5 Chapter 6: Human Rights
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Purpose |
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Warm-up |
Your brain actually remembers information better if it warms up. You warm up your brain by preparing it for the academic activity that it must do. If you are preparing for a discussion, for example, you can ask yourself, “Why is my instructor going to have a discussion? What do they hope I will ‘get out’ of this discussion?”
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Work out |
In academics, the purpose of the workout is to learn the material you need to know in order to be successful in the class. This might involve reading, jotting down ideas you might wish to share in discussion, or taking notes on a lecture.
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Cool Down |
In academics, the purpose of a cool down is to do two things—one, make some decisions about what you did during your workout that is important enough to remember and two, plan ahead. What will you need to study tomorrow? What confuses you and how can you get help with your confusion?
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Warm Up:
What is the United Nations?
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What does “human rights” mean to you?
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Do you have human rights?
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What human rights do you think you have?
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Academic Skill: Focus on Lecture
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Activity |
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Warm-up |
Predict the subject and content of the lecture by reading about the speaker and looking at the title.
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Work out |
Take notes using the strategies and methods you find work best for you.
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Cool Down |
Review your notes. |
Warming up for Notetaking
- Make sure you have a pen and paper
- Date your notes.
- Title your notes.
Working out During Notetaking
- Choose your favorite method to take notes on the lectures in this chapter.
Don’t forget to…
- Abbreviate
- Listen for Phrases that Help You Set Goals
- Listen for Transitions
Watch and take notes on the following video about The Story of Human Rights.
http://www.youthforhumanrights.org/what-are-human-rights.html
Divide up the following videos on 30 Videos on 30 Rights. Choose to watch five of the short videos on the 30 Human Rights from this link.
http://www.youthforhumanrights.org/what-are-human-rights.html
Watch the following videos on Ted.com and take notes.
Jimmy Carter – Why I Believe the Mistreatment of Women is the Number One Human Rights Abuse
Mary Robinson – Why Climate Change is a Threat to Human Rights
https://www.ted.com/talks/mary_robinson_why_climate_change_is_a_threat_to_human_rights/transcript
Peter Gabriel – Fighting Injustice with Video
https://www.ted.com/talks/peter_gabriel_fights_injustice_with_video/transcript
Oren Yakobovich – Hidden Cameras that Film Injustice in the World’s Most Dangerous Place
Auret Van Heerden – Making Global Labor Fair
https://www.ted.com/talks/auret_van_heerden_making_global_labor_fair/transcript
Will Potter – The Secret U.S. Prisons You’ve Never Heard of Before
https://www.ted.com/talks/will_potter_the_secret_us_prisons_you_ve_never_heard_of_before/transcript
Kevin Bales – How to Combat Modern Slavery
https://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_bales_how_to_combat_modern_slavery/transcript
Cooling Down After the Lecture
Organize your notes.
- Create an “index.”
- Use a highlighter to mark important terms.
- Use a different colored pen and/or highlighters to go back to your notes and make your own headings and subheadings.
- Tab your notes.
Review your notes.
- Why is this lectures included in this chapter?
- Make sure you understood the lecture itself. When you review, pretend you need to tell a classmate who missed the lecture what the main ideas were. Actually explain the notes—either out loud or silently.
- Add additional notes of explanation you didn’t get a chance to add in class. Make sure you understand any abbreviations you might have used.
- Identify concepts that were not clear to you. Mark confusing parts up with questions marks and find a classmate, a tutor, or your instructor to get the concepts clarified.
- Share notes with a classmate. What did he or she write down? How is it different from what you wrote down? What can you add to one another’s notes?
Academic Skill: Focus on Reading
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Activity |
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Warm-up |
To warm up your brain, spend a few minutes looking over the material you need to read. Read the headings and subheadings. Look at graphics and pictures if there are any. Ask yourself “What will I be learning in this reading?” “What ideas seem to be important?”
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Work out |
To work out in reading, you need to read! But it isn’t that simple. You need to have a note taking strategy that will allow you to do two things: 1) Figure out what information is most important and 2) Remember that information.
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Cool Down |
To cool down in reading, see what you can remember about the reading by stating main ideas in your own words, telling a friend what you learned or asking yourself “Which ideas did I read tonight are so important they might end up on an exam?” You can also make a list of things that confused you that you can ask your instructor or a tutor.
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Take a look at the structure of the readings in this chapter.
