By links and bounds

The middle school ELA teacher stopped by this morning to see if I had any resources about liable and slander that he could apply to student research projects based on S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders. So we begin with literature.

I pulled out Black's Law Dictionary and Magill's Legal Guide; both pretty clinical responses. Then my eye settled on The Encyclopedia of Propaganda. It yielded entries like "character assassination," "bias," "labeling," and "disinformation;" all within the context of their implication to global struggles. I liked that leap from cliques to the world stage.

Online searches turned up historical incidents like charges of "seditious libel" against Peter Zanger  (remember that Social Studies lesson?) as well as leap-link to famous duels precipitated by slander, followed by some infamous Hollywood cases. I liked these examples of ultimate results from name-calling.

Then I went to lunch; taking the recent issue of New Scientist with me. A feature article was titled, War of Words by Mark Pagel. Along with introducing me to the notion of Rapoport's Rule, he laid out his ideas of why humans would evolve to using over 7000 languages when that would preclude the easy sharing of ideas for survival. It's all about our legacy of conflict. He theorizes two traits humans cultivated to compete for territory and resources; groupishness ( hangin' with your own kind) and xenophobia (demonising outside groups); language acting as "powerful social anchors of our tribal identity. The science behind this ancient act of name-calling.

I guess what I want to illustrate here is my willingness to discover led me down some diverse and rich avenues. My thinking pencilled in the connections and associations; taking some questioning risks and recognizing some serendipitous finds. And my focus kept the lessons of The Outsiders at its core.

Research takes practice. A little wiggle-room to enjoy the asides makes it my own, makes it satisfying, and with practice, threshes out relevance.