I hope you have found the "Crime and Punishment" unit enriching and dare I say, enjoyable? In today's lesson, you will write a reflection on your learning points for the unit. Think about the new knowledge and skills that you have acquired over the last eight weeks or so. You can organise the learning points into separate categories such as
(a) information about legal punishment (philosophy, case studies, arguments for and against etc.)
(b) skills (critical reading, comprehension answering techniques, summary skills, top level structure for essay, scripting for voice recording, use of VoiceThread etc.)
(c) soft skills (collaboration, effective presentation skills, note-taking etc.)
The important thing is not to provide a comprehensive list of your newfound skills and knowledge but to reflect deeply on one or two learning points. Make the learning point meaningful. You can also indicate how you would like to proceed. For instance, work on enlarging your vocabulary through reading two novels, keeping a daily journal, learning 10 new words everyday etc.
Extension activity
Having studied the underlying tenets for legal punishment and the various debates surrounding the myriad of applications from the death sentence, to corporal punishment to life imprisonment to forms of restorative justice for juvenile offenders, let's broaden our understanding of the topic a little more by thinking about a point raised in the comprehension test passage. The writer of the second passage criticised American Law for not being adequately developed to handle what he terms as "excusing conditions" which are sometimes called "mitigating circumstances", "extenuating circumstances", and specific instances may include insanity, temporary insanity etc. You are invited to do a little more research on this area and post your findings (don't cut and paste and remember to acknowledge source) using this thread.
Lastly, some countries allow women, children and the elderly to receive lighter sentences than men for the same offences committed, why is this the case? The astute among you will point out that my generalisation is applicable only to modern democracies and secular states and that this hasn't always been the case. You would be right of course! So let me invite you to answer the question posed above. You can provide evidence to explain and support to affirm the statement or offer counter examples to prove that I am indeed making a generalisation.
I look forward to reading scintillating nuggets of information and brilliant expositions on the topic. Don't disappoint me!
Please label your response as "Reflections" or "Extension".
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The author in the comprehension test passage last term bemoaned the fact that the Law in the States there are no clear views on which how and what extent the criminal must be punished. He shared that there were no more capital punishment in many democracies in the world, or even if they had, been retained for the weirdest cases. Moreover, he also stated that criminals could use their mental condition and other reasons to get away from what they had done, thus escaping the law. Thus, he wanted a stronger and reformed American Law that does not allow criminals to get away from their crimes easily and make them pay for their sins.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I found about American Law, there is a section in which the Criminal Law explains about how a criminal, should he be proven guilty will be punished. For minor crimes like evading tax payment or theft, the prosecuted will usually be sentenced to prison. However, more serious crimes such as rape or murder can lead to the death penalty, although in some states this form of punishment is banned. However, for crimes like drug smuggling, there is a great deal more controversy as to how the criminal should be punished. Some states in the US as a demeanor offence while others take it as a more serious felony. Thus, the author is correct in pointing out that the laws have become more draconian than ever, and more complicated, leaving lots of loopholes for criminals to exploit. Such a disorganized state of federal crime definitions will allow criminals to escape scot-free without having to pay for their crimes. Moreover, there are cases to that can be considered as “controversial”, such as the murder case of O.J. Simpson. Simpson married Nicole Brown in 1985, but they divorced in 1992. On June 11, 1994, both met again to attend their daughter’s play. However, the following morning, Nicole Brown and her friend Ron Goldman were discovered to be killed. There was much evidence against Simpson. His driver told police that he was found with bloody stains on his clothing after that night. As such, Simpsons was trialed but his lawyer managed to point out that being a black, Simpsons suffered racism from the police detectives. Furthermore the court of judges were mainly black, thus Simpsons was finally proven to be innocent, although many people viewed the case as having taken a wrong turn and concentrating on the race issue instead of the whole murder case as well as let the jury sympathize with Simpsons. Thus, such loopholes in American Law are easily exploited by guilty parties in the US, enforcing the point that there needs to be a change in US Law.
http://www.hg.org/crime.html
http://law.jrank.org/pages/887/Criminal-Law-Reform-Current-Issues-in-United-States-Punishments.html
http://people.howstuffworks.com/ten-controversial-court-cases.htm/printable
Throughout the 8 enriching weeks which were many solid lessons to expose us to the issues of capital punishments, it was definitely informational and intellectually stimulating as we discussed and debated about the validity of capital punishments in the modern societies. We have learnt many case studies, the philosophy, and the various arguments of course; it would be at least 10 pages to show here, the insightful content that we have learnt. Ultimately, I find that the main objective of this syllabus is to help us work on our critical thinking, writing skills and soft skills. We have had many different activities regarding this topic, such as book circles, presentations, usage of voice thread.com, and many essay opportunities, be it assignments or ace.