Does the author seem to be comparing and contrasting two or more people, ideas, places, processes or events? Does the author seem to be describing a process? Does the author seem to be defining important terms or concepts?
What is the Purpose– the second thing to consider about anything you read is what is YOUR purpose for reading the material? Will you have to write a paper over it? Participate in a class discussion? Take a multiple choice test over it? Take an essay test over it? What you will have DO with the information you read should help you determine what strategies you should use to get the most out of your reading.
Consider your own Preferences– The final thing to consider is your preferences. Once you have determined the structure of the reading and thought through the purpose, the last factor you can weigh in is how you would like to take notes—which strategies are the most effective for you? Which ones seem to fit your learning style the best?
Warm up
The three strategies described below should be used before you actually read. You might wish to do just one strategy, or it might make sense to use more than one.
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Pre-Reading Strategy 1: The Planner’s Bookmark
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The first pre-reading strategy you can use is to make a plan for completing your reading. You can make a bookmark with the following information to keep in your textbook or book. There questions about studying in a group if you join a study or tutor group.
Chapter Information What will I need to know when I finish reading? _______________________________. How many pages and/or sections are there? ______
Group Information if you’re reading in a group. This group will meet again on ______________.
By then, I will need to read ___ pages and ___ sections.
Time Management *Date_________ Time I began reading___________ Time I ended_________ # of pages completed________________ |
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Pre-Reading Strategy 2: The Foundation Builder
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Before you begin to read, turn headings into questions and write them down in your notebook. You know you have read successfully when you can answer the questions.
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Pre-Reading Strategy 3: Reviewer
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Read over notes you took yesterday. Then, find a pen that is a different color than the one you used to take the notes. Write a sentence or two that summarize important ideas from those notes at the top of the page. If parts of your notes confuse you, make sure to note that with a symbol, like a question mark.
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Work out
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Strategy 1: Connector
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As you read new sections of your textbook or book you need to relate the new information you are learning to what you already know.
How does this section fit into the book?
How does this section connect to the previous section? Introduces a topic that:
How does section this relate to the lectures? Does the lecture expand on ideas brought up in the book? Does the lecture cover different materials altogether? Does the lecture go over the book directly?
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Strategy 2: Illustrator
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Are you learning about a process or are you learning about events as they happened? Make a timeline.
Do you have theories to learn or people to keep straight? Make a chart to keep track of their similarities and differences.
Do you need to learn the differences and similarities between terms, ideas, people or processes? Make a Venn diagram.
Do you need to remember a concept that has a number of examples? Make a mind map.
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Strategy 3: Note taker
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Will you use matrix notes, graphic organizers, Cornell notes, outline style or other notetaking strategy. If you feel that one of these note taking strategies would fit the material well, take notes in one of these styles.
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Strategy 4: Vocabulary Detector
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Don’t simply copy terms and their definitions from your book!
Instead, make new terms easier to learn by examining how they relate to one another, the topic of the section, and the title of the section.
Define terms in your own words by pretending you need to explain them to ninth grade class. Think of your own examples and sentences to show how to use these new words.
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Here are the articles to read for this chapter.
Read and listen to Eleanor Roosevelt on the Declaration of Human Rights.
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/eleanorrooseveltdeclarationhumanrights.htm
Reading #2 and #3: The following are each an overview of Human Rights.
https://hreusa.org/hre-library/topics/human-rights/background/
http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/edumat/hreduseries/tb1b/Section1/tb1-2.htm
Reading #3:
http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/edumat/becominghuman/index.html
Reading #4: An Alternative Viewpoint
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2014/dec/04/-sp-case-against-human-rights
Cool Down
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Strategy 1: The Summarizer
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After you finish reading a section or your textbook or a chapter in a book, make it into a neat package by summarizing it.
Look through the chapter section for key words. They might be terms, but they might also be words that show how terms are related. Once you have written down key words, put those words in a few sentences that you write in your own words—close the book when you do this.
Once you’re finished, open it up again and re-read. What did you miss? What did you get right? Change and add to your summary until you’ve got it right.
Key words:
Summary without looking at the book:
Summary after looking at the book and making changes:
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Strategy 2: Test Buster
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After you read this section of the chapter, go back and decide what questions might be asked over this material. Do your best to think up questions that will close to the kind of questions you will have to answer on the test. For example, if you will have to answer short answer questions on the test, think up short answer questions.
