Course Calendar (bookmark this document and consult it regularly for the week’s assignments)
Google Classroom: Check your emails for the invitation and please join asap!I will post all major assignments under “Coursework” in our google classroom. However, make sure to always check the course calendar first and foremost.
Course Description Together, we will humbly, courageously and voraciously consume literature from diverse authors that explores themes relevant to race and identity in the United States. Nobel laureate and African-American novelist Toni Morrison, writes that when teaching African-American literature, we search among students – black students, white students, and other students of color—for a way to talk about these things, a vocabulary that allows them to talk about race in a manner that is not diminishing, demeaning, or reductive. Race is a very difficult thing to talk about, because the conversation frequently ends up being patronizing, guilt-ridden, hostile, or resentful. But for those interested in the study of literature and the writing of literature, it is something you have to confront and think about. I would suggest we add “gender” and “ethnicity” to Morrison’s statement of the dancing around that goes on in the classroom when people talk about ethnicity, race, and/or gender. Because the classroom (even one online) is a public space in which we strive to present our “logical” and “unbiased” selves, I would like to encourage you to do some thinking about your own responses to the writers we read, and what aspects of your own backgrounds cause your intuitive reactions. For this unique experience we will share, we will have to be very upfront about “where we are coming from” and explore, rather than avoid, the politically-charged nature of the discussions. We will not be satisfied with simply observing our unfiltered responses, however. I will continually challenge you to engage in “close readings” of texts to support your arguments. During this course you will develop and sharpen your ability to think, read, and write critically. Together, we will observe formal qualities in the works alongside their historical context. No literature develops in a vacuum, nor is it read in one. The fact that we are studying “Native-American Literature,” “White Literature”, “African-American Literature” and more as separate groupings of American texts indicates that we recognize shared characteristics and context among the writers. I’d like for us to question that most basic assumption and return to it throughout the course. That is to say, that while we may be reading books by an African-American, or Native American, or white author, that book is not meant to be representative of the entire experience of that one author’s racial identity. How do we understand racial identity as both a collective, generalized experience and a unique and personal individual one? While we will take a more race-centered approach to studying identities, it won’t be exclusively such. I understand that students have many social identities that simultaneously intersect with race, and that these other identities may have varying degrees of significance and social power. Thus, this course is intentionally NOT titled “race in US literature” because we will often go beyond racial identity to explore sexuality, gender, class, etc… Essential Questions
What does it mean to be a member of a particular racial group?
What has more bearing on our identity: How we see ourselves or how others see us?
How does one’s race affect one’s experiences, opportunities, and access to power?
How do socio-historical forces shape one’s racial identity?
How do we understand racial identity as both a collective, generalized experience and a unique and personal individual one?
What is race? How does or should one perform one's racial identity?
What is your own relationship to your racial identity? How does it evolve over the course of the semester?
How does narrative perspective (i.e. the perspectives represented through stories) influence our understanding of people, places and events?
Assessments This course is an advanced elective and as such, it is modeled after a college-level seminar, which means that you, the students, do most of the talking as class time will be primarily discussion-based with some lecture from yours truly. In order for this course to be successful, you need to come to class having completed the readings and ready to engage in critical discourse. Late work on weekly reading responses will not be accepted given you won’t be able to participate in class without having done the reading. Lastly, this class will simulate a college-level seminar course in its approach to grading and involve the following five categories:
Weekly Reading Responses (20%)
I will assign short response assignments each week to help you be prepared for class discussions and ensure you have notes that you can easily reference. I will make an effort to avoid busy work at all costs!
For similar reasons as articulated above, I will drop the lowest reading response grade.
These will be graded simply based on completion-- did you do it or not?
Close Reading Analyses (40%)
For two of the novels we read, I’ll ask you to pick a passage or section that we haven’t discussed closely in class and write a concise but thorough analysis of 1-2 pages in length. This will be in lieu of the weekly reading response these weeks.
We may opt to do final seminars in addition to or instead of one of the writing assignments.
Late Work Late work on weekly reading responses will not be accepted given you won’t be able to participate in class without having done the reading. However, late work on your weekly journal reflections and close reading analyses will be accepted but l will automatically be docked 20% and accepted up to 5 class days after the deadline. If you miss class, it is your responsibility to check my DP, email me with any questions, and make up missed classwork. You will have the same amount of time as days you were absent to make up the work.
