Tuesday, November 30, 2010

The White Man's Burden: Rudyard Kipling's Poem and the Response

In 1899, Rudyard Kipling (of Jungle Book fame) wrote a little poem that generated more than a little controversy. Kipling's poem, "The White Man's Burden," was a plea for America to be more involved overseas and, in particular, in the Philippines. Many people not only disagreed with the worldview expressed in the poem but also found it to be racist.

Until 2007 or so, there was an excellent website that featured Kipling's poem and many of the responses, which came in the form of editorial cartoons, poems, essays, and letters to the editor. This website has unfortunately been taken down. However, some of the resources are still up on various places on the web.

As a believer in the learning opportunities available in looking at the original poem and the response, I have started to re-gather these resources and put them back in one place. White Mans Burden .Net (White-Mans-Burden.Net) is now onine in hopes that teachers and students around the U.S. might find it useful.

Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Evalating Online Sources


Evaluating Online sources: 5-Question quiz

1. Please read and discuss the "Evaluating Your Sources" handout together as a class.

2. Below are a few tips related to the handout:
---Authority (authorship) can often be determining by scanning the top of the web page, the bottom of the web page, and the "about us" page (if any). Keep in mind that unless the person is famous and/or known to you, a name only tells so much. Who is this person? What do they do for a living? What kind of education do they have?
---Objectivity: Is the site selling anything? Trying to persuade you of anything? Are there ads on the site?
---Authenticity / Reliability: Is there an organization, corporation, or educational institution associated with the site? What is it? As before, look at the top of the web page, the bottom of the web page, and the "about us" page (if any).
---Timeliness: Is there a date provided somewhere on the page or even in the copyright (if any) at the bottom of the page?

3. Visit each of the 3 diet sites below and complete the chart by making comments about these sites in each respective box in the chart:
Weight Loss Center (article)
Medicine.Net (article)
Diet Pills Hoopla & Hype (article)

Coming Soon:
You can travel into space for $200,000.00

Right now you can go to
The End of the Internet
for free.
Check it out!




Friday, November 05, 2010