Literature Circles: Final Blog

The lit circle book that I read, The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria, is very similar to the book that Sarah read, The Shallows: What The Internet is Doing to Our Brains. 


In her blog, Sarah wrote, "We need not to be followers but artists. Not confused but confident. When given the chance to create do so, and when given the chance to follow your own creation hold no fear, don’t hold back on what is rightfully yours." This idea is very similar to one that omnipresent in my book. Zakaria often wrote about how the United States needs to challenge the status quo of the world in order to keep its superpower status. The US, however, is holding back and sticking to the safe way it's been going for the past 100 years. The US needs to take the first big step forward and start creating new standards for life in the US. People need to start thinking about jobs that aren't just in the manufacturing industry, but in the innovation industry. 


Zakaria also writes about how the other countries of the world are catching up to the United States' standards. They are doing this through adjacent possibles like the internet. The rest of the world has seen how the people in the United States are living and they want to live like that too. Sarah also mentions that people tend to follow the maps that are laid out for them. They don't like to stray from those maps. Zakaria talks about how the US is comfortable doing things the way we've always done them, but that won't work forever. Overall, the ideas mentioned in The Shallows are very similar to the ones that Zakaria mentions in The Post-American World.

The Post-American World

Summary: In this final section of the book, Zakaria focused mainly on America’s strengths and weaknesses. The last chapter was mostly about what America was doing wrong as a super power and what it needed to do to continue its power. Zakaria also talked a lot about how the rest of the world’s view of American’s is not what we think it is.

Major Claim: “The United States should be thinking creatively and asymmetrically” (Zakaria 246).

Response: Through this major claim, Zakaria is saying that the US needs to think “outside the box” in order to really be a great nation. Instead of doing things the way we’ve done them for a hundred years, we need to start being creative in the way we run our country. The things we are doing in our economy may have worked really well a hundred years ago, but they aren’t providing the same affect now that they did then. We also should be running our foreign policy the way we have been because as other nation’s rise up closer to our level, they need us to get involved in their personal affairs less and less. He is saying that the people in Washington need to stop worrying about keeping what has worked for a hundred years and start thinking of new ways to help our country grow to its greatest potential. 

Captured Thought: The end is near

During v-show, Mr. Wojcik was giving the pit band a "pep talk" and started talking about how v-show was the beginning of the end for the seniors. I had known for awhile that graduation and the end of high school was coming near. I hadn't, however, realized how soon it actually was.

Coming to Glenbrook South, I thought that high school would take forever. I figured it'd be the best, longest four years of my life. I figured I could take things slowly and not really take advantage of what was going on around me. In the past month I have realized how quickly things went by. It feels like I was just a freshman entering the school on the first day worrying about where my classes were and how the heck I was going to get from class to class in just five minutes. It feels like just yesterday that I was coming to band camp for the first time and going on my first band trip. I never could have imagined that my years in high school would go this fast.

Today, I was taking a tour at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and thinking about the next great chapter in my life. I was taking in all of the information my tour guide was giving me and putting it into a mental folder in my head so that it can help me in choosing which college to attend next year. On the drive home, I realized how similar my visit was to the visit I made to Glenbrook South in eighth grade. I started thinking about all of the great times that I've had in high school and how the end was really so near. This weekend was my last real school dance, I'm going on my last band trip in less than a month, I finished my last high school finals. The question that's lingering in my mind now is, What's next? How can I make the next chapter in my life as great as the one that's ending so soon?