Directions: Please view "The Danger of a Single Story" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and comment on the ways in which we judge others/authors/characters by a single story. Think about people that you have judged by one moment. How do you define them? Now, think about novels. How have you judged authors/characters by a single reading? Have you had any experiences where your opinion changed for people and authors?
Next, peruse my global website. Please comment on something you found interesting and would like to ask me for more information.
"The Danger of a Single Story"
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Culture. The word originated with the definition"to cultivate land," and evolved into a "cultivation of the mind." Today the word is ambiguous, referring to our attachment to a place, traditions, and beliefs. It also has ominously been used to discuss an "otherness" through stereotypes.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie shares her experiences with the notion of culture in "The Danger of a Single Story" in an important TED Talk that will explain the importance of global intelligence.
"Mr. P. Goes Global"
by Eric Pellerin
we judge characters or people by the way they look,and dress. We judge authors by the way they write
ReplyDeleteMichael DiCenzo
DeleteHanna Saad
ReplyDelete9/17/18
When politicians describe immigrants they describe them as bad people yea some of them but most of them are good. The way we view people is by stereotyping them about what we here and see. I read this book called "Misery" by Steven King and after finishing the book I thought he had a messed up child hood when he really didn't and saw this via how he wrote his books.
Suhani Karki
ReplyDelete9/17/18
People that I have judged by one single moment were cheerleaders. I used to define cheerleaders as the ones in the typical high school movies. When I was a kid, I watched the movie, a Cinderella Story where the cheerleaders tormented girls in their high school that were not like them. From that moment I thought that all cheerleaders were mean and cruel. Just like how Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie thought all white people played in the snow, ate apples, and they talked a lot about the weather. Later on, Chimamanda and I both realized that our judgments were wrong.
I have judged authors/characters by a single reading. When I read the book ‘Akata Witch’ in middle school, the author described the African girl as an albino with yellow hair and white skin. So naturally, I thought that the author too had yellow hair and white skin. Later on, my classmate told me that the author Nnedi Okorafor was not an albino.
Nick Entner
ReplyDeleteOne time that I judged a person from one moment is when I think of people from other places that are not america. I used to think that these people were different and new nothing that we did. I used to used to think that they came from another planet or something. I have judge characters like Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird to the person that everyone wants to be. I think as you read throughout many books you get a new perspective from the characters.
Yasmiin Ali
ReplyDelete9/18/18
People that I have judged by one single moment were bullies. As a kid, I watch movies I would think bullies were older kids who were popular. So as I was growing up I would never make "those" people mad or bully me. Until I realized that bullies could be anyone who is insecure and those people want others to feel their pain. Just like how Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie thought that writings had to be about blond hair and blue-eyed people. However, she later realized that that's not true and that you can write about anyone.
I judge books all the time because I never like reading a lot as a kid. When I tried to read 'Harry Potter' book 1, I couldn't get through the first chapter because my brain kept telling me that it's a bad book, it's too long, etc. I always do that to books that I judge first before reading. Now I read the summary and read at least 50-100 pages before judging.
Dylan Brenner
ReplyDeleteOne time when I judged a person was when I went on vacation to the Dominican Republic. I knew for a lot of people there english was not there first language. I kept wondering how are they gonna treat me and how well am I going to interact with them. As the days went on I learned that they knew english pretty well and everyone was very friendly. I learned not to judge people on what i’ve heard or what I already know.
I do judge books a lot. I was really never a big reader, but when I do read books I get bored of the book quickly because when I do read the beginning of the book can be pretty boring sometimes. The middle of the book is usually where all the action happens. I learned that when I choose to read not to judge books by just the beginning of the book.
Griffin Littlewood
ReplyDeleteI experienced seeing an author use the single story in the book Unbroken where all of the Japanese soldiers were thought of as evil people for being enemies of Japan. People that I used to judge based off of the single story was that teachers were evil from seeing cartoons portray them that way like Big Nate from 3rd grade. This was my experience with the single story.
Sean Curtis-
ReplyDeleteI watch the news and I have seen all of these stories about war and other parts of the world. It seems like the news judges people on wars, rumors, and other stereotypes. It made me feel like these people across the world were one specific thing whether that be violent or weird. It is not until I step back and ask myself is this true.
Evan Lin
ReplyDeleteEveryday we watch the news, and every time the only news they talk about are about foreigners doing horrible things to other people. While there could be hundreds of stories of foreigners helping people out, the media decides to cherrypick one single story of a foreigner doing something bad, and people who watch that will assume that all people from that country/region of the world are like that.
