Calendar
Home
Monday, January 8th
Topics: Introduction to the Course
Handouts:
Wednesday, January 10th
Topics: Home; Setting
Handouts
Readings
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Portfolio Assignment
I will place you in groups for this portfolio assignment in class. If you did not come to class, please just pick and complete any one of the group assignments below.
Group 1:
Group 2:
Group 3:
Group 4:
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Monday, January 15th
MLK Day: No Class.
Wednesday, January 17th
Topics: Home; Setting
Readings
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Portfolio Assignment
I will place you in groups for this portfolio assignment in class. If you did not come to class, please just pick and complete any one of the group assignments below.
Group 1:
Group 2:
Group 3:
Group 4:
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Family
Monday, January 22nd
Topics: Family; Characterization
Readings
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Portfolio Assignment
I will place you in groups for this portfolio assignment in class. If you did not come to class, please just pick and complete any one of the group assignments below. All assignments require one page of writing.
Group 1:
Group 2:
Group 3:
Group 4:
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Wednesday, January 24th
Topics: Family; Characterization
Short Essays Due:
Readings
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Portfolio Assignment
I will place you in groups for this portfolio assignment in class. If you did not come to class, please just pick and complete any one of the group assignments below. All assignments require one page of writing.
Group 1:
Group 2:
Group 3:
Group 4:
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Heritage
Monday, January 29th
Topics: Heritage; Point of View
Readings
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Portfolio Assignment
For this portfolio assignment, I would like you all do the same thing: research your family tree. In particular, try to find some new details about your ancestry that you were not aware of. What is surprising about your family? Also, try to trace where your ancestors came from, before coming to America. What was their country of origin? Above all, be curious! Who the heck are you people? Write a page about what you discover.
While not necessary, you can find resources at ancestry.com that would help you. You can start a 14 day trial there. I am pretty sure though that you have to put in payment information and then remember to cancel within 14 days to avoid being billed. Alternatively, you can start a free account at familysearch.org, which has a wealth of resources. I have not used it much, but its interface did not seem quite as intuitive to me as ancestry.com, but that could just be my own failings. Also, I’m sure many of you have individuals in your family who have researched your family tree. Feel free to talk to them. Finally, you can explore the free government sources available here. You can access census records, military records, passenger lists, and more. How cool would it be if you found the boat passenger list showing your family first coming to the U.S.? |
Wednesday, January 31st
Topics: Heritage; Point of View
Short Essays Due:
Readings
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Portfolio Assignment
I will place you in groups for this portfolio assignment in class. If you did not come to class, please just pick and complete any one of the group assignments below. All assignments require one page of writing.
Group 1: Read again paragraph 14 in Margarita Engle’s Digging for Roots. Why is it important to this author to build a window for her decedents? Do you have such a window? In what way is the window important to you? Group 2: Take a mental tour of your grandparents’ home, or the home of someone else in your family from an older generation. Describe the objects that you vividly recall from this tour. What could these objects be saying to you about your heritage? Group 3: Pretend that you are a good friend of the speaker in Lorna Dee Cervantes’ Heritage. Based on your analysis of the poem, suggest ways to make her come to terms with her cultural reality. Write your suggestions in the form of a letter. Group 4: Native Americans have a history of dispersion. Research an even like the Cherokee Trail of Tears tragedy. Having lost their homeland, how would you say Native Americans maintain their heritage today? Do they? Explain your answer. |
Language
Monday, February 5th
Topics: Language; Rhetoric
Readings
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Portfolio Assignment
I will place you in groups for this portfolio assignment in class. If you did not come to class, please just pick and complete any one of the group assignments below. All assignments require one page of writing.
Group 1: Even though we may speak the same language in public as in the home, other elements may distinguish our home life from our public life. This may include religious values, eating habits, musical tastes, clothing, ect. Think about your “private world” and if it is different from your “public world.” If so, discuss how, and what effects it has on your life on a daily basis. Group 2: Research the last names of both your maternal and paternal grandparents. Do some research on the root and meaning of the last names. Discuss the meaning, origin, and evolution of each name. Group 3: Research the 1980 Mariel boat lift from Cuba to Miami, Florida, such as finding newspaper articles online. Focus on the tensions in Miami due to the major influx of refugees. Also focus on the English Only movement in Miami that same year. Why do you think language was chosen as a battlefield? Group 4: Reread Ricardo Pau-Llosa’s Foreign Language while looking for images that evoke the speaker’s feeling about a foreign language. Based on these images, what do you conclude is his opinion about speaking foreign language? |
Wednesday, February 7th
Topics: Language; Rhetoric
Short Essays Due:
Readings
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Portfolio Assignment
I will place you in groups for this portfolio assignment in class. If you did not come to class, please just pick and complete any one of the group assignments below. All assignments require one page of writing.
