The Outliers 2nd Chunk.

In this second chunk of the Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell discusses the topic about how everybody thinks that people with high IQ's are more intelligent than people with lower IQ's, but how that is not necessarily true. It is not true because the IQ test only test people on their ability to solve puzzles, such as the ones he put as examples. The IQ test does not test the people in their ability to think and how many different ways their mind is able to expand. He also states that more people with good IQ's have won more Nobel Prizes than the people with the highest IQ's. It also discussed that this kind of thinking was what cause Terman to be wrong about his special group the "termites". He taught that because they had the highest IQ's they would succeed and all of them would become really successful but he was wrong, some of them became failures. He also discusses about a really smart genius, Chris Langar, and how this guy was even smarter than Einstein. This guy was really smart and had many opportunities to become successful and manage to ruin all of them and end up becoming nothing. Gladwell interviewed him and started asking him questions about the choices he made, Langar was trying to make it sound like a sob story but Gladwell opened it to our eyes how what he said was just nonsense. He also talks about Oppenheimer, how he was really intelligent but often people would not understand him and called him crazy for the things he would do. He was a genius that helped create the atomic bomb but at the same time a crazy man who tried to kill his mentor. He also explains why rich kids are most likely to success that middle class kinds or poor kids. The rich kids succeed more because their parents are more involved with their education and since a young age they teach their children to place themselves at the same level as someone with authority. Unlike the poor kids who parents do not get involved with their education because it is not their job. In this chunk Gladwell gives us a more insight look at how success is, and it all depends how you take advantage of your opportunities, unlike Chris Langar did.

Questions
Clarification- Why do you think that Chris Langar did not try his best to succeed, was he scared to or why?
Style- Do you believe that maybe also depeding on the culture poeple come from, they have different views of education?

The Outliers 1st Chunk

In this first chunk Malcolm Maxwell introduces to us the true meaning of success and the way to obtain success, like many successful people. At the beginning Gladwell uses an anecdote and discusses about the life of the Rosettan people that came here to America and the studies that doctor Stewart Wolf was performing to them. This research and studies help Wolf give people the understanding of health, and the same way with this book Malcolm Gladwell was giving people the understanding of success. Gladwell then begins to discuss the success of famous hockey players, how many of them became successful for the opportunity of practice that was given to them and also for the fact of being born during January-April. It also does this and discusses this with examples of the Beatles, Bill Gates, Bill Joy, and etc., that they got their success from the opportunities given to them. The Beatles got their chance at success when they began playing at a cheap club, it meant nothing playing their but they got practice by playing everyday which made them become successful. Bill Gates got his success by the 9 opportunities that Gladwell list for use and for getting unlimited time programming the computers, the more he programmed the more he became an expert at it. The same for many other including the Billionaires, they were born at the right times when there were beginning new approaches and took advantage of them, and were successful at it. This shows that people who are successful are not born with it the obtain it throughout time and practice. That many of this people have their success for coincidence to have been born on the year or month that they were or to have lived in the places that they lived such as Bill Gates living near the University of Washington. It also point out the 10,000 hours point which shows how when people practice something for 10,000 hours in their lifetime they become successful at it and also an expert. An example would be the violinists, the best ones had played 10,000 hours, while the not so good ones had only played 80,000 hours. The definition of success does not come from talent itself but also from the help you get, the practice, and the opportunities which is what Malcolm Gladwell gives us to understand in this first chunk.

Questions
Clarification- Why do many successful people say that they started at nothing, when Gladwell proved to us that this is not true?
Application- Do you believe that if you follow Gladwell "advice" and statement you will become successful?
Style- Do you believe that everyone [in the whole world] obtains success the way that the people described in the book did?

“Size 6: Women’s Harlem” Analysis

Fatema Mernissi text, “size 6: Women’s Harlem” takes an inside view of the place that a women gets in a men world. Also it demonstrates how women live up to the expectation that men have for them. She describes her own life and how men places her in her culture, how she is not allowed to be in the public space because that space is only allowed for men. Also how she is forced to covered her face with a veil because that is the rule that the police men in Morocco enforce. She discusses how her coming to American open her eyes and she begins to notice that the men have the same control over the women. When she goes into an American store a woman that is the same age as her but who look half her age begins to tell her that there are no skirts her size. This women then begins to offend the author by telling her she is too big, this is a surprise for her because in her country no one would ever tell her that but then soon she realizes that this is the way that men keep the women under control in America. A men in America wants a girl that is the perfect size, so women are most likely force to be skinny and look young to be able to please men, which is living up to their expectations. She then because to analyzes that both here in American and her country women are control by men and often put down by them. Here she describes why this happens and how these two different cultures connect for the one reason that men find a way to control women and put them to live by their expectations.