In the book that I read this summer which was Maus I judged the author as a person who just wrote a story about his dad, and sold it for money then never talked about again. I judged him as a type a person who made money on tragedy. What I learn in one of the chapters is his dad died while he was sketching the comic. The author tells us about how he is depressed about thinking about all the Jews that got killed and his father. I finally realized that he didn't want to publish the book because he would make money on tragedy, he published it because he wants to preserve his dad's legacy.
ReplyDeleteRobbie Mahlebjian
DeleteShruthi Saravanan
ReplyDeletePeople that I have judged were high schoolers and just high school in general due to watching so many typical high school movies where’s it’s more of the popular kids vs the kids who are not and that everyone gets categorized into different groups there. As a little kid I actually believed that high school was like that, the popular kids would be complete jerks and the kids who aren’t would be nerds and weird. But after people who I knew went to high school told me about how it was I realized that this was how reality was and I then started to really look forward to going into high school.
Many books that I’ve read I used to judge the characters by their first appearances in the books. Sometimes if they weren’t the best I would kinda see them like that throughout the rest of the book. Though eventually, I started to realize that I shouldn’t do that cause many characters change throughout the story and become a better person and that they shouldn’t always be held for who they were in the past.
Olivia Dionisio
ReplyDeleteseptember 19, 2018
People that i have judged are bullies or sketchy or mean people. I used to think that they just wanted to make people feel bad or just wanted to let you know in a clear way that they do not like you. Once you get to know someone like this though you can see that they might be going through something and taking their anger out on you.
Luke Newton
ReplyDeleteSeptember 19, 2018
I people I judge are everyone, I watch the news and only see people do terrible things to each other or some hurricane destroy entire cities or an earthquake ravage the countryside. I thought that the nowadays everyone is fighting with each other and there are so many wars and terrible things that happen but in reality we live in the most peaceful time in human history its just that if you only see bad things on the news it drowns out all the good things that happen every single day.
Celia Hoffman
ReplyDeleteI have judged a lot of people based on stereotypes and things I've seen in media and on the news. I think we all judge people based on their appearance and they way they act, and our judgements are mostly not true.
This is true, good points.
DeleteCelia Hoffman
DeleteThe news mostly focuses on negative stories and bad people, and I think that the people doing bad things are always made out to be the same kind of person.
Dowol Lee
ReplyDeleteWe can judge people off one story or characteristic. One time I judged someone was when I heard a rumor about someone and I thought that person was bad and does not deserve anything. I later learned more about them and realized that a person has more than one story that defines their life. Authors have many books and you can judge them off one book
I try no to judge anyone. It is hard at times especially if I don't like the person. When I first came to Andover I judged (good and bad) everyone. I made friends by doing that and avoided a lot of people from it too. A single story told from my old school is that everyone is preppy here, which is mostly not the case. After a while of living here I understand two perspectives.
ReplyDelete-Jacqui
DeleteI can relate.
DeleteNick Entner
ReplyDeleteI noticed on your blog that people wore many different clothes than we do here. Also what was your motivation for doing this.
I judge people now on their actions. I don't do it a lot but sometimes I do. I don't like to Judge people because if you get to know them they can be a really good person. We judge people on the news all the time and if we see something happen and a person does something bad people will judge them badly.
ReplyDeleteAnthony Dimuzio
DeleteDowol Lee
ReplyDeleteDid you have to conform to the clothes they wore and dress like them?
Jillian Boyer
ReplyDeleteWhen we read about someone or read something someone wrote, we are looking directly into their lives. But, we can only look at so much at a time, and we usually only see one small piece of their story. This small piece bases our entire thoughts about them, and so we judge or think about this person just based on what we read. For example a story I’ve always loved is Mr. Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs. This book is about an orphanage of children who have peculiar abilities, and are forced into hiding in the folds of time to save themselves from not only monsters, but also the horrors of World War II.
When reading this book, I began to perceive Riggs as someone who had a hard life that was in someway, deeply affected by the war. I believed this for ages after I only read this one book. However, I recently picked up another book by Briggs, and did little research for curiosity's sake. It turns out, the making of Peculiar Children, was actually based on a woman she did an interview on who owned a pawn shop. Although there is a lot of her life spilled on the pages of that book, she is not in fact a sad old lady who lost someone or something to the war like I thought.
Shruthi Saravanan
ReplyDeleteOn the website I saw that you put the Danger of the Single Story video due to you experiencing it there. You mentioned in class how the some students asked you if all Americans had guns due to all those movie that are shown there. Were there any other questions that were asked which were similar to this one?
I judge everything when I just saw them(people, schools, even a country), sometimes even before I see them. I'll judge them based my old impression which isn't always true.
ReplyDelete