mapping and blogging

Okay, here's my attempt at a concept map of my English 1000 class. My brain doesn't really work spatially, so this isn't terribly pretty, but it sort of makes sense to me. I'm interested in feedback on assignment 2, as shown on the concept map (it gets bigger if you click on it); I've been having trouble all semester getting that assignment in a form I like.



I also did Johnson-Eilola's third search engine activity.

When I searched for my own name on google, I found primarily academic and professional information. Some of it was work related-- the writing lab website, etc--, some of it was writing-related-- my old opinion columns from KSU, etc.--, and some of it was info about awards I've been given (I'm putting my vice-presidentship of the English major's club at KSU in this category). I believe the only sites that didn't fit into one of these categories were the EGSA auction site (on which it announces that my scones sold for $15) and the website of my grandmother's church (which has my birthday listed).

All of these (except the one from my grandma's church) are related to acheivement. I would have next to no presence on the web were it not for these acheivements, which I think is interesting, considering that I feel that my achievements are largely a result of my socio-economic background. It was expected that I would go to college and do well there, etc. I wonder what a google search would turn up for my name if that were not the case.

I went on to search for terms that describe me. (Interestingly enough, wikipedia articles showed up near the top of almost every search.) "Female" turned up a fair number of sexually-oriented sites (the second result is about "female genital cutting"). However, I followed up by searching for "male" and found somewhat the same type of sites (the third result was "the ultimate male masturbation resource"). I haven't done enough research to make a confident argument about this, but I think the results for "female" may tend to focus more on things being done to women (like mutilation) whereas the "male" results may focus more on things men do (masturbation). I later searched for "woman" and "man" and thought it was interesting that the first sponsored link for "woman" was titled "Sexy single women," whereas no such link appeared in the "man" search.

I then searched for "caucasian," "white," "African-American," "black," and "hispanic." Although the first entry for "cancasian" is a wikipedia article about "the Caucasian race," the entries don't tend to be centered on the "race". Instead, there are articles about the Caucasus mountains, the "caucasian mountain dog," etc. "White" turned up similar results. "White people" turned up more pointed results, mostly of "white people" defining themselves in opposition to others. (or others defining "white people" in opposition to themselves.) "African American," "black," and "hispanic" turned up more relevant results than did "caucasian" or white", and they seemed to focus on group identity. I suppose the reason for this would be that caucasian or white tends to be viewed as the norm in the U.S., so caucasians tend not to be viewed in terms of skin color/ ethnicity (or at least they are not defined this way on the web).

I also did a few other searches, but these are the highlights. This would be an interesting activity to have our students do. I'm not sure if I'll use it, due to time constraints, but this could be an interesting start for a paper assignment.