English 1A - Seminar #9
Appleby: Why People Ignore Poverty (20 points)
Note: Your seminar grade will be determined by the quantity of your responses (how many questions you answer and how many other students you respond to) and the quality (how well you demonstrate an understanding of the ideas you're responding to, how detailed your responses are, how coherent and in-depth they are, etc.)
Directions:
1. Read the essay above.
2. Answer the following questions with at least one paragraph each. Include quotes and specific references to the text in your answers if it seems appropriate.
3.
Submit your response to: 1) the Assignment Chamber (you can either type the responses out beforehand and copy and paste them into the chamber, or just type them directly into the chamber) 2) to my campus mailbox or office, or 3) to me personally.
4. Post your response to at least one of these questions to the Forums chamber of the website (you choose which one/s you want to post). All responses will be posted to the forums chamber of the class website. As always, students in each section are invited to visit the other's discussion, using "guest" as the Student ID and password. If you prefer to discuss in person, the live discussion will be held on Wednesday, Oct. 26, in Humanities 103, from 12:45 - 2 pm.
| 1. Poverty and Slavery: Why does Appleby compare poverty to slavery? What are the links between the two situations, according to her? Do you think this is an effective comparison? Why or why not? |
| 2. Imagination and empathy: According to Appleby, what role does imagination play in getting people to feel compassion for another human? Why did this work well for abolishing slavery, and why isn’t it having the same effect for poverty? |
| 3. Solutions: How does Appleby think we should address the problem of poverty in our country? Whose responsibility is it to confront poverty, and how should we go about it? Do you agree or disagree, and why? |
| 4. Your Reaction: Do you feel that the poor of this country need more help? If so, what kinds of help would best suit them, do you think? If not, what do you think the poor should be doing to address their own situation? |
5. Read all the other students' posts.
6. Respond to at least one other student's post (more is better)
. You will have until midnight, Sunday, Oct. 30 to read and respond to the other students' ideas in the website.