Chunk #2 Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell, In the second hundred pages of his book Outliers continued his explanation of Success. He started by comparing Robert Oppenheimer to Chris Langan claiming that Robert Oppenheimer had Practical Intelligence and Chris Langan lacked it because Oppenheimer was Rich and Langan was poor also Langan never learned the skills from his parents to effectively communicate with adults without any intimidation. Malcolm Gladwell is saying that Oppenheimer was more successful and respected than Langan because of his social status not because Oppenheimer was smarter. He concluded that after the termites experiment, The "failures" were from poor families and the true success stories were from rich families. He continued by introducing Joe Flom a Successful lawyer and explained to his audience that because Joe Flom was Jewish and because he was a poor immigrant he was able to become a successful lawyer because he learned a valuable skill. Because of the ADVANTAGE of being a Jewish Immigrant. He explained that in Order to be a successful lawyer you need to be born at certain time which is the 1930s and descendants of a particular race which is Jewish in order to be successful. Gladwell continue to argue that our ancestors have a big impact on we react to brewing issues by giving examples of the southerners and how quickly they are to show what is known as the culture of honor. He concluded by showing his audience how planes crash, he claims that it is the result of non communication. Both his audience and purpose are unchanged from the first one hundred pages of the book.

Clarification Question? Why is Robert Oppenheimer more successful than Chris Langan?

Application Question? What do you think is the advantage for our generation?

Non Fiction Opinion Piece Week 1

Rick Riley's Sport's Illustrated Magazine Article No Doubt About It (Dec 13 2004) used a sarcastic, humorous tone to show what was being said and what he believed by using the Anaphora "I believe" many times. He first started with Bary Bonds allegedly use of steroids then he continued by highlighting other important events in sports such as Marion Jones use of Steroids, Carmelo Anthony's Possesion of Weed and Ron Artest not willing to hurt somebody. He also mentioned president's Clinton fidelity problem. Riley said "And I believe reindeer fly,President Clinton did not have sexual relations with that woman, and Rogaine really can regrow your hair." Highlighting the humorous and sarcastic tone he uses. Riley seems to show displeasure on the people and the things we often look up to implying on how tired he is of hearing lies from our "so called idols". His audience is obviously all sports fan because of all the reference he made to then current sporting events.

Application Question: Do you an Idol is important in the development of a child?

First Precis Paragraph questions

Application question: Regarding A success , which do you think plays a bigger role, The Person's fate or the Person's free will?

Clarification question? What is the difference between the selection of basketball players in America and the selection of Hockey players in Canada?

First Precis Paragraph to Outliers

In the first 100 pages in The nonfiction book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, He proposed a different view of success and how people become successful. His argument began by providing an example of a Junior hockey team and he gives his audience what they all have in common. The majority of the players in the Junior hockey team was born in the month of January, February and March that is because the cut off date to join a team is January 1st, so those who was born in the earlier part of the year has an advantage of more practice hours and more physical developments than those kids who were born in the later part of the year. Gladwell initiates that the best of the Hockey players did not become the best because of their talent but rather because of their birth months. Gladwell later continued his theory of success by providing examples of "The 10,000-Hour Rule" by giving examples of Computer Geniuses, for example Bill Joy and Bill Gates and because of unusual opportunities, they were all able to get 10,000 hours of practice. Gladwell continues to give examples of successful people who were able to get 10,000 hours of practice due to lucky opportunities that was put before them, he gave example of The Beatles, Mozart, Elite young violin players (Gladwell did not however explained the unusual opportunities that they was given to the violin players but they are however on a rate to practice for 10,000 hours). Gladwell went to state that some people became successful because of the year they was born by giving valid evidence to support his idea. The Majority of Successful computer programers was born between 1953-1957 and the Majority of successful billionaires in the nineteenth century was born in the decade of the 1830s. The First 100 pages concluded with the chapter labeled "The Troubled with Geniuses" the chapter highlighted Chris Langan has its main subject but Gladwell transitioned to questioning IQ testing and the S.A.T and he claims IQ testing doesn't matter as long as a person is smart enough to do something his IQ is irrelevant. He reasoned this by comparing it to basketball, Gladwell says as long as you are tall enough to play basketball then you skills becomes accounted for. So far his purpose seems that he wants to provide a different way we see success and his audience might be a more mature not relatively 11th graders but middle age adults whom view success in broad manner and without putting too much thought in it.

My Favorite Scene in The narrative of Frederick Douglass

My favorite part in the Book The narrative of Frederick Douglass was the fight scene between Mr. Covey because it ignited the drive in Frederick Douglass to be a free slave. The funny about this scene is that this is the second a time an unintentional incident lead to more determination by Frederick to accomplish a goal. The first being the statements Mr. Auld said about slaves and literacy. I also liked the scene because Frederick Douglass won the fight and gained his manhood.