your experiences, your memories, your knowledge from other literature, other courses, and other texts – are all very important to bring to your reading process
These experiences have shaped the way we see the world and our learning processes, that is what makes our work so special.
The labor we ask you to engage in with active reading and research in this book should be done in service to your real interests and passions
Readings that we are not interested in will also make us not interested in following assignments, resulting in poor performance.
In other words, the reader is not a robot or a passive bystander in the rhetorical situation below, but an active meaning-maker in conversation with the author of the text.
When you are writing, you are writing to an audience. It is important to be mindful of how you approaching them.
Around the country and the world you set aside race, class, age, language and nationality to demand respect for human dignity.
At the end of the day, we are all human, we all deserve to be equal and be respected despite our differences.
The truth does not change, and that is why the answers worked out long ago can help you find solutions to the challenges of our time
Change is constant, you can't settle with what America has given us. You have to keep fighting even after you get what you want.
The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society. You must use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it.
Voting is one simple act of change, yet it creates such a huge impact.
the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way.
The most simplest ways of protest can do so much more than big and violent ways.
Though I was surrounded by two loving parents, plenty of brothers, sisters and cousins, their love could not protect me from the unholy oppression waiting just outside that family circle.
Coming from a good family and community doesn't always ensure you safety and protection.
Emmett Till was my George Floyd. He was my Rayshard Brooks, Sandra Bland and Breonna Taylor. He was 14 when he was killed, and I was only 15 years old at the time. I will never ever forget the moment when it became so clear that he could easily have been me. In those days, fear constrained us like an imaginary prison, and troubling thoughts of potential brutality committed for no understandable reason were the bars.
He's comparing the acts of hate crime against black people in this time to now, implying that not many change has been implemented.
Is that fair? You’ve had access to WAY more than he has...would it be fair for a college toconsider only GPA and test scores in determining who deserves to get in?
Most people who come from areas/schools that are less privileged often have to do so much more than achieve good grades and test scores to prove themselves to colleges.
I deserved to get in too! Affirmative action is bullshit
White people hate to see anyone else but them winning. It's a sad fight of who's better to them.
I’m just sick of people suggesting African Americans still have it so hard these days. Idon’t care what SJ says, Manny. Your parents are totally proof that things are equal now
One African American person's success is not the equivalent to a white person's success. It also doesn't prove that all African Americans have the same opportunities as white people.
Sorry. It’s just—you’re completely oblivious to the struggles of anyone outside your littlesocial group
Many people believe that if someone's struggles do not relate to their own, then they shouldn't care. This is one factor in how cultural appropriation starts.
Shemar’s family and friends say he was agood dude, headed to college, active in his youth group...butthe cop claims he caught Shemar trying to steal a car. Ascuffle ensued (allegedly), and according to the police report,Shemar tried to grab the cop’s gun, so the cop shot Shemar inself-defense.
For someone whose job is to serve and protect our community, they do the complete opposite. Putting young teenagers in such trouble when they could handle it so easily, it conflicts so much trauma in them.
“You keep your mouth shut.” The cop squats and gets right inJustyce’s face. “I know your kind: punks like you wander the streets ofnice neighborhoods searching for prey. Just couldn’t resist the prettywhite girl who’d locked her keys in her car, could ya?”
This is a way the media can twist current events. Although this is coming from a police officer, he can report this to the media and that "truth" will be exposed to the public rather than the real truth.
“I’m not starting with anything, Justyce. Just sayin’ watch yourselfwith that one. That’s all.”That one.
I don't blame Justyce's mom for feeling this way about SJ
It’s quite the predicament: wanting to touch and hug and kiss awhite girl after a white man shot him and killed his best friend?
It becomes so hard for him to trust a white person after he witnessed his friend be killed by one.
Based on some of the “speculation” he’s heard—Manny threatened Garrett Tison, one of the boys threw something intoTison’s Suburban, Justyce had a gun, etc.—he’d rather not be seen.
False accusations and speculations like this are rooted in racism
In our top story, tragedy in Oak Ridge this afternoon, where twoyoung men in an SUV were shot at a traffic light
People will find anything to harm the black community, when they have no intention for harm towards others.
“I bet he’s totally profiling us right now. Probably thinks we’re drugdealers or something.”
If a white man were to be listening to the same music in the car, the man "profiling" the boys would think its just "kids having fun".
Other strategies, like mind mapping, may work better for visual learners
I am a visual learner, however I've never heard of mind mapping. Perhaps I'll look into it to help improve my pre-reading/reading strategies.
How does the author make moves to appeal to your emotions as a reader?
Emotions are a critical factor when reading and writing, it influences the way you engage with the material and how you write as well.
