LAST Class Agenda 6.4

1. Video

2. Survey!!! One last Survey!!

3. Final Reflection

Grading Grid Research Paper

ENG 101 Assignment Three Grading Grid: Eight-page Research Paper

Name:

1-10 scale

10 –exceptional; 9 – above average; 8 –slightly above average; 7 – slightly below average; 6 – below average; 5 – significant development needed; 1 – minimal or no response 

1. Thesis: Contains a central assertion that places a central idea at the forefront of the essay; thesis statements is 2-3 sentences; thesis statement answers the main question posed by the assignment  (20%)

1          5          6          7          8          9          10

2. Structure: Essay organized around topic sentences; topic sentence are supporting claims for thesis; each paragraph provides "they say" context; essay uses summary and paraphrase to explain main ideas from reading (10%)

1          5          6          7          8          9          10

3. Evidence and Research: Essay successfully places direct quotes into each body paragraph; essay cites those quotes correctly according to MLA guidelines; essay explains direct quotations; essay contains a bibliography; essay cites a minimum of three sources;  (40%)

1          5          6          7          8          9          10

4. Critical Thinking: Essay interprets quotes in original ways that go beyond class discussion; essay connects main ideas to other texts or moments in text; essay utilizes keywords and defines them; essay offers original perspectives and argument; essay connects texts to other texts; essay connects multiple passages from same text together; essay contains inventive conclusion that shows reader new direction (30%)
1          5          6          7          8          9          10

ALL WRITTEN FEEDBACK FROM PEER REVIEW MUST BE STAPLED TO THE BOTTOM OF FINAL DRAFT TO RECEIVE FULL CREDIT FOR PEER REVIEW.

Peer Review:                           Grade:

Comments:

Class Agenda 5.30

ALL OUTSTANDING WORK IS DUE THIS MONDAY

1.  No LIB 110 today: EDIT videos
2. Blog Roll

Review of assignment

Denii
Jairo
Jasmine
John
Leonor
Leticia
Nadira
Nayara
Paul

3. Partner work: Peer Review

4. Discussion and clips

For Thursday

Peer Review Thursday: Bring TWO copies of current final draft for final ENG 101 paper (essay two revision for most people). This is the eight-page essay. 

There is NO reading assignment for Thursday. Concentrate on catching up and finishing work.

There is NO LIB 110 class Thursday: use the time to EDIT the video. Edited videos are DUE TOTALLY on Monday June 3.

The final blog assignment is today's in-class blog: the class exercise on the drug war. It is important that all students complete this blog.

If you haven't taken the cluster survey yet, it's important for you to do so. 

Work that hasn't turned in needs to be turned in.

Class Exercise: Drug War Facts

ENG 101: Race and Culture – Justin Rogers-Cooper

Directions: First read the following directions. Then examine the data below, making notes where useful. Finally, write a response that summarizes, interprets, and connects the information in the data.

-          Summary/summarizing: explains the information for a reader who has not seen it yet.

·         hint: be sure to address what the information says as well as how it measures and presents its data.

·         does the data communicate any pattern, trend, or story?

-           Interpret/interpreting: explains the information for a reader wondering what it means.

·         hint: interpretation requires that you explain the significance of something: why is this data important? Who should care about it?

·         Can you imagine reasons that would explain any pattern, trend, or story in the data?

-          Connect/connecting: explains the data’s links to an idea, issue, or claim from class or course text.

·         hint: return to your class notes or class text, and explain the significance of the data for the idea, issue, or claim you choose. 

(if you have time…)

-          Critique/critiquing: explains the data for what’s missing, unclear, or inaccurate.

·         hint: is there a problem in the way this data presents its information, methods, or sources?

DRUG WAR FACTS

a. For more than 4 in 10 convicted murderers being held either in jail or in state prison, alcohol use is reported to have been a factor in the crime. Nearly half of those convicted of assault and sentenced to probation had been drinking when the offense occurred.
Alcohol and Crime: An Analysis of National Data

b. Overall, we estimate that illicit drug use resulted in approximately 17,000 deaths in 2000.
"Actual Causes of Death in the United States, 2000," Journal of the American Medical Association.

