Students asked that I write up some of the notes we made in class about the advocacy projects that we discussed today.

1. What do I mean by advocacy? Goal: work toward change in some area of interest to you.

2. I asked all students to print out the guidelines for effective group work from my website, and to discuss these guidelines as a group.

3. We brainstormed possible topics as a class for about ten minutes, and I wrote them on a spreadsheet (on a separate page in the class roster spreadsheet). Then I asked the number of people potentially interested in each topic, we ranked them, and we threw out the bottom ones with only 0 or 1 or 2 people interested. 16 topics remained, and we put numbers on the board, had students go to the numbers, and formed groups. It was ok to have more than one group on a project. It ended up with three groups on the top topic, with each exploring a slightly different aspect, and representatives designated from each group to talk to the other groups on that topic.

4. Topics and numbers of students initially interested, ranked by interest:

18 unhealthy messages from the media - for women
15 pro comprehensive sex education
13 awareness of date rape drugs
9 methods of birth control (day after pill legality)
8 alcohol and sex
7 pro mandatory pre-marital counseling - issues of parenting, communication, finances, etc.
7 gay couples' rights to adopt - etc.
6 pre-marital blood tests (etc.)
5 pro stem cell research
5 sexual discrimination against women
5 medical insurance failure to cover birth control (but do cover viagra)
5 unhealthy messages from the media - for men
4 arguments agains using abortion as birth control
4 same sex marriage - both sides
3 female genital mutilation
2 safe sex
2 definition of rape
2 violence against women
1 effects of pornography
1 sexual harassment
1 infanticide
1 RU 486 drug - availability
0 legalization of prostitution
0 selective reduction following in vitro fertilization or …)
0 labeling women as sexually dysfunctional

5. Students were asked to have one person from each group send an e-mail to me with copies to all group members. The e-mail should contain:

group letter,
group topic,
names of group members,
telephone numbers of group members,
and e-mail addresses (shown in the header because each member got a copy).

6. We brainstormed ideas for advocacy tactics and actions. These included the following:

Requirement:
there must be some data & research on the topic that support the action or position you advocate.

Strong suggestion:
there should be some references to resources (journal articles, books, websites) containing further information on the topic.

Additional possibilities:

posters
talking to an official
petition
surveys
interviews
education
flyers
handouts
web page
make a video
PSA = public service announcement on WONY
get a law passed
bring a motion to the College Senate
work through Student Association

7. Each group will make a report to the class on either 11/30/04 or 12/7/04 (last two weeks of classes). since there were 11 final groups, 6 would present on one of the presentation dates, and 5 on the other. This means that each report will be between approximately 30 minutes in length.

8. Guidelines for this class report:
1. inform us about what you did
2. convince some of us to join in your effort (if appropriate for your topic and your activities).
3. maybe - change some of our minds.

9. Each group must submit some product for me. Guidelines for this were minimal, and I largely left it up to the group. I did say:
1. The material submitted should be a nice professional package.
2. This is a package of material, not a written paper.
3. The material submitted must be self-contained.
What I didn’t say in class but would like to add:
4. The material submitted must be in the format of a written report on 8-1/2 x 11 paper: if there are larger materials, print out pictures or copies of them.
5. The package of material submitted is due the last class (12/7/04).

11/2/04