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Academic Skill 2: Focus on Writing Academic Essays
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Activity |
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Warm-up |
To warm up your brain, carefully read the prompt below. Think about these questions: What information should be in my introduction? What information should be in the body of my paper? How will I end my paper? Take a few notes about what you think you should do and then re-read the prompt. Do your ideas still seem to make sense?
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Work out |
To work out in writing, you need to write your paper! This will involve selecting strategies that will help you make your point most efficiently.
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Cool Down |
To cool down in writing re-read what you have written and re-read the prompt. Make sure your writing choices still fit the prompt. Ask yourself “If a stranger were to read my paper over my shoulder, would it make sense?” |
Writing Prompt #1:
Read the following handout on Human Rights.
http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/edumat/hreduseries/tb1b/Section2/imagine_a_countryH1.html
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You may choose to answer any or all of the following questions in your essay. Make sure to structure your answers as an essay. If you have forgotten what that might look like, review the structure of a college essay.
Source: Written by David Shiman.
Writing Prompt #2:
Choose just one of the human rights from the thirty outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Research the background, develop a summary statement on the importance of this human right. Research the violations of this human right and describe them. Propose solutions to the problems.
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Structure for an Academic Essay
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Introduction
Your introductory paragraph will have two main parts. |
Part 1: Establishing Authority- When you establish authority, you are doing two things—1) convincing your readers that you are expert enough on the topic to be worth listening to and 2) providing them with the information they need to understand your paper. The Establishing authority part of your paper begins with the very first sentence and ends just before the thesis.
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Part 2: Thesis- The thesis statement is a sentence that tells the reader what you will prove in the paper. In shorter essays, the thesis sentence is always the last sentence of the introductory paragraph—just after the establishing authority.
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Body Paragraphs
Each body paragraph will have three parts. |
Part 1: Topic Sentence- in most academic essays, the topic sentence is the very first sentence of the paragraph and it plays an important role. It makes a claim that the rest of the paragraph will prove or support.
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Part 2: Evidence– in an academic essay, the evidence section is the middle of the paragraph and longest part of the paragraph. Here is where you will actually work to convince your reader that the claim you made in your topic sentence is true.
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Part 3: Evaluation– In the academic essay, the evaluation usually comes at the end of the paragraph and it helps the reader understand why the evidence is should be taken seriously.
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Conclusion
Your conclusion will have two parts. |
Conclusions sum up what you have already said. New information should not appear in a conclusion, although you may wish to leave your reader with something interesting to think about.
Part 1: Restate the thesis– Here, all you need to do is go back to the thesis statement that is at the end of the first paragraph you wrote and state it again in your last paragraph with slightly different words.
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Part 2: Sum up main points– In this part of the conclusion, you just need to go back to each body paragraph and sum up its main point.
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Warm up for Writing
Before you actually begin to write your paper, there are three things to consider that will help you decide how to approach your paper.
- What were you told to do? Make sure to carefully read the prompt you were given. Does it give you information about what the instructor wants? Often, the prompt your instructor gave you will directly tell you what he or she is looking for. For example, if a prompt says, “In your introductory paragraph, summarize Smith’s theory of education . . . .” then you know that you will use summary in your introduction.
- What are your goals? If your goal is to explain how an experience you had in high school caused you to realize you want to become a physical therapist, then you need to use narrative to explain what happened to you.
- What are your preferences? If the prompt does not provide you with information about what strategy to use, and several strategies might help you achieve your goal, then you can choose the goal that work best for you.
Working Out while Writing a Paper
The charts below describe the strategies you might use in three parts of your paper—the establishing authority part of the introduction, the evidence part of the body paragraph and the evaluation part of the body paragraph. Your job will be to select the strategies that are most likely to help you achieve your goal.
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Strategies for Establishing Authority Remember, the goal of establishing authority is to provide the reader with the information they need to understand your paper and prove to them that you are worth listening to. The following strategies will help you do that. |
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Summary |
If you are responding to an essay, a video, a lecture or a book, you might choose to summarize its main ideas. This will help your reader understand the source you are responding to and prove that you are an expert—if you read a source and can summarize it, then you are an expert.
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Narrative or short personal story |
If you are writing an essay that relates in some way to your life or the life or someone you know, you might choose to tell a personal story to establish authority. Doing so will prove to your reader that, because you have lived this, you are an expert.
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Facts and History |
Sometimes statistics, percentages, dates or a brief historical overview are the best way to help your reader not only understand the issue you are writing about, but to show them you know your stuff.