Approximately 32,000 hospitalized patients (and possibly as many as 106,000) in the USA die each year because of adverse reactions to their prescribed medications.
"Adverse Drug Reactions in Hospitalized Patients," JAMA.

c. Most illicit drug users are white. There were an estimated 9.9 million whites (72% of all users), 2.0 million blacks (15%), and 1.4 million Hispanics (10%) who were illicit drug users in 1998.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

In 2001, the chances of going to prison were highest among black males (32.2%) and Hispanic males (17.2%) and lowest among white males (5.9%).
"Prevalence of Imprisonment in the US Population, 1974-2001).

All of these facts come from Drug War Facts, 6th edition. www.drugwarfacts.org

Class Agenda 5.28

1. Discussion of reading:

a. What were the major rhetorical strategies that successfully led to America's mass incarceration?
b. What information from this chapter would you use in a talk-show with Ying Ma?

2. In-class response: deconstructing the data. This exercise is your final written preparation for the Final Exam next week.

See directions here.

3. If you haven't taken it, please take the cluster survey.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TB9BVGZ

LIB 110 Video Project: Self-Reflection and Group-Reflection Report

Congratulations! Your team has filmed their LIB 110 video reports! Nice job.

In order to tabulate your grade from this course, we will need:

1) a finished video product by June 1. This will require editing. Will your group edit your film or do you need Professor Jrc to do this? He needs to know...right now!

2) you to complete this reflection report. Please take out a piece of paper and answer the following questions.

Report Questions

1. Please take a moment to note all the things you've done to produce your video: communications, planning, drafting, writing, reading, traveling, reporting to professor, playing a large role in the filming, and playing a large role in the editing (also consider if you helped other people produce their videos, and how). Now please rank which of these activities you did the most, in a ranked scale of 1-10 (1 being the thing you did the most, 10 being the thing you did least or not at all).

2. Please reflect on how much work you did in your group compared to your classmates. Honestly speaking, do you think you did more work on average, less work on average, or the same amount work on average? Without necessarily identifying other group members (though you're allowed to, and these reports are confidential), please rate yourself as more, same, or less and explain why.

3. Please consider how the filming went last week (or this week, or the week before last: in general!). Are you satisfied with how you believe your filming process went? Why or why not? Is there anything you would do differently? If so, what and why?

4. What grade do you think you personally deserve for this project (not the entire class)? Provide two reasons why you believe you deserve this grade. The reasons should relate to the work you did on the project.

5. What grade do you think you personally deserve for LIB 110, which includes your participation and work over the entire course of the semester? Provide two reasons why you deserve this grade. The reasons should relate to the work you did on the project.

6. Are there any issues that you'd like to bring to our attention as we assign grades? For example, did you have group members drop out of the project? Please let us know about anything you feel we need to know at this time. Remember, we won't share your writing with anyone else.

Class Agenda 5.23

1. Announcements
Post-conference attendance issues will likely result in lower grade
Students with more than four hours missed must email paragraph of explanation by end of term; this will help me figure out your ability to pass and assign grades, and to defend those grades to you, the department, and myself
June 1 deadline approaching- time management this weekend necessary
Video editing responsibilities must be claimed by end of day today


2. Review of blogs
Diana
Eddie
John
Jonathan
Nadira

3. Chinese Girl - discussion

a. Who published this novel?
b. Closing thoughts?

4. The New Jim Crow
 Jarvious Cotton
labeled a felon (2)
The Drug War (3)
House I Live In

CIA (6)
drug use (7)
social control (7) (8)
choose punishment (7)
create crime (8)
Sentencing Project (8)
mass incarceration (11)
racial caste (12)
class (13) / mobility
undercaste (13)

black exceptionalism (14)
racial indifference (14)
racialized systems (14)

5. The Panama Deception

Board Notes

Chinese Girl and midterm review.

Work Update

Hello 101s!

