Please do not limit yourselves to my examples.

For this blog post, I would like you to ask and (attempt to) answer your own question. You do not need an actual, concrete answer (there may not be one), but you do need to do some research. Even though we studied America's First Amendment, feel free to expand your thinking and questioning outside of the United States. Write at least 3 paragraphs and include your sources via hyperlink or footnote. I look forward to reading your questions and thoughts! (We will work on this in class on Monday and Tuesday.)

GT Seminar I: The Ethics of Social Media After Death

After watching Adam Ostrow's TED talk, "After your final status update" and reading Cyberspace When You're Dead from the New York Times Magazine, you should have a better-formed opinion of our ongoing discussion of the ethics of social media after death. Adam Ostrow asks, "What happens to our online personality after we die? Could it...live on?" Should it live on? What should happen to our social media accounts and blogs after we die? Should our families get to be in charge of our internet identities?

In a few paragraphs, address these ethical questions and respond to 2-3 of the points made in the article and/or the TED talk. Be sure to quote directly from the article when you reference it. Feel free to reference anything from the Mashable articles we read last week as well.