Response to Spanier's "Activism"

The article “Is Campus Activism Dead or Just Misguided” really opened me up to a whole new perspective of college students and how we spend our time. I always learned about the important protests of the 60’s and 70’s in history classes, but didn’t really read that much into it until now. Reading Spanier’s article made me realize how lazy college students can seem, for the most part. Spanier was completely right in saying that students tend to spend the majority of their time on Facebook, instead of standing up for a good cause, or getting involved with the community. I would say many students don’t even keep up with world affairs or read the newspaper, and I am including myself in this category. Just yesterday I was talking to my Aunt on the phone about something new related, and I had no idea what she was talking about. She then lectured me on why it’s important to be well rounded and keep up with topics in the paper and around the world. So this article came just at the right time. Thinking about it now, I would say that most if not all of my friends here at James Madison are slacking in the activism department, but it all seemed quite normal not to be pursuing such things. I really gave little to no thought about it. But it’s not just students today. I feel like the majority of Americans in general are not as well versed in worldly affairs as they used to be. I feel like this is a time when everyone should be trying harder to speak out against causes that interest them, especially in this time of economic downturn. This is definitely not the time for us not to worry. Spanier does make some great points, but I don’t think he should get so discouraged just yet.

Discovery

This past summer, I recently found out that my mother could speak pretty fluent Italian. I walked by her one day while she was on the phone with my aunt and I was so surprised to be hearing this. After she hung up I asked why I had never known about this and how I had never heard her after 18 years. When she was younger, she lived with her grandparents who came straight out of Sicily. They spoke Italian around the house nonstop, but I never really had put it together that maybe she learned how to speak it also. So here I am, the summer before I’m about to go away to college, and I am just finding out about this. Not only was I shocked but I was also a little upset. With how big my heritage is, I would have expected to be well aware of her ability. Plus, I thought that my mom had shared everything with me and I felt let down and disappointed. I didn’t know why this was such a secret. After I had a long talk with my mom, I realized that there was so much I didn’t know about her, which ended up being a strange feeling. Growing up and being at this stage in life, you figure you know everything there is to know about your parents. But after listening to my mom, I learned that there was so much I didn’t know about her life growing up. It was all so interesting that I also went to talk to my dad later that night. Talking with my parents really opened me up to this whole new part of their lives that I felt I had never known about. I feel that if others took the chance to sit down with a parent, grandparent or any family member that they could end up finding out a lot more about that person that they maybe didn’t expect. It definitely made me closer with my mom and I truly think others could also learn from my experiences and try the same thing.

Said's "States"

I found the piece written by Said to be really interesting and thought provoking. After reading the little bit of information about his life, the article took a turn and started to give you an insight into the Middle East. Coming from a man who did undergraduate studies at Princeton and received a PhD at Harvard, I knew I was about to read something completely intriguing. The way he described the Arab refugee camps painted such a picture in my head, and even if you couldn’t get a sense of these camps from the article, plenty of pictures were provided, which made it even more interesting. Seeing how much destruction there was gave so much insight into the Palestinian exile. What these people went through is nothing anyone of the modern age could even imagine. Camps were raided and ravaged for supplies. The Arabs were treated as commodities, not as individuals. Said pointed out that the Palestinians were subject to special laws, status and violence, all of which was just furthering the unfair treatment. Reading the article almost gave me a sense of the Holocaust. These people were exiled and even given unique cards to identify them as refugees. Even in their own homeland, they would always be considered aliens. Successful or not, I felt like they couldn’t win either way. It seemed as if they had lost all sense of identity with themselves. After time, it was like the violence they encountered and experienced just became normal. Even among fellow Palestinians, war was breaking out and children’s minds were being corrupted. The author himself even fled the country at a very young age and has yet to return for fear of death and growing violence. Like I mentioned before, these people lost who they were. There wasn’t even proof that they existed anymore, Said states. There has been no census kept for years. He also says that it is definitely near impossible to maintain any sort of identity while in exile. Their whole existence has just been put into ruins.