1. Tonight's blog is RAINCHECKED.
2. I need second essays ASAP.
3. For the 8-page research paper, you may use Chinese Girl as a source. I am also looking for one other academic source IF you: a) already used one, and b) used Omi and Winant's Racial Formation text. To get an A the paper must integrate 3 academic sources (Racial Formation) counts. Using Chinese Girl might be easier to give you something to write about. You might have to revise your thesis statement if you do choose to write about both novels.

Raincheck on Tonight's Blog

I will discuss the new due date for this blog Thursday. Students need to concentrate on turning in the work they currently owe for class.

Class Agenda 5.21

1. Announcements:

Any outstanding Essay Two's Due ASAP. Students who haven't turned this in need to make it a number one priority. They are jeopardizing the success of their semester. Students who haven't turned it in need to see me today without exception.

The reading for Thursday should be posted shortly.

Students who attended the Student Literary Forum need to blog about it for extra credit (min 200 words).

Students that have unexplained absences need to put their reasons in writing to the professor and show all relevant documents (notes, etc).

2. Student Cluster Survey - Please take this survey and leave thoughtful answers.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TB9BVGZ

3.  Revise yesterday's paragraph. Yesterday we broke into pairs that looked at various passages from Chinese Girl. We practiced connecting two different passages of the text together. Please create a blog for LaGuardia students that provides them with your reading of these two different scenes.

4. Open Lab.

Ying Ma on poverty

Here.

Class Agenda 5.20

1. What was one memorable aspect of the video project from Thursday?


2. Announcements
Essay 1 revisions due June 1
Make-up blogs and Twitter for partial credit due June 1
Essay 2 essays due ASAP for those that requested extension
New Jim Crow reading will appear on course blog
Students that plan to edit need to confirm with me

3. Pair work: Racial projects and class psychology in Chinese Girl

welfare (74) community center (94) --

theft and ownership (81) / hatred of thieves (82) / immigrant conflict (127)

subhuman (93) racism (106)

hard work (104) / no Chinese (108)

defend ourselves/shame (107) / Maria (111)

ethnic pride (116) / privileged life (119) / war zone (140)

4. In-class writing

Goal
In today's hour we are going to discuss a specific strategies for the “critical thinking” section of our writing. We can use this strategy for our class blogs and our essay assignments. 

For the purposes of critical thinking, let's add this new strategies to the ones we learned in our previous class.[Note: what did we learn in the last class?]

·         Close-reading of language. How can we go beyond paraphrase and “interpret” the meaning of the passage by focusing on specific words?

·         Connecting the idea to a relevant passage in the same text. How can we connect this passage with another to deepen its meaning?

·         Connecting the main idea to another text. How can we connect a main idea we’ve discovered in the passage and relate it to a relevant idea that we’ve found elsewhere?

  
For this exercise, focus on the second strategy.

Final Exam description

ENG 101 Final Writing Assignment

Justin Rogers-Cooper

Learning Community Cluster: Race and Culture

Assignment Goal

The goal of this assignment is for students to write a 500-word reflection comparing the racial project of Chinese Girl in the Ghetto with the chapters we read from The New Jim Crow. Students will offer a reflection that reconciles the different visions of urban black culture in these two texts. 

Assignment Description

For this assignment students may use the two texts in question, as well as any notes relevant to them from class discussion or their readings. They will offer an organizing statement in their introduction – we might call it a ‘soft thesis’ – that does the following:

·         Summarizes the main elements of each text’s racial project

·         Provides a statement providing their own opinion of the racial projects of the two texts

For the rest of the reflection, students will use examples from the text and their notes to support the opinion they give. To the best of their ability, they will offer topic sentence claims to support this view. Since these two texts offer differing perspectives on what main elements of the urban African-American experience, students will have to navigate between the two and pay special attention to the ideas and keywords that they believe might point toward the ‘truth’ of the contemporary relationship between the US racial state and black Americans. 

