This will be our first of several on-line discussion posts this school year. Your task for today is to build upon our discussion from the first day of class regarding the American Dream. Follow the instructions below, and let me know if you have any questions.

Basic Procedures/How This Site Works

HOW TO RESPOND: You can post your responses by clicking on "Read/Post Comments" below. Please use the 5- or 6-digit ID I give you, NOT your real name, as your user name for these posts. Also, do not post your email address; just leave that line blank.

A NOTE ABOUT EDITING YOUR RESPONSES: You only have one hour to edit your response on-line after posting it. See recommendation below about working in Word first so that you can be sure you are happy with your response before posting it.

POST NUMBER ONE (Your own one-two paragraph response to the prompt below) IS DUE BY THE END OF CLASS TODAY!

POST NUMBER TWO will be an additional brief (one paragraph) response to what one of your classmates had to say. Post Number Two is due by 11:59 pm on Wednesday, August 20.

NO LATE RESPONSES ACCEPTED. If you are having issues with the Web site, type up a response and send it to me via email (Jennifer.Glass@tusd1.org), or submit a hard copy in class.

Evaluation:
Post Number One = up to 10 points for a thoughtful, clear, well-written response. Yes, conventions do count; no more than 5 points for a grammatically sloppy response.

Post Number Two = up to 5 points for a thoughtful, clear, well-written response to a post by one of your classmates. Yes, conventions do count; no more than 2 points for a grammatically sloppy response.

I STRONGLY suggest typing your response in Word or another word processing application before copying and pasting into JournalScape. Doing so will allow you to spell-check and also to retain a copy in case of issues with the Web site.


Your First Prompt

On our first day of school this year, you worked together with your group-mates to create and write down definitions of the American Dream. Today in class, you will be further exploring the Dream, a concept which is familiar to most Americans, but which inspires a diversity of opinions. People hold different views on what the Dream truly represents, whether every American currently has the opportunity to achieve it, and the best means to ensure that America continues to strive for the Dream.

Here is what I would like you to do in class today:

1) Visit the following Website:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/americandream/

Read "The Project" and "The Essays and Essayists" (including the excerpts/quotes from Pagels, Needleman, Zinn, and Bellah). You do not need to read the full-length essays, but you must read the short excerpts. If you can do so *quietly* (through headphones or at a low volume), also watch the video (see the top right corner of your screen).

2) In this Journalscape forum (*not* on the PBS blog site), write a one-two paragraph long post in which you do two things:

ONE: Express your own opinion on the following questions the PBS Deepening the American Dream Project posed to its interviewees:

a) Is the American Dream a vision or an illusion?

b) What values should the U.S. demonstrate in today’s world?

c) Are there ways to think beyond geographic boundaries toward a common dream for our world?

TWO: Respond to the ideas of at least one of the scholars interviewed by PBS. You can do so by reading, quoting from, and responding to one of the essay excerpts, or by doing so with one of the brief video clips from the interviews.

HINT: The best way to integrate your first and second tasks today is to either agree or disagree with at least one of the scholar's comments. In other words, use his/her ideas as support for your own, or refute his/her ideas.

THE POST SHOULD BE A COHERENT WHOLE, NOT A SERIES OF BULLET POINTS OR DISCONNECTED ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS.