Blog #5: Analyzing a Song Analysis

For this blog, I am empowering you with the ability to grade another student. I am handing over the "grading pen" and placing it into your hands. Exciting, right? Or intimidating.

Your instructions are to:

1.Visit another students wiki (that's not from your class) and read their analysis on the song they chose. (first be sure that no other student has read that song analysis by looking to the bottom and checking for threads)
2.Leave them a thread message/post on their song analysis page letting them know that you have critiqued their analysis on your blog and give them the url to your blog (if your blog is private you may need to send them an invite) so that they may visit your blog and see your response. This will also let other students know that you have already chosen that students wiki and no one else can do it. (The idea is so that everyone in all three classes gets their song analysis critiqued, therefore, if you visit someones wiki and see that someone else already left a thread/post claiming that they have critiqued their analysis then you have to find another wiki song analysis to critique)
3. You are then to post a response to their analysis. First point out the strong points of their analysis. Then point out the weaknesses. Be especially critical here. Their analysis should have some discussion on claims, appeals that are used, voice, style, color & tone of language, audience, and context.
4. Leave them a grade for their song analysis. I will be taking this critiques and grades into consideration as I read them myself and grade the assignment.


So have fun, be critical and feel empowered!

To Sag or Not to Sag; That is the question

As I am sure many of you know, there is a new law taking surge across the country that enforces how we as citizens should dress. Imagine that, the law telling you how you can wear your clothes or what you should wear. Yup, I'm talking about the sagging pants law. The law is spreading like wildfire all over the nation, which means our representatives are approving it.







The “Baggy Pants Bill” states: “It shall be unlawful for any person to appear in public wearing his pants below his waist and thereby exposing his skin or intimate clothing.”


Here in Florida the the Prek-12th Grade Education Committee unanimously approved Sen. Gary Siplin's "pull up your britches" bill (SB 302). It next will go to the Senate floor after the Legislature convenes its regular annual session in March.


Youth who let their drawers droop to expose underwear, G-strings or worse at school will first get a verbal warning for their first offense but then face suspension if they keep doing.


Recently, Dr. Phil took up the debate featuring the Ying Yang twins and members of the Hip Hop Government. The argument around sagging pants, inevitably turns to point the finger at hip hop as the culprit for this phenomenom. Hip Hop Government, whose mission is to "Mobilize people of the hip hop culture to use their vote for positive change for political, social and economic concerns" has teamed up with Dallas' City Hall and launched a "Pull up your Pants Campaign."









The year after I graduated from high school Florida began to aggresively implement the uniform code, stripping away the ability to express oneself's identity, and ensuring that boys were paying attention to the teacher at the front of the room who was teaching a lesson, and not on the girl next to him whose shirt was so low cut, he couldn't concentrate on learning. The argument for learning was obviously much stronger thatn the one for freedom of expression and identity because today I find myself buying white, blue or burgandy polos and khakis or jeans and all the students look the same whereby making it a safer learning environment for all children. And all because parents couldn't make sure their girls weren't dressing like hoochie-mamas and their boys weren't dressing like gang members. OR, they were encouraging their kids to dress that way and were buying it for them.

So where do you stand on this issue? Fad or Fashion? Disrespect and Disgusting? Are you tired of seeing boxers, underwear, and thongs hanging out and no one doing anything about it? Is it time for the government to put their hand in making sure that people are "respecting" themselves by implementing a law that tells us how low we are allowed to wear our pants?