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7th List of Ten: Thinking About Y2K
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Traci's 7th List of Ten:
Ten Ways to Think About Year 2000 Issues
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ACW-L has been talking about preparing computers for the Year 2000, and a
recent post by Chitralekha Duttagupta turned to the question of how the
issues related to the writing classroom.
My first thought was of articles and presentations on literacy and computers
that urge us to interrogate the technologies that we bring to the classroom.
Following this advice, we ask our students to join us in questioning and
dissecting issues such as universal access, the default assumptions made by
software packages, and the physical layout of computer labs.
My idea was to bring that kind of interrogation to the discussion of Year
2000 by creating writing projects that asked students to think about the
ways that we talk and think about this issue. If you have access to
computers in your classroom, your students can find web-page resources for
themselves; however, you could print out web pages or find articles in the
library that would allow your student to consider these issues without
classroom access to computers.
NOTE: Item #2 includes a list of Year 2000 articles that you might use as
background for any of the writing activities. The information is listed
only once, even though it might be a part of the other assignments as well.
Ten Ways to Think About Year 2000 Issues
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1. Write an analytical essay that explores the stylistic choices and
persuasive techniques used in a company's press releases and/or other public
statements on their preparation for the Year 2000.
For example, consider this excerpt from the Year 2000 Statement at
Eudora's web site: "The format keeps the number of seconds passed since
January 1, 1970, in a 32-bit signed integer. If you do the math (i.e.,
2^31=2,147,483,648), this integer will overflow after 68 years of seconds.
Therefore, the maximum date the integer will store is year 2038."
(http://www.eudora.com/techsupport/helpdesk/Misc/Year2000.html). The author
is explaining that the software will stop working in the year 2038 -- why
have they gone to the trouble of adding the explanation? Do you understand
the explanation? Why has the company chosen to include these technical terms?
For your writing assignment, ask these same kinds of questions for a
complete document that you've found. How does the statement use explanations
and description? Is the document "user-friendly"? Does the statement rely
on legalistic language or technical jargon? Think about the company's
purpose and audience for the document. Why has the company chosen the
particular strategies that are used in the document?
2. Find three articles about computer technology and the Year 2000. If
possible, find articles with different attitudes about the issues involved.
Analyze the articles looking at the author's purpose, audience, and writing
situation. What is the author's point of view? How is the author's point
of view communicated in the article? How does the author's point of view
affect the way that the ideas are discussed? What names are used? What
details are included? What is explained -- and what isn't?
Here are some articles you can use to get started:
-- "The Y2K Solution: Run for Your Life!!"
http://www.wired.com/wired/6.08/y2k.html
-- "The Year 2000: Social Chaos or Social Transformation?"
http://www.year2000.com/archive/social.html
-- "Is the Party Over?"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-09/01/070l-090198-idx.html
-- "Bugged By The Millennium"
http://www.dallasobserver.com/1998/082798/feature1-1.html
-- "The Media in Bed with Millennium Bug"
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/examiner/archive/1998/08/25/
NEWS6784.dtl
-- "Worried About The Year 2000 Problem? Get Real."
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/more/cahners/11379/3725729/4
-- "The Year 2000: Is Your PC Prepared?"
http://www.currents.net/magazine/national/1603/covr1603.html
-- "Year 2000 Audit From Hell"
http://www.computerworld.com/home/news.nsf/all/980904secy2ka
[TEACHING STRATEGY: Simplify this assignment by choosing the two or three
articles for students to focus on, so that you will not need to be familiar
with all the articles they discuss.]
3. Find an article, essay, or story that discusses the "dangers" of a new
technology -- you might find a turn-of-the-century piece that warns of the
problems that will be encountered in the 1900's, or a piece that warns about
trains, automobiles, airplanes, and so forth. Compare the way that the
technological danger in your older article is discussed to the way that the
Year 2000 issues are discussed in a current article. Look particularly at
the difference between facts and opinions or speculation. Consider the
language that is used, the details that are included, and the explanations
that are used.
4. Write your own science fiction account of what will happen at midnight on
January 1, 2000. Speculate and dream all you want, but relate your ideas to
the facts that we know about technology and the Year 2000. In other words,
it would be appropriate to talk about computer failures, but not to talk
about the sun burning out (unless you have some facts that support that
event happening). Be sure to focus your discussion -- you could easily
write a novel if you tried to cover everything, but you only need to write a
four-page paper. Don't try to talk about everything that could happen;
you'll become overwhelmed. You might write from your personal perspective
(what will happen to you?). Or you could write about what happens at our
school, to the police department in town, and so forth.
5. "A rose by any other name...." Look at the variety of names used to
describe what will happen when the clock strikes midnight on January 1,
2000. The names are quite varied: Year 2000 Problem, Millennium Bug, Year
2000 Project, Y2K, Millennial Bomb, M-bug, Year 2000 Solutions, Y2K
Compliance, and so forth. How do the names differ? Take a look at who uses
which name. What does the name that is used tell you about the author who
uses it? Write a paper that explores the way that naming affects the way
that we think about the situation involved.
6. Write a short research or I-search paper on something you're interested
in or a system that you rely on and its relationship to Year 2000
preparation. You might examine the computer equipment that you own, a piece
of software that you use frequently, your bank's accounting system, our
school's class scheduling system, accounting system, or QCA tracking system,
the local electric company, or your car's on-board computer. For your
paper, examine how the product or system works now, what needs to be done to
prepare it for the Year 2000, and the steps that are being taken.
7. Write a satire that explores an issue related to the Year 2000. You
might write a parody that talks about the dangers that people must be
prepared for. You could write satirical instructions telling someone how to
test a computer or a piece of software. Write a solution to the Year 2000
problem, using Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" as your model. Whatever
you choose, pay attention to the relationship between the real facts you
know about the Year 2000 and the satirical details that you include in your
paper. What makes a satire good is its relationship to the real world.
8. Look at the web sites (or other advertisements and descriptions) for
software or consulting services that help someone analyze their computer
equipment and prepare for the Year 2000. How do the sites talk about the
Year 2000 and about their products or services? What persuasive strategies
and appeals do they use? Do you notice argumentative fallacies? How do
they try to convince the reader that they can help prepare machines and
system? Write an analysis of one of these sites that explores the
argumentative strategies and techniques that the company uses.
Web page links to products and services are available at:
http://www.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Year_2000_Problem/Software/
and
http://www.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Companies/Computers/Consulting/Yea
r_2000_Problem/
9. Compare the Year 2000 statements posted by different governmental
agencies (or by different governments)? What rhetorical strategies do they
have in common? What differences do you see? What are the goals and
audience for the statements? How does the statement use explanations and
description? Is the document "user-friendly"? Does the statement rely on
legalistic language or technical jargon? Write an analytical paper that
discusses the way that the agency involved presents their details on the
Year 2000.
For instance, consider the United States's "The White House Millennium
Council" page (http://www.whitehouse.gov/Initiatives/Millennium/main.shtml).
The United States page is calm and unconcerned about the turn of the
century. It's not concerned with a problem or a situation -- it's the
statement of a "council." Given the details on the White House page, you
might think there was nothing to do -- the first links refer the unveiling
of the Millennium logo and a campaign to save historical buildings in the
United State. Further, the page includes absolutely irrelevant facts such
as "The year 2000 will mark the 150th anniversary of 12th President Zachary
Taylor's illness and death while in office." Choose a government page,
press release, or other article or speech to analyze. Look at the way that
the information is presented and think about the effect that the page will
have on readers.
Web page links to products and services are available at:
http://www.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Year_2000_Problem/Government_Policy/
10. Consider the politics of blame associated with the discussion of the
Year 2000. Even the most objective article makes someone responsible for
the situation -- examine an article that discusses the Year 2000 and note
who is blamed. What kind of language is used to describe the situation?
What facts and details are used? What's at stake for the author? How does
the author's position relate to who is blamed for what? Compare where the
problems have actually come from and the source that is described in the
article you are analyzing.
The language used in discussions of the Year 2000 can be loaded.
Consider this excerpt from Lloyd Grove's Washington Post article: "[T]he
world's myriad computer systems, which control every aspect of modern life,
will crash immediately after midnight on Jan. 1, 2000, because of an
unbelievably stupid foul-up by software nerds, and thus plunge the planet
into an unimaginable technological apocalypse." Grove doesn't blame
programmers, but "software nerds"; and the end result isn't just trouble,
but an "apocalypse." Look for the same sort of language in the article that
you're analyzing and think about the relationship between the language that
is used and the way that the language constructs the situation that is being
discussed.
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The Tens are part of the Daedalus Group's Ten Year Anniversary Celebration.
You can access previous lists on our Web page at
http://www.daedalus.com/teach/tens.html
If you have suggestions for lists that would be helpful to you and your
colleagues, write to me, and I'll see what I can come up with.
-------------------------------
Traci Gardner
Director, Customer Service Center
voice: 512-459-0272
email: traci@daedalus.com
The Daedalus Group, Inc.
1106 Clayton Lane, Suite #250W
Austin, TX 78723
http://www.daedalus.com/