How To Rise: January 18, 2018

Focus: What's the best way to rise up in social power?

1. Warming up with a quick recap of 1st Semester Grammar

2. Considering your own stances on rising up in social power

3. Reading Booker T. Washington and/or W.E.B. DuBois

• Before you read: Just looking at the titles, what do you predict Washington and DuBois are each going to argue? How will their arguments oppose each other?

• As you read, mark up any lines that respond to our focus question of the day: What's the best way to rise up in social power?

• Click HERE to listen to Washington deliver the "Atlanta Compromise."

• After you read, summarize Washington's or Dubois' argument in a single sentence. What's his purpose in writing this speech/essay?

4.  Find someone who read the same speech/essay that you did and talk through it:

• Which parts did you understand? Explain them to each other.
• Which parts confused you? Form questions about them and talk through them.
• Which THREE lines were the most central to this text? Why?

HW:
1. Make sure your packet (except for the very last essay) has been read and annotated;if you typed your Ethnic Notions reflection sheet, make sure it's in your shared folder. I'll hold mini-conferences with you next week on these.

2. If you were rusty on today's grammar review, look back through your old grammar lessons from first semester. This semester, we will build on the grammar you've already learned.

3. Consider purchasing your own copy of the play, Fences. Some people find it much easier to mark up their own copy than to keep separate notes.

Confronting Dangerous Stereotypes: January 17, 2018

Focus: What power do 19th century stereotypes hold?

(Shortened Class Period)

1. Warming up by testing your pre-existing background knowledge on 19th century stereotypes

• Turn to the Ethnic Notions reflection sheet on page 19 in your blue packet.

• Or, if you'd prefer to type, click here, make a copy, and save in your folder.

• What do you already know about these stereotypes?

2. Viewing an award-winning documentary and understanding the underlying dangers of black stereotypes

• Warning of graphic image 20 and 22 minutes in, after "offense to civilization" and watermelon images.

• Skip from 26 to 42 min.

3.  Discussing historical stereotypes in small groups/as a class (if time allows)


HW:
Finish responding to the questions at the bottom of your Ethnic Notions reflection sheet if yo did not finish in class.

If you're feeling stuck, here are some links that might help get you thinking:
Comments on Michelle Obama
2016 Prison Statistics
Aunt Jemima and other Commercial Objects
Little Black Sambo (look at what it's used for and the comments underneath)
Tom and Jerry cartoon and discussion of Amazon warning
Children's Songs with Racist Histories

The Myth of the Happy Slave: January 16, 2018

Focus: What is the power in telling your own story?

1. Warming up with three good things, a short reading quiz on the Jacobs narrative, and your first week of Academic Character Traits

2. Questioning the myth of the happy slave

The myth of the happy slave: 19th century and early 20th century images

• Make a copy of this and save it in your "Race and Power" folder.

• Look carefully at the depictions of slaves in these images. What details strike you?

• What story of slavery do these images tell, and how?

• Why do you think these images were so popular (well into the 20th century)?

• Open the slavery images from Wednesday. Flip back and forth between those images and these. What is problematic about the myth of the happy slave?

Frederick Douglass addresses the danger of the "happy slave" image

Children's book promotes the happy slave

3. Discussing "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" in grid groups (click HERE if you'd prefer to type)

Topic #1: Myth vs. Reality
Each member of the group picks one line from Harriet Jacobs' narrative that undercuts (exposes the falseness) of one of the images from the warm-up. Read the lines aloud, look at the images, and discuss what happens when the myth is partnered with the reality.

Topic #2: Your Questions
Pose a Level 1, 2, or 3 question about "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" to your group. Focus on the parts of the text you most wish to discuss.

Topic #3: The Power of Telling Your Own Story
Brainstorm as many reasons as you can as to why it was significant that Douglass and Jacobs told their own stories. What is the power of their particular narratives, and of all slave narratives?

4. Updating your virtue charts--how'd you do this week?

HW:
1. If you fell behind in the reading or rushed through it, please (re)read any pages from Douglass and Jacobs that you missed. After today, hopefully the importance of reading their narratives is beginning to sink in.

2. Take a look over last semester's grammar; we're going to do a little first semester review.

From Slave to Man: January 12, 2018

Focus: How does a person reclaim power?

1. Warming up with Academic Character reminders, updating your virtue chart, and your first Friday freewrite of 2018: MLK, Jr. and The Strength To Love

2. Exploring a painting by a different Douglas: "Into Bondage," by Aaron Douglas

*Make yourself a document for "In-class Thoughts" and place it inside your "Race and Power" folder.

Which part of the painting is your eye drawn to? In other words, what's the focal point? Why?

How would you describe the patterns of color in this painting?

If this painting tells a story, what's the story?

Describe one aspect of the painting you find symbolic and explain what you think it symbolizes.

Which figure in this painting best captures Frederick Douglass before his battle with Mr. Covey? How so? Find one line from Chapter 10 that shows your thinking here.