My own personal annotation process models not only my own process as a reader, but that all readers continue to use annotation and develop their own annotation strategies as a fundamental basis for other reading strategies, like asking questions, approaching difficulty, and learning socially.
I feel like this is why our hypothesis annotations are so important in this class, it helps everyone get a sense of what to look for and what other parts of the reading we can point out if they haven't been pointed out already.
When you are more active in your own reading process, you not only comprehend and retain the information better — reading becomes dynamic and interactive
Being active in your reading process helps you understand the material a lot better, for example, you can make more connections to the reading and yourself.
Readers can create meaning in any number of ways as they read actively
Everyone interprets the meaning of a text differently.
An important part of growing as a reader and writer is understanding who you are as a learner
By understanding who you are as a learner, you can find more readings and writings that would suit your learning style for you to be comfortable with.
nclude people who are affected by decisions in the decision-making
You cannot make a decision within a group, and leave out those who are/could be affected by it because then the decision would not be appropriate for said group.
work to recognize the contributions and skills that every person brings to the organization
Not only are you contributing to the pace of the group work this way, but you are also helping yourself focus on one task/skill at a time.
realize that being your own worst critic does not actually improve the work
Negatively criticizing your work does not improve your work because you convince yourself that you cannot perform better than what you are capable of.
grad students also be tryin too hard to sound smart, to write like the folk they be readin, instead of usin they own voices.
People expect graduate students to sound so professional, when in reality they still hold on to their native dialects or dialects they spoke growing up;
Even uni-versity presidents and highly regarded English professors dont always speak and write in the dominant standard, even when they believe they do.
All my professors speak to us the way they feel most comfortable in.
teach how language functions within and from various cultural perspectives.
This should be taught more in schools, rather than just learning how to speak the language.
“You just gotta use standard Eng-lish.” Yet, even folks with good jobs in the corporate world dont follow no standard English.
What even is "standard English"?
And that’s my exact argument, that we all should know everybody’s dialect, at least as many as we can, and be open to the mix of them in oral and written communication
Not everyone is comfortable to just sticking with one dialect or language, so we should all be open to others when they speak their own.
Standard language ideology is the belief that there is one set of dominant language rules that stem from a single dominant discourse (like standard English) that all writers and speakers of English must conform to in order to communicate effectively.
Having able to speak multiple languages does not mean you cannot communicate English well.
But dont nobody’s language, dialect, or style make them “vulnerable to preju-dice.” It’sATTITUDES.
People don't ask to be discriminated due to their languages, it's the racism in others that brings that behavior out.
Now you may think that it is ignorant to speak broken English
Someone's language or speech does not define their intelligience.
"For one long, the 30 minutes she would study for exams in high school just didn't cut it." (page 28)
I feel like high school doesn't teach us good studying or work ethic skills, so we have to figure it out all on our own in college.
"Like Barber, many students think it's essential to choose a major when applying to college." (page 29)
In college, we experience more things that might interest us than we might have in high school. A lot of people change majors in college as it differs from what they wanted in high school, and that is completely fine.
"To make ends meet, some students works a part-time job. But this can lead to problems as work can cut into study time and send grades plummeting." (page 29)
I am full time student and work a part time job but luckily both schedules don't interfere with each other. Unfortunately, I have encountered peers struggle with balancing the two.
"Tinto says students devote so much time to the admission process, they forget to focus on what lies ahead: challenging academic, living away from home . . ." (page 27)
During college application season, us students really only focus on the material we write about or send in to the colleges we want to go to. We tend to forget what's really important, which is actually being a student there.
"At age 18, I thought I had the world figured out" (page 27)
Turning 18 is a big deal, its often our first leap into independence which can lead to the belief that we're capable of doing anything because we have the title of being an adult.
"Having excelled both academically and socially at his small high school in rural New Hampshire, VanAdams expected more of the same thing in college. He was wrong." (page 27)
High school and college are very different from each other, I always believed college was going to be hard but it's been going a lot easier than high school for me.
Drawing on the work of other authors, thinkers, and speakers builds your credibility and helps you explore your thoughts about a topic from different angles and depths.
I often like to read other people's work to help myself explore different writing styles other than my own. Sometimes it gets tiring always writing the same way.
So do not rush this process, and enjoy exploring and sharing your thoughts with your audience
I think this is what takes so long for me when writing essays, I spend so much time trying to find really good evidence, and even longer trying to explain it as much and as best as I can.
Topic Sentences introduce sub-topics within a larger body of evidence relating to a larger topic.
Sub topics usually help me expand my reasoning on whatever I'm writing about. However, sometimes I feel like I can write too much at times.
Page 258, "This impression is due entirely to my prison studies." I remember in junior year, reading about how Malcolm picked up his English skills after spending so much time reading while he was incarcerated.
Page 263, "white men had indeed acted like the devils" We are always taught the general details about historical white men, but we never learn about their dark side. It has been revealed more in the past few years though.
