Extra Credit Assignment

Speciety – Perspectives on Science, Politics, Education, and Society 

https://speciety.wixsite.com/speciety 

Stereotypes and Prejudices 

Free write on the topic of stereotypes (definition, examples, anecdotes, feelings towards the  topic, etc…): 

  Stereotype is a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing. Some examples of a stereotype are, Girls should play with dolls and boys should play with trucks. This is a stereotype because if little girls want to play with trucks and boys want to play with dolls there is no written rule that says they cant. An anecdote stereotype that is still said to this day is that college students are lazy. College students are called lazy because they party all night, stay up late, and “don't take their education” seriously. That may sometimes be true but not all the way, which makes it a stereotype to college students. My opinion on stereotypes is that they are like rumors. Once somebody says it then it becomes an ongoing message and it sticks forever.

Free write on the topic of prejudices (definition, examples, anecdotes, feelings towards the  topic, etc…): 

     Prejudice is an assumption or an opinion about someone simply based on that person's membership to a particular group. For example, people can be prejudiced against someone else of a different ethnicity, gender, or religion. And an opinion becomes dangerous when it forms a prejudice. Take the example of a person whose opinion is that their religion is the one, true religion. This opinion can form a prejudice. Because this person believes their religion is the one, true religion, they may be prejudiced toward people who follow a different religion. When An opinion is a view, judgment, or appraisal formed in the mind about a particular matter."

For definitions and examples, see: https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/secondary education-resources/lesson-plan-ideas/lesson-5-prejudice-and-stereotypes

Speciety – Perspectives on Science, Politics, Education, and Society 

https://speciety.wixsite.com/speciety 

Ted Talk - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story 

Resource:  

https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?language=en 

1. What was surprising about the stories that Adichie wrote as a child? Why did she write them  this way? 

Writer Chimamanda Adichie warns that if we hear only a single story about another person, we risk a critical misunderstanding Adichie goes above and beyond by utilizing five separate characters' perspectives while sticking to a third person/omnipotent narrator instead of simply one or two is the style of writing the story of Adichie. Though, the story can critically make the person confused and misunderstanding.

2. What this demonstrates, I think, is how impressionable and ___________________________  we are in the face of a story, particularly as _____________________. 

Vulnerable, Children

3. Why was Adichie surprised that Fide’s family could create art?                                            

All her mother had told her was that they were poor she did not see past that and had no idea that anyone poor was capable of creating something so beautiful

4. Why does Adichie blame Western literature for the single story of Africa?

 Because she sees that people who are from the U.S see Africa as a beautiful place with Africans going to war, poverty, dying from aids, and waiting on a white foreigner to save them.

5. So that is how to create a single story, show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over  and over again, and ________________________________. 

“That is what they become”

6. Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the  __________________________________________.

 “Definitive story of that person”

7. Why didn’t Adichie have a single story of America? 

Because of America's cultural and economic power, she had many stories of America.

Speciety – Perspectives on Science, Politics, Education, and Society 

https://speciety.wixsite.com/speciety 

8. All of these stories make me who I am. But to insist on only these negative stories is to  _______________________ my experience and to overlook the many other stories that formed  me. The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are  untrue, but that they are _______________________. They make one story become the only  story.  

Flatten, Incomplete

9. Adichie talks about the idea of having a balance of stories. What are some example she gives  of stories that would have created this balance? 

“What if my roommate knew about the heart procedure that was performed in the Lagos hospital last week?”

 “What if my roommate knew about contemporary Nigerian music, Talented people singing in English and Pidgin, and Lgbo, and Yoruba and Ljo, mixing influences from Jay-Z to Fela to Bob Marley to their grandfathers.

10. Write about a situation in which you fell victim to a single story. This could either be a  situation when you had a single story of another person, group of people, or place or someone  had such a single story about you. How could having a balance of stories have changed the  situation? 

A Lot of people have an single story about me, they think im mean, shy, weird, quiet and more. But that's just what they see, I have actually had someone come up to me and say “You know you're actually a good person you're different” and that goes to say a lot of people see me based on one story when I have multiple stories to give off.