Which figure in this painting best captures Douglass after his battle with Mr. Covey? How so? Find one line from Chapter 10 that shows your thinking here (be ready to read your line out loud).

3. Understanding how Douglass empowered others: Check out what he did after he escaped!

History (video)

Bio (video)

Frederick Douglass Honor Society (website--scroll down a little)

4. Observing the life of a female slave: Reading Harriet Jacobs' "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" and marking up lines that reveal anything about power dynamics:

• How is Harriet (the narrator) disempowered? 
• Why is she disempowered?
• How are the master and mistress empowered? How are they disempowered?
• According to Jacobs, "Slavery is bad for men, but it is far more terrible for women." What do you think she means by this? How does her narrative compare to Douglass's?

HW:

Please finish reading and annotating Harriet Jacobs' "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" by Tuesday. Since we're not keeping blogs or having graded discussions on these excerpts, you will have a short reading quiz on the Douglass and Jacobs narratives on Tuesday.

From Man to Slave: January 11, 2018

Focus: What does it take to disempower a human?

Please turn in your signed class policies.

1. Warming up with original excerpts from slaves, slave owners, 19th century documents, and historians (travelling groups of 3-4) with this reflection sheet

2. Following up with discussions of yesterday's images, today's quotations, and last night's Douglass reading:

• How were slaves physically disempowered?
• How were slaves socially disempowered?
• How were slaves mentally/emotionally disempowered?

• Tricky question: How did slavery also disempower slave masters? In other words, what did the practice of slavery take away from the slave owners? Take a look at Chapter 6 in Douglass.

3. Getting set up for Chapter 10 by exploring at least 4 definitions of the word "root"

4. Reading Chapter 10 together, marking up lines that reference...

• The root: Which definition best applies to the root's role in this chapter?
• Power lost and gained

5. Quick exit ticket: Completing the Thursday column of your virtue chart

HW:

If we did not finish reading and annotating Chapter 10 in Douglass, please finish it tonight.

Powerful Narratives of the Disempowered: January 10, 2018

Focus: What does it take to disempower a human?

1. Warming up with the Wednesday column of your virtue chart and a brief recap of yesterday's Empathy Quiz results :

• Consider adding an "empathy practice" to your virtue chart if you don't already have one, or use one to modify one of your virtue explanations).

• If you didn't get to read your "empathy quiz" results yesterday, have a look at "6 Habits of Highly Empathetic People."

2. Observing images of slavery

Inside your 2nd semester folder, make a folder that has the words "race" and "power" somewhere in the title.

Inside that folder, save the Google slide presentation above (images of slavery).

Peruse the images at your own speed. Underneath each one, make some notes on your specific observations of each image:

• What are you looking at in each one? What details strike you? What story is being told here?
• Which images surprise you/are new to you?
• What is your reaction to each one?
• What does each image reveal about the practice of slavery?
• What do the images reveal about specific ways in which slaves were disempowered?

3. Starting the first chapter of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

• Mark up lines that connect to the images/quotations from today's class.

• Mark up lines that respond to our focus question: What does it take to disempower a human being?

• Mark up lines where you feel empathy for Douglass.

HW:
1. Signed class syllabus due tomorrow (Thursday, Jan 11).

2. Finish reading the Chapters 1 and 6 in Douglass (through page 5 in your packet) annotating for passages that reveal something about power, disempowerment, and/or hegemony in the practice of slavery.

Kicking off the New Year! January 9, 2018

Focus: Are you powerful? Are you empathetic?

1. Warming up with three good things (or more)

2. Enjoying a lightening round of "Yes, No, Maybe" with follow-up Grid Group discussions

• Topic #1: Which practices (from these slides) empower you and how?
• Topic #2: Which practices disempower you and how?
• Topic #3: How would you define "power"?

3. Witnessing Benjamin Franklin's attempt to find power in perfection: Rationalism and Franklin's 13 virtues

4. Setting up your own virtue charts, which you'll be keeping until January 31

• Set up a 2nd Semester folder inside your American Lit folder.

• Start a document called "Virtue Chart" and place it in your 2nd semester folder.

• Click here to check out mine (feel free to use it as a template if you wish).

• A few suggestions on your virtue charts:

• When choosing verbs, go with "I will..." (studies show this leads to greater success in attaining goals).
• Explain carefully what each goal personally means to you.
• Aim for goals that empower you.
• Be specific in your expectations; make them as measurable as you can.

5. Perusing the second semester syllabus and website

6. Considering empathy vs. sympathy

• Watch this short, animated video to start forming a definition of empathy. 

• Take this Berkley quiz to find out how empathetic you are and read the results.

• Use the results explanation from the quiz to add at least ONE GOAL to your "Virtue Chart"that involves practicing empathy.

HW:

1. Please have your parents/guardians sign the class syllabus. Due Thursday, Jan 11.

2. Consider purchasing your own copies of Fences (August Wilson) and The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald).