Before and After Carlisle article from Radiolab

Here's the link.

28 November 2016

Today students crafted questions at issue and enthymemes, then began developing synthesis essays to support their claims.

Some additional resources include:

•   "Letter of Recommendation: High School Football" from this last week's New York Times Magazine
• "A Not So Brief and Extremely Sordid History of Cheerleading" from Mother Jones
• Radiolab's "American Football" episode
• "Are People Violent By Nature? Probably" from the Los Angeles Times
• "No Pain, No Game" from The New York Times
• "Stop Glorifying Football Players and Start Glorifying Soldiers" from Time

In class, we reviewed the synthesis essay assignment and scoring guide, and students got underway with the writing process. A first complete first draft of the essay is due on Tuesday, 6 December/Wednesday, 7 December 2016.

22 November 2016

Today students further developed topics for synthesis essays, building out specific pieces of textual evidence that could support the examination of specific strands that come out of our examination of what American football reveals about American culture and American values. Some topics students are exploring include:

• hypermasculinity
• misogyny
• a protracted "win-lose" mentality
• exaggerated patriotism/false patriotism
• the NFL and nationalism
• the illusion of impenetrability or invulnerability
• "action movie ignorance" and the unseen impact of the game
• a tendency to ignore frightening or ugly realities
• rites of passage
• committing to an identity at an early age
• the relationship between sports and education
• the culture of commodification
• mental health as a stigma
• sport as a means to build community
• sport as a way to transcend economic class
• racism
• loss of identity
• risk-taking or deep play
• CTE

Some resources that may be useful going forward include:

• Frontline's "League of Denial"
• Andrew Sullivan's essay "The He Hormone"
• PBS Newshour's "Football's Grip on America is a Double-Edged Sword"

During our next two class sessions, students will be drafting synthesis essays to support their thinking about the issues they have become invested in.

18 November 2016

We began class by discussing responses to Gladwell's essay, "Offensive Play." Afterward, students worked in small groups to develop a list of potential issues to write about for the upcoming synthesis essay. As a full class, students compiled a list of possible subjects. Next time, we'll use dialogue journals and response papers to begin to develop evidence that could support those topics.

16 November 2016

Students turned in their Dialogue Journals, then turned to the discussion of the relationship between gender roles and sports--especially football--in their lives and in the books we have been reading during this unit. Students read either Brian Phillips' "Man Up" or a series of short pieces addressing parenting and gender from the New York Times "Room for Debate" section, "Do We Need to Change the Way We Raise Boys" to deepen the discussion.

Students were given Malcolm Gladwell's "Offensive Play," which they will read and write response papers about for our next session.

14 November 2016

Today students turned in their response papers about "The Case Against High School Sports" and "High School Sports Aren't Killing Academics. We discussed these articles in relation to students' own experiences, and in relation to the books in the unit. Students were given Jane McManus' "Gym Class Heroes" to read for next session.

"Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" releases on Friday, 11 November 2016

Read the New York Times review here.

7-8 November 2016

Students took a quiz over their Football Case Study books. We discussed provocative issues emerging in the texts in small groups, then as a larger class.

"The Case Against High School Sports" and "High School Sports Aren't Killing Academics," the two articles that serve as the basis for the next response paper, were passed out. Response paper #2 is due on 14/15 November 2016.

3 November 2016

Students finished IRP presentations, reflected on their group work, and spent time in small groups discussing key elements of their Football Case Study books.

1 November 2016

Students engaged in SSR and heard IRP presentations.

28 October 2016

Students engaged in SSR and heard IRP presentations.