For Monday, July 25th

First thing: Great job on the presentations on Thursday! You set a high bar for the second set of students. We'll have the last set of presentations on Monday: Arslan, Assidiqal, Mandee, Anita, Nana, Adnan, Joseph, and Alex

Second: We’re nearly at the end of the course , and, as you make final preparations for the exam,[Edited Sat 7/23: there is no final exam for this class] I think it’s a good time to think about some broader issues as you all begin your college careers. The focus of the course has been on critical thinking, reading and writing, but the general idea has been what it takes to read and write successfully on the college level and beyond.

The closing assignment is to write a letter reflecting on 1) what you think you learned in this class, how you think you’re progressed as a writer, and how your interpretive skills have developed; and 2) your process of writing and researching the final paper. What did you learn? How was it?

This is due (obviously) Monday. Papers should be 2 pages typed in 12-point Times font, double spaced, stapled, with your name in the top left corner.

Also think about things that you are anxious or unsure of, as far as college goes. We’ll have a general discussion about these issues, and you can ask Yakeen and myself whatever you want about survival at City College.

Have a good weekend, everyone!

For Wednesday 7/13

Please read the sections in the coursepack on Emmett Till and James baldwin. Specifically, page 26 "Some History of Emmett Till" and pages 27-28 "Notes for Blues". Also read the handouts I gave out in class: Michele Wallace's "Notes for Blues" and James Baldwin's "Black English". Write down any questions you have about that or the bell hooks video from last night. Finally, think about your paper in terms of the our talk in class about analyzing context of works and identify how 3 different contexts relate to what you're researching and post them to your blog. Note: I'll ask you about them in class tomorrow also. Finally, as a reminder, we'll have a guest speaker tomorrow: Kazembe Balagun, so please be on time and bring questions for him! See you all tomorrow!

Prof. Williams

Monday 7/11/11

For tomorrow, please watch the following videos: bell hooks "On Cultural Criticism and transformation", part 1, part 2, part 3. Also continue working on your paper and look for sources that relate to one or more contexts related to your topic.

For Monday, July 11th

Please read the Roland Barthes essay I handed out titled "The Kitchen of Meaning", which is also available as a PDF. Again, using the "six habits of mind" and "notes toward a critical response" (coursepack pages 1-2), write at least a 2 paragraph response to Barthes and post it on your blog. Also continue working on your final project (the assignment sheet is now on the "assignments" page if you can't find it). Find and post at least 3 reviews or related articles on your intended subject if you haven't done so already and write and post a summary of one of them on your blog. (Note: one of the articles you find can be an interview or something besides a review, as long as it's related to what you're doing.) Next Monday and Tuesday we'll be doing more work on the final project in class, so you'll need to have a pretty good idea of what you want to do and at least have it narrowed down to a couple of options.

For Thursday 7/7

Please watch Michael Wesch's short Youtube video called "the Machine is Us/ing Us" and post a short response to it on your blog. (By the way, you don't need to actually listen to the video: there's just music in the background.) Use the "Six Habits of mind" for critical thinking (page 1 of your coursepack) and "Notes toward a personal response" (page 2 of the coursepack to guide you. Your response should be at least a paragraph. Note that you can also re-post videos/etc as part of your response to Wesch. Don't forget to also post the location of your closest public library branch and CUNY library branch to your blog. If you're getting stuck with Tumblr, try typing questions into Google for help. Don't forget to e-mail me the URL for your Tumblr blog and cc Yakeen on the e-mail. See the syllabus for our e-mails.