- Surrounded Context: The essay is written by Yo Yo Ma and published in 2014. Yo Yo Ma is a successful cellist and songwriter who graduated from Juilliard school and Harvard University. The essay starts with a bio and later leads into a description of the essay. The bio is short and concise telling you everything you need; just enough background information.
- Imposed Context: The essay is important for our class because it is one of the essays part of our second paper. After writing the first one, I feel like I have good grasp on art and its importance in our society. (I’m starting to believe that art is a common theme in this class.)
- Intentional Context: The argument in the essay is the importance of art in science careers. Yo Yo Ma is trying to involve STEAM curriculum instead of just STEM. In the essay, he mentions the two pathways in the brain and if art is added, both pathways could be used to help understand things. In the bio it mentioned that he is more than a musician and it later explains that he is pushing the arts so much because he wants society to function more effectively and improve overall. I found two words in the essay that I didn’t understand, which were: “bandwidth”, “tandem”. Bandwidth is defined as the energy or mental capacity required to deal with a situation. Ma used this saying “we can only survive within a very narrow bandwidth of conditions…” Tandem is defined as having two things arranged one in front of the other. Ma used this when describing the two pathways of the brain and how we can’t use both a once but it still does occur.
Great work! I had to laugh as you voiced your suspicions (i.e. “I’m starting to believe that art is a common theme in this class.”) My hope is that when we stick to a similar theme, the familiarity will help provide students with the courage and knowledge to generate fresh and deep ideas and analysis.