Group 1: Choose an ethnic or racial group and make a list of jokes or puns you have heard about this group. What similarities do these share? What attitudes do they reveal? Some people would say these are “just jokes.” Would you agree? Explain your answer. Group 2: Family can be very important to individuals. In many cases today, women have opted for maintaining their family names after marriage. Interview a woman who has done so, or imagine such an interview. What are her motivations? Explore your reaction to her decision. Group 3: After reading Louis Erdrich’s Jacklight, assume that the edge of the woods is a boundary line between two worlds. With this in mind, what values do you think are encompassed by each world? Use details from the text to support your answers. Group 4: After reading Nora Dauenhauer’s Tlingit Concrete Poem, squint your eyes while looking at the poem again. Which part draws your attention most quickly? What does that part of the poem communicate to you? Explain your answer. |
Aliens
Monday, February 12th
Topics: Aliens; Reader Expectations
Handouts
Readings
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Portfolio Assignment
I will place you in groups for this portfolio assignment in class. If you did not come to class, please just pick and complete any one of the group assignments below. All assignments require one page of writing.
Group 1: If the media controls our perceptions of groups such as Arabs, what does this say about the power of the media? Furthermore, if the media has such power, does it also have a social responsibility? Be sure to explain your answer. Group 2: Think of an aspect of your culture that you cannot stand but that is still present in your daily life. What is it that you despise about it? Do you despise yourself for it? Discuss how you can accept or reject this cultural aspect and whether you can achieve peace with it. Group 3: Reread Diane Burns’ Sure You Can Ask Me a Personal Question. Describe in terms of empathy, understanding, and respect how each person will walk away from this conversation. What insights have you carried away from eavesdropping on this conversation? Group 4: Perry Brass’s I Think the New Teacher’s a Queer was published in 1986. Does it still ring true today? Suppose you find out that a teacher/professor you admire is gay. What effect would this have on your learning, your admiration for the person, and your feelings about yourself as a person? Do you think everyone in American society today would be fully in agreement with you? Why or why not? |
Wednesday, February 14th
Topics: Aliens; Reader Expectations
Short Essays Due:
Readings
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Portfolio Assignment
I will place you in groups for this portfolio assignment in class. If you did not come to class, please just pick and complete any one of the group assignments below. All assignments require one page of writing.
Group 1: After reading Margaret Atwood’s The Man from Mars, scan the story looking for explicit and implicit racial attitudes and beliefs held by all characters surrounding the oriental student. What picture is drawn of him? What purpose is served by the use of such an overwhelming racial stereotype? Group 2: In Becky Birtha’s Johnnieruth, how would you describe Johnnieruth’s self-esteem? Does she feel herself to be an alien? Could this be because she is fourteen years old and innocent or has she intuitively known something all along? Defend your conclusions with details from the story. Group 3: The moniker “alien” serves a purpose to societies that horde a homogeneous power. The U.S. government calls its immigrants by the official name of “aliens.” To those threatened, the word “alien” is a call to action. From the poem, list the many facets of the term “alien” that are stated and implied. To the “other” residents of Roseville, what does their use of alienation language reveal about “them”? Group 4: Reflect on the times you have excluded someone from your group. Be honest about yourself. What were your reasons for excluding the person? Were they justified? Now think if a time when you have been excluded. How did you feel? If you have never felt what its like to be excluded, why do you think that others have and you have not? Explain your answers while trying to discern that the true purpose of exclusion might be. |
Fences
Monday, February 19th
Topics: Fences; Conflict and Structure
Readings
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Portfolio Assignment
For this portfolio assignment, I would like you all to write a page in which you consider the following:
Sometimes passing down behavior from generation to generation can have a positive and/or a negative influence on an individual. Given this, list the ways in which cross-generational “fences” are mended or torn down in the play. Support your answer with specific examples from the play. Please make a special effort to be prepared to discuss your thoughts, with textual references for support, when we meet for class. |
Wednesday, February 21st
Topics: Fences; Conflict and Structure
Short Essays Due:
Readings
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Portfolio Assignment
I will place you in groups for this portfolio assignment in class. If you did not come to class, please just pick and complete any one of the group assignments below. All assignments require one page of writing.
