Pearson ALC English 11 Students: "Don't Get Fooled Again!" Learning Persuasion

Friday, April 3, 2009

"Don't Get Fooled Again!" Learning Persuasion

Remember to write your ideas in a way that someone who has never seen the video can understand and be persuaded. I will provide a sample before Sunday night.

15 comments:

Brad said...: Imagine a blonde woman holding up a human brain, its spinal cord hanging between her hands. And imagine her opening the brain to show you its two distinct halves—left and right. Most know that our brains are divided, but not as many the key difference between the two: on the left is our “rational” brain, the part that provides us with order and language; on the right is our “sensory” brain, the part that observes the world through our sensory organs.

The problem, according to Jill Bolte Taylor (best known for her TED lecture, “My stroke of insight”), is we are dominated by our left, order seeking, brain and thus live a less joyful, full life. For Taylor, having a stroke that shut down her left brain helped her realize the wonder and beauty of the world as seen by the right brain. Without language, Taylor perceived the world as an “energy field” and found the boundary between her skin and the world became indistinct.

But do we all have to experience a stroke to learn how to appreciate life as seen by our right brains? No, and Jill Bolte Taylor would argue that appreciating how much our left brain dominates us (by being that little “voice” in our heads) we can learn to shut off its stream of should dos and must dos.

The reward? A better balanced view of life and, if we are lucky, perhaps a purely sensory experience of our beautiful “energy” world.

—248 words

Techniques: Rhetorical question and scientific evidence.

NOTE: This lecture was shown to my English 12 students. If you'd like to see it, go to ted.com or Google and search for Jill Bolte Taylor; April 4, 2009 at 2:49 PM
LINDA LIU said...: Do you think you are a wise person towards your job? If so, then how wise you might be? If you are not sure about the answer, the video speech “The real crisis? We stopped being wise” by Barry Schwartz gives you the answer. In his lecture, he shows some real examples of how people practice wisdom in case the rules can’t work on the exception. The most persuasive example is the hospital janitor: he stopped mopping the floor because a patient is getting a little exercise to build up his walking strength along the hall. This janitor probably will do his job later or the next day. You might think He breaks the job description of being a janitor, but he does a great job to improve the patients’ care so as to improve the qualities of the hospital. That is much more significant than just mopping the floor in time. Therefore, we know the wisdom towards our job should not only contain the rules we already know but also be involved with moral view and moral skills such as kindness care and empathy. Exception occurs here and there, You may have already encountered the similar situation in your job. Did you handle it wisely? Or did you just followed the rules? By thinking about the above questions, you are already practicing wisdom with your job. Please keep doing this, because, as a human being, you deserve to be a wise person.
--243 words; April 5, 2009 at 10:22 PM
taruna said...: Affluenza is a disease that kills a person from inside. In the documenter of Affluenza there gave very good examples of how this disease affects peoples life .For example in the video there was a family how had everything ,but there were still feeling miserable inside there heart. They had a new car, a new flat screen TV, a new washing machine and a powerful vacuum cleaner; with all this equipments that they had they were still disappointed in life. Furthermore, Affluenza brainwashes people’s brain very evidently. It cleans people’s brain in a way that people starts to buy things even when they don’t have the ability (enough money) to get it. There was a case in the video of a couple how brought things on their credit card, and at the end for the day there were overloaded in debt. They got in to sow much debt that their marriage was about to brake. However, they realised they problem, (of buying thing they don’t need) and there solved it before it got any worse. Affluemza is very distractive; nevertheless it can be cured if we control our minds and our money. We have to become a very wise and attentive in what we watch before we even think of buying something. The disease Affluenza sirens you when it comes and that is when you start spending money on unnecessary things.”Be alert is to be alive” is what my police is.
241 words; April 7, 2009 at 7:56 PM
Qin said...: “Many major corporations are finding that the consumer lifestyle starts younger and younger,” Joan Chiaramonte (Roper Youth Poll) said, in the program Affluenza. In fact, this idea is supported by evidence. In the program, one child said, “My favorite store” while she was playing a shopping game with her friends. In addition, some teenagers purchased various famous brands of clothes, and their joy and satisfaction was expressed over their merchandise. Nevertheless, in my life, I have witnessed similar phenomena. My older nephew, who is sixteen years old, likes to wear Nike shoes and use an Apple computer. Inconceivably, my younger nephew, who is eight years old, likes to wear Adidas sport clothes and travel by airplanes. As the most active group of people in society, youngsters can easily keep in touch with the modern world and its products. They are more susceptible to commercial advertisements.
According to a report issued by the Nordic Consumer Ombudsmen, most websites aimed at children and young people display commercial advertisements because children are thus given a positive image of products: especially for new high technology merchandise such as mobile telephones, iPods, and computer games.
There is no doubt that marketing is consciously focus on children in the new media. The Internet is a powerful medium to attract younger consumers. Therefore, more and more teenagers purchase products on the Internet as in “Kids…Today’s marketing challenge.” But, while the commercial companies get huge benefits from youngsters, we wonder what the youngsters gain from the consumer lifestyle.