The 1 Extension Rule I will allow ONE extension this semester. You must email me no later than 6 pm the night before the deadline and provide a compelling reason for your request. Please anticipate absences due to family travel, extracurricular events, and plan accordingly by doing work ahead of time and thus avoid extension requests for those matters.
Expectations My expectations for you, the student:
Be prepared for class: Complete the assigned reading and responses and always have the texts and your notes easily accessible. Put away your phone and open a fresh browser to eliminate “tab overwhelm”.
Participate fully in class discussions: Be on-time, present, focused, and verbally-participatory. Know when to step up and step back. Take intellectual and emotional risks in order for us to have courageous conversations and think more expansively about our ideas about the texts and the world around us!
Be proactive about questions and concerns regarding class: I am approachable and open to feedback and want to make sure you are getting what you need to be successful in this class. I also know that this class may challenge all of us on both an intellectual and emotional level and if you want to either further process course content with me, or bring up concerns about the ways in which I or your classmates are approaching the topics, please reach out to me as soon as possible so we can work toward resolution together.
Read critically and with an open-mind: This means to question your own biases and assumptions as you read, as well as those of the authors.
Ask questions! The best class discussions are ones where YOUR questions and curiosities lead our discussion. Bring any and all questions to the table. There is absolutely NO such thing as a stupid question.
Reflect honestly: I will often have you engage in personal reflection. All I ask is that you strive for honesty and sincerity.
Challenge the single story: If it seems we are taking one author’s views as “gospel” for an entire group, speak up!
My responsibilities and commitments to you
Create a safe and inclusive space: We are covering some tough topics. I will do everything in my power to make our classroom a safe space where all voices are heard and respected.
Actively seek out and respond to constructive feedback: I will solicit formal feedback from you at least twice this semester and do my best to be approachable and responsive to student advocacy.
Provide a diversity of perspectives: I will endeavor to select a diverse array of sources from multiple perspectives to make sure we are thinking expansively and challenging our own biases and assumptions.
Provide meaningful and helpful feedback: I will give you honest and specific feedback on your written work throughout the semester to help you grow as a writer and thinker.
Be vulnerable and authentic: I will model both vulnerability and authenticity as we all contemplate our own racial identity and how it impacts the world around us in order to create a safe space for you to do the same.
Month-by-Month Calendar (definitely subject to change!) AugustWhiteness and Frameworks on Racial Identity Development
Excerpts from Waking Up White by Debby Irving, “White Fragility” by Robin Diangelo, Throughline podcast “The Invention of Race” and frameworks on racial identity development, George Lipsitz from The Possessiveness Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics
White People- MTV documentary
White Identity Development Framework
September Blackness, Racial Violence and Afrofuturism
Black Identity Development Framework
Art by Michael Dixon
Ta-nehisi Coates excerpts from Between the World and Me
Claudie Rankine’s “The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning”
Excerpt from Edward E. Curtis IV’s Islam in Black America: Identity, Liberation and Difference in African American Islamic Thought
Homegoing by Yaa Gyesi: Ghana, eighteenth century: two half sisters are born into different villages, each unaware of the other. One will marry an Englishman and lead a life of comfort in the palatial rooms of the Cape Coast Castle. The other will be captured in a raid on her village, imprisoned in the very same castle, and sold into slavery. One of Oprah’s Best Books of the Year and a PEN/Hemingway award winner, Homegoing follows the parallel paths of these sisters and their descendants through eight generations: from the Gold Coast to the plantations of Mississippi, from the American Civil War to Jazz Age Harlem. Yaa Gyasi’s extraordinary novel illuminates slavery’s troubled legacy both for those who were taken and those who stayed—and shows how the memory of captivity has been inscribed on the soul of our nation.
Ceremonyby Leslie Marmon Silko: Ceremony follows a half-Pueblo, half-white man named Tayo after his return from World War II. His white doctors say he is suffering from "battle fatigue," which would be called post-traumatic stress disorder today. In addition to Tayo's story in the present, the novel flashes back to his experiences before and during the war. A parallel story tells of a time when the Pueblo nation was threatened by a drought as punishment for listening to a practitioner of "witchery"; to redeem the people, Hummingbird and Green Bottle Fly must journey to the Fourth World to find Reed Woman.