• syllabus
• journal & portfolio assignment
• short essay assignment

• seminar paper suggestions

• Fiction:
  • Michael Anthony, Sandra Street
• Poetry:
  • Vanessa Howard, Escape the Ghettos of New York
  • Lorna Dee Cervantes, Freeway 280
  • Carter Revard, Driving in Oklahoma

Group 1:

• Research a location related to one of the locations in the readings or to the authors. For example, you look up information on a Caribbean island because one of the authors, Michael Anthony, is a Caribbean author.
• If your home was the location you researched, how would you feel about the perceptions outsiders are given of your home? Write a page in which you discuss those feelings. Make sure to reveal what the location was that you researched.

Group 2:

• Is the description of urban life in Escape the Ghettos of New York still relevant today? Would you consider the poem too tame today? Why or why not? Write a page in which you discuss your thoughts.

Group 3:

• Take a drive on the nearest freeway or have someone drive you. Drive (safely) for 15 minutes or so, and then get off the freeway and try to find a small country road. Alternatively, go on a mental drive instead in which you picture what you would expect to see on a small country road. How is home life different for people living in an urban environment versus along a country road? Use details that you observed on your expedition to write a page in which you discuss how urban versus home life is different.
• If you do not have time or do not feel safe driving in the sloppy winter weather, please feel free to just do this exercise in your mind and creatively imagine what your drive would have revealed. What details can you imagine that would capture what home is like for people living in the country versus in the city?

Group 4:

• The “trappings of home” can reflect a person’s way of life. They can also reveal a person’s state of mind. Write a page in which you describe the trappings of the place you call home.

• Fiction:
  • Amy Tan, A Pair of Tickets
• Poetry:
  • Agha Shahid Ali, Postcard from Kashmire
  • Elías Miguel Muñoz, Returning
• Essay:
  • Elise Sprunt Sheffield, The “Gentle Wholeness” of Home

Group 1:

• Find someone whom you feel has two “homes,” in any sense of the word. This can be yourself, a family member, or a friend. Interview them and try to understand how they cope with this experience of duality. Write a page reporting your findings.

Group 2:

• Look at old photographs of your childhood. Contrast the sharp images of the pictures to your feelings about your past. How are they compatible? In what ways are they not? What has caused a change, if any? Write a page discussing your attempts to reconcile your pictures with your feelings.

Group 3:

• Imagine yourself as a person on the brink of leaving your homeland for the United States. Just as you are making your decision, a close friend already there emails you Returning by Elías Miguel Muñoz. What do you suppose she is trying to tell you? Write a page using excerpts from the text in which you explain your inferences.

Group 4:

• Make a list of the features you like about your home community and another list of the features you dislike. What values about home do you hold as revealed by your lists? Your lists and your explanation of the values those lists reveal should be about a page.

•  Essay:
  • Merle Woo, Letter to Ma
• Poetry:
  • Simon J. Ortiz, My Father’s Song
  • Li-Young Lee, The Gift
  • Elías Miguel Muñoz, Little Sister Born in This Land

Group 1:

• Find examples in popular culture of stereotypes of Asian Americans. Now find examples of stereotypes in popular culture of African Americans. How are they similar? How are they different? How do individuals in each group maintain their personal sense of identity despite these stereotypes?

Group 2:

• Choose a Native-American group and research its oral traditions. What did you learn? In particular, can you find one specific example of a lesson being transmitted between generations? How does that compare to how modern America transmits lessons to younger generations?

Group 3:

• Read the last quote in the author’s biographical sketch prior to Li-Young Lee’s The Gift. Is this relevant information to the reader of the poem? Why or why not? Do you think the poet is fulfilling his hope?

Group 4:

• Repetition is a poetic device used for impact and effect. Read Elías Miguel Muñoz’s Little Sister Born in This Land while searching for the use of repetition. What impact does it have on you? Does the use of repetition in this poem add to or detract from your understanding of the poem? How so?

• Individual Response Schedule

• Essay:
  • Fenton Johnson, The Limitless Heart
• Poetry:
  • Simon J. Ortiz, Speaking
  • Rhoda Scwartz, Old Photographs
  • Naomi Long Madgett, Offspring

Group 1:

• Write your feelings about a group different from yourself with which you are not familiar. Think of a time when you visited a place frequented by that group of individuals, such as a Jewish temple, a Christian church, a gay establishment, a women’s club, a Latino neighborhood, ect. How did being there make you feel? Why?

Group 2:

• Remember the last time you were in the woods, far from urban life. Do you remember listening to the sounds of nature? What did you hear outside yourself? What did you hear inside yourself?

Group 3:

• Choose a member of your family other than yourself and look at several photographs of that person. Do you think you would be able to make a collage of pictures that would together illustrate to other people what your feelings are about that person? Would that be possible? Why or why not?

Group 4:

• Interview your parents or imagine in your mind how that interview would take place. For that interview, ask them what they wish for you. Make a list. Do your parents’ wishes reveal a strong presence of their plans for your life? How do you feel about their desires for who you should be?

• Fiction:
  • William Saroyan, Najari Levon’s Old Country Advice to the Young Americans on How to Live with a Snake
  • Maxine Hong Kingston, No Name Woman
• Poetry:
  • Maya Angelou, Africa
  • Ray A. Young Bear, in the first place of my life

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.?