Class Agenda 5.14

1. Announcements: Video project, Extra Credit TH pm, Paper due Thursday

2. Blog: Revise the section of your Thursday quiz on "responsibility and stress" by addressing it to a
LaGuardia student reader. Instead of writing to me, write to them - assume they have asked you the question, "How does a LaGuardia student have to be responsibile, and what are the stresses of college for you as a LaGuardia student?" You will answer based on your unique experiences.

If you didn't do the quiz or don't want to share your thoughts, procede with the following assignment:

Read Ying Ma's Facebook page for Chinese Girl in the Ghetto. Summarize what kinds of issues she's interested in, and what her basic feelings are about those issues. What are your reactions to her issues and perspectives? Blog about it. What would Omi and Winant say?

Do not post anything to her Facebook page. Simply observe.

Facebook page.

If you have time, read the first three reviews on her Amazon page. What are the reviewers saying they like about this book?

Amazon page.

Students that complete both blog assignments here are eligble for extra credit. They must produce blogs of at least 200 words to receive that credit.

3. Twitter. Tweet your initial reactions to Chinese Girl using that hashtag #cgg

4. Open lab.

Cluster Celebration

   We have reserved the poolside cafe for Tuesday June 4 from 2-4 pm for and End of Semester Cluster Celebration.  We are inviting you to bring all of your cluster students or a representative group that would be willing to talk informally about your cluster's themes, demonstrate something of your work.


   In the past we have had videos of student work, artwork, music, and we have also arranged improv activities so that students from different clusters can get to know their classmates.  All of these are possibilities.  We have ordered media equipment and will plan more carefully once we get a sense of who and how many can make it!

Class Agenda 5.9

1. Reading Quiz: 40 points.

20 points - identify keyword from the reading
20 points - reflect on college responsibility and stress

2. announcements
grade conferences
midterms
LIB 110 project

3. keyword blogs

Denii
Jasmine
Rachel
Diana

Outside blog

discusion

5. integrating sources

Leonor
Jairo

in-class writing

6.

West on Reagan

West on racial era

House I Live In

Extra Credit Event

Details HERE.

Grade Conference Checklist

1. Tweets: ___/28

2. Blogs (must be completed on-time to receive full credit)

(a) 5.7 Racial Formation keyword (in-class)
(b) 5.7 Annotated bib (in-class)

(c) 5.6 Anthro draft (out of class)

(d) 4.23 Untouchable free-writing (in-class)

(e) 4.22 Cluster connections (out of class)

(f) 4.16 Twitter summary (in-class)

(g) 4.15 Blog response ENN 195 (out of class)

(h) 4.9 Anti-Islamic hate-crime (in-class)

(i) 3.19 Blog response to classmate (in-class)

(j) 3.18 Slave and Citizen blog (out of class)

(k) 3.12 Twitter summary (in-class)

(l) 3.12 Tannenbaum blog (in-class)


(m) 3.5 - Diagnostic (Souls of Black Folk)

3. Essay One ____

4. Midterm ___

5, Quiz grade ___/160

6. Participation ___

7. Hours missed

101 ___

103___ 

8. Extra credit

Class Agenda 5.7

1. 9.15-9.45

In-class blog - type up the notes from yesterday's activities into a blog. The purpose of the blog is to provide information from Racial Formation to your classmates. So your classmates and other Lagcc students are your audience, some of whom will see this work later this year. Remember to introduce the purpose of the blog first, then the summaries. To close the blog, write two or three sentences that imagine how you might connect the keyword/text to your essay on Untouchable.

Students that missed class yesterday will not receive extra time to complete this assignment, but they may want to briefly pair up with their assigned partner to be sure they understand the reading.

2. 9.45-10.30

In-class blog: The purpose of this next blog is to create a (very) short "annotated" bibliography. The definition of an annotated bib is here. As the definition says, your purpose is to: discover a source you'll use for your second essay (or revised extension of it); summarize it; assess it; and reflect on it. An example of what an annotated bib looks like is here. I expect 3-4 sentences per section (summarize, assess, reflect). You only need to find one source.

