Get It in Writing

In 2006 and 2007 I spent 11 months in Shanghai, China teaching English at Fudan University. This opportunity came up because my employer, Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) and Fudan University are partner universities. When the two universities agreed to a teacher exchange, Fudan sent a teacher of Chinese to VCU and VCU sent me to Fudan.

The Richmond Area Bicycle Association (RABA) asked me to give a presentation about my time in China at a members' meeting. Postcards from China was the name of my blog, this blog actually, on which I wrote about my experiences there. Those posts, including pictures begin in September 2006 and continue until August 2007. There are links to those month's postings to the right in this bloc, which I have renamed Get It in Writing.

To make a presentation about my time in China was a welcome opportunity and a challenge. I have numerous photos from that time. One of the challenges was to pick the ones that would best describe the experience and arrange them in meaningful groups. I settled on the following groups

• Fudan University
• VCU's Shanghai Apartment
• Old Shanghai
• Modern Shanghai
• Transportation
• Hainan Island and Dianshan Lake
• Food

The next challenge was to learn how to arrange the photos in a PowerPoint presentation and have them cycle through automatically. I was able to figure that out by creating a PowerPoint Photo Album for each of the seven topic areas and set up the slide show so that the photos changed every three seconds. While the photos cycled through and started over again, I was able to add general comments about that topic. This worked well and avoided the tedious photo-by-photo narration that often typifies such presentations.

The presentation lasted about 40 minutes and the audience seemed to enjoy it. In addition to enjoying the opportunity to deliver a presentation about my eleven months in Shanghai, I was able to learn some PowerPoint presentation techniques.

Posted by Ron Corio at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

In writing class this week, students did a thirty-minute timed-writing assignment. The prompt was "Should same-sex couples be allowed to marry?" As their teacher I wanted to experience what it was like to do this assignment. Here is my response.

Same-sex couples should be allowed to marry because they should be treated equal to heterosexual couples and have the same legal rights that heterosexual married couples have.

Equal human rights is the first reason why same-sex couples should have the right to be married. Homosexuality is something that a person is born with, not something chosen. To deny homosexuals the right to marry is to deny them the equal rights of opposite sex couples. This inequality is unfair and not humanitarian. Same-sex couples have feelings and needs that opposite-sex couples have. They can love each other, care for each other, and want to form a bond with another person just as heterosexual couples.

Second, same-sex couples should have the right to marry in order to enjoy legal rights that heterosexual couples enjoy. For example, when someone seriously ill or injured is in the hospital it is often the case that only family members can visit them. In the case of a same-sex couple, the partner would be denied the right to visit and see their ill or injured loved one. To deny same-sex couples this right is unfair and cruel. Another example is what happens at the death of one partner in a marriage. In the absence of a will, common law usually grants the assets of the deceased to the surviving spouse. Same-sex couples do not enjoy this right.

Some people argue that if same-sex couples are allowed to marry, the population would decrease because they would not produce children. They will not produce children even if they are not allowed to be married, thus this not a reason to deny them the right to marry. For human and legal reasons, same-sex couples should be allowed to marry.

Posted by Ron Corio at 10:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We are in Week Nine of this semester-long Academic Writing Class and it is time to begin planning for the second essay assignment. We have read three articles on gender roles and discussed them online. Actually, we practiced writing summaries of and paraphrases from the three articles. So . . . in laundry list fashion, here are the suggested topics and musings on them.

1. Discuss whether you think biological or social and cultural factors are more important in shaping gender roles. This one has promise and some interest for me. I think social and cultural factors are more important in shaping gender roles, so that would be my starting point. Finding sources on this question should be easy.

2. Examine the degree to which gender roles and expectations have changed in your culture over the last thirty years. This, too, is an interesting topic. Gender roles and expectations in the United States in 1979 compared to today. Didn't the big steps, the big changes begin in the 60s. By 1979 the radical ideas of the 60s faced reality, matured, and marched on. Would finding sources for this question be easy? No as easy as finding sources for topic 1.

3. Consider whether females or males are more restricted by conventional gender roles. The article Boys Will Be Boys by Kantrowitz and Kalb, which we read suggest that boys have a narrower horizon than girls in terms of gender roles. I have no strong feelings one way or the other on this question, but if would be fun to research and find out.

4. Focus on the ways in which you have been influenced, positively and negatively, by traditional gender roles and expectations. What comes to mind when I think about this topic is my mother dressing me in short pants when I went to grade school and how I was teased and called a "sissy." No other ideas or incidents come to mind and this point, making me wonder if I could find enough to write about on this topic.

5. Explore one of the following topics in terms of gender roles and stereotypes:
• rites of passage for girls or for boys
• women or homosexuals in the military
• the sports or toy industry
• anorexia and other eating disorders
• the body-image trade (diets, exercise fads, cosmetics, fragrance, fashion)
• a particular product of the mass media--for example, a TV program, film, magazine advertisement, music video, or children's picture book

There are several topics in this that interest me, but women in sports is the one that I would like to write about. Title IX of the 1972 Education Act states that educational institutions must provide women with equal sports opportunities that it provides for men. This landmark legislation has had profound effects on women and on sports. The combination of interest in the topic and observations of its effects would make it interesting for me Right now, this is the topic I plan to address in my essay.

