English 101

The groups are:

"Compassion and Prejudice"; "Race and Culture"; "Divorce--Effects on Children"; "Capital Punishment - For or Against"; "Child Abuse and the Family"; "Self-Expression"; "Peer Pressure"; "Public vs Private Schools"; "Family Issues"; "Religious Issues"; National and International Political Issues

If you do not see your group topic or name on this list, you need to let me know as soon as possible.  If you aren't here, I didn't receive a group update #1 from your group, or you have been switched into a different group and need to be added.

"Compassion and Prejudice":
Jennifer Kennedy, Star Walters, Stephen Waldo, and Lyndi VanDerBeek.

We have decided that our project will be a proposal to the Tucson City Council. This proposal will be for a community center devoted to people who are underprivileged. This category includes but is not limited to those who are disabled, minorities, or come from low income families. This will offer support groups, education on the disabled, social workers, and awareness programs. With our proposal to the city council, we are thinking about adding a detailed pamphlet which will propose the community center. In the pamphlet we will illustrate the need for the center and exactly what assistance will be provided.

We have also decided on the division of labor in our group. Star will work on rhetorical analysis and finding material for the presentation. Stephen is the head of the group and in charge of computer operations. Lyndi will research our audience and find out which strategies are most effective. Jennifer is the official note taker and is also in charge of finding facts for the pamphlet. As of this update Dan has not met with us. Each of us will be responsible for putting together the class presentation and the final pamphlet.

Our first meeting was after class the day we split into groups. By introducing ourselves and discussing how each of our issues related we began to develop our project. We came up with the idea for a community center during our next meeting when we finalized our ideas into the project. This is important to us because we feel that the community center is imperative for the health and productivity of the city. Our plan is to meet in another week to construct the rough draft of our final proposal.

"Race and Culture":
Adriana Paredes, Sanjeev Khunkhun, Audrey DeAnda, Mariah Bowers, Clayton Wilkins, and Azra Kustunrica.

The product we are working on is an informative/persuasive pamphlet which will cause people to question affirmative action and raise the level of consciousness towards this controversial government policy. Our pamphlet will include an initial definition of affirmative action and what it is actually designed to do. It will then include an overview of what affirmative action is actually doing as opposed to what it is designed to do. This section of the pamphlet will also include stats and factual information to support our argument which claims that affirmative action needs to be revised.

Audrey and Sanjay are assigned to research affirmative action and determine what its intended purpose is. Mariah and Adriana are assigned to research what it is actually doing. Azra and are assigned to gather statistics and factual information to back up our argument. Our group meets in the library and today (11/19/97) we met for the second time. We are scheduled to meet again on 12/01 to put our individual assigned tasks and research together and actually design the pamphlet. We will also work on the rhetorical analysis at this meeting. The next scheduled meeting will be determined on 12/01 to prepare for the presentation.

We came up with the idea of a pamphlet because we all agreed that people need to be aware of the undesired effects of affirmative action. A pamphlet seemed most appropriate because it can easily be distributed and can provide people with a quick but yet persuading argument. Currently, we do not anticipate any special needs for our presentation.

"Divorce--Effects on Children":
Chris Lelles, Brienne Weeden, Ryan Gibney, Courtney Kappes

The product that we are working on is a pamphlet on divorce facts and ways that they can be avoided. We want these pamphlets to be displayed in counsler's offices and family clincis, here couples would go to get martial advice and support. We hope that this pamphlet will help families and couples think twice before getting a divorce and that the rise in divorces will decrease.

The work is divided up amoung the four of us, Bryan will work on the layout of the pamphlet and Brienne, Chris, and I will work on the research and how the data will be written in the pamphlet. This is collaberation of all of our topics that we have been reasearching this semester. We've met in the library and continue to communicate through our email accounts, we've scheduled another meeting on Monday, to meet before we leave on Thanksgiving break. For are class presentation I don't think we will need any special needs, but that could change after the next meetting I will keep you posted.

"Capital Punishment - For or Against"
Jeff Koester, Matt, Keoni DeRenne, Jenny Kennedy, Upanya Suresh

The project that we are working on is two opposing view point editorials that may be submitted to the wildcat newspaper. We are all submitting ideas of "pro" and "con" justifications of capital punishment. >From there, Jeff, Matt, and Keoni will be writing the final "con" editorial while Jenn and Upanyas will be submitting the final "pro" editorial. We were able to come up with our project idea because of brainstorming. Our group discussed several socially relevant issues or topics and decided on one which interseted us all. Already, we have met on one or more occassions at the library and will continue to do so. Eventually our group will meet in smaller groups for the editorials and then come together for the final essay. For our class presentation, we as a group will conduct a very brief debate which may involve the class.

"Child Abuse and the Family"
Andrew Knych, Chrissy Gonzales, Casey Stevenson, Angela Sanchez

Our topic is child abuse. We have decided to create an advertisment for a family magazine such as Parent. We are going to have a collage made that shows a happy, Brady Bunch-like family on one side and on the other side a family that is the complete opposite. On this side we are going to show pictures of children that have been beaten and have cuts and bruises due to this. A quote along the top will say "Which does your family look like?" At the bottom of the page we will have a phone number and an e-mail address saying where a family in need can get help if it is needed.