ReplyDeleteOn the part about presentations, actually I feel that presentations are pretty much a part and parcel of our stay in Hwa Chong. It is nothing new to each of us but such opportunities would probably help some of us to be more comfortable during presentations, public speaking and working on our enunciation of words. I remembered that we were task by you to take down notes during our peers’ presentations, and I felt it was very effective in helping us organize our thoughts and to listen more attentively, which is obviously good.
Honestly, I have not tried or even knew about voice thread until you introduced to me. It is really a very interesting mode of interaction and study. It is always effective to have such fun activities here and there else we would be overcome by boredom eventually. So there are also the various readings ‘going through’, comprehensions, summaries, TLS. These are also effective in providing us with the fundamental knowledge when dealing with the exam typed work.
I still have many areas that I need to improve on. Actually I felt that my English is always very inconsistent, especially when it comes to essay writing. I will somehow “screw up” somewhere in my essay. Like the SRQ practice, I unfortunately did not pick out the main ideas. Anyway, I do not really feel demoralized when met with such scores as such mistakes also help me to be more aware of my weaknesses and be more conscious to improve on them the next time.
All in all, I have enjoyed the many takeaways during this interesting module look forward to engage in more of such fruitful activities.
Throughout the 8 weeks, I have learned a lot on the topic of capital punishment. Before I started the topic, what I knew about capital punishment was just the fact that a lot of countries have abolished capital punishment while some still retain it, e.g. Singapore and China. However, now I have a better understanding of why so many countries abolish the death penalty after 8 weeks’ learning. People abolish capital punishment because they think it is too cruel for the criminals. Also, there is a risk that the innocent people may be wrongly executed, and the result is irreversible. Besides, lots of people think that capital punishment fail to be a strong deterrence due to the fact that most of the murders happen when the murderers are under the heat of motions. Yet, those retainists argue that capital punishment is the most effective method for incapacitation and thus it can prevent further crimes. They take those serial murderers as examples to show how the existence of those serial murderers is a threat to the whole society. Personally, I prefer capital punishment because those countries which have capital punishment usually have lower crime rates. For example, Singapore has the highest per capita execution rate in the world and hence its crime rate is also one the lowest in the world.
ReplyDeleteOn the part about skill-practicing, I feel I have some improvements on my comprehensions. I learned how to pick out the main ideas of each paragraph of the passage and hence I can understand what the passage is actually talking about. For the summary part, I did not manage to rephrase the points too much throughout the whole term. However, I will try my best to rephrase a bit more in the following comprehension practice.
About the presentation skill, I did not improve too much because we did not manage the presentation time so well and as a result I did not get a chance to present. Nevertheless, we will overcome this problem in our future presentations. For me, presentation skill is a very important skill because it is very useful not only during English lessons, but also in IHC, IHE and some project competitions. Usually people will become nervous when they are giving a presentation, and some may even be too nervous to speak a word, such as me :( Hence, I need to practice more in order to get rid of nervousness on the stage.
Throughout the course of the 8 weeks, I believe there is marked improvement in terms of knowledge with regards to "Crime and Punishment". To be honest, I did not know what “Capital Punishment” even meant at the start of the year. Nonetheless, we were given a chance to research on the different viewpoints and arguments of various religions, as well as those of modern societies and current trends. Personally, I would stick with capital punishment despite various rebuttals and the possibly easier to write expositions when arguing against CP, since I do believe it truly enforces law and order, supporting the ultimate goal of maintaining justice with society. Naturally, people argue about human rights, brutality, effectiveness of alternatives etc. to strengthen their stand. On the whole, it is still a decision made by the society on whether the benefits outweigh the costs for capital punishment, which is unfortunately not the case for a majority of countries, with only 58 countries retaining Capital Punishment. Of course, it all depends on the need for Capital punishment to instill order. If not, I believe sentencing people to death is indeed brutal and meaningless.
ReplyDeleteI would say the essay done this year is a group recap on some concepts being taught last year, such as the top down structure, Logos, Ethos, Pathos etc. However, I feel that I have benefitted more in terms of comprehension skills. I believe that I now attempt to rephrase in summary instead of just lifting points, and hopefully I can further hone my rephrasing skills. Picking out key concepts in the passage has also been made slightly easier, and the order of answering questions became more evident (i.e. factual ones first, etc.). On the whole, I hope my English grades this year would “wake up from its slumber”, considering the results for the past few years.
