The Pyre

The past couple of years, students enrolled in PreAP English II at Olathe Northwest High School have read Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori and Rom Brafman. This book is a short Malcolm Gladwell-esque look at why we humans do all of the stupid things that we do. The great thing is about this book is how it sparks so many valuable discussions about bias, labeling, politics, group dynamics, etc.  My work with students reading, writing, and talking about all of these topics have made me realize that my experience with students in teaching this text has taught me more than I would have ever learned just reading the book. Here are these top five lessons: Lesson #1: Cheater, cheater: loss aversion eater! Early in the book, the authors articulate a simple definition of loss aversion: "our tendency to go to great lengths to avoid potential losses" (Brafman and Brafman 17). They develop the readers' understanding of loss aversion through examp...

Your blog post should delineate the top five things you learned from your experience with the book Sway and related readings, writings, and discussion. Emulate the Top Five Social Media Lessons blog post we read in class to help you with your writing. Here are the requirements of your post: Compose a first paragraph in which you introduce the topic in an interesting way (consider relating it to yourself) and preview the rest of the blog post. Include a numbered list of the five lessons you learned from Sway and related learning experiences. Consider revisiting your focus questions, evidence connections, and Socratic Seminar packet as you brainstorm what you are going to write about. Your lessons can be SPECIFIC TERMS (like "loss aversion"), SKILLS (like how to compose central claim statements), or IDEAS (like re-evaluating your own biases). Develop your ideas in at least one paragraph under each numbered lesson using anecdotes, definitions, quotations, definitio...