3. Twitter: When your annotated bibliography is complete, you will Tweet the source you found.

Tweet one: Identify the source. #untouchable
Tweet two: summarize the source. #untouchable
Tweet three: assess the source. #untouchable
Tweet four: reflect on the source. #untouchable

4. 10.30-11.20 - Open lab: Students may use the remaining 50 minutes of lab to work on the assignment of their choice. This may be the anthro assignment due today, the second essay due next week, a previous blog that needs completion, or a revision of a previous assignment.

Remember: all revisions of Essay 1 are due June 1 and must be passing.
Remember: if students want to pursue extra credit please see me so I can open an assignment to the class.

Student Leadership Conference

...Our 2013 Student Leadership Conference.

                  "Redefining Leadership Through the Arts:  Standing on the Shoulders of Giants"

Great leaders have a creative edge that brings their ideas to life. At this event your students will learn how the arts can take their leadership skills to the next level.  Please encourage them to join us at our 2013 Student Leadership Conference for exciting and creative workshops, motivational speakers, networking opportunities, and raffle prizes (iPods, nook e-reader, and numerous gift certificates). This year, during the luncheon hour, we will celebrate the inaugural Induction Ceremony of Sigma Alpha Pi.

Our keynote speaker is Playwright, Actor, and Tony Award winning poet, Lemon Andersen.

Saturday, May 11th, 2013
9:00 am – 4:00 pm
LaGuardia Community College, E-Building Lobby

Seating is Limited. So Please Have Your Students Register NOW.  For Further Details Go to:

www.LaGuardia.edu/Leadership

Student Literary Forum

Celebrate student writers at LaGuardia!

Student Literary Forum
Thursday, May 16th
4-5:30pm, Room E-500

Winners of the spring Critical Essay and Creative Writing contests will be reading from their work. Following the forum, the students' work will be published in Literary LaGuardia.

Please join us

Reading Quiz

Answer one of the following, or both for extra credit

1. What was the racial significance of the new social movements of the 1950s and 1960s?

2. What was the racial significance of the "reaction" movements of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s?

Class Agenda 5.6

1. Reading Quiz

2. Announcements

3. Conclusions about the racial state

4. Pairs and terms.

"The Great Transformation"

Akeem and Nadira: "new social movements" (96-7); "rearticulation of black collective subjectivity" (98-99); "rearticulation" (99)

Stefan and Leticia: "black power" (101-103);

Paul and Denii: "reforming the racial state" (104-105)

Sean and Diana: "absorption" and "insulation" (106)

John and Leonor: "electoral/institutional 'entrism'" and "socialism" (107-8) (110)

Jasmine and Eddie: "nationalism" (108-9) (111)

Rachel and Jairo: race and reaction: "context" (114-115) - 1970s, economy, fiscal crisis, losses, welfare state (115-6)

Nicole and Nico: "reverse discrimination" (116); "color-blind" society (117)

Nayara and Jonathan: "code-words" (118); "targeting the federal government" (119)

5. Discussion and taking notes into blog/lab tomorrow.

6. The new racial state.

Reagan on Vietnam

West on Reagan

West on racial era

House I Live In

Reading up for Monday

Blog assignment

For this blog, I want you to think through your current writing assignment for Anthro. As always, explain to your reader who you are, what you're doing, and what you think. Minimum 225 words to qualify for credit.

Class Agenda 5.1

1. Quiz

2. Announcements

3. Film clips: Let's read passages from Racial Formation in the United States chapter on "The Racial State" next to film clips that allow us to "see" the racial state in action.

The despotic state

The Slave State
The Jim Crow State


The challenge
Civil Disobedience
urban riots

The Absorption

The War on Drugs
Incarceration

Affirmative Action

4. Integrating media into writing. How can we take ideas about the racial state and apply them to our reading Untouchable

Quiz

What is the racial state?

Great Source on Anand

Mulk Raj Anand (1905-2004).
Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter. Vol. 237. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2007. p1-53.

Remember Library Day!

A Library Instruction session has been scheduled for your class in the Library Classroom, E101-B on Tu, 4/30, 9:15 AM - 10:15 AM.  Please verify this information and let us know of any discrepancies.

