10%–Essay 1: In class this week, you watched Trevor Noah: African American.  After watching his comedy special, it becomes obvious that throughout the course of your life you have been in environments where persons were not of the same race or ethnicity as yourself.  Therefore, your task is to write a three-page essay about a particular situation from your life where you’ve been impacted by race relations or where you’ve been made aware of racial tensions or differences that existed (and may still exist).  You need to explain what happened, why you think it happened, how it affected your life, and what you learned (if anything), or what you would do differently if given the same opportunity. Answering these questions should help you to create a strong, developable, and provable thesis.  Lastly, whether echoed throughout your essay or in your last paragraph, your current view on race relations should be explained. Essay 1 is due Thursday, June 24 by 10 am.

10%–Essay 2: One of the focuses of Wynter’s “No Humans Involved: An Open Letter To My Colleagues” was anti-Black police practices. While we have all been exposed to the anti-Black police practices in the deaths of George Floyd, Freddy Gray, India Kager, Geraldine Townsend, and the countless others, policing spaces are only one of many that have been racialized into anti behaviors. Write a 3-page essay that explains how the educational, legal, religious, tech, entertainment/media, or sports domain has been gendered or racialized, what are the implications of this genderdization or racialization, and what action – small or large, individual or collective – will you take to disrupt the inequities in the domain chosen. Please cite at least 2 class sources and 2 out of class sources. Essay 2 is due Monday by July 5 at 10 am.

10%–Essay 3: Write a 3-page essay where you apply Critical Discourse Analysis to the Black Lives Matter Phenomenon. Please cite at least 2 works from class and 2 additional sources. Essay 3 is due Monday, July 11 by 10 am.

10%–Essay 4: Write a 3-page essay where you reread your first narrative essay and apply Critical Discourse Analysis to your essay to display how your racial literacy has developed over the course of the semester, or apply Critical Discourse Analysis to the Intuitionist. Essay 4 is due by Tuesday, July 20 at 10 am.

 

30%–Ten Writing Assignments/Journal Entries

1, Write a list of 10 of your lived racial experiences. Due June 22.

2, Journal about the ways in which we were indoctrinated into race and racialization. Due June 22. (in-class).

3, Write a 2 or 3-page essay that explains what Racial Literacy is, why it is important for you to develop your racial literacy, and provide concrete strategies for your racial literacy development. Due Monday, June 28 by 10 am.

4, Read How to do Critical Discourse Analysis, and write a 3-page Critical Discourse Analysis of  America’s Face Mask Usage By Demographic and Why are Blacks Dying at Higher Rates of Covid? Critical Discourse Analysis Essay due Thursday, July 1 by 10 am.

5, Choose one of the following poems and produce a 2 or 3-page Critical Discourse Analysis of the poem: Ashley Davis and Oompa’s “Simon Says”; Aiya; Ephraim Nehemiah’s “Afrofuturistic Fairy God Being“; Denice Frohman’s “A Queer Girl’s Ode to the Piragüero“; and Maya’s “Straight people.”  The essay is due on Monday, July 5 by 10 am.

6, Journal about the discourses we have been exposed to in academic spaces, such as meritocracy. Due Friday, July 2. (in-class)

7, Write a 2 or 3-page essay as to how whiteness has manifested as the invisible norm in your academic and social experiences. Due Thursday, July 14 at 10 am.

8,  Journal about what whiteness means to you both prior to and now during the course. Due Friday, July 9. (in-class).

9, Journal about personal racial literacy journeys. Due July 13. (in-class).

10, Write a 2 or 3-page essay that explains a situation in which you have displayed racial literacy since the picture began, as well as a situation where you could or should have displayed more racial literacy, and what the implications of those experiences are beyond this course. Due Wednesday, July 21 at 10 am.

30%–Final Exam: Present an in-class 15-20 minute presentation about your Archaeology of Self. Your presentation must cite/reference at least 5 works from class. Your presentation can be a slide show, a Prezi, a Canva, a video, song, poem, piece of art, community project, creation of a website, creation of a social media page, videography, or any combination thereof. If none of these options are appealing to you, then please feel free to suggest alternative options, and we can negotiate those options.

Final exams are due in class on Monday, July 19^th and Tuesday, July 20^th.

All written assignments must be in proper MLA format, unless otherwise agreed upon, and assignments must contain a works cited page.