Week Two: What it Means to Work in the 21st Century—an Overview

MONDAY: 10-9-06

  • Reading: Introduction to Gig and self-chosen selection (in packet).
  • Class Activities: In-class writing, peer review, work with Gig readings, and introduction to résumé.

I Prompted Writing (5-7 min)

  1. To turn in and be checked off: What do you make of this quote from the introduction to Gig, “Instead of resisting work, most seem to adapt to it. What this adaptation does to, with, and for the soul is Gig’s true subject. “
  2. Be ready to start with your response as you discuss your readings.

II Gig Work (30 min)

  1. Small Group Work for 15 min.
  2. Discussion for 15.
  3. Discussion Questions:
  4. How would you describe people’s general attitude towards work?
  5. What did your person see as the value of their work?
  6. What’s the significance of hearing unvarnished thoughts on work from workers? How would this have been different if filtered through experts?
  7. Key Question: What does what people have to say about their work say about the work that you might have to do in the “new economy.”
  8. Def: "Definition of The New Economy": The new economy is a proper noun, describing one of several aspects of the late 1990s. Lipsey (2001) has discerned these meanings:
  9. An economy characterized by the absence of business cycles or inflations.
  10. The industry sectors producing computers and related goods and presumably services such as e-commerce.
  11. An economy characterized by an accelerated rate of productivity growth.
  12. The "full effects on social, economic, and political systems of the [information and communications technologies] revolution" centered on the computer. This is Lipsey's meaning.

III Cover Letter Introduction and What to Find (30 min)

  1. Give them a sample resume and coverletter for a business: KUSB—a new TV station we’re running.
  2. What does the writer do well? What experience do we like? Would we hire her and why?
  3. Make the decision in ten minutes with your group.
  4. Then go over how to create letters—with overheads.
  5. Have them use the format to plot out a cover letter for a job or internship.
  6. Go over the assignment with them.
  7. Gaucholink:
  8. Getting Mission Statements: Show them and go through the process.
  9. You must research where you will apply.
  10. Take questions.
  11. Put up Coverletter Guidelines, and have them write for five minutes

Ten Minute Break

IV Brainstorming for Area to Research (20 min)

  1. Hand out the Assignment and Rubric.
  2. Go over.
  3. Prompt: Take five minutes and write down everything, in terms of jobs, employment, or work, that you might be interested in researching and working towards for you final researched essay.
  4. Create master list and post it to the website.

V Anticipation Guide and Discussion of “Do We Work Too Much?” (10-15 min)

A. Put up anticipation guide.

B. Have them go over in groups of three, with their answers.

C. Discussion Questions:

a. What are the benefits to working harder? For us? For the economy?

b. What might be some of the problems?

c. How much do we, culturally, value volunteer work, parenting, or other unpaid labor?

d. Why do we feel the way we do about labor?

e. Final Question: Americans are not working harder because they “want” to in some

deeply psychological sense, but because they’re directly up against a dynamic market.

We can rise very high in it, or fall very low; we have no way of knowing how high or how

low we’ll go. . .What’s the price we’re willing to pay for prosperity?

MAKE SURE THAT THEY BRING 16 COPIES OF RESUME WITH THEM.

WEDNESDAY: 10-11-06

  • Reading: Robert Reich’s “The Lure of Hard Work” from The Future of Success (in packet).
  • Writing: First draft of résumé due today.
  • Class Activities: In-class writing, discussion of Reich, introduction to résumés, and work on what you might research.

LESSON FOR WEDNESDAY: 10-11-06

  • Reading: Robert Reich’s “The Lure of Hard Work” from The Future of Success (in packet).
  • Writing: First draft of résumé due today.
  • Class Activities: In-class writing, discussion of Reich, introduction to résumés, and work on what you might research.

I Reich Question Creation (5-7 min)

II Reich Discussion: Group Work (10 min)

  1. Get into groups and write down your questions, change and alter them, add to them, and get ready to ask them.
  2. Go over the difference between yes/no and substantive questions.

III Discussion (20 min)

  1. Pose.
  2. My Questions:
  3. Why do we work harder and harder? What are the reasons according to Reich?
  4. Is stress necessarily a bad thing? (Mention being under stressed—the absence of productive stress.)
  5. Page 77 quote: Today’s college students are not necessarily more materialistic than former generations of students. . .What’s changed is their future ecomomic stakes. . .So the monetary penalty for seeking a “meaningful philosophy of life” over being “well off financially” has grown.” What do we make of this? What pressures do you feel to get a “good job that pays well?”

IV Peer Review Prewriting and activities (10-15 min)

  1. Go over.
  2. Do the blind walk—as a small group.
  3. Talk metaphorically about what we will be doing.

V Peer Review of Resumes (40 min)

A. Form Circle or horseshoe.

B. For each resume do the following:

a. If the resume is outstanding, then put a ranking that you want to give it—1-10. Think of

this as ranking the ten best that you see. You can use numbers more than once.

b. After this, you will have a minute to write two things: the best thing about the resume you

read and a suggestion for the resume writer.

  1. We will do this, for fifteen resumes—you will have fifteen responses.
  1. What to do with this:
  2. Make sure that you read over the comments—how high are you ranked? (Look at numbers.) You want to be in the top 3-5.
  3. What suggestions are repeated?
  4. Debriefing Questions:
  5. What did you realize about how resumes are read?
  6. What does this mean in terms of your cover letter?
  7. What do you have to do to increase your chances?

VI Anticipation Guide (5 min)

VII Sign up for Conference Times (5 min)

Week Three: Your Friend the Computer and the Résumé

CONFERENCE WEEK

MONDAY: 10-16-06

  • Reading: Introduction and “Serving in Florida” from Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich (in packet).
  • Class Activities: In-class writing, editing work, discussion of Nickel and Dimed reading, “30 Days Episode”, and beginning of résumé work—including “Dream Résumé Creation.” ALSO, SIGN-UP FOR CONFERENCES.

WEDNESDAY: 10-17-06 (Meet in Computer Lab: Phelps Hall)

  • Reading: “The Summer of the Death of Hilario Guzman” by Mark Arax (in packet).
  • Writing: Final draft of résumé due today.
  • Class Activities: In-class writing, working with online databases, creation of research question and preliminary research, and selection from “The Colbert Report.”