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Sasha Moiseyev-Foster
Changing Our Story: Shifting Identities, Changing Environments
Professor J. Cohen
October 2, 2015
Laugh Until You Cry: The Use of Play as Stress Management in Children
Alison
ESem Paper #5
October 2, 2015
Different Background and Slippage
“Dear guests it says under the name “Olive,” I will be your maid for the day. Please rate me: Excellent. Good. Average. Poor. Thank you." I tuck this memento from the Sheraton British Colonial into my notebook. How would "Olive" rate me? What would it mean for us to seem "good" to each other? What would that rating require?”
Elena Luedy
Professor Cohen
E-Sem
9/25/15
Our Own Jungle
In my high school classrooms, most students attempted to “meet, clash, and grapple with each other,” (Pratt 34) as described in “Arts of Contact Zone” by Mary Louise Pratt, with their intellectual ping-pong, bouncing ideas back and forth. For example, my last English class before graduating was built around connecting original fairy tales to modern ideas about gender roles and social expectations. Some students were self-educated about the complexities of these topics while others were not and their opinions clashed during those discussions. Sometimes, as the discussions became heated, students would slip and unintentionally say things that would be inconsiderate of others’ beliefs.
Theorizing play
-The difference between children and adults -
October 2nd, 2015
Play. At first glance, play is a seemingly silly topic to be talking about in a serious college course. It certainly seemed that way when my Emily Balch Seminar (ESem) class first transitioned to that topic. Coming out of what I considered ‘serious’ college topics, the idea of studying play certainly came as a shock. But after reading the assigned articles and beginning to discuss them in class I began to see what makes play so important.
In my first paper, I divulged the gender discrimination I had faced at the hands of my high school administration.
Dear Mom,
I tried to write this letter in theory. Weaving together well-crafted strands of academic prose, I knew you would take from it what I wanted you to—the editor in you comes out in the most personal, un-academic situations. I got that from you, this appreciation and reverence for published text. When I wrote that email a couple months ago, telling you that I wanted surgery, I clouded my truths with celebrated theorists, as if backing up an argument with credible sources. You understood, to some extent—responding with the same language I had introduced.