Class Agenda 4.25

1. Announcements
Midterm Monday: let's go over structure, reminder
LIB 110: filming in 3 weeks: all needs written down and planned by next week

2. Peer Review: Groups of three: chosen by professor.
Grading Grid
Guidelines

Leonore
Diana
Jonathan

Jasmine
Nicole
Sean

Nayara
Jairo
Rachel

Joel
Nico
Nadira

Rachel
Leticia
Stefan

Eddie
Akeem
John

Paul
Denii

3. Untouchable- what do we do with the conclusion?

4. Racial Formation in the United States- what keywords can we use?

Grading Grid

ENG 101 Assignment One Grading Grid:

Name:

1-10 scale

10 –exceptional; 9 – above average; 8 –slightly above average; 7 – slightly below average; 6 – below average; 5 – significant development needed; 1 – minimal or no response 

1. Thesis: Contains a central assertion that places a central idea at the forefront of the essay; thesis statements is 2-3 sentences; thesis statement answers the main question posed by the assignment  (20%)

2. Structure: Essay organized around topic sentences; topic sentence are claims; each paragraph provides "they say" context; essay uses summary and paraphrase to explain main ideas from reading (30%)

3. Evidence: Essay successfully places direct quotes into each body paragraph; essay cites those quotes correctly according to MLA guidelines; essay explains direct quotations; essay contains a bibliography (20%)

4. Critical Thinking: Essay interprets quotes in original ways that go beyond class discussion; essay connects main ideas to other texts or moments in text; essay utilizes keywords and defines them; essay offers original perspectives and argument (20%)

5. Polish: Essay shows signs of revision; essay's syntax doesn't interfere with meaning; vocabulary words from class appear in essay;
ALL WRITTEN FEEDBACK FROM PEER REVIEW MUST BE STAPLED TO THE BOTTOM OF FINAL DRAFT TO RECEIVE FULL CREDIT FOR PEER REVIEW.

Peer Review:

Grade:

Comments:

Reading for Thursday has been posted.

Please also bring Untouchable to class.

Class Agenda 4.23

1. Announcements
Peer Review Thursday
LIB 110 Scripts Thursday
No Class Tomorrow: Open Office Hours
Attendence reports/class confernces
Library Day

2. Review. Review blog comments
Check your blog to see if an ENN 195 student left you a comment. If they did not, email me at jrogers@lagcc.cuny.edu to say so. If they did, write a comment beneath their comment, which does the following: thanks them, summarizes their advice, and reports what you will do to revise the blog.

3. In-class blog: producing a paragraph about Untouchable. Return to all your notes on the novel, going back two weeks - specifically, class yesterday, class last Thursday, and the class the previous Thursday. Assemble all the keywords you've found helpful and update a list of them in today's notes.

Now return to your free-writing from yesterday. We're going to practice "filling in the templates" for a college paragraph on the novel. Let's work like this:

[summary] In the novel Untouchable, we see a world where...Over the course of the novel, [say what happens in 2-3 sentences; these are 'plot points,' or the major plot episodes]. The main character, Bahka, experiences...[summarize what you believe to be his main experiences].

Now remember: claims about the novel don't repeat what happens, they explain the signifiance of what happens, they explain the importance of what happens. For this assignment, they explain what the novel helps us to understand about issues of racial formation. Remember, claims are not facts. You must be able to disagree with a claim for it to be an argument.

topic sentences

[topic sentence 1: claim 1] The novel Untouchable narrates colonial Indian racial formation in the 1930s by showing us...

[topic sentence 2: claim 2] Based on Bahka's behavior, we learn that...

[topic sentence 3: claim 3] The novel Untouchable highlights the issues of...by showing us that...

[topic sentence 4: claim 4] The conflict in the novel between ... and ... demonstrates to readers the importance of ...

Topic sentences are great locations to add keywords. If you use one, define it in the next sentence. You may want to give it a "general" definition, or what it means in all cases, and also a "specific" definition, or what it means in this novel.

