Critical thinking
In their critical thinking exercise that concludes "Born Criminal?" Warwick and Rogers (2018, pp. 101-102) invite us to discuss two questions that test our understanding of ideas in the reading by explaining why we agree or disagree and by extending them beyond what the reading tells us.
You have already had 4:00 minutes to very quickly get ideas on both topics.
Now, you have another 10:00 minutes to write your response to question 1. That will be followed by a further 8:00 minutes to respond to question 2 in a separate comment.
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1.
- Do you agree that criminals live up to the label given to them by society?
- Why or why not?
- Examples or other evidence from your own knowledge and experience would be useful support here.
You have 10:00 minutes to write a response to this question. I suggest you divide your time roughly as:
- planning = 0:00 - 1:00 more minute if you like
- writing = 7:00 - 8:00 minutes to quickly turn your preplanning into sentences organized in paragraphs
- editing = 2:00 minutes.
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2.
- Some argue that siblings who live together are not always brought up in the same environment. What might be different?
- Imaginary (not real) examples might be useful support here. But real examples would also be helpful.
You have 8:00 minutes to write a response to this question. I suggest you divide your time roughly as:
- planning = 0:00 - 1:00 more minute if you like
- writing = 5:00 - 6:00 minutes to quickly turn your preplanning into sentences organized in paragraphs
- editing = 2:00 minutes.
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A useful strategy - as usual
Imagine you are writing for someone who has not read the question you have chosen to answer or the article that the question follows up. Your aim is to clearly communicate your response to that reader, so it might help to paraphrase the chosen question at the start of your response to it.
This is also a useful strategy in exams such as IELTS and TOEFL, where it's important that your independent writing response makes sense independently of the question to which it must respond.
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Reference
- Warwick, L. & Rogers, L. (2018). Skillful 4: Reading & Writing, Student's Book Pack (2nd. ed.). London: Macmillan Education
Yes, because for me society is an environment factor. When they live in the society people there acknowledge them a a criminal, they would probably treat them differently from others such as not giving them respect, so that the criminal must feel that they are bad and different from other people in the society. Which can cause them to start having bad behavior or doing something negatively For example, smoking since they feel bad about themselves which also due to the mentally health.
ReplyDeleteOpal's idea that society is an aspect of the environment we live in sounds right, but as I suggest in my own comment, I'm not sure that that is enough to establish a causal connection between how society sees someone and how that person acts, even if there does seem to be a correlation.
DeleteBut I'm not sure that I understand the smoking example. Opal, can you develop that idea a little more? Are you suggesting that people who smoke are bad, or that there is something more bad about enjoying a cigar or cigarette than enjoying a glass of red wine with dinner or riding a roller coaster?
I partially agree because people are not the machine that can be produced in the same duty and behavior who lives, that means the pressure that people can take are different. The victim of society who cannot bear the pressure are mostly doing crime again, but for the people who can take the pressured and improve themselves will usually can turn back from their terrible time and live up to the normal life that they want. And those sometimes will depends on the society that how much the pressure they’re giving to those criminal. Sometimes even the patient person can be mentally break if the society are not giving a chance to change themselves.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I think that there are definitely correlations between the labels that a society gives people, the public perception of the person, I'm not sure that this means that those people commit crimes because society expects them to. It seems clear that people who are seen as criminals do have a greater tendency to commit more crimes, but they might have done that irrespective of what what society thinks, so although there might be positive correlation, that does not necessarily mean that the label or public perception actually increases the criminal behaviour. It's plausible that it might, and I think some movies and TV shows encourage that idea when they portray people who try to turn their lives around, but because everyone expects them to fail, they do in fact fail and return to their criminal behaviour. This makes a good story for a movie, such as Faster starring the Twayne "the Rock" Johnston, in which the drug addicted cop fails to clean up largely because everyone expects him to fail, but there are also plenty of films where the star proves everyone's expectations of failure false.
ReplyDeleteIn short, I'm not sure whether the correlation between labels and criminal propensity is causation or not.
I agree with that. In my opinion, someone who committed crime is likely to be prejudged by the society and they have not much opportunities to do what they really want to do. Some former convicts, for example, are labelled as criminals or bad people even though their behaviours have changed into positive ways already. They might face with difficulties to find jobs -- have less or no job prospects. This could lead them to commit a crime again and again like a vicious circle.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I disagree with you that public pressure plays an important role leading criminals to recommit a crime. However, I quite like the word you mentioned "a vicious circle", making me think of the reason why they might commit a crime over and again. Actually, it seems to me that criminals return to wrongdoings in a vicious circle because they have no necessary skills for living, not to mention getting a proper job as it is even harder. That's why I think education is pretty crucial for them, just teach them how to use basic skills like cooking so that they can make ends meet.
DeleteBest, I like how you show that you understood X's argument and then give an alternative explanation for the vicious cycle that you agree X has identified.
DeleteNow I'm interested to see how responds.
I agree with the sentence that criminals live their lives according to how the society expect them to. When you take a look at the idea again, you will realise this is wrong doing and this stigma should be banned. Many former prisoners are not welcome back to the society as people are scared of them or do not want to associate with them. Often, they are not accepted for employment and they end up with very low income jobs or self-employed jobs. People still believe that they are still criminals and will likely to commit crimes again. On the other hand, we should embrace ex-criminals and give more opportunities to them.
ReplyDeleteYour idea reminds me about ex-drug addicts that return to being drug sellers because they don't know what they can do for their job and society does not accept them as normal. This situation happens until the government launches a program that consists of investment and advice for ex drug addicts.
DeleteI do not agree with the statement that criminals live up to the label given to them by society. I do not think that what the other people around us can determine our behavior. For example, when I was at school, a friend of mind used to be labeled by the other students that she steal the other students belongings, but actually she did. I think this kind of reaction was just putting high pressure on her.
