Assignments

Reflective Sketches 1 and 2

To start of the semester, I will assign a Reflective Sketch to get us started in thinking about social movements. The assignment will be a ~2 page writing, following one or more of these prompts:

• What is a social movement? How does social movements change society? Give examples from memory.
• Have you ever been a part of activist movement? Attended a rally or peaceful protest? If so, what was that experience like? What were some of the things you noticed about yourself and your community after you attended?
• What are your ideas about progress? Have we made progress? Is progress the wrong word for what we should aspire to make? Give examples of progress in society, and how those things came about.

Students will choose from one or more of these to write about. No research required, this is meant as a warming up assignment; to get a feel for what we think about social movements from the get-go. This assignment will be useful to look back on as we progress through the semester.

We will have another Reflection Sketch assignment at the end of the semester to create a bookending effect. Students will be asked to look at their first Reflection Sketch, and then use that as the basis to answer these questions:

• Now that we have covered social movements in detail, how are your ideas about social movements different? How did you come to understand these things in a new light? What was one of the most significant learning moments of the semester?
• How do you view activism now that we’ve finished the course? Are you inspired to join a movement? Which one and why?
• If you wrote about progress in the first week, how have ideas about progress changed? What are some things you learned that changed your idea of progress? What are some new topics that you think we need to make progress in?

This assignment incorporates student choice, and allows for reflection on the things learned, and how they were learned.

These assignments will be graded on a pass/fail.

Activist Statement

In addition to these two reflection writing assignments, I also will assign an Activist Statement assignment midway through the semester. This assignment can be any length. It is an opportunity for students to express their thoughts after experiencing the horrors of colonialism from KLG or Heart of Darkness. The prompts will be something like:

• Write a personal statement exploring how understanding this dark chapter in history shapes your view of colonialism and your own place in the world.
• Craft a poem that captures the essence of your response to "King Leopold's Ghost" and its impact on your worldview.
• Explore and discuss how we can combat despair in the face of the horrors of colonialism.

Students will choose one of the three, and write about it before the next class.

This incorporates student choice, and allows for students to express their emotions creatively.

This assignment will be graded on a pass/fail.

The Research Book Report

I will assign students their biggest assignment of the semester: The Research Book Report. This will be assigned after all assigned reading for the semester is over. It will span nearly 4 weeks, and require students to do their own research, and find their own texts to study. It will be encouraged that they find more than just articles, journals, and essays, but also most importantly, a creative work of fiction that surround the topic. The creative work they choose should follow similarly to how the students read and discussed the impact of Heart of Darkness,Things Fall Apart or Apocolypse Now. The Research Book Report will be to research and write about another global travesty happening currently.

The paper should attempt to answer these questions:

• How does creative fiction help social movements?
• Who or what is responsible for the tragedy?
• What does an opposing side from your position think about this issue?

I will give them several options to choose from:

Wars and Colonialism:

Libya, Yemen, Ukraine, Israel/Palestine, Afghanistan, Congo, etc.

Climate Change:

Coastal Cities, Deforestation, Pollution, Microplastics, Animal Extinction, etc.

Health and Safety:

Poverty, World Hunger, Homelessness, Forced Labor, Unsafe Work, Underpayed Work, Wage-gap for gender/race, etc.

Some other issue not listed. Get my approval!

The task is to pick one of these three broad categories, then pick a sub-category. The project will be to research this issue, gather sources and a creative work about it, and write a 6-page research paper explaining the situation in detail. The research paper should have a strong thesis, that takes a stand on the situation. It should provide traditional essay techniques of argumentation.

Before they write their research paper, they will write a brief proposal to be submitted and approved by me. This will allow me to help students narrow down their topic, as well as help them find good inquiry questions, and keywords to help their research.

This paper will be evaluated by a combination of a Self-Assessment Reflection, and my own grade. I will grade their research paper according to all of the same questions they ask in the Self-Assessment, as well as looking at writing technique, organizational structure, well-crafted and articulated thesis statement, introduction and conclusion paragraphs, works cited and in-text citations, general formatting, etc.

Self-Assessment Reflection 1

After the Research Paper is complete, students will be asked to write a Self-Assessment Reflection. Students must review their paper, and give themselves a grade. They will answer any or all of these questions:

• Which point do you think is your best point, and why?
• Which point is your worst, and how could you improve it?
• How do you think you integrated and synthesized your sources to make new meaning?
• How well to you address opposing positions?
• Give yourself a grade: A B C or D, and explain why you think you deserve this grade.

This assignment gives the students a 5 point increase on their research paper.

Remix Project

After the research paper is finished, students will be assigned a Final REMIX Project. The purpose of this assignment is to focus on Rhetoric of your message. To take the main points of the research paper they just wrote, and turn it into a new multi-modal message. Students can make a poster, a social-media post, a PowerPoint presentation, a Podcast, anything that involves more than one mode of communication.

The Remix Project will focus on a Call to Action. It drifts away from the research paper’s emphasis on detailing the situation they wrote about, and strives to use rhetoric to make their audience take action to stop the crisis. Students should research organizations that are already involved in the conflict, and integrate them into their Remix Project. Including links, if it is digital, QR codes if it is physical. The Remix Project should can also feature the selected creative work to explain how the work is connected to the crisis. They can also provide a further reading list for the audeince to explore the topic more.

At the end of the semester, each student will present their Remix Project to the class. They will emphasize the rhetorical situation, explain the need for change (exigence), where they hope to post their Remix Project, who their target audience is, why they chose this specific medium and how it relates to the audience they want to target. They may even provide background information from their research paper, but it should only be relevant to how they are using it for their Remix Project, and how they hope their rhetoric can actually make change for their chosen issue.

Each student will have 10 minutes to present, then 3-5 minutes open for Q and A. This may take two or three class periods to complete, depending on class size.

This assignment will be graded by a combination of the Self-Assessment Reflection 2 as well as my own grade.

Self-Assessment Reflection 2

After this assignment, they will write another Self-Assessment Reflection. There will be new prompts for evaluating themselves. Something like this:

• Do you think this media post will be affective for your audience? Why?
• If you had more time, what could you do to improve your media post??
• If you had a team of graphic designers, what could you do to improve your media post?
• Will you actually post this somewhere (you don’t have to)? Why or why not?
• Give yourself a grade: A B C or D, and explain why you think you deserve this grade.

I will add 5 points to the Remix Project if they complete the Self-Assessment Reflection. I will grade their Remix Project to all of the same questions that they reflect on in their Self-Assessment, as well as focusing on their rhetorical approach, judging their rationale for choice of audience and medium, and, to a lesser extent, the aesthetic qualities of the piece (the poster is hard to read, the podcast hard to hear, the PowerPoint too wordy, etc.).