And Still We Rise Chunk #1

The first chunk of Miles Corwin's And Still We Rise illustrates how students attending Crenshaw High School in South Central maintain superb grades with all the hardships they endure at home. Prmarily using anecdotes and description Corwin explores the lives of gifted and talented students. Many of the students who attend Crenshaw are forced to deal with situatons beyond ther maturity level. Characters such as Oliva are faced with abusive parents,full tme jobs, and chaotc foster homes.Others such as Sadikifu have went from being a mischiveous teenager, to a gang banger, to a gifted and talented student.Toya has to sacrafice her good education to take care of her child while Venola wrks to jobs to help her mother pay the bills. Miesha on the other hand only has her brother to lok up to for support. With all of these mishaps students are additionally forced to deal with bickering between teachers, constant gang violence, and the end of affirmative action.

Discussion Questions
If the bok was not primarily anecdotal, would it be as interesting?
How would you deal with the situatons these kids go through?

But What Do You Mean

Deborah Tannen’s “But What Do You Mean” examines how men and women miscommunicate. Using anecdotes Tannen breaks down the biggest areas of miscommunication. Women, for example tend to overly give apologies even when there is nothing to apologize for. They will say they are sorry and in return expect the other person to take the blame as well. When the other person doesn’t take the blame as expected the woman will look entirely at fault even if she is not. Men usually do not apologize as much making the apologetic woman look incapable of doing what a man does. It “masks” a woman’s competence. When a man and a woman criticize each other the woman will soften her criticism and expect the same in return while a man will clearly give his opinion oblivious to the fact that he instead should have gave an compliment to keep the woman satisfied. In many cases a woman will say thank you even if there is no reason to thank the person. Comparing a woman’s feelings to an unbalanced seesaw Tannen explains that when women say thank you, if they don’t get a thanks in return they feel “abandoned” in the conversation and regret saying thank you to them at all. When men discuss their ideas they tend to simply argue and challenge their opponent’s ideas but women take this as a personal attack rather than an exchange of ideas. Men and Women also praise one another differently. Women expect to be flowered with praise when doing well while men remain silent to show that they are pleased. If a woman begins to complain she is simply relieving her self and expects someone to tell of their troubles as well. When men hear these complaints they take it upon themselves to try and solve the solution. The last area of miscommunication is during the exchange of jokes. Women usually feel more comfortable joking with women but when they around men who are joking and they do not laugh men think they are too serious and have no sense of humor.

Discussion Questions:
Does the authors gender build on to her credibility?
Do you find yourself participating in miscommunications as discussed?
As a woman do you agree with the things Tannen says women do?