I have been assigned the job of finding the pictures for the advertisment. I will do this by looking through various magazines as well as checking out books in the library. Andrew is researching child abuse and finding out general information and statistics. Angela is researching as well and making phone calls to local child abuse shelters.

So far into the project we have met after class a few times but most of the communicating has been done by e-mail. Now that we all have a specific assignment to do we will do it and after this we will arrange a time and a meeting place.

Our project idea is pretty concrete and hopefully it will go as planned. It doesn't look like we will need any copies or overheads. Our group members seem to be working together pretty well so far and everything is going as planned.

"Self-Expression"
Brianne McConnell, Alison Parker, Jamie Bobbit, Barrie Portney, Julie Lazarr

Product: Brochure advertising a day-long talent show/ festival for self-expression and cultural understanding.

Individual Duties: Julie will write a paragraph-form explanation of the event, giving a general overview of what will happen, and why the event is taking place.

Brianne is taking pictures that we can apply to the event, and she will write up a specific schedule of different activities that will take place during the day.

Jaime will scan the photos Brianne is taking, and edit them to print, and she will also be designing the layout for the brochure, and pasting it together, using a layout/design program.

Alison will be taking care of the rhetorical analysis, for the most part.

How we came up with the idea: We had a wide variety of topics, so this was the only way we could incorporate them all together. Each of the topics dealt with a form of expression, so we decided to bring it together into a festival, encouraging folks to express themselves.

Meetings: 1st: Coffee Plantation, Oct. 14 2nd: Coffee Plantation, Nov. 20 (3rd: Coffee Plantation, Nov. 25, etc.…)

Special Needs: Nothing necessary for the presentation, but I do need to know where I can have access to a flatbed scanner, and a program for editing photos, such as Adobe Photoshop. Kinko's does have this equipment available, but it does cost a lot of money to use the computers there. Any suggestions? As for copies, we can take care of those.

"Peer Pressure"
Michael Graves, Olga Urcadez, Steve Fischer, Angela Hickel, Debanjon Ghosh, Tracy Hill

Project: Skit, all of us are at a party Angie: Driver, does not want to drink Steve: Bad Guy #1, pressures angie to drink Matt: Pressure Deb to smoke, bad guy #2 Oega: Drinking at the party, angie resposible for her Tracy: Same situation as Oega Deb: Does not want to smoke

Point: To show what peer pressure is and the responsibilities that go with it.

Props: Beer bottles, cigarettes

"Public vs Private Schools"
Dolores Galaz , Christine Masenga, Trinette Terry

We have decided to do a newsletter making people aware of the educational differences between public and private schools. We are particularly looking at elementary school. Since we have a new member, Trinette, we had to change a few things. On the cover of our newsletter we are going to write facts and what ever information we can gather on the subject. Then on the next page we are each going to talk about our different personal experiences. I went to private school, Dolores went to a public school, and Trinette went to public school in an area with a lot of money. We are kind of stuck here. Is this enough, we are working together on the first page and then we will each individually do our section and the design will be a collaboration of all three of us. I hope that this is okay. If you have any suggestions please email me. We are meeting Monday to make things definite. We are calling our newsletter Different View Points.

"Family Issues"
Hosanna Kakarala, Nick Gehlert, Isabel Alcoverde

"Religious Issues"
Sara Rotman-Zaid and Dustin Johnston

Our product is going to be a web page off of Sara's personal homepage. This page is going to just be a source of information on our topic. We will have lots of links to articles, and other related websites on our topic of religious change.

We are both working on finding links to the different religions we have chosen(sara-Judaism and Dustin-Catholicism), and desideing what we think is important to include for our religion on the page. Also Sara is learning how to write in html, and put up web pages so when we go to do it we can get the page up.

We came up with the idea because Sara is making her own homepage, and thought it would be a cool idea to work it in with the project. Dustin really liked the idea, and we had our medium for the project. Dustin came up with the actual issue that we would do the project on because neither of us really wanted to do it on women's issues and this works wit hit, but around that issue in a way.

We have met at Sara's room a few Sundays ago. We talk every night on aol instant messanger, and e-mail back and forth. We plan on getting together once or twice more to put the actual site up, but the date and time depends on when Sara's friend Kacy can come over and help us write in html.

So far we know we will need a computer with web access. If we find that we need anything else we will let you know as soon as possible.

National and International Political Issues

Sonya Huh, JoyAnn Rudd, and Jason Southard

We have now decided to put together a newsletter containing information (articles) of all three topics. We first tried to compromise on a certain issue, but as you suggested, we decided to include something from each of our issues. In our newsletter, we will provide information on each topic, as well as information on where to go to obtain more information. Each of us will put together an article for our own topics, and then we will work together to write a little summary of why we think it's important for people our age to get involved in political issues. And then we will also work together on our rhetorical analysis. Right now, we are finding information on our own topics, and trying to find examples of newsletters. We are planning to meet sometime next week to work on the "group" part of our project.