Getting Political: Part Two - "You are Wrong, Bye Bye"

After my students had read the conflicting coverage of our local March for Life (read the first part of my rant in my Part One post), students noticed the small Facebook comment thread on the News Sentinel page; more specifically, they noticed a troll.

They noticed two things immediately: 

1. David quoted the Journal Gazette article they had just read (they felt like they knew something not everyone else knew), and -

2. He summarily shut down conversation with a "You are wrong. Bye bye."

After reminding my kids how they will NEVER convert someone to their point of view via social media comment threads, we also spoke about how shutting down conversation never leads to productive discussion and understanding. Of course, the other two pro-life commenters didn't follow this directive either (or proper mechanics and grammar), but the students were most fascinated with the "Bye bye." They begged me to click on his name.

Of course, how could I NOT click?  Especially since all my students have blogs now, I have been emphasizing again and again how they don't know who will read their stuff so they have to be careful what they put out there.

David's Facebook profile has zero privacy settings. I felt a little stalkerish with this up on the projector, but it was a great lesson for the kids on how they never know if they will end up in some AP English lecture - so be careful what you put out there! 

Anyway, he really only had a timeline full of liberal political rants. Which further confused my kids. For example, this popped up:

Student: Mrs. H, I don't get it. Can you explain that?
Me: Um...no.

He also had a link to a blog that was an open letter to white evangelicals. A few students piped up and said, "Oh, I read that. It's actually pretty good!" I took a gander during lunchtime; now with a title like "White Evangelicals, This is Why People are Through with You," I wasn't terribly surprised at the furthering of shaming, identity politics, and overgeneralized hatred the letter contained. There were some truths in it but the message was obscured by the belligerent style.

When I saw those girls again, I had them SOAPSTone the text like we do with other texts in AP. SOAPSTone stands for Speaker-Occasion-Audience-Purpose-Subject-Tone. I asked who the audience was - was it actually white evangelicals (whoever that group actually entails)? If I considered myself a white evangelical - and I'm guessing the author would consider me to be so, even if I didn't - would I read this and say, "Oh my goodness, you are so right"? Of course not. The audience is readers of his blog who think like he does.  It's another example of how rhetoric can shut down discussion rather than promote it, as well as the echo chamber concept my students are just now beginning to understand.

The most fascinating part of this conversation was how my student admitted, "Well, I had thought it was good when I read it the first time, but when I saw that that guy had posted it, and he seemed like a nutjob, I realized maybe it wasn't as good as I thought..."

I know if I ever return to public school teaching I will have to revamp my teaching methods substantially, but every time I see lightbulbs go on in my kids' eyes, and they see deeper into a part of their world they've never considered, and heck, they actually THINK before the post? That's a win in my book.

Bye bye. <---AP English inside joke for the rest of the year.