Perhaps I am just used to presenting due to various opportunities given by friends, but nonetheless I feel that every piece of work done as a team involves a new level of teamwork, after all there was a need to accommodate the different working styles of different people. In my opinion, perhaps to truly learn about any particular topic, an in depth research and presentation would be sufficient since the subject matter must be clear to the presenter, and would definitely be less for the audience. Lastly, I feel that I should try not to stammer too much when presenting, something I am usually fond of, which I seek to improve in the future.
Reflections
ReplyDeleteIn the eight weeks of English lessons, of which I slept through a third, I can say that I did really pay attention to the other two-third, and they really did help in my understanding of laws and the arguments behind their existence.
Frankly speaking, at the start of the year, my english standard dropped back to where it was maybe a few years ago. After the long holidays and enjoyment in BSC, my writing skills and comprehension-answering techniques were already blunt, and the few practices were just what I needed to sharpen them temporarily. Other than being great revision opportunities, it can be said that the topic of laws and justice tied in very well with the topics of ideologies and politics last year, and provided a recap in that area too.
What I really gained was the knowledge and enlightenment of the complicated reasonings behind laws and justice. And after all those debating and arguing and thinking, at the end of the eight weeks, I walked away with an true enlightenment of laws: No matter how well you argue upon the theories of justice and fairness, all you will get is what the reality is. That is to say, even if by theory a law shouldn't be existing (somehow if the argument is convincing enough), then when the law is taken away and peace and order is lost, you will find that the law will then be implemented again. Such is the world: You cannot expect the world to be fair. Life is unfair in itself, and all those debating are but topics for lawyers to bicker with each other. When the result shows negative, it is when actions are taken. For example, one day a genius may argue that Singapore should not implement capital punishment, and miraculously the government is convinced. Then, after capital punishment is abolished, the society is crumbling. Then, no matter how well the genius argues, we can see that economic and social benefits that certain laws bring about will outweigh that of the theoretical arguments, and the law will still be implemented once again. Such is the crudeness of reality.
Once again, I had another great time finding and nit-picking the assumptions that each argument follows. For the different laws, it is always a one-size-fit-all approach, and therefore is almost always problematic. Let's say that a certain law is split up into two cases: old and the young. Then it will be a one-size-fit-all-old. That itself will create problems. Upon examination, if it is split up to deal with more cases (which must be reasonable), then there will still be a generalised approach. Due to this nature, laws are always flawed, and to argue whether to abolish or implement complicated punishments such as the death penalty is therefore something that will not yield result. In the end, it is after implementing or abolishing, and upon the test of time, that people will start to understand which was the right decision.
To argue over such a complicated issue is definitely interesting, but rather time-consuming. Surprisingly, from these arguments, I seem to be able to practise my reasoning skills as well as language usage and phrasing techniques so as to avoid troubles from points that are not well-explained. This is another part of my gain from these eight weeks.
In any case, term one marks the start of a hard year ahead, and my resolution should be to sleep less during classes. That should help at least.
Reflections:
ReplyDeleteThe 8 weeks of lessons on Crime and Punishment was enriching for me. Before the lessons, I only know what is the definition for capital punishment, and what are the crimes that may result in capital punishment. For this topic, I was encouraged to do a lot of research on why some countries want to abolish capital punishment. From the research that I have done, I know that people are against capital punishment because they feel that it violates the human rights of the criminal, and that he will no longer have a chance to serve the public if his life is ended. Furthermore, the fact that many crimes are committed when the person is not in control with his emotion also showed that sometimes, capital punishment is not the just punishment for a criminal. Also, the effect of deterrence is different for different countries and thus capital punishment does not seem to be that effective to deter crimes. However, although I learnt to consider both the pros and cons of capital punishment and the reasons for its abolishment, I feel that to a certain extent it's none of my business to decide whether it should be abolished in all countries, because the punishment itself is not going to affect me anyway.
On the part about skill-practicing, I feel that my vocab has improved by a little, and my comprehension skills is still under fluctuation. Sometimes it will be very good, sometimes it will drop drastically, it really depends on the questions asked. Most of the time I am able to understand the question, though my inference skills seem to be poor for comprehension (ironic as inference is one of my strong points in IHC). Also, my summary is somewhat 'here and there' as it's just in between good and poor. Once again it depends on the passage itself, so I still need plenty of practice.
