Category: Uncategorized

Hi everyone my name is Morgan Boone. I am a transfer from HCCC (Herkimer) where I used to swim and dive. Now I do both for Cortland!! I am an RMGT major, I have 3 sisters and 1 brother. I moved up here for the next 3 years so I’ll be a resident for a while, good luck in the class everyone!

Hey everybody! My names Mike George, I’m from Upstate NY, Bath New York to be specific. I’m in the Physics + Engineering program here at Cortland and am currently in my junior year. My main interests are cars, movies, music, and I like playing video games in my free time. If you’d like to learn more about me follow me on the gram @Mikege0 (the o is a zero)

Hi, my name is Hallie Garropy! I am a transfer student and it is my sophomore year. I went to Cayuga Community College for one year before this to save money. I am from Auburn, New York and I have three younger sisters and one younger brother. My major is adolescent education with a concentration of english.

Whatsup everybody, my name is Michael Flynn from Staten Island NY and I am a transfer sophomore majoring in criminology. I had a really bad experience at my last school and hoping that Cortland will treat me well. Some of my hobbies are playing baseball, video games and listening to music. I mainly listen to rap and I am a huge JCole fan. I am looking forward to getting to know all of you while becoming a better reader and writer.

What makes me different than my family, my friends, my mentors? The answer is what stories I have to to distribute about my life versus what theirs are.

Humanity learns of itself through stories. Stories in textbooks, novels, bibliographies, etc. All these stories allow a separation of on person to the next. My story of my life is different from another persons. It is for that reason we are so different, despite going to the same schools, learning similar things, living in the same country. Our country however is guilty of telling a single story of groups of people, similar in some ways to how Chimamanda Adichie claims western literature  puts a label on all of Africa. Humanity has a long past of labeling, and misidentifying individuals and groups of people. Segregating people into categories is nothing new to humans today, or decades before us. For the most part, we detest the idea of such a classification system. However, not liking something and not doing something are two separate beasts. My parents don’t like texting, yet we see them texting all the time. Similarly,  we watch new media classify “Liberals” and “Conservatives” as if its a decision between one faction or another, one identity or another. Realistically however, it is completely unlikely any single, self thinking person believes wholesomely in all of one factions ideals.

Now, I am not writing to create political arguments, however I want to emphasis that we think and say things all the time that clearly divide each other in categories we all probably do not truly belong to. We often forget that people of any political party are human, they make mistakes and decisions. They are human after all. However, Adichie calls upon us all to not give into the single story, whether it be by Nigeria or by Mexico. The lesson learned should carry on into other regions of perspective as well. Whether that perspective be on how we obtain news is dependent on how far you are willing to observe to moral of Adichie’s story.

The news, globally, displays an important frame on society. As I read through the transcript of Adichie’s speech, I found a quote that speaks heavily on the worries of censored society. As Adichie says “[i]t is impossible to talk about the single story without talking about power”. This statement is completely true throughout modern human interaction with each other. Power, in all forms has the potential to corrupt. Censored media, like Russian media for example, gives one story of an incident, based completely off of what the ruling government decides. This not only gives one perspective to a potentially multi-sided story, however it allows for the government to decide the story of the people. I believe Adichie references the political implications of a single story several times throughout the speech because we are able to fight against a single story. We have the ability to go out and find the other side to the story. She wants her listeners, her readers to find the truth of each story, instead of allowing someone else to decide the story for you, or for another people. As Adichie explains in her speech, many people from her home country of Nigeria could not read because they could not afford to buy the books to read. This is an exceptionally scary issue because a people that are unable to read, are only able to listen and sometimes, listening to one perspective or what one person says is just as or even worse than knowing a single story. Ultimately, humanity as a whole must climb away from the ideas of a single story, or a single belief, in order to see the world for what it is. Yes, it is true, as Adichie admits, crime throughout the world is bad, however, crimes of the few do not make up the mind of an entire society, unless you only listen to a single story.

 

Questions:

After reading the texts, do you feel as though you have fallen for the single story trap?

 

Is it possible to end the “Single Story” problem in our lifetime, or is similar to being perfect, a constant attempt but never getting to perfection?

Hello!

My name is Diavian Collier, I am a sophomore here at SUNY Cortland. I’m majoring in English Adolescent Education. I love to read (I know, typical haha) so I am really looking forward to the texts that we will encounter in this class!

Best regards and happy syllabus week to you all! xx

Hey guys my name is Maddie, I’m from Long Island. I am a sophomore here at SUNY Cortland and I am majoring in English Adolescent Education with a minor in Spanish. I am looking forward to the semester with everyone as well as to the colder weather with this heat!

Hey everyone! My name is Mikayla Cooper and I’m a Sport Management major, but I’m also interested in minoring in Outdoor Recreation. I’m from Oyster Bay, Long Island and went to Oyster Bay High School. I really enjoy sports, traveling, and being outdoors. Some of my interests include the TV show Friends, watching football, and listening to chill music.

I’d love to get to know all of you and I’m looking forward to this semester!

Hi everyone! I’m a senior majoring in early ed. with a concentration in English. This is my second semester at Cortland. I went to Homer High School and grew up in the area (full townie status). Before I came to SUNY Cortland I went to UC (Utica College) for two years, then transferred to TC3 for a semester, and now I’ve circled back to Cortland. That’s about all I can think of to say other than, I hope we all have a great semester.

Most of my friends call me Boogie. I’m a Sophomore transfer majoring in Athletic Training. I’m from Nassau County in Long Island. I love Basketball, My favorite team is Golden State and Steph Curry is one of my favorite players. I’m also pretty funny if you decide to get to know me. Really looking forward to a fun semester!