Group 1: After reading James Seilsopour’s I Forgot the Words to the National Anthem, consider the following: In moral and legal terms, what are the differences between how the U.S. government and a segment of its citizenry treated Seilsopour’s family and the way they treated the Japanese-American population in World War II? In your opinion, to what degree are the differences significant? Group 2: Reread the last sentence of Laurence Thomas’ Next Life, I’ll Be White. Identify one group, other than African-American, that would serve as an example supporting the idea. Using your example, explain the motives (conscious or unconscious) for making the victims feel inadequate. In what ways can (and do) victims overcome their oppressors? Group 3: Living in the doorway allows the speaker of Pat Mora’s Sonrisas to observe two worlds. Is the speaker more familiar with one than with the other? From the poem, can you deduce which she would most likely step into if she had to? Why do you think so? Explain using specific details from the poem. Group 4: Research the race classifications of the colonial governments of Spain or England. Why were they so detailed? How do they influence modern-day race relations in former colonial nations? Choose one nation as an example. |
Crossing
Monday, February 26th
Topics: Crossing; Theme
Readings
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Portfolio Assignment
I will place you in groups for this portfolio assignment in class. If you did not come to class, please just pick and complete any one of the group assignments below. All assignments require one page of writing.
Group 1: Reread the last paragraph of Julia Alvarez’s Hold the Mayonaise. What would you do if you didn’t like what someone brought to the potluck dinner? Would you still eat it? If the potluck dinner is a metaphor for a family and the family is a metaphor for society, what are the author’s implications about handling cultural differences in our society? Discuss if you agree. Group 2: Gary Soto’s Like Mexicans seems to be giving advice that one should marry within one’s class status. What evidence can you find to support this conclusion? Would you agree or disagree with the advice? Give reasons for your answer. Group 3: Crossing over to another culture can be seen as brave and liberating, or as foolish and dangerous. Research the life of Pocahontas, who moved to England. Based on your research, decide whether her crossing was a brave and liberating act or a foolish and dangerous one. Group 4: Julia, the Elephant Man, and even Geronimo, the Apache warrior, all ended up as circus acts. What is it about “normal” culture that makes these people into monsters? |
Wednesday, February 28th
Topics: Crossing; Theme
Short Essays Due:
Readings
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Portfolio Assignment
I will place you in groups for this portfolio assignment in class. If you did not come to class, please just pick and complete any one of the group assignments below. All assignments require one page of writing.
Group 1: After reading Lynn Minton’s Is It Okay to Date Someone of Another Race?, find one opinion you strongly disagree with. Summarize it and explain why you feel so strongly against it. Group 2: In Tobias Wolff’s Say Yes, the last paragraph of the story can be described as sensual, and almost erotic. If the story is taken as a representation for black-white race issues, then the last paragraph is critical. The stereotype of “black” as erotica for “white” is old, persistent, and deeply ingrained in culture. Look for examples from popular culture (music, movies, television, ect.) that support this premise. Then decide if the last paragraph exposes or reinforces the stereotype. Discuss your findings. Group 3: Reread Juliet Kono’s Sashimi. Imagine that this poem is about a man trying to seduce a woman. Would your feelings toward the poem change? If so, explain in what ways, and why they would change. Group 4: After reading Gogisgi’s Song of the Breed, ask yourself the following: If you were a friend to the speaker, what suggestions could you offer on how to avoid getting hit? |
Spring Break
Monday, March 5th
Spring Break: No Class
Wednesday, March 7th
Spring Break: No Class
Americans
Monday, March 12th
Topics: Americans; Context
Readings
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Portfolio Assignment
I will place you in groups for this portfolio assignment in class. If you did not come to class, please just pick and complete any one of the group assignments below. All assignments require one page of writing.
Group 1: Do you think that the experiences of individuals growing up gay today are similar to those of Jesse G. Monteagudo’s in Miami, Florida? What changes or lack of changes can you infer from the similarities or differences? Group 2: Research the classes and the caste system in India. Determine if these beliefs are as strong today as they used to be. Are there indications of any changes in Bharati Mukherjee’s Hindus? Group 3: What factors, in your opinion, motivate immigrant parents to “Americanize” their children? List the factors implied in Pat Mora’s Immigrants and list your own factors. Which are negative ones? Which are positive ones? Is the processes of “Americanization” good or bad? Group 4: What point does the speaker hope to achieve in Richard Olivas’s [I’m sitting in my history class]? How does the humorous tone contribute to that point? |
Wednesday, March 14th
Topics: Americans; Context
Short Essays Due:
Readings
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Portfolio Assignment
I will place you in groups for this portfolio assignment in class. If you did not come to class, please just pick and complete any one of the group assignments below. All assignments require one page of writing.