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Definition |
If you are writing about something your reader might not understand, define it so he or she will be able to understand your paper. When you are able to define a word or concept for your reader, they will see you as an expert.
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Description |
If you are writing an essay that relates to your personal life, you may choose to describe something significant to your life such as an object or an emotion.
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The chart below lists different strategies you can choose from when you present evidence in your body paragraphs. Notice that many of the strategies are the same ones you can use to establish authority.
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Strategies for Presenting Evidence Remember, the goal of presenting evidence is to provide the reader with the information they need to agree with the claims you are making in your paper. Evidence proves to the reader that what you are saying is true. The following strategies will help you do that. Note that many of the strategies are the same ones you can use to establish authority. |
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Summary |
If you would like to use the ideas in an essay, a video, a lecture or a book to help you prove your point, you will need to summarize its main ideas in the evidence part of your body paragraphs. This will help your reader understand the source you are responding to and prove that you are an expert—if you read a source and can summarize it, then you are an expert.
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Narrative or short personal story |
If you are writing an essay that relates in some way to your life or the life or someone you know, you might choose to tell a personal story for your evidence. Doing so will prove to your reader that, because you have lived this, you are an expert.
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Facts and History |
Sometimes using statistics, percentages, dates or a brief historical overview are the best evidence you can give your reader to help him/her see that your viewpoint is worth considering.
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Definition |
If you are writing about something your reader might not understand, define it so he or she will be able to understand your paper. When you are able to define a word or concept for your reader, your evidence will make much more sense.
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Description |
If you are writing an essay that relates to your personal life, you may choose to describe something significant to your life such as an object or an emotion.
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Quotes from Experts |
Sometimes the words of an expert is the best way for you to prove your point. Using quotes from sources is a great way to prove your point.
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Compare/ Contrast |
In the evidence part of your body paragraphs, you might choose to compare/ contrast two or more things, people, places, concepts or events in order to make your point.
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The chart below lists the strategies you can use when you evaluate your body paragraph. Remember, EACH body paragraph needs it’s own evaluation. The strategies below are possible ways you can evaluate your paragraph.
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Strategies for Evaluating Your Paragraph Remember, the goal of the evaluation part of a paragraph is to explain to your reader why or how the evidence you presented proves the topic sentence you wrote. The following strategies will make it clear to your reader what exactly your evidence proves. In shorter academic essays, the evaluation is the last 2-4 sentences in a body paragraph. |
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Why is this evidence important?
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Explain why a person, concept, event, etc. is important. What will people be able to do or understand as a result of knowing the information you just presented?
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How is the information presented in the evidence part of the paragraph related? |
Sometimes readers don’t understand the purpose of your paragraph unless you tell them directly. If your goal is to explain how two things are connected, similar or different, you will need to point that out at the end of your paragraph.
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How did the information presented in the evidence in the evidence part of the paragraph affect me or someone else?
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Explain how a person, event, idea, etc. affected a person, a group of people or a series of events. Sometimes, it isn’t clear to a reader how something affected you (if you are writing a personal essay) or someone or something else until you explain it.
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What did I learn as a result of the evidence presented? How did I change?
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Explain what you or someone else learned or how you or someone else changed as a result of an experience.
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Cooling down After Writing a Paper
After you write your paper, re-read it carefully. To do this, go back to the “Structure of an Academic Essay” graphic and go through your paper section by section. Do you establish authority? Do you have a thesis statement where it belongs? Do you have a topic sentence for each body paragraph? Do you present evidence and write an evaluation for each paragraph?
Finally, re-read the prompt. Make sure your paper meets the instructors expectations.
Eventually, your instructor will read your rough draft and provide comments for you. You will then have to revise. It is not uncommon for students to re-write papers five or six times before “getting it right.” Be patient with the revision process!
Academic Skill: Focus on Discussions
The last task of this chapter is a discussion. This discussion is a “Concept Check Discussion”.
Concept Check Discussion– The purpose of concept check discussions is to give students opportunities to practice discussing challenging concepts. The act of putting unfamiliar terms and concepts into your own words causes you to clarify your thinking and deepen your understanding. Listening to someone else describe a concept is less likely to lead to deep understanding than having to talk about it yourself. Think about it like this— If you want to learn to swim, you must actually swim. You can learn a little bit by listening to someone talk about swimming, or watching other people swim, but you really cannot learn to swim until you put on a bathing suit and jump in the water.
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Activity |
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Warm-up |
Prepare by making sure your homework and readings are done as thoroughly as possible. In your notebook, jot down what you would like to get out of the discussion. For example, if you know you will be discussing, jot down what confuses you about it. You can also prepare questions ahead of time.
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Work out |
To work out in a discussion is to fully participate in the discussion by devoting you full energy into understanding and doing what your instructor is asking of you. It also means listening carefully to classmates and committing to the idea of saying something yourself.
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Cool Down |
To cool down after a discussion is to simply think carefully about which of the three purposes (or which combination of purposes) your discussion served. Ask yourself “What was I supposed to get out of this discussion?” Answering that question will help you determine what you instructor thinks is important. |
Warming Up for Discussion
In order to get the most out of a discussion make sure you read all materials and do all assignments ahead of time. When students come to class without having read, they get confused quickly since the other students and the instructor are discussing terms and ideas they have not heard. The same is true for your classes—if you show up prepared, you will get more out of class.
Working Out During a Discussion
Your instructor has concept check discussion because he or she wants to give you practice talking about important ideas. That means one of two things:
- Your instructor believes the material you are covering is essential to the class and you will benefit from an opportunity to ask questions and discuss ideas with others. His or her goal is that you will leave class with a good understanding of whatever was the subject of the discussion. He or she wants you to have this solid understanding because he or she knows it will be important later—the concepts you cover in that discussion will be essential to understanding the rest of the class.
- Your instructor wants you to be able to discuss certain ideas in your own words, or develop your own opinion about some part of the subject matter. Your instructor rarely does this randomly—he or she wants you to be able to discuss certain ideas in your own words or develop your own opinion about certain ideas in order to prepare you for something you will do down the road such as write a paper, take an essay test or give a speech.
To get the most out of a Concept Check discussion, ask yourself: “What concepts and ideas seem to be really important to my instructor in this discussion? How confident am I that I understand these concepts? Do I understand this concept well enough to discuss it in my own words? Have I developed my own opinions about this concept?”
Cooling Down After a Discussion
A cool down for a discussion is fairly straightforward. When you are doing your homework for the class later on, ask yourself these questions:
“What did my instructor want us to get out of today’s discussion?” Jot down all the answers you could think of. You might say “My instructor wants us to learn how supply-demand graphs work” or “My instructor wanted to know how well we understood cell division.”
Next ask yourself, “How will the concepts I learned in this discussion help me achieve future goals in the class?” Again, jot down your answers.
Finally, ask yourself how confident you are that you understand not only why you had this sort of discussion, but if you mastered the skills or concepts you were working with.
Human Rights Discussion
- Do you think it is the UN’s job to make statements about human rights or should it be the responsibility of individual governments? Why/why not?
- Is it really reasonable to try to give the same rights to everyone in the world? Why/why not?
- Which of the human rights do you personally think is the most important?
- How many human rights do you think are fully observed in your country? In the world?
- Which countries do you think have a particularly bad record on human rights?
- Some people think that they can influence another country’s internal politics by boycotting its products or not visiting it as a tourist. How effective do you think this kind of action is?
- If you know that a country still applies the death penalty, would it influence you in any way regarding visiting it or buying its exports?
- Why do you think it is so difficult to apply/comply with the basic human rights?
- Do you think that a state which ignores human rights in order to, for example, fight terrorism, devalues its moral status? Can you think of any examples?
- How many Human rights do you think were violated at Guantánamo?
- Objections to the existing human rights
- In the US, some have argued that there should be a provision to prevent governments collecting taxes from those who do not wish to pay. How do you react to this suggestion?
- Although article two states “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as ….. sex…”; it at no time explicitly makes any mention of gay rights. What would be the effect of adding gay rights to the Convention? What states and institutions would welcome such a change and which ones would object?
- Some states have criticized the granting of full religious freedom on the basis that their religion does not allow them to recognise other religions as equal. What do you think of the validity of this criticism?
- How would you respond to the suggestion that religion and human rights don’t mix?
- Amnesty International has argued for an additional “Right to refuse to kill.” What do you think would be the effect of adding such a clause?
- Limits to Human rights
- Should the right to free speech be unconditional?
- What about people who say things which have the objective of reducing the human rights of others? Racist propaganda? Fascist propaganda? Attempts to get one person to kill another?
- Should the right of association be unconditional?
- What about terrorist organizations? What about political parties which explicitly support terrorist organizations?
