First Blog Post on *The Teenage Brain* (sample first blog post)

Hello, my name is Mr. Lainhart, and I am currently reading The Teenage Brain by Dr. Frances E. Jensen and Amy Ellis Nutt.

The Teenage Brain is a new book that applies modern neuroscience to the area of child development, particularly the teen years. According to this interview published on NPR's health blog, Jensen and Nutt examine how the very factors that make teens mentally flexible and quick to learn are the same factors that predispose teens to being impulsive and moody. Using her background as a professor in neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania and as a mother of two boys, Jensen explains how the frontal lobes of the brain are the last to develop, usually not until the mid-twenties. This is significant because the frontal lobes are the areas which control what's known as "executive functions" like the ability to weigh pros and cons before making decisions, the ability to feel empathy for others, and the ability to control one's impulses.

Jensen and Nutt also examine the reasons why the teen brain is more susceptible to addiction--both drug and alcohol addictions and addictions such as to technology. Because the field of brain studies is growing and changing so quickly, Jensen and Nutt admit that they do not have all the answers. However, their focus is to provide information to parents, teens, and teachers, so that they can be more aware of factors to look out for.

Privacy in the modern era--Does it matter?

from Time.com

Inside is a collection of links and articles related to the issue of privacy in the Internet/cell phone age. Please look them over to prepare for our discussion on George Orwell's novel 1984.  

The main ideas of our discussion will be that Orwell couldn't foresee (because he wasn't a time traveler or a witch), (1) how quickly technology would advance to make both government and corporate data collection virtually automatic, (2) how much privacy people would voluntarily give up, and (3) world's biggest data miners and processors would be corporations

And the major question about all of this is "Does it Matter?"  Does it matter if the government and corporations have the power to gather and analyze data about us? Why should we care if we are not doing anything wrong?

Internet and Phone Tracking 101

How do I know if I’m being tracked online?

If you’re on the Internet or you have a cell phone, you are being tracked and analyzed. Websites like Google, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Buzzfeed, College Humor, Dictionary.com, SparkNotes . . .  (pretty much every website you visit) make 90-95% of their money from advertising.  To advertise better, they want to know more about you.  To do that, they track everything we do on the Internet.

How do they track us? The most common way is through using something called a "tracking cookie." It sounds silly, I know. A "cookie" is a small piece of computer code that is placed inside your browser's memory every time you go to a site (on a computer or tablet or on a phone, too).

A tracking cookie looks something like this:

That's it. That little sequence of symbols and numbers allows the webpage (msn.com in this case) to follow me around the web. MSN can then keep track of every link I click on (they call that a "clickstream"). There are other tracking tricks that use "flash beacons" and other techno sounding things, but for simplicity, we can just call them all "tracking cookies."Here’s an example using a computer web browser.  Using an addon called “Ghostery" it's possible to see and block attempts to track me.  If I go to the Dictionary.com website with Ghostery enabled, I can see that 11 ad networks and data gathering sites are going to be tracking my movements after I leave Dictionary.com. Or at least they would be if I didn't have Ghostery and a few other things installed.  

To read more on Internet tracking, click past the break:

The "Rhetorical Strategies" AP Exam Question

(updated) April 19, 2017:

I'm going to guess that, even though the AP exam is upon us, you might still be unclear about what exactly a rhetorical strategy is. There's actually a good reason for that. "Rhetorical strategy" is one of those umbrella terms that encompasses many different ideas. One source will tell you that Logos, Ethos, and Pathos are the key strategies. Another source will tell you that words like "anaphora" and "euphony" are the way to go.

And, of course, they're both right.

Because the study of rhetoric has been around since ancient Greece, it's a given that there will be an overwhelming mass of different information that different authors think is important. The best thing you can do for the AP exam is to not over-think it.

Stick with this.You know what rhetorical strategies are. At their simplest, they are the techniques that an author uses to improve the delivery of his/her message. Things like word choice, comparison, contrast, word order, imagery, repetition, irony, humor, rhetorical questions, hyperbole, etc. are all potential "rhetorical strategies." If you can explain the author's argument and explain how s/he uses these techniques to develop his/her argument, then you are well on your way to writing a great essay.

