English UnderGrad Conference

During the English Undergraduate Conference I attended a session on the use of webquest in the classroom. I really liked this session because, being an education major, it's something that I can use in my classroom. It's set up like a web site that students can go to and see what projects and assignments they have to do. I can use this in my Family and Consumer Sciences classroom because I feel there are many different websites out there that can be useful to my class that I can get them to use through webquest. For example, if I'm teaching a foods class and my students need recipes, I can guide them to one of the many thousands of websites that will help them find what they need. The use of webquest's are a great tool for the classroom and think they will become more and more popular over the next few years.

Disscussion Questions on Chapter 3

Question 2:

Gladwell states that what makes a message memorable is it's stickiness factor, the ablility for the message to stick in your mind. Part of this is the repetition of the message and the impact that it had on you. Even if you don't like the message, if you still remember it than the advertisers have done their job by getting it to stick in your mind. We think that the cliche "even bad publicity is good publicity" is true because even if the commercial annoys you, you'll still remember them. For instance, the freecreditreport.com commercials. They stick in your head because of the catchy songs.

Question 4:

We believe that tv is stickier than books. Many kids would rather watch an animated cartoon rather than read something. It's good for young children because for those that can't read the message is still getting across because they can watch it. Also, a lot of low income families do not have books lying around their houses for kids to read. Tv is one of the main ways for these kids to learn.

Reflection on The Tipping Point Chapter 2

I think that the most interesting part of chapter 2 was the part about the connectors. Gladwell used his own circle of friends to find out who the connectors were. In his case it happened to be his friend Jacob. I really like when he showed how he met other friends through Jacob and said that it wasn't his circle of friends, it was Jacob's pyramid of friends. This is really true. I've noticed that, especially here at school, there are one or two people that I can link all my friends to. If I had never meet these two people, the group of friends I hang out with everyday would be really different from what it is now. And because my connectors know so many people, the circle is still growing and we're adding mew people everyday.

The part with the quiz was pretty interesting because as i was looking at I realized I know at least 25 people who had those names as their last names. Hopefully that means that I'm a good connector and am helping to expand other peoples social circles.

Differences in Genres

When comparing what we've been reading in class to what I normally read on my own time, I've noticed there's a lot of differences. Normally I read fiction books, they tend to be romance or mysteries. There's really no research in these books. I'm sure the author did a lot of research to find out how the certain characters act and how they do their jobs but it's not the same as Gladwell's research. In The Tipping Point Gladwell uses research to back up pretty much every example he gives. He's interviewed college students and made up tests that help him decide what to write. In my kind of books the authors write what they feel, not what they can back up so that separates these books greatly. The style of writing is very different as well because in my books the style is very informal, but in Gladwell's book he's trying to teach us something so the style is much more formal.

The Tipping Point: Intro and Chapter 1

Malcom Gladwell used The Tipping Point to show how little things can greatly effect a big issue.

During the introduction, he spoke of the epidemic of the Hush Puppies and how they went from almost being phased out, to being sold in every mall in America. This happened because a few kids in the East Village of New York and Soho started wearing them and people started to follow the trend. This small step caused a huge epidemic.

In chapter one, Gladwell states "The Three Rules of Epidemics." These rules are the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context. He uses the example of the spread of syphilis in Baltimore, Maryland. Each rule can be applied to a reason for the spread. For example, he states that the Law of the Few can be defined with the 80/20 Principle, meaning that 20 percent of people do 80 percent of the work and that's how the epidemic started, with just a few people. Gladwell continues the chapter by giving examples of the other rules in reference to the reason for the syphilis epidemic.

The chapter is concluded by stating that the three rules help people make sense of epidemics, and asking how the rules will help us understand other epidemics later in the book. Gladwell keeps your interest by stating that "the answers may surprise you."