Presentation reflection and "Warspeak" article 1-20-09

1. The class did several things well in the presentation of our TOK topics for the midterm. Some of them that I noticed was the general use of time; most of the kids used their whole 10 minutes and did not run TOO much over the time limit. I also did not see/hear a lot of "BSing" or kids just rambling about nothing, for the most part they all focused on their topic and knew what they were saying (that showed some good preparation). There were also a variety or topics picked, and it was interesting to see how so many current issues can be "TOKized".
2. Some things we could have worked on were our skills/timing with the technology provided, immediate relation of the topic to the applying knowledge problems and terms, use of more specific TOK terms (ex: instead of just saying "the language" specify its "emotive meaning"), and a conclusion being made at the end of each presentation with the presenter's view included.
3. Things I think I did well were communicate the importance of my topic and the relative knowledge problems with justifying our "morality" (is abortion ok??), show both my and other opinions on the topic, and mention a few specific TOK terms of Language such as "emotive meaning".
4. Things I could have improved on were the organization of my presentation (I kind of jumped all over the place once I started talking), focused on a more specific aspect of my issue such as a single abortion campaign, included more about our perception and how that affects our views on abortion, and discussed more of the Pro-Choice view.


Warspeak Article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7839075.stm

My article from BBC news about the damage done in Gaza and the necessary repairs shows a mix of vague "warspeak" and some real language that to me does not look like it's trying to cover anything up, but perhaps is trying to engage the interest and sympathy of the reader/public. The meanings of the phrases/words "hold fire", "carried out the attack", and "the offensive", are not very clear as used in this article. "Hamas has said it will hold fire" could mean they won't shoot anyone randomly, or if they are attacked they won't shoot anyone, or they just won't bomb any more areas, or...??? "A...group told the Palestinian news agency, Maan, it had carried out the attack" is also kind of vague in specifying what kind of "attack" and how they "carried it out". They probably wouldn't want to be seen as horrible killers, so instead of saying "after carefully (and gleefully) planning it out, we bombed the heck out of that village and killed all those people" they say "we carried out the attack". The phrase "the aftermath of the offensive" does not specify what "the offensive" was, whether it was an unprovoked attack, a bombing, or what. Honestly, I am not sure why they would word it this way, if that was simply the word that came to mind or if they really hoped to cover up some of the terrible tragedy for some purpose. However, in one part of the article they do say "an Israeli man was shot and seriously wounded" which is semi-graphic and showing at least some of the reality of the situation; they don't just refer to the incident as "a civilian casualty" or something like that.