Page 262,"I will never forget how shocked I was when I began reading about slavery's total horror. It made such an impact .." I felt the same way, we were never taught the true stories behind slavery in grade school. I had to learn from the Internet instead.
Page 265, last paragraph, "How is the black man going to get "civil rights" before he wins his human rights?" To this day, black lives are still fighting for both.
Page 263, second paragraph, "the collective white man had been actually nothing but a piratical opportunist who used Faustian machinations to make his own Christianity his initial wedge in criminal conquests." Conservatives often use Christianity to justify their racial and discriminatory beliefs.
Page 260 last paragraph,"The teachings of Mr.Muhammad stressed how history had been "whitened" - when white men had written history books, the black man simply had been left out." I've never learned anything about black history in school before besides the Civil Rights Movement. If I'm being honest, I didn't start learning much about it until quarantine where I started to educate myself about it.
I remember being sent to the comer of the classroom for "talking back" to the Anglo teacher when all I was trying to do was tell her how to pronounce my name.
I never understood why people wanted to become teachers when they would treat their students unfairly and make them uncomfortable.
We needed a language with which we could communicate with ourselves, a secret language
Why did they want to appear distinct?
At Pan American University, I and all Chicano students were required to take two speech classes. Their purpose: to get rid of our accents.
I'm glad that it's now to required to take an ethnic studies course across all CSU's. I'd love to embrace my culture, and learn about others as well.
We are robbed of our female being by the masculine plural.
Women are unable or scared to go out and do things on their own, without having the fear of a man hurting them.
Tve never seen anything as strong or as stubborn,
A lot of people say this about Gen Z nowadays, because we aren't afraid to stand up for equality and justice within our country.
"We're going to have to control your tongue,"
This reminds me of how we have freedom of speech in the U.S., but we are punished for when we speak out against the wrongdoings of this country.
At first I wrote what I thought to be wittilycrafted sentences, sentences that would finallyprove I had mastery over the English language
Because of the racial standards and stereotypes this country has, sometimes we have to go out of our way to prove that we are more than just what is said about us.
the fact that people in departmentstores, at banks, and in restaurants did not take herseriously, did not give her good service, pretendednot to understand her, or even acted as if they didnot hear her
I feel as if Americans believe immigrants have no common sense or knowledge of what is going around them, and they refuse to help them so they ignore them in hopes that they won't have to bothered by them.
When I was a teenager, sheused to have me call people on the phone andpretend I was she.
Being an immigrant in the U.S. not only affects you, but your children as well. This shapes their morals,beliefs and perspectives on the world.
mytranslation of her Chinese, which could certainlybe described as "watered down
Most of my translation from my native tongue is very watered down, I can't speak it or understand it fluently.
Why are there few Asian-Americansenrolled in creative writing programs? Why do somany Chinese students go into engineering?
Most Asian students are held to such high standards and often cannot pursue a career they personally want, but what their parents want or else they will be shunned out by them.
But they seem just as bad, as ifeverything is limited, includingpeople's perceptions of the limited-English speaker.
People in America who aren't fluent in English are treated as if their mind and perception of life is also as limited as their English speaking skills.
Introduce how this textbook and classroom activities will engage students in active learning as they read
The class activities we do aren't just an assignment we are required to complete, they help us make connections to our reading and become more aware of what to look for in our reading as well.
To reflect on your own learning styles and build strategies for reading and writing based on your individual learning process
Being able to grow as a student, and as a human being in general, requires us to be able to look back at our work and point out things we can work on and how we can improve on them so that way they can become better in our next piece of work.
Prepare your mindset to be flexible and open to new reading and writing situations in college
Writing styles and prompts in college are way different than what we were in high school, so it is important that we adapt to new circumstances in order to gain a better understanding of what we are doing in the class.
Engagement in Active Learning:
Although we may experience zoom fatigue, we do need to know when to be active and how to be active while learning.
As I learn from you, I guess you learn from me--
We all learn from each other, especially since this is such a smaller class, we accept help and criticism from each other to become better students and improve our work styles.
‘Co-teaching the class’ in various ways; breaking down power dynamics
You want us to understand the information well enough to the point where we are able to teach it to the class.
help me assess how well you are progressing, what areas we need to practice more, andwhere you may be especially engaged or stimulated positively by your learning
This shows that you care about equality within your students' learning experiences and want everyone to be on the same page before you move forward.
To earn an A, which shows evidence of self-directed learning and personal motivation toimprove and grow, you will meet the guidelines for a B AND agree with Dan to completean additional independent project OR teach a lesson of your choice to the class
This shows that you don't want students to just simply do the given assignments to pass the class, but for them to be able to interpret it on their own to help them understand the class in their own way.