Paradigm ShiftThis paper assigned CAS 137H: Rhetoric and Civic Life 1 had us take a historical look at the way the public's opinion on a particular issue shifted over the course of time. We had to analyze the direction of the shift, account for specific "moments" in time, and provide rich evidence to back up our claims.
My paradigm shift was about the public's perception of the Theory of Evolution from its inception to the mid 2000's and the modern day. The arguments I made about the nature and direction of the shift were framed mostly in terms of two separate court cases: The Scopes Trial, and the recent Kitzmiller v. Dover case in Pennsylvania. Evolution, and particularly the public battle over its truth or non-truth, are of great interest to me, and I couldn't pass up a chance to take another look at it.
|
Reflection on Online DeliberationIn the second part of my Rhetoric and Civic Life course, we were encouraged to both work on our own deliberation skills, and our abilities to encourage deliberation from other people. In this particular assignment, we each chose an online venue to make comments in and attempt to create an environment for discussion. My search led me to the online news site The Root.
The particularly racial flavor of The Root gave me a chance to take a look at one of the more sensitive and underplayed issues in our society today, as well as gain some new material for my Civic Issues Blog for the same class (for which I chose race as a topic). In the end, I placed what I thought were some strongly worded and contrarian statements designed to foster discussion and play "devil's advocate" against currently held views, and was met with mixed success.
|