Friday, September 14, 2012

"Reading" for 9/18: Voting for Justice



Your reading assignment for this week is the beginning of a semester-long project you will be doing call Voting for Justice: Gender Studies in an Election Year.  You will be exploring a contemporary social issue that is under debate in this presidential election, and working to understand how the presidential candidates think about this issue.  For your reading and blogging this week, here is what you need to do.




1) Choose an issue.  

Some suggestions might include health care, reproductive rights, gay marriage, standardized testing, immigration, tax policy, stem cell research, gun control, oil drilling, genetically modified foods, sex education in schools, labor unions, women's health, pay equity, child care... choose any issue that matters to you in the 2012 election.


2) Choose a Candidate.
  • Obama (Democrat)
  • Romney (Republican)
  • Johnson (Libertarian)
  • Stein (Green)

3) Find an article that analyzes the candidates position on that issue.

This needs to be a piece that clearly makes a strong claim for or against the candidate's position on this issue.   You are looking for something thattakes a position.  For example, if you choose ROMNEY and ABORTION RIGHTS, you might look at this piece from Rachel Maddow.  Or if you choose OBAMA on GUN CONTROL you could choose this article from the Huffington Post.   Do the best you can to find something that feels biased -- I want you to look for things that explicitly take a strong stand!

4) Post the article on your blog and write about it.
  • Summarize the issue.
  • Explain the stance the article is taking on the issue.
  • Use links to other sources to help define and explain what the author is talking about.

We will look at all of the issue you find when we meet on Tuesday, and ultimately these articles will help to define your groups for the Election Year project.


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