If you'd like to delver further into examples in an actual AP exam question, click past the break and go for it. 

What's the difference between AP Lang and Lit?

One of the questions we get most in the English department is "what's the difference between AP English Literature and Composition and AP English Language and Composition?

The short answer is that AP Lit focuses mainly on analyzing fiction and drama, and that AP Lang focuses mainly on analyzing non-fiction and on making effective arguments.

A slightly longer answer is that AP English Literature is essentially a survey course of British literature.  The focus is on reading notable works of British (and European) fiction, drama, and poetry. Of the two AP English courses, this is the one that is the most like "regular" English class. Students read fiction, poetry, and drama and analyze it for meaning.  In the class you will read works by Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, Mary Shelley, and many other significant British authors. Writing will be a major part of the course and will focus on literary analysis/explication of themes, characters, etc. The summer reading list for AP Lit (from 2012-2013) can be viewed here.

AP English Language is very different from AP Lit and from other English classes you may have taken. It's primarily a rhetoric class, which means that students study the ways in which language is used to persuade. As I mentioned before, the reading is mostly non-fiction with a few fiction works sprinkled in. Students read famous literary non-fiction (non-fiction but not like a textbook) works such as Utopia, The Prince, and Silent Spring, as well as numerous short essays and other literary non-fiction writings. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood and Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett are two of the major fiction works that will be covered. As with AP Lit, writing will be a big part of the experience, but it will be a different type of writing. Students will focus on analyzing persuasive essays by famous authors and determining the meaning as well as the methods (form & content) behind the author's persuasion. In addition students will write argumentation essays about topics that are a currently a part of the larger national discussion. The summer reading list for AP Lang (from 2012-2013) can be viewed here.

The even longer answer comes in when you ask about the AP English exams and what the difference is between the AP English exams and the exams for almost every other subject?

Whole Wheat: Will it kill us all?

The Enemy?

December 29, 2013:

I got burned by the low fat diet craze. Growing up in the 80's, low fat foods were everything. Fat was the devil. Calorie counting was so 1970's. Behind the times.  Avoiding fat was everything.  Brands like "Snack Wells" flourished.

Low fat had a pretty long run. It dominated the "health news" reporting for much of the nineties. Product labels were scrutinized for fat content. We learned how to calculate fat as a percentage of calories. We choked down low-fat ice cream and low-fat peanut butter.

Then along came Atkins and South Beach, and now carbs were the devil and fat was a friend. Minds were blown. Low-fat slid lower on the labels and instead we counted "net carbs." Then Atkins ran its course, and we waited for whatever was next.

What's next appears to be wheat.

The hope is--that as part of our media analysis--we may be able to watch a new diet trend from birth to death. Americans long for the magical cure, the silver bullet that will strike down all of our dietary woes at once. This author suspects that the anti-wheat trend may go the way of low-fat and Atkins and South Beach.

To be clear, cutting wheat may be the key to good health. This author is not a doctor and this post is an exploration of health reporting, not medical advice. Millions of people (roughly 1% of Americans) do have serious gluten related issues such as Celiac. 

But for the rest of us, there's one big lingering question. If each one of these diet methods--calorie counting, low-fat, low-carb, wheat/gluten free--is the key to good health and controlling obesity, then why is there always a new method that comes along???

Love Coke? Love Security Cameras.

March 28, 2013:

Coke's "Open Happiness" ad campaign is a perfect example of "emotional branding."  It's another ad where it's almost impossible to tell what it's selling until the end.  The idea?  People feel happy when they watch funny videos.  Indeed, it's a major social thing these days--sharing funny/cute videos.  Coke hopes they can connect to that happy feeling and that it will transfer to their product (already the most recognized brand in the world).

And, in case you're wondering, no, not all of the clips are real.  Coke says they had to "recreate" some of the situations.