18. The Dark Psychology of the Sexist Internet Commenter

This article by Olga Khazan, a staff writer at the Atlantic, digs deep into the roots of the sexism that occurs online. Khazan was inspired to learn more about the psychology behind the sexist online commenter, when she received negative feedback from a comment about women she made on a forum. With this, she began to explore the sexism that occur and concluded with some research that a large percent of negative sexist comments were made by men, but surprisingly, an equally large amount of commenters were found to be female. The sexist comments were then divided into three sub-parts; blatantly sexist, justifying gender bias, or denial of gender bias. The straight forward and blatantly sexist comments only piled up to about 5%, while the other two types of comments dominated the forum. Khazan also notes that the positive and supportive comments are left only by women. It is easy to become a sexist and hateful being on the open internet, because of how free we are to express ourselves; even the dirty and socially unacceptable parts. However, this problem is limited to the internet, because of the social norms we follow when meeting other people in-person. You simply wouldn't burst into hateful and sexist remarks in an office meeting.
This article is written very well with plenty of clever writing and humor surrounding a serious topic. Khazan well introduces the topic of online sexism and eases the reader into the gravity of the growing problem. Her writing is in defense of the most commonly attack group of people online, women, but she remains calm and is not provocative toward the opposite sex. She writes in a casual yet informative manner, which eases the topic, while still keeping informing of the problem and its seriousness.  

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/01/the-dark-psychology-of-the-sexist-internet-commenter/384497/

19. Obama's Community-College Plan: A Reading List

On January 9th 2015, Obama, along with the Tennessee state's Republican governor and two Republican senators, proposed a plan for free community college. Basically, this article is about the pros and cons about this plan. First of all, free community college would be allowed only for students who have an high school diploma. This will encourage people to start going to school. In addition, people with an low income would most likely start receiving a better income, increasing their chances for a better living. On the other hand, Obama's proposal would change the whole college's student selecting system. Right now, it's true that the majority of students who are attending college have an high income. With Obama's proposal, colleges will become a place for rich students while community colleges would become a place for poor students. Also, community colleges are not that expensive, in addition, community colleges give financial aid, which covers most of the expense. Having this in mind, the government should help low income families with living conditions instead of helping them pay for education that is already cheap.

David Leonhardt, the author of this article, writes a somewhat cause and effect article. If Obama's plan is passed, this will happen. Leonhardt uses a lot of quotes from many different people, such as university professors and government related people. Also, the author tells us about his opinion. He believes that free community college isn't a strong proposal because of it already being cheap. However, he does also mention that Obama's plan is also a bit beneficial. It would increase the chances for low income families to make a better living. By including reliable quotes and his personal opinion, makes this article effective. Personally, I thought this article to be challenging especially because of the high level vocabulary. Overall, this article is very interesting and makes you see the both sides of the argument.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/10/upshot/obamas-community-college-plan-a-reading-list.html?_r=0

18. U.S military social media accounts apparently hacked by Islamic State sympathizers

On January 12, 2015, the U.S military social media accounts were hacked by ISIS. Social media accounts such as twitter and youtube. All that ISIS did was posting threatening messages, propaganda videos, and some military documents. They did not do anything thing that was too extreme, all they did was an act of cybervandalism. According to military officials, ISIS did not post classified information, but only military information that were already available. Furthermore, this incident of cybervandalism is not terrifying for the U.S military, but is an embarrassing moment for them. In addition, Peter Singer, a strategist and analyst with the New American Foundation in Washington, reminds us that all this all this is a social media account. It is nothing to worry about because the hackers has only taken control of the megaphone for a few minutes. People should stop freaking out, because the hackers did not do any damage, they only embarrassed the U.S military.

The author of this article, Dan Lamothe, uses many strategies in order to make this article easy to comprehend. For example, he uses short paragraphs in order to demonstrate his ideas faster and easy vocabulary.  Lamonthe does not directly state his opinion about this incident, however, we can assume that he is trying to let the people know that it is not a big deal. The author does not tell us about the possible dangers the hackers could do. He only tells us about the hackers not doing anything. Personally, I agree with both Lamonthe and Peter Singer, " is a feather in their cap in terms of pulling off something that oter groups have not been able to do, no matter how silly it is at the end of the day."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2015/01/12/centcom-twitter-account-apparently-hacked-by-islamic-state-sympathizers/

#19 "What Isn't There an App For?"

