Lesson: What is Occupy Wall Street?

Conversation

Answer the following questions. You might be asked to write them down or answer them out-loud.

1. Have you ever been to a protest on the streets?
2. What do you think about the Occupy Movement?
3. What do you think about the recent protests we have had in Brazil?
4. Is the way we protest changing because of the Internet?
5. If you started a movement, what would you protest about?
6. Who is your favority political leader in history?
7. What do you think about people who are always talking about politics on facebook?
8. Do you think Brazil has gotten better or worse in the last 20 years?
9. Do protests have a real impact in society? Why or why not?
10. What are the different ways a person or a group of people can protest?

Vocabulary

Look at the vocabulary below. Take time to explore the links for their definitions in English and their translations to Portuguese. When you are done, make a sentence with each word. Ask your teacher if you should write them down or say them out loud.

DT   sustained

DT   imagine

DT   shut

DT   rally

DT   merely

DT   wealth

DT   increase

DT   stagnant

DT   remain

DT   frustrate

DT   even

DT   immature

DT   elect

DT   occupy

DT   movement

DT   issue

DT   marginalized

DT   charismatic

DT   decentralized

DT   plain

DT   prototyping

DT   evolves

Video

Watch the following video but DON'T read the transcript yet.

After watching the video do this listening exercise.

Reading practice

Read the following transcript then do the associated reading comprehension exercise.

Transcript:

The Occupy Movement grew suddenly and sustained longer than was first imagined. But now that the Occupy movement is shutting down for the winter, what will it be remembered for? One of their main rallying cries is “we are the 99%”. It's a reference to this fact. Taking the entire population of the U.S. you will find that merely 1% own nearly 50% of all our wealth and with wealth comes power and more wealth. In fact, you will see that the wealthiest 1% of Americans over the last 40 years have grown increasingly wealthier and wealthier while the remaining 99% stay relatively stagnant. And while the 1% have been gaining more power, they haven’t always used it for the good of society. Okay then, regardless if you see this as a problem or not, what remains confusing for some people and plain frustrating to others is that nobody knows what Occupiers really want. Even the Occupiers themselves seem to have different reasons for occupying making people think that they're just being immature. Movements should have a very clear goal, like “let's elect this president” or “let's create these new laws”. But the Occupy Movement is different. It seems to be saying things like “let's pay attention to this issue”, “let's have a conversation”, “let's listen to each other, especially the marginalized and see how we can agree”. It doesn’t have one charismatic leader but is decentralized. It doesn’t have one plain agenda but thousands and thousands of voices connecting together. It is much like the difference between a typical model of top-down power and the way the internet works. So it seems that Occupy Wall Street is an internet era movement. You see, what most people don’t understand is that Occupy Wall Street is not acting like 20th century politics but instead, it seems to be prototyping something new and we will continue to see how it evolves.

Writing practice

Write a couple of paragraphs drawing a paralel between the Occupy Movement and the recent protests we have had in Brazil. Use words you learned from the text if possible and try to make it as long as you can.

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