When faced with a choice you can close your eyes and point, flip a coin, or "ee-ni-meen-ee minee-mo" your way to a decision.

Or you can do some quick background readings to get an understanding of the issues at hand, and proceed from there.

We'll go with the latter.

The homework for this assignment consists of watching short videos, reading assignment sheets and two short "overview" essays. After that, you should be in good shape to answer the questions below -- which should lead you to a choice of topics for essay #3. We'll be discussing the topics in more detail next class.

Watch Videos
You'll probably want a Word document open or a piece of paper out for notes

1. Short excerpt from the series The Newsroom on the state of America.  From cable TV so it uses adult language to make its point.
2. Inequality in America: animated slide show.
3. Radio episode: Fear and Loathing in Homer and Rockville (Immigration/News)

Read and Annotate

1. Assignment sheets for essay #3 (Civic Stances; Income Inequality; Immigration; News)  
2. Short readings on each topic: Civic Stances intro 2 | Income Inequality is a Choice | Immigration | News  

Questions to Answer
Thinking about the videos and the readings, write out short answers to the following questions:

1. How do these topics connect to the purpose of college?
2. Why are these topics relevant/important?
3. What do you find intriguing/interesting/challenging about each topic?  Why? 
4. Why are these topics usually ignored?