Vocabulary.
None for this one

Tone
Informative; passionate

Rhetorical Terms
Anecdote- “It was during my successful attempt to buy a cotton skirt.…”
Metaphor- “..more dangerous and cunning than the Muslims ones because the weapon used against women is time.”
Allusion- “You can’t escape it. There is Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Gianni Versace, Giorgio Armani, Mario Valentino…”
Emotional Appeal- “I am so happy that the conservative male elite does not know about it.”
Rhetorical Question- “how can you stage a credible political demonstration and shout in the streets that your human rights have been violated when you cannot find the right skirt?

Discussion Questions
Clarification- Why is the author in a look for a skirt in the first place?
Application- Would you agree with the author when she assume that the Western women has it worse than the Muslim Women? Why?
Style: Do you believe that all around the world (not only in the Muslim and Western life) women are made to live up to a men expectations?

Quote
“The objective remains identical in both cultures; to make women feel unwelcome, inadequate, and ugly.”

Why We're Superstitious

Superstitious lives in everyone, and in this article of TIMES magazine, Bruce Hood, author of Supersense explains where superstition comes from, and how it is involved with the brain. He believe that people use their brain and way of thinking by trying to fit patterns together therefore creating superstitions. Not only does he discuss how our brain creates superstition, but also who are the people that are able to admit they are superstitious and who won't admit it. Religious people admit that they are superstitions while the people who believe in paranormal things do not believe that they are superstitions, which is something many people did not know. Hood states how his book talks about all the things that deal with all these superstitious things, and also what the tittle of the book means. The tittle describes how there are other forces in nature acting on the world that we may not know. He gives examples of superstitions that famous athletes have before playing a gave such as Tiger Woods and David Beckham to help support his argument. Bruce Hood shows his reader that there is more to superstition than just bad luck and ghost, and persuades them to want to go out and buy his book.

Application- Religion has to do with superstition, then why do people view it as a bad think when religion is a good thing?
Style- Do you believe that people all around the world have their own spuerstitions?

A New Approach to Designing the AIDS Vaccine Analysis
The article from time.com was about finding a AIDS vaccine that would finally work effectively. It explains how through many years scientist have try to create a vaccine that would cure AIDS, but all have failed. The vaccine that had been the closest to actually working was created during the year of 2007, but it still failed like all the other ones. Since 1894 scientists have tried to deal with AIDS and finding how to cure it, because it has caused many deaths to people. Laura Blue explains how scientist explain that finding a vaccine for the cure has failed because not a lot was known about the virus. It demonstrates the reason of why older vaccines have failed, they have failed because the virus would reproduce quicker than the antibodies that were fighting the virus. In order for these scientists who are working in future to create an effective vaccine for AIDS. It shows how now there may be a possibility of sicentist creating a vaccine that can cure AIDS because there is now more knowledge about the virus and the immune system that the virus attacks.

Vocabulary
Antiretroviral- acting, used, or effective against retroviruses
Thwarted- to prevent the occurrence, realization, or attainment of

Tone
Informative

Rhetorical Terms
Metaphor- Their approach to vaccine development…is to abandon the as yet fruitless search for a magic bullet”
Expert Opinion- “really looked at what the antibody response is," says senior investigator Michel Nussenzweig, head of the Rockefeller University's Laboratory of Molecular Immunology.”

Discussion Questions
Application- Do you believe that the will ever be an effective vaccine to help cure AIDS?
Style- Do you believe that AIDS is a big problem all around thje worl like it is in the United States?

Quotation
“The U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services boldly announced in 1984 that there would be an AIDS vaccine within two years.”