Posted by Ron Corio at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In writing class we are using a textbook called New Directions Reading, Writing, Critical Thinking. It offers five themed units each with readings and writing assignments. For the first half of the semester we worked on the Education unit and now we are working on the Gender Roles unit. One of the exercises in that unit asks us to identify a set of adjectives as male or female traits according to what you think most people will say. You may not necessarily agree with the associations. Here are the words and where I think most people would place them. A word may be placed in both categories.

Female Traits: compassionate, frivolous, intuitive, jealous, sensitive, sentimental, sophisticated, submissive

Male Traits: adventurous, aggressive, ambitious, competitive, decisive, jealous, self-reliant

There do seem to be tendencies that tilt these adjectives to one side or the other even though there are ample examples of crossovers, e.g. woman who are aggressive, ambitious, and competitive and men who are sensitive, sentimental, and compassionate. It is preferable, in my view, to minimize the tendencies and see each sex as capable of any of these traits. Generalizations can be helpful at times, but they can also be misleading. The trick is knowing which is the case.

Gender roles have been profoundly affected by Title IX of the 1972 Education Act passed by the United States Congress and that states:

"No person in the U.S. shall, on the basis of sex be excluded from participation in, or denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal aid." Dr Mary Curtis and Dr. Christine H.B. Grant at the University of Iowa. "Gender Equity in Sports." WWW. February 3, 2006. (http://bailiwick.lib.uiowa.edu/ge/GEREDESIGN.html)

This legislation requires all educational institutions to promote and allocate resources equally for women's and men's sports. Now, 27 years later, women athletes are more common, debunking the notion that only men were interested in and play sports.

This law and the effect it has had in changing a perceived gender role is a great topic for an essay. I plan to write about it for the second essay assignment for the Fall 2009 Academic Writing class.

388 words

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The government of the City of Richmond is criticized heavily, some deserved, some not. Now, after three years of hosting the National Folk Festival and two years of replicating it in the Richmond Folk Festival, the city can proudly proclaim a smashing success.

This year's Richmond Folk Festival was the second version of the local spinoff from the National Event. From Friday, October 9 through Sunday, October 11, the area around the Tredegar Iron Works and Brown's Island was filled with the melodious and rhythmic sounds of roots music from the corners of the United States and from countries around the world.

The western music of Wylie Gustafson and his Wild West came from Montana; Jeffrey Broussard and the Zydeco Cowboys brought Louisiana music; Swamp Dogg dished out Virginia rhythm and blues, and Paul Williams and the Victory Trio wowed crowds with bluegrass gospel. From around the world there was La Gran Banda from Colombia, the Irish music of Martin HAYES and Dennis Cahill, the Jamaican reggae of Clinton Fearson and the Boogie Brown Band; Korean Dance by Sounds of Korea, and Puerto Rican bomba from Puerto Rico by Jorge Negron's Master Bomba Ensemble. From Kenya was the rumba and soucous Samba Mapangala and Orchestra Virunga. From the streets of Washington, D.C. came Trouble Funk and their bass-laden rhythms that had the jam-packed dance pavilion swinging and swaying in one giant mass.

The three days of music and music workshops was a musicologist's dream and everyone's time out from the day-to-day. Dedicated fans block out all other events for these three days and ensconce themselves in front of one of the several stages or in the dance pavilion to see and hear their favorites and some newfound musical treasures.

The wonder is seeing masses of people of all sizes, ages, colors tuned to the same cheerful vibes that float like a cloud above the gathering. A feeling of unity of people of community pervades and makes the shared experience all the more precious.

May the Richmond Folk Festival live on year after year and remind us of our commonality and the power of diversity.

358 words

Posted by Ron Corio at 9:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In our academic writing class, we have reached the beginning point for the first essay. The first step, selecting a topic, is the current assignment. Fortunately, the book we are using, New Directions, provides five essay topic for the unit on education, Students selected the two topics they wanted to read and write about in this semester-long class. Their choices were education and gender roles.

When I first looked at the five essay topics for this assignment I leaned toward the first one: "Discuss the extent to which you agree with one of the following quotations." The first quote was from William Zinsser, in which he wishes for all students some release from the clammy grip of the future. The second, from James Baldwin, states his view of the purpose of education, namely, to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions. Both of these quotations appeal to me.

My runner-up choice for the essay topic was the third one, which asks you to analyze the qualities of a good teacher. Researching and writing on this topic would help me to improve the way I teach. I would like to learn how to become a better teacher. The assignment suggests that the following items be considered: goals, values, teaching and learning styles, behaviors, and character traits. Using one or more of these items suggests a way to begin structuring the essay, in effect, a way into the assignment. There is much to be said for having an idea for starting. In the process of fleshing out the structure, other ideas may come to mind and suggest a course change.

In addition to liking the topic and having a beginning structure, I am reading What the Best College Teachers Do, a book by Ken Bain that explores, in seven chapters, the style and technique of the best college teachers. This book and the books in its bibliography will provide good sources on the topic. In addition, the students in this class have written a paper on the qualities of a good teacher, which provides another source of information.

Now the next step, making an essay proposal and deciding what my thesis will be.

374 Words

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