1.10 - Sharing Information & Edward Snowden

At the beginning of class today, I presented the class with an array of letters laid out in the middle of the floor. I told everyone that they need to find a way to spell a single word with the available letters and that although there were a lot of letters, they could still spell a single word. I told everyone that if they solved it in one minute, everyone would get a grade of "100", if they solved it in two minutes they would get a "92", and then a "70" in the next minute, then a "50", and finally a "0" if it took them over four minutes to spell a single word from the available letters. The letters made available were:

D, S, N, R, A, G, O, E, W, L, I

Within two minutes, one of the participants realized that I was not asking them to spell a single word or one word, but rather to spell "a single word."

I then revealed that I had rigged this activity by telling one of the people in our class what I was planning to do and what the trick was, but not to tell the class. With this information in mind, everyone then responded to the following writing prompt in their writer's journal:

Should the person with the "insider" information about this activity have shared the solution with the class since this would have helped everyone get a 100? If you had been the one who knew the answer and been told to keep it secret, would you have told? Why/why not?

When is it ok to withhold information from people and when is it not ok?

After everyone had a chance to respond to this prompt, we discussed their responses. 

Two people in the class felt that the person with insider knowledge should have told others, 12 people said it wasn't necessary for the insider to give up the secret, and two people were ambivalent on the matter.

This discussion of when it was ok to share information and when it was not ok, lead into our next topic which is to research and find out more about Edward Snowden. From our discussion in class, we established that he was someone who has been in the news for sharing secret information with people. All other details of the case are to be research by people in our class using reputable news sources. To guide everyone in this work, I gave everyone the following handout: Edward Snowden Research.

Everyone had the rest of the period to research news articles that provide answers on the questions outlined on the Edward Snowden Research sheet.

People could use Google News, sites mentioned on the research sheet, or resources familiar to them to find news articles that answer these questions.

Homework:

If you still need to find information answering two or more of the research questions on the sheet provided today in class, you should work on the sheet for homework. You will have about half an hour to wrap up your work on this sheet in class on Monday.

Complete missing work and revise any assignment that scored below a 92.

 

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