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)