Explaining a Concept 700 words
Specific Vocabulary
1. First, define your concept. Let's call it an X. What is X?
2. How can you describe X?
3. What examples can you give to illustrate X? Can you offer any facts, statistics, quotes, or other details to illustrate X?
4. Are there any other related terms that you will explore along with this concept? If yews, what are they? Explain them here.
5. Are there any processes that need to be explained? Can you describe a series of events related to X?
6. Can X be compared to something else? Can it be related to some other similar concepts? If yes, do it here.
7. Can X be contrasted to something else? Can it be said to be different that some other concepts? If so, say how.
8. Can you classify X within some larger group or scheme? What would that be?
9. Can you find any causes of X or effects that result from X? Explain them here.
Now, take a few minutes and list all the specific terms that you introduce in your concept paper and define them. Do you needany extended definitions for any of these terms? Have you used any stipulative definitions? What definition(s) seem to be mostproblematic? Why? How do you exemplify your definitions?
Part 2: Exchange your sheets with a partner and comment on the clarity and exhaustiveness of the definitions. Pinpoint anyunclear or convoluted phrases. Give suggestions for a better way of defining the concept/term.Connecting to Culture and Experience: Taboos (Class Discussion 20-30 min.)The author of a respected book on the Donner Party has this to say about the fact that some members ate other members afterthey had died:
Surely the necessity, starvation itself, had forced them to all they did, and surely no just man would ever have pointed them in scorn, orassumed his own superiority...Even the seemingly ghoulish actions involved in the story may be rationally explained. To open thebodies first for the heart and liver, and to saw apart the skulls for the brain were not acts of perversion. We must remember that thesepeople had living for months upon the hides and lean meat of half-starved work oxen; their diet was lacking not mere quantity, but alsoin all sorts of necessary vitamins and mineral constituents, even in common salt. Almost incontrollable cravings must have assailedthem, cravings which represented a real deficiency in diet to be supplied in some degree at least by the organs mentioned. GEORGE R. STEWART, Ordeal by Hunger
Task: With other students, discuss this author's argument and his unwillingness to pass judgment on the Donner Party's
cannibalism. Individually, are you inclined to agree or disagree with the author? Give reasons for your views. Keep in mindthat no one, perhaps with one exception toward the very end of the Donner Party's isolation, was murdered in order to be eaten.Therefore, the issue is not murder but humans' eating other humans' flesh and body parts for nourishment. Where do you think
the taboo against human cannibalism comes from in our society? Do you believe it should be observed in all circumstances? Do you think the taboo should be extended to the consumption of animal flesh?