I feel that my presentation skill is considerably well, because usually I am able to perform normally as long as I don't rush, because then I would start to stammer. (consider project's day presentation) I feel that perhaps I need to time myself better, because sometimes I will rush in my presentation and will complete early, which as compared to elaborate a bit more and complete on time, requires improvement.
Being labelled the so-called “science students” in the school, the topic of crime and punishment might seem too philosophical or even boring to us to a certain extent. However that does not seem to be the case throughout the course of last term. In this unit, we explored the various arguments for and against the use of capital punishment, through the use of various media and famous speeches by notable people on the topic of capital punishment. Whether we are the future lawyers or not, crime and punishment is definitely something that affects each and everyone of us. For example, it governs our every action, so that people know what they should do, and what they should not do in order to prevent the consequential punishments. It is also partly the reason why we are living in relatively peaceful and crime-free times. It is interesting to learn how, as society matures and progresses, capital punishment is less and less widely used, or even completely banned in some places. In the past, capital punishment was used for even the least serious of crimes regardless of age, such as theft or cutting down a tree. It is hard to imagine myself living in those fearful times. Thankfully, due to more people becoming educated, and the hard work of abortionists, capital punishment is gradually becoming rarer, and its methods becoming more “humane”. Despite having 8 weeks of exploration on this unit, I would still say that there is no clear “yes or no” answer on the issue of capital punishment. This is because people of different cultures and beliefs will have different stands in this issue.
ReplyDeleteSRQs are a type of essay that is new to all of us this year, and it is definitely a skill that I have to brush up on. This term is the first time I recorded my voice in the computer via Voicethread. Honestly, I did not really enjoy speaking to a computer and having my voice recorded. Perhaps I am just not used to it. Nevertheless, this experience is a unique one, different from the conventional face-to-face presentation. One of the main differences is that when recording my voice, if I make a mistake or if I stumble on a few words accidentally, it will seem very obvious to the listener, as compared to when I talk to someone directly. Thus, whenever I make a mistake, I would have to re-record my voice again. To minimize the errors, I have to write a script, of which I could refer to when I make my speech. The skill learnt I here is to be able to speak to a non-living thing as naturally as possible.
Due to the many opportunities of group-work given this term, my teamwork skills have definitely improved. For example, being the leader of the Voicethread team, I had the responsibility of compiling the group’s mindmaps. When one group member does not complete his mindmap, the compilation of the group mindmap cannot be achieved on time. So I sometimes get frustrated by this. The approach I took was to assist group members in completing their individual tasks so that they can complete their work quickly. As for my presentation skill, I believe that except for the occasional pauses I sometimes make during my presentation, on the whole my presentation is quite easily understood by the audience and rather smooth.
Dominic 4S108
Just bookmarked this page, find it rather hard for me to remember to visit this site. Well, better late than never…
ReplyDeleteReflections:
I really enjoyed the unit on Crime and Punishment, learning about the concepts behind punishment and also exploring on the capital punishment. For me, I enjoy finding out how things works and also ponders on philosophical questions such as “What is a Human?” Hence, I find it rather interesting to learn about the judicial system and law, generally the how others think and the logic behind it. The lessons are definitely very informative and intellectually stimulating, at the same time being interactive and interesting. After all our debates on whether the capital punishment is necessary and justifiable, I find myself changing my stand from supporting the CP to against, not that I find anything wrong with the death sentence as a punishment, but rather due to the flaws of the judicial system and also the way it is carried out.
On the part of skill, I think I still have many areas to improve on. Generally, I am unable to find my passion in learning languages and find it hard to observe rules such as grammar. This is especially so since I’ve been learning three languages since young, I always find myself confusing one language’s rules with another. For answering comprehension questions, I think my main problem is with interpreting the question, as I often find myself losing marks due to wrong understanding of the questions. I believe that the lack of vocabulary might be causing all these problems. However, I just couldn’t really bring myself to improve in this aspect. The computer is too much of a distraction even to my time reading fictions. That is probably why I find the vocabulary exercises quite helpful and also enriching.
Well, I think that in terms of presentation skills, I improved tremendously since Sec 1. From one that couldn’t even follow through scripts, I find myself doing impromptu presentations nowadays (not that I don’t prepare though :P), but of course there will be areas for improvements. Probably due to my change in personality, I also find myself contributing a lot more in group discussions, although I admit that I will prefer having my quiet thinking/reflection time. For this purpose, I am keeping a blog, although I find it hard to consistently update it partially due to our school work.
Hanson 4S109