• Individual Response Schedule

• Essay:
  • Margarita M. Engle, Digging for Roots
  • Judith Ortiz Cofer, More Room
• Poetry:
  • Lorna Dee Cervantes, Heritage
  • Linda Hogan, Heritage

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.

• Essay:
  • Richard Rodriguez, Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood
• Fiction:
  • Salli Benedict, Tahotahontanekentseratkerontakwenhakie
• Poetry:
  • Li-Young Lee, Persimmons
  • Ricardo Pau-Llosa, Foreign Language

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?

• Individual Response Schedule

• Essay:
  • Gloria Naylor, “Mommy, What Does ‘Nigger” Mean?”
  • Rudolph Chelminski, Next to Brzezinski, Chelminski’s a Cinch
• Poetry:
  • Louise Erdrich, Jacklight
  • Nora Dauenhauer, Tlingit Concrete Poem

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.

• creative project assignment
• final exam
• seminar paper
• analysis sandwich
• levels of abstraction

• Essay:
  • Jack G. Shaheen, The Media’s Image of Arabs
•  Fiction:
  • Neil Bissoondath, There Are a Lot of Ways to Die
• Poetry:
  • Diane Burns, Sure You Can Ask Me a Personal Question
  • Perry Brass, I Think the New Teacher’s a Queer

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?

• Individual Response Schedule

• Fiction:
  • Margaret Atwood, The Man from Mars
  • Becky Birtha, Johnnieruth
• Poetry:
  • Marcela Christine Lucero-Trujillo, Roseville, Minn., U.S.A.
  • Tato Laviera, tito madera smith

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.

• Drama:
  • August Wilson, Fences

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.

• Individual Response Schedule

• Essay:
  • James Seilsopour, I Forgot the Words to the National Anthem
  • Laurence Thomas, Next Life, I’ll Be White
• Poetry:
  • Pat Mora, Sonrisas
  • Madeline Coopsammy, In the Dungeon of My Skin

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.

• Essay:
  • Julia Alvarez, Hold the Mayonaise
  • Gary Soto, Like Mexicans
• Poetry:
  • Paula Gunn Allen, Pocahontas to Her English Husband, John Rolfe
  • Wendy Rose, Julia

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?

• Individual Response Schedule

• Essay:
  • Lynn Minton, Is It Okay to Date Someone of Another Race?
•  Fiction:
  • Tobias Wolff, Say Yes
• Poetry:
  • Juliet Kono, Sashimi
  • Gogisgi, Song of the Breed

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?

• Essay:
  • Jesse G. Monteagudo, Miami, Florida
• Fiction:
  • Bharati Mukherjee, Hindus
• Poetry:
  • Pat Mora, Immigrants
  • Richard Olivas, [I’m sitting in my history class]

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?

• Individual Response Schedule

• Essay:
  • Lee Ki Chuck, From Korea to Heaven Counry
  • Adrienne Rich, If Not with Others, How?
•  Fiction:
  • Toni Cade Bambara, The Lesson
• Poetry:
  • Jimmy Santiago Baca, So Mexicans Are Taking Jobs from Americans 

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?

• Essay:
  • Leonard Begay, Beyond Sacred Mountains
•  Fiction:
  • Toshio Mori, Abalone, Abalone
• Poetry:
  • N. Scott Momaday, The Eagle-Feather Fan
  • Ishmael Reed, I Am a Cowboy in the Boat of Ra

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?

• Individual Response Schedule

• Fiction:
  • Barry Taragan, Dominion
• Poetry:
  • Stephen Shu-Ning Liu, My Father’s Martial Art
  • Walter K. Lew, Leaving Seoul: 1953
•  Essay:
  • Martin Luther King, Jr., I Have a Dream

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?

• Individual Response Schedule

• Available on Elearning as “The Majority”:
  • Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (excerpts)
  • William Riker, “Social Choice and Constitutional Theory” (excerpt)
  • The Bill of Rights
  • Steven G. Gey, Religion and State (excerpts)
  • James Madison, “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments”
  • John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (excerpts)
• Read in Class (and available in Elearning):
  • Walt Whitman, One’s-Self I Sing and I Hear America Singing

• Individual Response Schedule

•  Continue Discussion of Monday’s readings
• Read in Class (and available in Elearning):
  • Walt Whitman, I Sing the Body Electric (excerpts) and Salut Au Monde! (excerpts)

• Individual Response Schedule

•  Available in Elearning as “Courts”:
  • The Civil War Amendments
  • Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
  • Griswold v. Connecticut
  • Romer v. Evans
• Optional but recommended listening:
  • More Perfect podcast: “The Political Thicket”

• Individual Response Schedule

•  Continue Discussion of Monday’s readings

• Final Paper Rubric
• Literary Essay Example (In Elearning)

• Folder containing all portfolio assignments
• Reading journal covering all readings from “Home” through “Beliefs”

• Individual Response Schedule

•  William Eskridge, Jr. and John Ferejohn, The Article I, Section 7 Game (In Elearning)

• Individual Response Schedule

•  Continue discussion of Monday’s readings
• Langston Hughes, “Harlem” (in Elearning)

• Individual Response Schedule

• final.exam.rubric
• final exam tips

• rainbow review