“If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”
African American Activist Kwame Ture made this remark about racism, but the same thing can be said about any form of oppression. Often we wonder, what can we do? Let's take a hard look at this important question! Though many of us may only be able to contribute in small ways, by working together we can actually make some significant positive changes.
Each group should identify an issue related to prejudice and discrimination and design an action plan to address that issue.
Your plan should be one that:
Each group will present its plan during class on either December 8 or 10.
Each group will turn in a collaborative paper for a grade by December 11.
Each individual student must turn in to me a separate page detailing what specific contributions she or he made to the group effort, e.g., what part you wrote up, what reading or research you did, what role you played in your groups, etc.
After everyone agrees on and has written down matching notes on all of the five parts, assign individual group members to write up and type up specific parts. As a group, look the whole thing over to be sure the parts all flow together. You should turn in a unified essay that is collaboratively written.
Your Action Plan (oral and written) must include:
(Based on assignments originally developed by Drs. Beverly Daniel Tatum, Sharon Boyd-Jackson and Emily K. Filardo, Mount Holyoke College.)
Asking yourself the following questions will help to clarify your ideas. Be sure you include your responses to these questions in your write-up of your Action Plan and in your group presentation of it.
Note that your Action Plan carries significant weight in your grade. You will receive a grade that reflects both your collective and individual work.
Experience tells me that sometimes students don't recognize that they are expected to gather concrete information, which requires work outside of the time you spend in class working in your group.
Example: If, to carry out your plan you will need to do things through student government, department or college administrators, or community groups, agencies, or politicians, I expect you to find out whom exactly you would need to contact, what are the rules and procedures required, etc. This may involve phone calls, looking at some procedural documents, etc. Include in your plan what investigation or research you did.
Example: If, to carry out your plan, you will need funds for Xeroxing, renting sound equipment, etc., you need to investigate in order to make a reasonable estimate of how much you would need. Include in you plan how you have investigated expenses and how you would get that money.
In other words, this is a fun but serious project. It requires thought, reading and conversation with others. But, because you are working in groups, you can divide up the work.
Think how many hours each of you would spend writing a final research paper. At least 10, 15 or more hours?
I think that if you work together, each of you will not need to spend more than 4 to 5 hours outside class doing the reading and planning for your part of the project.
You will need probably another 2 to 3 hours outside class to meet or talk by phone.
You will each need perhaps 2 to 3 hours each outside of class to write up your individual section.
You will need to meet for 1 to 2 hours to put together your pieces so that you have one unified esssay to turn in for your whole group.
That's a total about 9 to 13 hours per person outside of class work.
I'm looking forward to seeing your group presentations and reading your essays. I think you'll enjoy them too. I hope you find this effort to be a highlight of the semester!
This exercise was contributed by Kathryn Russell.