Thursday, November 29, 2018

WHY WE SHOULDN’T BE TOO MODEST



By Talya Rachel Meyers
Level of Difficulty: **
BEFORE YOU READ
·         Jessica Tracy: "Take Pride”
QUESTIONS
1.   What misconception is mentioned in the introduction? The belief that…
2.   What does “This” refer to in the sentence “This makes sense”?
3.   What convincing piece of evidence is offered to support the evolutionary basis of pride?
4.   What specific conclusion can we draw from Leda Cosmides’ explanation?
5.   The display of pride is important socially because in its absence …
6.   What interesting parallelism was discovered to exist as a result of the 2017 study?
7.    What does “it” refer to in the phrase “to figure it out”?
8.    Did the result of the second study support or disprove the original hypothesis concerning pride?
9.    The second study also proved that level of……………..was not a contributing factor as initially suspected.
10.  What seemingly illogical reality does the writer draw attention to at this point?
11.  What distinction, often overlooked, is the real reason pride is viewed in a negative light?
12. What does “this” refer to in the phrase Cheng and Tracy have observed this…”?
13.  What is the take-home point from the discussion of pride you have just read?
WRITING TASK
Write an essay discussing why pride may be a positive as well as a negative emotion.

WHY WE SHOULDN’T BE TOO MODEST KEY AND TEACHERS’ NOTES
This simple and straightforward text covers a very sophisticated concept: the nature and role of pride. It is very well organized and will lead to a good writing activity. The video at the beginning is longish but important as it overlaps so well with the text.
1.   Pride makes us obnoxious at best and doomed at worst.
2.   The fact that this emotion has an evolutionary function, and that it plays an important role in the way that we interact with the world.
3.    An erect posture, expanded arms, and uplifted head is produced even by people who have been blind since birth
4.    Pride evolved to provide us – and the people around us – with social benefit
5.  People don’t know what your success is, and they don’t know how much  they should value you.
6. The amount of pride that we feel in an accomplishment is parallel to the amount of value that other people place on it.
7.  Whether this closely-calibrated pride was an evolved, fundamentally human trait, or something that was learned by members of a global culture.
8.    It supported it
9.    Industrialization
10. If pride is such a vital part of how we navigate the world around us, then why is it seen so negatively?
11.  The distinction between hubristic pride and authentic pride
12.  People who have authentic pride in their successes actually navigate the world beautifully
13. The key is to focus on achieving and accomplishing certain goals or qualities, rather than trying to achieve the recognition itself.




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