Apps play a huge role in our lives today. Thousands of people utilize apps daily, and these innovations has soon become part of our lifestyle. Henry Alford, author of the article, narrates his 3 weeks experience of improving his life through apps. Alford narrates how he starts his journey by starting off with a calorie counting app, Meal Snap. Through meal snap, he logs his meals and snacks getting an instant feedback on how many calories it has.Through this app, he is able to regulate his eating habits and late night snacks are soon enough gone. During his journey with this app, he encounters a man on the street, to whom he asks if he doesn't think that people's lives today are being controlled by apps. The man responds how it is fearful, however, "a picture of a doughnut seems nice." Alford also tells his torn opinion on the apps Learn Hip Hop and John & Johnson's 7 Minute Workout. However, he does express an unconditional love towards the app TaskRabbit, an app that ables you to find people to help you with any task. For last, he experiences the clothing app. Through three different apps, he purchases pants and reviews them. He was skeptical at first, but is impressed how one of the apps did deliver him very delightful pants.However, the other two did not. To conclude his journey, Alford writes how apps can be "a little too much", taking over our lives, but also very useful too. 
Henry Alford writes a narrative piece about his experiment of improving his life through apps. Alford uses personal pronouns throughout his article and it helps his experience appeal more to readers. All the aspects of life he tries to improve are very relatable to all readers. His language is very lightweight and approachable, being easy to understand. He writes in a very entertaining way, utilizing a lot of metaphors and personal accounts. For example, when concluding his opinion and thoughts for this experiment, Alford solidifies his thought on it by connecting it to the man's statement on how it is fearful, but at the same time quite entertaining. Overall, Alford has done a great job on writing this piece: it is both entertaining and relatable.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/style/what-isnt-there-an-app-for.html?ref=fashion

#18 "A Race to the Front Row"

It is a well known fact that people are more motivated to do better when there is a prize  in the end. Athletes train hard to win. Students study hard to receive an award. With that concept in mind, gyms nowadays place their "students" in a position where they compete with others and themselves to receive the prize, which in this case, is the honor of being in the front row. Gyms such as SoulCycle and AKT in Motion challenge their students to push themselves and do their best. To do so, they make the front row a special priviledge for the ones who are more motivated and overall, do better. By doing so, people join a race to the front row. They set a goal and work hard to achieve it, and when they do, the sense of accomplishment motivates them more. "As Michel Foucalt would say, 'the gaze', even if imaginary, makes us disciplined to work harder," and like this, people begin their journey to be fit and achieve their ultimate goal: the front row.
Courtney Rubin, author of this article, writes about the new method and situations people are placed in gyms today. Her article is formal yet casual, and her overall tone is neutral to positive. She does a superb job describing the "race" by inserting actual students' opinions and experiences, and how it motivates and affects each individual. I, personally, enjoyed this article; it depicted how this method of motivation works not only in studies and athletic competitions, but also in our daily life activities, such as going to the gym. Although there was an individual in the article that did not enjoy "the race" or "the front row", I assume that like most others, it would affect me and motivate me to reach the front row.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/08/style/a-race-to-the-front-row.html?ref=fashion&_r=0

18. Muscle Strength Is in the Mind

This author begins the article by referencing a book and a typical Disney movies when introducing his topic. The topic is how muscle strength has to do with the mind. According to a study, muscle strength is more based on brain activity then on the muscles themselves. An experiment was done that relates to this study in which people had their arms immobilized and some were asked to imagine exercising. At the end of the experiment it was found that those that had imagined the exercises had more strength in their arms than those who hadn't. Muscle memory, the phenomenon that says our muscles "remember" exercises that we practice, plays a role in this. Imagining the movements helps our muscles from "forgetting" them.    

The article was very interesting. The connection the author made in the beginning of the article was effective in getting the reader's attention. The tone of the article was casual and informative. The author was informing the reader about the idea without using complicated language. It was written in a form in which the average person would be able to understand. The author did not complicate the article with long explanations rather, he kept it short and simple. He also used sources and quotes to support this claim and to provide concrete evidence.  

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/muscle-strength-is-in-the-mind/384361/

19. The Reinvention of Bilingual Education in America’s Schools

 Lately, Hispanics have been the center of many debates and protests in the United States. First there is the whole matter of illegal immigration (crossing the border between Mexico and the US) and then there is the speculation of "unfair treatment" of Hispanics in the American communities. This particular article talks about how schools have been playing a role in the whole "fair treatment" for Hispanics who live in the United States. The author introduces readers to a school in New Mexico, Sunland Park Elementary School, where bilingual programs are reinforced into students' daily education. (This particular elementary school is composed of mostly Hispanic children, who have some kind of Spanish-speaking background.) The counterintuitive thing is that Sunland Park Elementary School focuses more on teaching its children the Spanish language rather than English. The reason why parents have sent their children to this school was for them to learn and enhance the English language to live better in the United States, and not for them to know their "mother language" even better. The author then mentions that other schools around the nation are trying out this bilingual programs in their educations, however learning from the mistakes of Sunland Park Elementary School's way of enhancing the program, they have "divided" the program equally, teaching students equal amounts of English and Spanish. The author then leaves readers with a note saying that enforcing extra languages in children's education is essential to their intellectual development.
 Sarah Carr, the author of the article, maintains a firm stance throughout her article- showing that she is against schools enforcing the bilingual program if they are going to focus on one language more than the other. What makes the article interesting to read are the hints of irony in regard to the "counterintuitiveness" of a school consisting a majority of Hispanics teaching more Spanish than English. I personally found that this topic was a good one to write about, especially today, since Hispanics face many consequences and criticisms when living in the United States. Writing about children in the article also gave readers a chance to see this problem from a more innocent perspective; what bad can children do? It helps readers see that many Hispanics do not deserve the harsh treatment that they receive nowadays from Americans.  Overall, Sarah Carr did a neat job of showing her side of the debate and informing readers about the problems all whilst telling a story of a simple elementary school in New Mexico.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/schooled/2015/01/05/bilingual_education_the_promise_of_dual_language_programs_for_spanish_speaking.html