Your blog is an on line personal journal or diary. It is a place to share your thoughts and feelings about significant topics based on The McGraw Hill Reader and on line sources. Unlike a journal or discussion, a blog requires a visual presence. Think of it as your own website. Some prompts will require visuals, photographs, or web links, but you are encouraged to use these in all your posts. Be sure to familiarize yourself with the tools in the text box in order to take advantage of the full scope of the blog. Each week there will be two prompts requiring your response. Responses may be posted in one blog entry or two, but each response should be clearly titled. While blogging is more relaxed than formal essay writing, it requires a minimum word count (see individual instructions), good grammar, and correct spelling. It also requires APA documentation of sources when quoting or citing from a website or using any on line source. Remember, it's your world and your blog!
Family and Identity
Chapter Five asks: "How do we become who we are?"
Many factors affect who we are, and how we become who we are today. As noted in our textbook by Muller (2014),
As much as our identities are shaped by powerful institutional forces like the family, what we are might be even more powerfully determined by the forces of sexuality and gender. Freud asserted that human behavior is rooted in sexuality, that gender (rather than family or school or social institution) is destiny. Clearly, notions of what it means to be a man or a woman have an impact on the construction of our identity. (p. 229)
#1. For your first blog, consider a person, place or thing that had a major influence on you. Find a photograph, graphic, or video that captures the feeling of that influence. It might be an actual photograph, a music video, or an inspirational graphic or quotation. Perhaps, you might browse social media like Pinterest or Instagram. Post the photo or graphic along with 300 words sharing what that influence meant to you and its effect on your goals and dreams.
#2. After reading Annie Dillard's "An American Childhood" (pp. 241-246). Then, write a short descriptive essay about someone you know very well, using several anecdotes or examples from that person's life, so that by the end of the essay, the reader will have a mental picture of your subject's personality, values and attitudes. This could be someone in your biological family or someone else with whom you are or were close. Minimum 300 words.