ReplyDelete*but actually she did not.
DeleteI agree with you Emma, there are many people who was able as something at school. Some tend to be a bully case. However, many of them does not do it at all. For example, one of my friend had labeled as psychopath, so many students didn't want to be around him. Sometime people label others with bias, and this act could led to wrong judgment. It's same as when we heard some gossip of someone and people tend to believe that way without think critically.
DeleteFor Question 1:
ReplyDeleteI do not agree with the assertion as I personally think criminals should not be given such label for the rest of their life. They have right to choose their own way even they used to commit a crime once, or may be more. What they really need is education, meaning that parents of theirs or someone should educate them what the right things to do and we could give them a chance to start their new life without labelling.
Totally agree with what Best says about education. I think education can help them in 2 ways, thinking skill and working skill. For us, we know how to find opportunity by our knowledge and skill. Unlike them, if we cannot give knowledge, skill and opportunities to them, I think they do not know how to find a good job and how to get it. Even methods to solve their problems, one time they use violence to solve a problem, if we cannot let them know it is not moral, they can do it again.
DeleteI agree with the idea that criminals live up to the label given to them by society. First, Howard said in his 1963 publication that criminals justify their behavior by social labeling. Second, humans are social animals so we need social acceptance. And labeling is one kind of that.
ReplyDeleteIf somebody label you in negative way, would you become that kind of person that they had claim? I could say that I strongly disagree on labeling other people. I could say that is rude if you didn't know someone well how, would you know what they have been through? There are many society that label other people as a criminal without having any prove or evidence. It is just word of mouth that spread from one place to another and this is really effective in someway to give a judgment without knowing them. For example, if there are someone in the village go to jail because of stealing something from the others. Once some valuable thing disappear again in the village many people claims that he the one who stole it. I would like to ask you how many percent that he committed the crime? I think we cannot conclude that he is a criminal at this time
ReplyDeleteImagine Harry and Dudley. They are brothers living in the same house with their parents Vernon and Petunia Dursley in the same house in the same small English town in the 1990s. But Dudley is the planned for and much loved older son, whereas Harry was an accident that their parents did not really want. Dudley's environment in the same house with the same parents includes lots of love, lots of sweets, lots of games and two rooms to himself. Harry, in contrast, lives in the same house but is not really loved at all, and his parents show that they don't love him: he lives under the stairs, he gets very little food, and that only grudgingly given, and he has no friends come over. It is no surprise that although they share some genes, as all siblings do, Dudley and Harry turn out to be very different people, and at least some of this difference can be attributed to the very different environments that they grew up in despite being brought up by the same parents in the same house.
ReplyDelete(My apologies to J.K. Rowling for revising Harry Potter's family background a little.)
Relatives who live together in the same household are brought up at the different environment because of both internal and external factors. For internal, as an individual, you have different interests that tend to shape you into specific behavior. Those who love reading may have different behavior to those who love to play outdoor sports. For external, you have many factors to consider, for example, the school you are attending, the company you are working for, or friends that you spend time with regularly.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea about this argument. However, I guess if siblings are natured in the same environment, they are more likely to have similar beliefs and behaviours. On the other hand, even if they have different thoughts or ways of acting, they might know how to deal with one another by some means.
ReplyDeleteFor me, it just like the duty of any human that they need to do, imagine that there are two siblings live together, the different duty that they will do will shape their behavior, one way or another, maybe one of them has to do gardening that make them to gently touch everything like flower while another one is very heavy handed because of fixing skill in the garage. The behavior will different based on their hobbies too, one may very calm from drawing skill and playing music, that a little bit contrast to another one that got the geeky head from watching a lot of movie.
ReplyDeleteHaving read your comment, I am convinced that individual's hobby could be a factor making such siblings have a different environment for upbringing. A prime example is that a little sister prefers reading to playing, and therefore her bedroom will be filed with a multitude of books. Unlike the sister, her older brother enjoys playing video games, resulting in no book in the latter bedroom. I also believe that most parents choose how they will raise their children by considering what the children like and enjoy.
DeleteI think attending a different school might be one of the factors that siblings brought up in the different environment. A good example is my cousin and I. Although we are siblings, we went to different school at the age of 4. I think that might be a factor that shaped the differences in who we are today. We used to spend times together after school and during the school break, but I could feel that we had different interests and we would have disagreement.
ReplyDeleteQuestion II
ReplyDeleteSiblings who live together are brought up in different environments. There are a lot of periods in their life that they do not live together. First example at school, they might learn in different classrooms. This is the first step to make them grow up in separate ways because they have unlike friends that can invite them to different activities. Second their job, they have their own life path so they can choose different job.
The difference between the siblings could be education they have been to, their group of friends, life experiences which must be different, their unique personality and how they see the world from their own perspective. If one went to better school that they teach them more about how to be good people in society, there also less chance for them to commit crime comparing to another one who never went to a proper school or even having good friends to tell them what is right and wrong. In my opinion, the environment factor is very important not just only about their parents or family, but so school, friend ,the places they been to, etc.
ReplyDeleteFor question 2:
ReplyDeleteI do think siblings who live in the same house does not mean they will be treated in the same way. Taking Chinese families for example, they prefer to have sons than daughters due to their belief, and thus the daughters might me treated differently, in a worse way, from the sons.
I grew up with my sisters. We live together for 22 years and then she left to the State. however, growing up together doesn't shape us to have same character. Even though we lived in the same house, shared the same bedroom and studied in the same school. Since our interest are totally different. My sister was an athlete. she have got gold medal for running competition. I didn't. I was a musician in the school band. My sister didn't. This is just rough example even parent didn't treat us the same when we were home.
ReplyDelete