Here's What I'm Reading, How About You?

Many Plans to Curtail Use of Plastic Bags, but Not Much Action

SEATTLE — Last summer, city officials here became the first in the nation to approve a fee on paper and plastic shopping bags in many retail stores. The 20-cent charge was intended to reduce pollution by encouraging reusable bags.

In the Open at Last, a Secret All Women Share

Seldom can a book stretch to accommodate both its author’s and its publisher’s fondest hopes: that it be original yet universal, artistic yet practical, and likely to sell briskly for centuries to come.

The I’s Have It

WHEN President Obama speaks before Congress and the nation tonight, he will be facing some of his toughest critics.

After Abuse, Changes in the Brain

For years, psychiatrists have known that children who are abused or neglected run a high risk of developing mental problems later in life, from anxiety and depression to substance abuse and suicide.

The 3 R’s? A Fourth Is Crucial, Too: Recess

The best way to improve children’s performance in the classroom may be to take them out of it.

For Wednesday, 2/11

Lots to talk about:

1. In-class writing conferences: to simplify the sign-up process, we're going to pass on the wiki idea that we discussed in class today and just use our google group. To sign up for a writing conference for next week, follow these steps:

1. Log into our google group.
2. Click on "Pages."
3. Click on "Conferences (10/16).
4. Click on "Edit this Page."
4. Read and add your name, where necessary.
5. Click on "Save and Publish."
6. IMPORTANT: You have now updated the page. On the next page, google groups asks if you want to "Let the group know about this page." The answer is NO. Please click the button that says "Skip This." And you are done.

This is the process that we will use for conference sign-ups each week. 

2. For this Wednesday, we'll be looking at two student papers (first drafts): Ben's and Katie's (thanks you guys! please remember to get me your drafts by midnight on 2/10). We'll devote 1/2 our class time to a discussion of Ben and Katie's papers and the other half to the news. 

3. Please read the following for Wednesday's class:

a. On Sunday, 2/8, there was an expose called Peanut Case Shows Holes in Safety Net on the peanut industry and the recent outbreak in bad peanuts and peanut butter. Please read the article and view the photos.

b. Connected with the piece on peanut butter, there is an interesting piece which explores the question Do We Need a Department of Food? The Editors of the Times asked a series of experts to weigh in on this question. Please read all of these short opinion pieces.

c. This piece, My Children Made Me Do It, is a meditation on a concept (a model of the kind of essay you might right). The concept is "an inheritance."

d. This piece, You Try to Live on 500K in This Town, should give us all pause at how "the other half lives."

e. And, finally, a piece which makes an argument, in this case, about gays in the military: An About-Face on Gay Troops.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/magazine/01Moms-t.html?em

The article is in the NY Times.