GED Social Studies Extended Response Template

Writing a Five Paragraph Essay the Rodney Way

The purpose of this essay format is to give you a way to organize a basic essay. You are presenting two points of view. Readers will be impressed that you can not only talk about your viewpoint, but that you can also defend and argue against a point of view that disagrees with yours.  

First Paragraph – The first paragraph is supposed to catch the reader’s attention, and tell the reader what the essay is going to be about.

1^st WOW Sentence This sentence is the attention grabber. This sentence should set your essay apart from others.

2^nd Restate the essay prompt in your own words.

3^rd Briefly state your point of view.

4^th Briefly state the opposite point of view.

5^th Fully state your opinion in one sentence. This is the topic sentence for the entire essay. This sentence should sound something like: “However, I believe that…your point of view….”

Second Paragraph – The purpose of this paragraph is to give your reasons for your opinion which you just stated in the last sentence of the first paragraph.

1^st This sentence should sound something like: “I think that…your opinion… for the following reasons.” This is a transition sentence, meaning it restates the main idea of the first paragraph and tells the reader what the second paragraph will do.

2^nd One reason for you point of view

3^rd Another reason for your opinion

4^th A third reason for your outlook on this topic

5^th A fourth reason for your view

Third Paragraph – The purpose of this paragraph is to state and give reasons for a viewpoint that disagrees with you opinion.

1^st This sentence should sound something like: “Other people believe that … opposing opinion… for these reasons.”

2^nd One reason for the opposing point of view

3^rd Another reason for the other opinion

4^th A third reason for the other outlook on this topic

5^th A final reason for the other view

Fourth Paragraph – The purpose of this paragraph is to disprove the opinion that disagrees with your viewpoint in the third paragraph. You want to invalidate each of the reasons in the third paragraph.

1^st This sentence should sound something like: “I understand … opposing opinion, but I think it’s wrong for the following reasons”

2^nd Refute 2^nd sentence in the third paragraph

3^rd Refute 3^rd sentence in the third paragraph

4^th Refute 4^th sentence in the third paragraph

5^th Refute 5^th sentence in the fourth paragraph

Fifth Paragraph – This purpose of this paragraph is to summarize your argument with as much impact as possible. The first four sentences summarize each of the four paragraphs in order.

1^st This sentence should sound something like: “I believe that … your opinion.”

2^nd This sentence should sound something like: “I think this because… use your strongest reason or summarize your reasons”

3^rd This sentence should sound something like: “Other people believe that… other opinion.”

4^th This sentence should sound something like: “I disagree with this because…your strongest argument against the opposition.”

5^th This sentence should sound something like: “Therefore, I believe … your point of view”

For writing at different levels click these links:

Very Basic Writing

Academic Writing Link

GED World History: The Agricultural Revolution

Crash Course Video World History #1

READ the full Wikipedia article here!

A farm is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production.^[1] The name is used for specialised units such as arable farms, vegetable farms, fruit farms, dairy, pig and poultry farms, and land used for the production of natural fibres, biofuel and other commodities. It includes ranches, feedlots, orchards, plantations and estates, smallholdings and hobby farms, and includes the farmhouse and agricultural buildings as well as the land. In modern times the term has been extended so as to include such industrial operations as wind farms and fish farms, both of which can operate on land or sea.

Farming originated independently in different parts of the world as hunter gatherer societies transitioned to food production rather than food capture. It may have started about 12,000 years ago with the domestication of livestock in the Fertile Crescentin western Asia, soon to be followed by the cultivation of crops. Modern units tend to specialise in the crops or livestock best suited to the region, with their finished products being sold for the retail market or for further processing, with farm products being traded around the world.

Modern farms in developed countries are highly mechanized. In the United States, livestock may be raised on rangeland and finished in feedlots and the mechanisation of crop production has brought about a great decrease in the number of agricultural workers needed. In Europe, traditional family farms are giving way to larger production units. In Australia, some farms are very large because the land is unable to support a high stocking density of livestock because of climatic conditions. In less developed countries, small farms are the norm, and the majority of rural residents are subsistence farmers, feeding their families and selling any surplus products in the local market.

WHY SOME PEOPLE LOVE TRUMP: Exploiting Politics as a Zero Sum Game

Click here for the full Washington Post Article

" 'Humans have a kind of tribal psychology,' said Joseph Henrich, a biologist at Harvard University who studies the species's evolution.