Tweet your claims

When you're sure you have a couple solid claims, Tweet them. Use the hashtag #untouchable

Look over your sentences and notes

Now look over the sentences you've written. Take one claim and turn it into a revised paragraph, with a quote sandwich. Locate your notes on college paragraphs and critical thinking strategies.

Note: Essays do not write themselves. They are built like puzzles, and the "pieces" of the puzzle are your ideas. You must first figure out your best ideas, or claims, and then arrange them into the puzzle of your essay. Notes based on passages, ideas based on notes, keywords based on ideas, claims based on keywords, paragraphs written to support claims. (Use Keywords from cluster courses?)

And then? A cluster of claims can be a thesis.

And then you look at a "cluster," or group, of claims together. What do they have in common? Ideally, you can find something. That commonality might be a thesis.

Or? A really strong single claim be can turn into the thesis.

Or you look at your best claim, and you think, can I expand this into the thesis of the essay? Then you think of other supporting claims you could make that would expand it. Then that one claim becomes your thesis, and you invent new claims to support it.

Done?

Look over these blogs about Twitter and respond to them in three sentence comments. The comments address whether you agree with a claim made about Twitter and why.

Done with that?

Follow the following Twitter handles and figure out what they're up to. Read a few Tweets and "favorite" a couple, or follow a few links.

@MovetoAmendNYC

@NYSLOF

@AQEJosh

@CVHPower

Free Writing on Untouchable

The character of Bahka is complex for a couple reasons. On the one hand, you have a young man from the "untouchable" caste system, who's cleaning toilets, sweeping up after his higher-caste betters, trying to please his father. He resents the system he's in, at least at times, but doesn't really question it...at least not at first. Through a series of confrontations, though, he does come to question it - I guess that's the "on the other hand" part of this. The emotions he feels during these confrontations set off how he questions the paradigm of caste difference that he's living in. What feels unfair is what produces ideas about unfairness.

It's notable that those feelings are the agents of his resistance, so to speak, but it's also interesting that he doesn't turn to a deconstruction of the culture, or start to question why the caste works the way it does, or question the "religion" of Hindu-caste difference. Instead, he gravitates towards the English, the sahibs that wander around at the fringes of the novel, never quite becoming characters until we see Colonel Hutchinson. It reads as if the "answer" to the injustice of the untouchable is some kind of fantasy of becoming British. It's as if people react to oppression - Bakha for sure - by producing a fantasy of escape rather than a plan for confrontation. Perhaps this is how ideology and hegemony works...maybe this is how power functions...the answer to feelings of anger, sadness, and disappointment is the creation of fantasies that allow one an "escape" from those feelings...it's easier to "become" a fantasy of yourself than to confront the real people who keep you down. Note that Bahka runs from the crowds in the cities as they grow angry he didn't call out of ahead of himself...he runs from the mother of the boy who gets injured in the stone-throwing after the hockey game. He runs from them straight into his dreams of being British, of dressing British, of having English clothes...and maybe, then, this "colonial" mindset that he has - for it's clear that he's been colonized, right? - works both ways: as a system, a real system, it keeps him down, by keeping the Hindu-caste system in place, by breaking down Indian society into competing classes that keep the boot on the face of those below, as it were. But on the other hand, the power of the English example - their clothes, their "ornamentalism," their speaking - provide Bahka with an alternative - a way "out," at least mentally, from that very same caste system.

So what becomes of the individual, and his dreaming, when the fantasy takes the place of direct confrontation? When we use dreams to escape forms of social domination?

Library Day

A Library Instruction session has been scheduled for your class in the Library Classroom, E101-B on Tu, 4/30, 9:15 AM - 10:15 AM.  Please verify this information and let us know of any discrepancies.

Class Agenda 4.22

1. Super Quiz

2. Announcements

3. Let's entertain ourselves with the Racial Formation video for a few minutes. 

3. In-class writing: return to your notes from Thursday (or last week) and 'free write" some thinking and words around a passage you find interesting. You may also want to think about a passage you just read from the novel. Remember the second assignment, and the Peer Review due Thursday.




