Post your research questions for Invisible Children

What strategies do the filmmakers use to effectively move the audience to respond to the argument?
Post your research questions here. 

Africa: What do you know and how do you know it?

What do you know about Africa, and how do you know it?

When you read about Africa, do you expect to hear about “tragic hellholes full of starving children with flies in their eyes” (Kristof 44)?

And when you hear about problems in Africa, do you respond with what Kristof describes as a “collective shrug” and say, “Too bad, but isn’t that what Africa is always like? People slaughtering each other? . . . we have our own problems?” (41).

In “How to Write About Africa,” Kenyan Binyavanga Waianana summarizes the many ways Western writers discuss Africa, her people, and the struggles faced by many nations represented on the continent. 

How accurate are her observations?  Have your views of Africa been influenced by the kind of writing she describes?

Will the kind of writing/campaigns advocated by Kristof help readers/viewers to see Africa in new ways?  Or is Kristof part of the problem?  

As usual, respond to the blog by commenting on this prompt or on the comments of other students.  

Everybody has a right to _______________________

The United States Constitution guarantees certain rights--the right to free speech, the right of free association, the right to worship in the way you want, etc.  

These are different than the "inalienable rights" discussed in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  

As discussed in class, we don't all define those rights in the same way and that leaves us with the question, do human beings have any inalienable rights?  

In the Social Justice video (http://animoto.com/play/qV2S8JWtG21GIhkcVamWow), students name things like food, education, and dancing as inalienable rights.  What do you think?  What do people have a right to? 

How does the piece by O'Neil complicate those ideas?  

What do people have a right to?  How does guaranteeing those rights infringe on the other rights?  

What other limitations might there be?