In particular, humans tend to assume that if one group is getting more, another group must be getting less. We have a hard time understanding that two groups can both be getting more of something at the same time. Call it a cognitive blindspot, or a psychological illusion.

Henrich believes this zero-sum outlook could be a result of millennia of competition among our ancestors for limited resources such as land and mating partners. "You can find some degree of it in every human society," he said. "It varies dramatically across societies and populations, but it does pop up everywhere."

There is also evidence that this possibly ancient predisposition is shaping American politics today. Michael Norton, a psychologist at the Harvard Business School, has found that on average, whites now view discrimination against members of their own race as a larger problem than discrimination against blacks.

His explanation is that whites see competition between groups as zero sum. Whites assume that they must be worse off, since the legal and economic situation for blacks has improved. Research also suggests that white voters with stronger prejudices against African Americans are more likely to support the conservative GOP faction known as the tea party.

Norton speculates that antipathy toward Latino immigrants has the same psychological source.

"What Trump is tapping into is the mindset of a zero-sum game," Norton said, which he called an "intuitive" way of looking at the economy and society." 

MALCOLM X on Democracy Now

From:

Malcolm X on Democracy Now!: Watch Speeches, Interviews with Activists & Biographer Manning Marable

http://www.democracynow.org/2015/2/19/malcolm_x_on_democracy_now_see

From Wikipedia

Malcolm X (/ˈmælkəm ˈɛks/; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965), born Malcolm Little and also known as el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz^[A] (Arabic: الحاجّ مالك الشباز‎), was an American Muslim minister and a human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of blacks, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans; detractors accused him of preaching racism and violence. He has been called one of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history.

Malcolm X was effectively orphaned early in life. His father was killed when he was six and his mother was placed in a mental hospital when he was thirteen, after which he lived in a series of foster homes. In 1946, at age 20, he went to prison for larcenyand breaking and entering. While in prison, Malcolm X became a member of the Nation of Islam, and after his parole in 1952, quickly rose to become one of the organization's most influential leaders. He served as the public face of the controversial group for a dozen years. In his autobiography, Malcolm X wrote proudly of some of the social achievements the Nation made while he was a member, particularly its free drug rehabilitation program. In keeping with the Nation's teachings, he promotedblack supremacy, advocated the separation of black and white Americans, and rejected the civil rights movement for their emphasis on integration.

By March 1964, Malcolm X had grown disillusioned with the Nation of Islam and its leader Elijah Muhammad. Expressing many regrets about his time with them, which he had come to regard as largely wasted, he embraced Sunni Islam. After a period of travel in Africa and the Middle East, which included completing the Hajj, he repudiated the Nation of Islam, disavowed racism and founded Muslim Mosque, Inc. and the Organization of Afro-American Unity. He continued to emphasize Pan-Africanism, black self-determination, and black self-defense.

In February 1965 he was assassinated by three Nation of Islam members. The Autobiography of Malcolm X, published shortly after his death, is considered one of the most influential nonfiction books of the 20th century.

Michelle Alexander: Drug War Racism

From Wikipedia:

Alexander published her first book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (2010). In it, she argues that systemic racial discrimination in the United States has resumed following the Civil Rights Movement's gains; the resumption is embedded in the US War on Drugs and other governmental policies and is having devastating social consequences. She considers the scope and impact of this current law enforcement, legal and penal activity to be comparable with that of the Jim Crow laws of the 19th and 20th centuries. Her book concentrates on the mass incarceration of African-American men.^[4]

In The New Jim Crow, Alexander argues that mass incarceration in America functions as a system of racial control in a similar way to how Jim Crow once operated. Alexander writes, “Race plays a major role-indeed, a defining role – in the current system, but not because of what is commonly understood as old-fashioned, hostile bigotry. This system of control depends far more on racial indifference (defined as a lack of compassion and caring about race and racial groups) than racial hostility – a feature it actually shares with its predecessors.”^[5]

The New Jim Crow describes how she believes oppressed minorities are, "subject to legalized discrimination in employment, housing, public benefits, and jury service, just as their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents once were". Alexander argues the harsh penalty of how "people whose only crime is drug addiction or possession of a small amount of drugs for recreational use find themselves locked out of the mainstream society-permanently" and also highlights the inequality presented from the fact that, "blacks are admitted to prison on drug charges at a rate from twenty to fifty-seven times greater than that of white men". Alexander's The New Jim Crow analyzes some of the factors she argues contribute to the new and modified Jim Crow laws that reside in American society today.