4.  Now, working from your notes, construct a "typical" college paragraph around a claim and use the novel to provide evidence for the claim. Be sure to distinguish between Anand the author, Bhaka the character, and yourself the writer.



(Let's note some templates here)



5. Trade your paragraph with a partner. Give them some feedback on the paragraphs.

Blog Assignment Four: Cluster Connections

Well, it's about halfway through the semester. What kinds of connections do you see in the cluster so far? What texts from one class speak to the texts in another class? What ideas have you found useful in more than one class? On a personal level, has all this talk of race and culture changed the way you see LaGuardia, yourself, your neighborhood, and/or New York City? As you reflect, be sure to offer examples so your reader can "see" the links you're making more...don't be afraid to offer a quote from a text or film, either!

LIB 110: Script design

Today we need to begin the process of actually designing our videos. Let's look at some script-related stuff.

http://westernreservepublicmedia.org/producer/script.htm

http://www.filmschoolonline.com/sample_lessons/sample_lesson_format.htm

In your teams, begin scripting process. Your team will turn in a draft script next week for us to review.

Reading Quiz

What is the significance of Bakha's affection for Colonel Hutchinson?

Class Agenda 4.18

1. Reading Quiz

2. Announcements
Peer Review next Thursday. Blog due Monday night?
Please take more time to review the blog.

3. Essay One Returned: letter of response.

When you receive your essay, keep the comments and grade to yourself. The classroom is an inappropriate space to share grades.

Please read all the comments within the essay and grading grid.

Take out a piece of paper and spend some time writing a reply to your essay. The letter must answer the following questions:

a) Do you understand my comments? What comments do you not understand?

b) Reflect on your writing process: how many drafts did you complete of this essay? How closely did this essay resemble the essay you turned in for Peer Review? What was helpful about the Peer Review? What could have been more helpful? What notes did you work from the most? How frequently did you utilize the class blog? Did you look at the grading grid before turn in the essay? Did you re-read the assignment goal before turning in the essay? How long did you spend looking over the templates linked from the blog to They Say I Say?

c) Did you go to the Writing Center? Why or why not? If you went, what was your experience and how did it shape your essay?

d) Some of you must revise while others of you may want to revise. If you must revise, you must explain your plan for revision here. Confirm when you will attend the Writing Center, which must occur in the next week (you may want to bring a clean copy of the draft, as well as my grading grid). If you must revise, reflect on your process for this essay. What made the draft difficult? Did you complete the reading? If you completed the reading, how steps did you take to incorporate the book into your draft? If you didn't complete the reading, why not? Did you believe the essay could still be successful?

e) If you are choosing to revise, what is your revision plan?

f) If you have not turned in the essay, what is your plan? Are you aware you cannot pass the class without this essay? What steps are you currently taking to complete the essay? How often have you visited the Writing Center? What kinds of choices do you think have affected your inability to complete the essay?

g) What is your plan going forward for the rest of the semester to ensure success? What are you actually going to do in the next six weeks?

4) Essay One Returned: What's going to change

Things that will be different in class:

a. Students accessing course materials from their phone will lose participation points.
b. We will spend more time on They Say I Say templates.
c. We will have student conferences sometime in the next two weeks.
d. Students that don't turn in Essay One by Monday will receive a formal letter notifying them of their danger of failing.
e. There will be a "Super-Quiz" on Monday about quotation sandwiches, making claims, direct quotation, and citation. The quiz will be worth 40 points, and will be given at the beginning of class. Students will have 20 minutes for the quiz.
f. We will spend more time writing sentences that distinguish paraphrases of reading from your claims about the reading.
g. Anything else?

Things some students must do differently to succeed:
a. Create more time to study. Find a place that you can concentrate. Continue to "become" a public student.
b. Any student that failed Essay One must go to the Writing Center for both Essay One revision and Essay Two, before it's due.
c. Students that don't complete the reading must find ways to do so. The balance struck so far for about 1/3 of the class is ineffective and will challenge students from completing their goals.
d. Anything else?

5) Untouchable

Turning discussions of passages into paragraphs. Converting notes to sentences.