Deviance doesn't have to be negative; you can violate the norms of society by doing something positive, such as paying for the toll of a stranger, offering to buy a stranger behind you to a cup of coffee, offering to carry a fellow student’s books/bag for no reason, writing a note to a teacher, thanking him or her for a lesson, selecting a person in your neighborhood or class who is feeling down and sending that person a greeting card anonymously, etc. Often, these acts are referred to as “random acts of kindness.”
Commit an act of positive deviance. (http://www.actsofkindness.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/11_pdf.pdf contains more than 100 ideas of random acts of kindness.)
Take your learning and your thoughts and respond in a well constructed expository essay. Here is your prompt: Explain the concept of positive deviance. How was Diaz’s response to the mugger an act of positive deviance? (paragraph 1) What act of positive deviance did you commit? Why would you qualify your act as positive deviance? (paragraph 2) How did others react to you? How did it make you feel? How has this experience influenced your thinking about norms and our culture? (paragraph 3)
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