（250words)
Techniques: Testimonial and Repetition.; April 7, 2009 at 9:09 PM
Maryann said...: Is it possible to count on favorable future? Or, what can we do as we try to extricate ourselves from the current financial situation? That’s probably many people’s queries nowadays. To this, Barry Schwartz (A Psychologist who studies the link between economy and psychology, and also a TED speaker) confidently says that there is a promising hope if the society could adopt “practical wisdom” as an antidote to the crisis. While many experts have come up with newer and more advanced strategies to fight against the crisis, Barry Schwartz challenges his audiences to utilize practical wisdom in market place. Some one might ask, “Isn’t it a bit out of place or an obsolete concept especially, to those who live in a cutting edge environment? Barry Schwartz explains why this society primarily needs re-moralizing to survive from economic ills. He criticizes that our society has relied heavily on rules and incentives which have destroyed improvising and morality. Too much bureaucracy has taken away capability and virtue from workers. Thus, he urges the society to loosen up these factors so that workers can use their gifts freely in a healthy environment; doing what is right than what serves my interest. By doing so, he assures us that we will certainly rebuild our society—not only healthy economy but all aspects of our lives. I find Barry Schwartz talk fascinating because of its authenticity that touches an essential cause of the crisis.
-239 words
Techniques; Rhetorical questions and good reasoning
http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisdom.html; April 7, 2009 at 10:08 PM
maria said...: While you were young, do you ever thought about change the world?
If you are from generation 1960’s-1970’s, you will remember there were a lots of participation against war; fighting for civil rights; nationalism, and freedom (as a result of the different movements that was happened all over the world at that time). This turned into a revolutionary generation, which had their heroes, and followed their ideas about change things to make a better world.
In these days, in general, youths are busy in things that are more important: new brands, new technology, how to make money easily and fast. Suddenly, our society left them alone, to grow thinking that the most important matter in the world is buying things, and worst than that, they admire success people, even when they aren’t doing well to the society, but they are earning a lot of money.
In Barry Schwartz conference, about “practical wisdom”, where he mentioned that we need to celebrate moral exemplars, to recognize ordinary heroes, like a janitor, a head of an organization, a teacher; people who do the right thing for the right reason. That is what the new generations need, and we too. We need to organize as community and have the will to interact with other people to help the ones in need, to be an example to the youth people (our sons) being a wise person who use their moral will and moral skill. Schwartz points us: “kids need character,” and we need to teach them to respect their families, teachers, classmates, but more important, they need to learn how to respect themselves.
New generations need hope for better world, but desire to do right thing for the right reason. Do you think we could be their heroes?