Group 1: How did you feel when you started to read Lee Ki Chuck’s From Korea to Heaven County? Where you surprised by the language? How does the language in this narrative affect your perception of the speaker? Group 2: Write a one page essay defending either the Israeli or the Palestinian interpretation of who is right. Use as many factual details as possible. Group 3: How comfortable do you feel in expensive stores? Would you feel at home, for instance, in an expensive jewelry store (not the kind that would ever lower themselves to be found in a mall)? Or would you feel somehow like you should not be there? In comparison, how do you feel in a “cheap” mall store, like Claire’s or Gap? Group 4: Research the relationship between the United States and Mexico, focusing in particular on the history of legal and illegal migration into the United States. What did you find out? |
Beliefs
Monday, March 19th
Topics: Beliefs; Myth and Symbol
Readings
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Portfolio Assignment
I will place you in groups for this portfolio assignment in class. If you did not come to class, please just pick and complete any one of the group assignments below. All assignments require one page of writing.
Group 1: After reading Leonard Begay’s Beyond Sacred Mountains, consider the following: To Begay’s grandfather, education was important to survive in the white man’s world. If you flip the reasoning and imagine Begay as a white boy having a grandfather sending him to a Native-American reservation for his schooling, would you say that the reasoning still holds? What would he learn at the reservation that he wouldn’t learn otherwise? Would that knowledge help him become a successful adult? By what standard is being “successful” measured? Group 2: Choose a task such as sea-shell polishing, whittling, woodworking, planting, needlepoint, weaving, or some other activity usually associated with older people where your hands are busy at work. Have you ever spent an hour or more at a time performing any such tasks? What was the state of your mind like while your hands were busy? If you have never performed any of these tasks, what do you imagine your state of mind would be like? Even better, if you have time, consider trying whittling, needlepoint, or weaving for at least an hour, and then respond to this prompt immediately afterward. Group 3: Research the significance of the eagle to some Native-American cultures. How does that significance compare to the significance of the eagle to the U.S. government? For each culture, what does the eagle symbolize? If, in your opinion, this simultaneous use of the eagle by different and distinct cultures bears a strong sense of irony, explain what accounts for that irony. Group 4: Research the racial characteristics of the ancient Egyptians. Given these, why might European-American scholars and African-American scholars still hold different interpretations regarding this dead civilization’s race? |
Wednesday, March 21st
Topics: Beliefs; Myth and Symbol
Short Essays Due:
Readings
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Portfolio Assignment
I will place you in groups for this portfolio assignment in class. If you did not come to class, please just pick and complete any one of the group assignments below. All assignments require one page of writing.
Group 1: Apart from intimate love, no other cultural elements solicit a more emotionally charged passion than that of religious beliefs, especially opposing ones. Think of your experiences, or those of people you know, who have held religious beliefs in conflict with the expectations of those around them. Describe the actions and reactions of those involved. Emotionally, how would you characters these? What motivated these emotions? Group 2: On a scale of “feet on the ground to head in the clouds,” where is each man’s heart in Stephen Shu-Ning Liu’s My Father’s Martial Art? Who has the more realistic grip on life? Why do you think so? Use excerpts from the text to support your answer. Group 3: After reading, Walter K. Lew’s Leaving Seoul: 1953, research Seoul in 1953. Now, consider the following: Why does the speaker seem obsessed with urns? Why hasn’t he buried the ones he taps? Is the poem’s title a play on “soul”? How do any or all of these questions relate to what you found out happened in Seoul in 1953? Group 4: Why do you think Martin Luther King, Jr’s I Have a Dream speech was included in our anthology? In particular, why did the editors end this anthology, titled New Worlds of Literature, with King’s speech as their final literary selection? |
The Majority
Monday, March 26th
Topics: The Majority
Creative Project Presentations:
Readings
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Wednesday, March 28th
Topics: The Majority
Creative Project Presentations:
Readings
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The Courts
Monday, April 2nd
Topics: The Courts
Creative Project Presentations:
Readings
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Wednesday, April 4th
Topics: The Courts
Creative Project Presentations:
Readings
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Handouts
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Assignments Due
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Congress
Monday, April 9th
Topics: Congress
Creative Project Presentations:
Readings
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Wednesday, April 11th
Topics: Congress
Creative Project Presentations:
Readings
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Writing Workshop
Monday, April 16th
Topics: Effective Essay Writing
Creative Project Presentations:
Handouts
Wednesday, April 18th
Topics: Rough Draft Review
Handouts
Final Exam Week
Thursday, April 26th, 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Final Exam Period: In-Class Essay Exam
Friday, April 27th, 11:59 p.m
Seminar Paper Due: Upload to Elearning as a pdf or word document
Notes:
The main page for this class is here: ENGL 2220–Spring 2018
This calendar will be updated with new readings, assignments, and other information throughout the semester. Students will need to revisit this page often.
Individual Assignment Schedule:
All handouts: