Respond to who posted to you - Due 1/5

Look at what was posted by 12/16. Respond to the posts that directly refer to your post. Defend your original post or explain why they were able to persuade you. Be sure to be specific in your response.

Response post - Due 12/16

Respond to someone's post on their thoughts about Obama's choices for key positions. Be sure to respond to someone who hasn't been responded to. You can respond to their argument, critique their sources, and/or respond to what they didn't cover. Please cite your information.

Post Due 12/09

Instead of having you respond to someone from post 6 we're going to do something different. You'll answer this post, respond to someone's post, and then you'll respond to a post that someone wrote to you. We'll keep doing one a week so it's not an increase of posts just a change in our format. Thanks for being flexible.

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Barack Obama has been announcing his picks for his top posts for his administration. What do his picks mean for his administration? What action/direction do you predict his team will take? What do his picks demonstrate about his commitments to his campaign promises? Do you agree or disagree with his choices? Are there key people or constituencies that you feel have been overlooked? Be sure to discuss at least one of his picks more in depthly. As usual cite your sources and do some research!

Post #6

On election day voters didn't just decide who their leaders would be; they also decided what types of rights they wanted citizens to have and what type of role they wanted their government to play.

In Colorado and Nebraska voters decided whether their state would or would not use affirmative action in hiring, contracting and college admissions. Nebraska passed a ban on affirmative action and it failed in Colorado. However, in both states the electorate was fairly divided on the issue.

For background on this electoral question read the AP's story "Colorado voters reject affirmative action ban" and the New York Times's story "Vote Results Are Mixed on a Ban on Preference" from November 7th. (These articles shouldn't stop you though from doing your own research though.)

In your blog post please address the following questions:
1. What do these election results on affirmative action mean? How does the American electorate feel on affirmative action?
2. Does the U.S. need affirmative action in order to diversify its colleges and workplaces? Can or will we achieve diversity without having affirmative action? If we don't use affirmative action what would work better?

Your post will be greatly strengthened with research and data to back up your claims.

Response to post 5 - due 11/21

Please pick someone to respond to from Post 5. Some suggestions I have are:
1. respond to someone who did not write about the same question you did,
2. respond to someone with whom you disagree with or partially disagree with.

Too many of you last quarter wrote responses to each other that were vague and didn't offer any direct engagement with the other person's post or argument. I think it might be easier for you to have direct response to someone else's post if you disagreed with them. So please try that and see if that makes it easier for you to interact with each other's arguments.

I look forward to reading what you have to say.

Please post on 11/21 by 2nd period that day or your post will be late.

Post 5 - Term 2

Answer one of the questions below on the 2008 elections results. Be sure to use news articles to back up your opinions.

-What does an Obama victory mean for the US? Why do you think he won?
-What suggestions do you have for the McCain campaign? What could his campaign have done better?
-What does it mean that MN voted for Obama and Coleman (who knows now), Paulsen, and Bachman (who are all Republicans)?
-What advice do you have for Republican representatives and senators in a Democratic Congress?
-What advice do you have for Obama (who is inheriting a financial crisis and 2 wars)? What do you think he should focus on in his first 6 months and for the 1st year?
-What is the significance of gaining our first African American president while in the same election 4 states added barriers to gay rights to their state constitutions?

Last post for the term!

Respond to a new person and explain why you agree or disagree with their assessment of the issues that have been discussed or not discussed in this election. Please do not respond to anyone that you have already responded to this term.

Remember on Friday you'll get to discuss this election in person and soon we'll get to know the result (ie. who will win!)