Techniques: Nostalgia and rhetorical questions
Words 300; April 8, 2009 at 12:11 AM
sherry said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; April 8, 2009 at 9:48 AM
Rita said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; April 8, 2009 at 10:51 AM
suzie said...: Everyday we heard some news about bankruptcy or unemployment, and it involves not only small business, but also big banks and factories. It seems a crucial moment for most of us during today's serious economical crisis we are facing. How can we help to go through this difficult recession? Barry Schwartz makes a passionate call in TED speech for "practical wisdom" to help us to rebuild our world. He discusses that most jobs involving with interaction of people are MORAL works, and moral works depend on "practical wisdom" -- the combination of the "moral will" and "moral skill", and a wise person knows how to use moral skills to pursuit the right aims. Barry Schwartz gives out several examples such as hospital janitors who do many right things morally beyond his working description, which actually make people feel better and improve the quality of patient's care of the hospital at the same time. Another funny lemonade story reminds why people hate to do something but have to do for following procedures, and points out roles and procedures may be done but need to be thinking when things could be done not properly. American president Barack Obama said " We musk ask, not just is it profitable, but is it right." How could people do the right thing in the right way for the right reasons? You will be able to find the answers in Mr. Schwartz's TED speech.

(238 words)

Techniques: Rhetorical question, Simple solution and Testimonial; April 8, 2009 at 11:33 AM
Wazhma said...: Affluenza

Before watching video about Affluenza, I did not think about the dangers of this disease. I will suggest for you to watch this video in order to appropriately understand this problem.

Affluenza is a dangerous virus. Unfortunately, there is no vaccine for it yet. Regardless of wanting it or not, Affluenza affects us. It affects our lives, our nature, and our relationship. There is good example in video “Affluenza”, when it is showing that a boy calling to order some stuff for himself using his father’s credit card. To do this, he changes his voice to sound like an adult man. When the father finds out and has a serious talk with him, he does not like it.

First of all, Affluenza has a negative effect on kid’s habits. They start lying to their parents, and beginning to find ways to fool their parents. Also, they can steal money from home to buy all that things that they saw from commercials. If parents having harsh talk with them regarding their negative behaviour, they don’t like that and beginning to hate their parents for preventing them. So, there is the negative affect on relationship between parents and kids. The family can fall apart.

Affluenza already affected our nature and manners. Our goal is to understand the problem and don’t let it get worse by every day. This way, we can help ourselves and our children to avoid this dangerous “virus”.

241 words; April 8, 2009 at 11:45 AM
Rita said...: When the video gave us the idea of affluenza, for us to realize affluenza is a disease, it started with a woman was talking with a doctor, looking for a cure for her weird symptom in a hospital room. Then experts talked; I felt that I started to know what affluenza is. While we heard the “shopping song” came from a guitar band, we saw large amount of people were shopping and wasted things were dumped.

I started to think when I started to buy too much new stuff? The advertisements, everywhere around us, always gave us the image of the new products are better than the one before: more modern design, more functional, more popular. They imply that everyone buys the latest and the best one. Are you still using the old one? If so, you are unbelievable! We were unconsciously changing by this trend. Many old things which are still working were left behind and dumped.

We should realize that we are using up the limited resource on the earth. It was not long ago, we were taught by parents and teachers that we should live in frugal lives; however, nowadays, people want to earn more money, the whole society encourages us to spend more and even waste more. People feel that they have affluenza, because of the wrong leading. They need to realize that the “old fashioned” traditional values are good medicines.

-234words-

Techniques: Group Dynamics and Bandwagon; April 8, 2009 at 1:24 PM
molly said...: The video “We stopped being wise” is a real gripper! The speaker Barry Schwartz need a hearty handshake! His explanations are down to earth, logical, and sensible. My favorite line in the video is “practical wisdom not born but made.” Wisdom is the application of knowledge in the right way. It is the ability to use knowledge and understanding successfully to problems, to avoid or avert, dangers, to attain certain goals, or to help others to do so. Do you not agree that today we need such wisdom in order to deal with life’s trials successfully and to maintain a good standing with people?

In describing wisdom, Barry Schwartz gave an illustration of a hospital janitor who used practical wisdom in dealing with a situation; where he had to clean a room twice because the father of the patient who had been sleeping in the hospital for six months did not see him do it the first time and he is angry. Behaviors like this, (where he had to clean the room twice) from janitors does not just make people feel better but it improves the quality of patient care and enable the hospitals to run better.