In a 2012 interview, Alexander told the story of the origin of the book. Working on "Driving While Black" DWB racial profiling in Oakland with the ACLU, a young African-American man came in with a well-documented case of most of a year of repeated stops by police with dates and names. Listening to his story, Alexander increasingly felt she had the test case for which she was looking. Then the man said in passing he had a drug-felony conviction on his record and Alexander had to backtrack completely and finally: The conviction was an insurmountable obstacle to a test case in front of a jury for her at that time. In turn, the man then built a strong anger toward her, saying in effect "I'm innocent ...; it was just a plea bargain"; and that she "was no better than the police" and "You're crazy if you think you're going to find anyone here to challenge the police who is not already 'in the system'?"; he ended by stalking out, tearing up his notes as he went. The experience stuck with Alexander and eventually grew, prompted in part by more observations of events in Oakland, into the book. She has tried to find the young man again, in part to dedicate the book to him, but has so far been unable to.^[6]

The New Jim Crow was re-released in paperback in early 2012 and has received significant praise. As of September 30, 2012, it has been on The New York Times Best Seller list for 35 weeks^[7] and it also reached number 1 on the Washington Post bestseller list in 2012. The book has also been the subject of scholarly debate andcriticism.^{[8][9][10][11]}

Starting in the fall of 2015 all freshmen enrolled at Brown University will read The New Jim Crow as part of the campus's First Readings Program initiated by the Office of the Dean of the College and voted on by the faculty.^[12]" 

Photo Opening: Inside-Outside Project - World Affairs Council

Photo Opening: Inside-Outside Project - World Affairs Council

"The Syrian Civil War has created over four million of refugees, over half of whom are children. These are ordinary people fleeing death and destruction, but while we see these refugees every day in the media, too many people still find it hard to identify with others who are so far away, living in such strange circumstances. The result is that relief agencies are still begging for money, and the US remains closed to the vast majority of the refugees.

David Gross’ photography for the Inside-Outside Project lets you see through the eyes of both the photographer and the subjects. The Syrian refugee children were photographed using classical European portraiture and lighting technique, showing them with dignity and freeing them from the role of “poor refugee.” The photography sessions were combined with painting classes, and the children’s artwork lets us see the refugee experience through their eyes. The portraits and drawings are too familiar to be foreign, and we are left with the realization these could be our children.

Gross photographed in schools in Reyhanli, Gaziantep and Kahramanmaraş (Turkey), and in Jbeil and Beirut (Lebanon). The drawings come from classes by Gross, the Turkish art therapist Ezgi İçöz and the Syrian photographer and teacher Khalid Eid."

The Great Migration

Full Priceonomics Article on the Great Migration

In 1910, 89% of African Americans lived in the South. But by 1970, this was true of only 53% of the African American population.

This change, which has come to be know as “The Great Migration”, represents the largest internal movement of any group in American history. In “The Warmth of Other Suns”, Isabel Wilkerson’s chronicle of this crucial event, she writes:

It was during the First World War that a silent pilgrimage tooks its first steps within the border of this country. The fever rose without warning or notice or much in the way of understanding by those outside its reach. It would not end until the 1970s and would set into motion changes in the North and South that no one, not even the people doing the leaving, could have imagined at the start of it or dreamed would take nearly a lifetime to play out...

Historians would come to call it the Great Migration. It would become perhaps the most underreported story of the twentieth century...

Like so many before them, the men and women who were part of the Great Migration feltcompelled to migrate to escape persecution and to search out economic opportunity. In the 20th Century, this meant the atrocities of the Jim Crow South combined with the employment opportunities afforded by labor shortages in the Industrial North. The combination led millions to leave the only world they knew for a new and uncertain life.

In many ways, the Great Migration consisted of many smaller migrations between local communities. The African Americans who left South Carolina were particularly likely to migrate to New York and Philadelphia, while migrants from Louisiana mostly headed to the great cities of the West. 

We can track these patterns using data from the decennial census. This data sheds light on a momentous shift in American history.