Jane Tomkin's "Indians"

This article had to be one of the most boring pieces I have ever read. I felt that it was so pointless to ramble on about historians. It was completely unnecessary. When she first started off talking about the show that she was taken to, I thought it was going to be rather interesting to hear about the headdresses and feathers. She talked of meeting the actual American Indians, and it made me excited to keep reading.
Once I passed the part where she was retelling her personal experiences, it became so ridiculously boring that I couldn’t even comprehend what she was saying. Over and over she spoke of historians. This when on for a few pages. I felt like she didn’t even get her point across. Overall I think that her rambling was not needed and she could have written the article without all the fillers. It had the potential to be a good piece but Jane Tompkins killed wit completely.

Revisionism

While reading “Revisionism Revisited” the first time, I was completely confused. After reading it over a few times, I realized the message it was trying to portray. Revisionism, it seems, really only matters to the people who read and believe what is being revised. History can’t be changed, what is done is done. But what can we take to be the truth? As in the Wright Brother’s example, it is widely accepted that the two brothers were the first to actually fly an aircraft. After reading the article, it may just be that another man should have gotten the credit. It makes one become skeptical of how deep they should read into factual dates and events.
Revisionism shouldn’t be taken as skepticism, though. I felt that classifying it solely as a conspiracy theory undermined the real basis. As I said before, it is completely up to the individual to make the decision whether what they are reading is historically correct. We also can’t just shoot down people’s ideas and thoughts for the very beginning. We need to take time to think about what is being said and what stance we take on it.
Overall, the point that Mortimer was trying to convey wasn’t very clear to me. I’m not big into politics, so as soon as he started out with talking about George Bush, I was lost. I felt also that he was trying to talk himself and his views up way too much, which made him come off as slightly arrogant and closed minded.

Process Journal Questions

Q1) What happened in using the Perl process in particular?
A1) It took a while for me to block out all distractions sround me and focus on just my writing. All that came to my mind was my friends back home and how much I miss them. After blocking sitting down and realizing what I wanted to write about, It was easy to free write about the subject that I actually chose.

Q2) What happened in using the open ended process in particular?
A2) After I started thinking in a more broad sense, so many words and thoughts came to my mind. I thought about family alot but decided not to write about it because it ould bring up too many emotions, especially being 6 hours away from home. Summing up what I wanted to say was hard because I chose to write specifically about sertain friends and I found that a lot of memories came out.

Q3) What did you learn about your writing? Language? Thinking?
A3) I learned that Im much better at free writing instead of having to stick to specific rules and guidelines. When I have something Im interested in, its much easier for me to get my thoughts out and express them on paper. When Im interested, Im more concentrated on what Im doing and it also helps me to get motivated.

The Art of College Management:Cheating

Whether one has cheated or not, it has been a known fact for years that the majority of college students have either cheated or thought about cheating academically. Cheating gives one the false belief of succeeding on a test, on a homework assignment, or anything else for that matter. Cheating has been seen not only in schools, but also in the workplace and other social situations. We all know it’s wrong, but that doesn’t stop most of us from doing it. As said by Rebekah Nathan, it has been estimated that 81% of students in 1963 had been involved in some form of dishonesty. Thirty years later in 1993, that statistic had risen 2%. I can only imagine how much that number has risen since. Although the numbers were high, this really doesn’t surprise me. Last year in high school, cheating would take place literally every day, and it was looked upon as normal among the students. Classmates swapped homework answers or maybe just copied completely from one of their friends. Test taking was much worse, having seen immediate shifting of eyes when a classmate didn’t know an answer. Students would think of basically anything to get out of studying. Cheat sheets were popular in my school, and people were proud of them too. Since a lot of the kids had to take relatively the same courses, after using the right answers on the sheets, they would simply pass them on to friends so they could take the test with that very same little piece of paper in their pockets. Sometimes they would get caught, but most of the time they got away with it, and I thought nothing of it. I figured if they really needed it that bad it wasn’t any of my business. I feel as if cheating is now just an everyday thing, and it is taking away from the integrity of high schools and universities across the country. But people cheat, and there really isn’t ever going to be a stop to it. They do it to feel accomplished without having to study rigorously. By doing this though, they are just sliding by with a free pass. The people who are being dishonest aren’t learning or bettering themselves in the process. They are just cheating themselves out of striving to be the best they can be on their own. When a student who has cheated receives an excellent grade, it is obviously meaningless and it’s taking the credit away from a student who earned a good grade through hard work and effort. I’m not saying everyone is perfect, but people should gain success out of their own efforts rather than stealing the spotlight from the ones who truly deserve it.