But are all janitors like this one? No, and Barry Schwartz helps us to understand that the ones who are, thinks that this kind of human interactions involving kindness, care and empathy are essential part of the job and yet, their job description contain not one word about other human-being. A wiser person knows when and how to make exception to rules. As the janitor knew when to ignore their job duties in the service of other objectives. Practical wisdom is the combination of moral will and moral skill.
Good news? You don’t need to be brilliant to be wise; anybody can acquire wisdom, it depends on experience.; April 12, 2009 at 2:33 PM
Najlaa said...: Do you think affluenza has an effect on your daily life?
Affluenza is the combination of two words;affluence which means wealthy,and influenza which means an infection disease that causes fever,catarrh and pain.Then we can easily understand the combination word affluenza.After I watched the video about affluenza,I realised the dangers of this disease which attract us on impulsive shopping habbit.Affluenza involves our daily life without being aware of its danger.It affects all our society from kids,teenagers,adults to seniors.The main problem of it is ads;people are the prey of ads that attract all of us.The majority of people think that to have a''better life''it means to follow the technology and the improvement of lifestyle to what we mostly want,but not what we really need.Also,we think that credit card is the best way to purchase merchandise,but we forget the value of money being paid because we don't count them(if they are cash money)to notice the amount of them.The solution to get rid of affluenza is to keep your life free from the love of money and be content with the simplicity of life.So buy what we really need;fix and reuse our stuff;become a member of''buy nothing day''and encourage all your family and your friends to do so.In this case we protect our natural resourses from lost,and our environment from polution.

245words

Techniques:Rhetorical Questions and
Simple Solutions.; April 13, 2009 at 11:08 AM
Zarmina said...: Do you know what “Affluenza” is? Do you know what percentage of people in the world has caught by this infectious malady? If you do not know the answer, you will find out by reading this article.

Affluenza is a harmful or unbalanced relationship with money or its pursuit. You have feeling of overload, debt, anxiety and pursuit of more! It is a powerful virus that is not only destroying our environment but also our family and community ambiance. Currently, many people have become materialistic and have lost their taste for life because of Affluenza. They work over time and buy stuff, but they still are not happy or satisfied with their lifestyle. In the documentary they mentioned that the average person spend one year watching television commercials in their lifetime and spend 6 hours a week shopping. In contrast, members of working couples talk with each other only 12 minutes a day on average. And they only spend 40 minutes a week playing with their children.

Moreover, as global population increases and consumption skyrockets, we are rapidly using the planet’s natural resources and producing more waste than the globe and its atmosphere can absorb.

Luckily, Affluenza can be effectively treated: The most important steps are to spend less, spend more time with family and be content with yourself.; April 14, 2009 at 9:48 PM
sherry said...: Have you ever thought about the social disease Affluenza? you may get the answer from the videos “Affluenza”(by Vikesfreak) from the You Tube. According to this program,, Affluenza has 9 sympatoms, there are real examples for each case.
One of the sympatom is called “materialistic boys and girls”. The auther shows us how American teenagers has been affected by this contagious disease. In some American schools, students must watch Channel One-- a daily news program. Along with the news, there are many commercial ads, yet that ads (bike and soft drank) are specially made for the children. Thus, these vivid and colourful ads attract student eyes. I could imagine that all the students want to have their own bikes. Furthermore, the commercial ads surround the students in other ways: the ads such as snacks and drinks are not only painted on the school buses but also on the hallway in the schools. These are all having an influence to students to become materialistic.
Considering our comsuming habit recently, I think the materialism affects almost every one because people get the influence by the ads everyday , and it starts when they are very young. Nowadays, with the TV popularization, the Affluenza affects the entire world. I couldn’t imagine if all of us became the materialist, sooner or later, our earth resources would be used out; then how could our next generation survive without the materials? Thus, I appeal to everyone: It is time to stop Affluenza. we have responsibility to protect our earth, let’s live a “better” Life with “less”.

-words 260

Techniques: Rhetorical questions and real example; April 20, 2009 at 10:34 AM

Pearson ALC English 11 Students

Friday, April 3, 2009

"Don't Get Fooled Again!" Learning Persuasion

15 comments:

Student Links

Contributors

Blog Archive