Branded Reading Chunk #3

In this third 3rd chunk of the non-fiction book by Alissa Quart she mentions how colleges are getting branded by students and also how teen literature has a branding effect on teens. She also mentions the unbranded kids an how they fight against corporations who try to brand them. Students brand colleges by trying to get into the best universities, many of them have tutor at an early age and take special classes with tutors. Many of the students parents encourage them to get into those universities such as Princeton and Harvard, therefore they spend about 500 an hour getting a tutor for their children. These teens want to brand name colleges, and will do anything to get into them. Teen literature has also become a way kids brand themselves , many at the age of 14 will begin writing book about life experiences that they had, such as rape, drug addiction, alcoholism, and other horrible situations. These teens sell out their stories to corporations who publish them in books. The author even says that if after selling their story is it still theirs now that other people(corporations) have it. These teen become branded as the teen who got raped or the teens who had a drug addiction. Last but not least in her book she does mention those kids who decide to live their life without getting into a branded life style. Some of them are kids who do not attend high school and teach themselves at home, they do not go to high school because of all the branding that goes on there. How being there you are influence to dress a certain way and be a certain way. These teens do not want to be like that, they also do not care about name brand universities and will just go to a college that they want or not go to one at all. Another of anti-branding teens are the DIY kids, these are punk teens who do not get into the whole wearing brand clothing or into branding themselves. They become involve in having mimi concert between all of them almost every weekend,either in public places like malls but usually in their garages. They also hold meetings where they talk about issues that are important to them, and they do not try to brand themselves like all the teens around them. Some teens revolt against branding in school they do not like when their school are filled with brand names in vending machine or textbooks such as Coca Cola, M&Ms, or other name brands. They fight against it just like the case that Alissa Quart mentioned with Edison school system again Philadelphia students. The author shows us how branding can have negative affect on teens and how not every single teen out their follow the trend of being Branded.

Questions
Clarification- Does being an unbraded teen (such as DIY kid, or teaching yourself at school) affect that teen social life? Is it hard for them to make friends?
Application- After finish reading the book do you consider yourself a branded or unbranded teen? Why?

Branded Reading Chunk #2

In this 2nd chunk of the non-fiction book by Alissa Quart she explains how video games, colleges, movies, surgeries, music videos, and models are also things that brand teens. She explains how these things influence teens without them even having a clue that they are being influence by these big corporations. Video games have influence the teens by putting brand names in the games such as Quicksilver in skateboarding games, making the teens want to go and buy the gear that has the Quicksilver brand on it to fit in. Movies also brand teens in a different way. Most movies are about makeover and show that when an ugly girl gets a makeover and become pretty she immediately gets socially accepted, which in a way influence kids do want to do makeovers to their oneself in hope that the same will happen to them. Also most of these teen movies mention certain brand names and the teen watching them are influence to go and buy the brand name that was mentioned. If a teen sees his favorite celebrity with a cosmopolitan magazine they are most likely to get influence in read that same magazine. The makeover, celebrity mentioning brand names, and products shown in the movie make teens become branded. Another way of getting branded is getting plastic surgery done to make their breast bigger or their noses smaller, in their own way of fitting in. These teens see how many of their friends become what they call "pretty" overnight by getting a nose job or a boob job and get influence that they should do it too. Many teens are also influence by their mom who had plastic surgery before. These teens are branding themselves by trying to look like the girls that come out in music videos or celebrities who have had surgery done to them. This is branding because they pick their doctor according to which celebrities they have done plastic surgery to, if it is someone as Britney Spears they are more likely to want that doctor than a doctor who has never done plastic surgery to a famous celebrity. Many girls instead of getting surgery and liposuction to have the perfect bodies follow a different brand which is the Pro-Ana teens. These teens are a group of girls who talk to each other over the internet influencing themselves to be anorexic in order for them to be as skinny as the models in magazines. The need for these girls to be skinny is so far that they each help each other starve themselves by giving them advice such as to stay in a cold room freezing to burn calories. These girls are branding themselves by being anorexic in hope to look like the models in magazine, commercials, and billboards. Colleges are also a type of branding, by trying to get into the best college, a college that is well known in order to succeed in life. Many of these teens struggle hard to get into the best known colleges like Harvard. Many of them get tutors counselors and spend thousands of dollars on them in order to learn more and pass SAT to be able to get into the college of their dreams. Quart shows how many thing may not seem as teens getting brand but when you look into it, many of these things are a way that teens brand themselves, to fit in socially or either become the best they can be.

Questions
Clarification- Does the way that these teens become branding(through movies, video games, models, surgery, etc.) has a negative or positive effect on them? Why?
Application- Do you think that being a King/Drew student makes you become a "branded teen" because it is a magnet high school? Why or Why not?