I've gotten a little behind on the blog... I'll definitely go back and comment on the community dialogues, and on the remaining Kluger questions from Monday.
Homework: Read to pg. 170 of Still Alive... we're not going to read the rest, actually. Annie, Kiyomi, Marcee, and Sarah Devine should each come up with a kickoff question for us to discuss. Consult Hart's questions for inspiration if needed.
Research: With the exception of one person whom I instructed otherwise, you all need to email me 5 additional annotated bibliographies by next Sunday (5/24). Don't make this busywork; you all have gaps in your research that call for specific kinds of sources. Remember, the first draft of the research paper is due the night of Thursday 5/28.
The Project: I'm not doing any handholding here. Time is short if you're going to get this done by the end of the quarter, so you need to divide responsibilities and get started immediately. I expect a progress update by Wednesday. You also need to help me figure out how I am supposed to assess you in terms of grades.
Exam: Regardless of whether you are eating the chocolate or elephant flavor of the exam, now is a good time to select which questions you want to answer in-class vs. take-home, etc. (The three questions are what is doing, what is a community, and what causes social/historical change... or was the first question about the ends justifying the means? We'll have to settle this on Monday.) And select the three people/positions you are going to compare for each dialogue or essay (two per question from this quarter, and a third one from previous quarters.) The in-class component will be on Friday, and the take-home component will be due by Sunday night (5/24).
Friday, May 15, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Questions for Class #20
Does suffering bring out the best in people, or the worst? Why/how?
Is it the responsibility of victims to tell their story, and if so, why?
Why is the Holocaust such a big deal to Americans? (Why so many movies, etc. etc.)
Is there a way to remember things that isn't "sentimental"? How?
Are some events impossible to tell/represent? If so, how do you represent them?
Reminder: post your group's response here if we didn't get a chance to talk about it yet
Reminder: Research prospectus to EEE dropbox--> Shared Student Files, Thursday 10:30 p.m. Either that or you need to put it in the Assignment Submission dropbox and email it your partner.
I will notify you of your conference time as soon as everyone signs up. For those who are doing Monday/Tuesday conferences, your prospectus is due Sunday night at 9:00 p.m. and I will notify you of the time, probably tomorrow.
Is it the responsibility of victims to tell their story, and if so, why?
Why is the Holocaust such a big deal to Americans? (Why so many movies, etc. etc.)
Is there a way to remember things that isn't "sentimental"? How?
Are some events impossible to tell/represent? If so, how do you represent them?
Reminder: post your group's response here if we didn't get a chance to talk about it yet
Reminder: Research prospectus to EEE dropbox--> Shared Student Files, Thursday 10:30 p.m. Either that or you need to put it in the Assignment Submission dropbox and email it your partner.
I will notify you of your conference time as soon as everyone signs up. For those who are doing Monday/Tuesday conferences, your prospectus is due Sunday night at 9:00 p.m. and I will notify you of the time, probably tomorrow.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Class #19 postgame
Read 15-69 of Kluger's Still Alive. Stephanie (lecture) and Elim (book) will do the kickoff.
You and your partner(s) should post 10-12 lines of dialogue below for your assigned characters on the subject of "what is a community/city/family/nation/swaraj/etc?"
Sign up for a Friday prospectus conference here. Please do this a.s.a.p!
Random: A new article about Jane Jacobs. One about cell phone usage in contemporary India. A radio broadcast about the politics of naming. A summer job for students interested in political doing. And an excellent lecture at UCI on Tuesday afternoon about "Asian-American Rhetoric."
Research Prospectus (due Thursday night at 9pm):
Write your prospectus in paragraph form. These are guidelines for what you should try to accomplish in each paragraph, but they're not necessarily in order, and they don't necessarily require equal space. You may notice that the sample prospectus I gave you before does all of these things, but in a completely different order. The purpose of this exercise is simply to create a preview of your research project so that you and I both know what we're getting into. You might also consider this. Shoot for 1 to 1.5 pages single-spaced.
Paragraph 1
-your topic (one aspect of this might be clarifying what your topic ISN'T)
-how it relates to the theories we've studied in Core this year
-the key research questions you will answer
-your preliminary hypothesis for answering them
-you might include some kind of section outline (in my first section, I will focus on X, in my second section on Y, in my third section on Z, etc.)
Paragraph 2:
-Summarize existing research on the topic
-Focus in particular on your shovel(s), since you won't have read most of the rest
-Even without having read all of the sources, indicate which you think will be most useful
-It might be appropriate to use short quotations from the shovel(s) here
Paragraph 3:
-Gaps in existing research (you don't need to have read everything to get a sense of this)
-Flaws/mistakes in existing research
-Disagreements in existing research
-It might be appropriate to use short quotations here
-How your paper will address these gaps/flaws/disagreements (model: think about how Savarkar does this)
-Your general timetable and plan of action (what's next, etc.)
Paragraph 4:
-Why is your research timely or important?
-Why should anyone care about your research?
You and your partner(s) should post 10-12 lines of dialogue below for your assigned characters on the subject of "what is a community/city/family/nation/swaraj/etc?"
Sign up for a Friday prospectus conference here. Please do this a.s.a.p!
Random: A new article about Jane Jacobs. One about cell phone usage in contemporary India. A radio broadcast about the politics of naming. A summer job for students interested in political doing. And an excellent lecture at UCI on Tuesday afternoon about "Asian-American Rhetoric."
Research Prospectus (due Thursday night at 9pm):
Write your prospectus in paragraph form. These are guidelines for what you should try to accomplish in each paragraph, but they're not necessarily in order, and they don't necessarily require equal space. You may notice that the sample prospectus I gave you before does all of these things, but in a completely different order. The purpose of this exercise is simply to create a preview of your research project so that you and I both know what we're getting into. You might also consider this. Shoot for 1 to 1.5 pages single-spaced.
Paragraph 1
-your topic (one aspect of this might be clarifying what your topic ISN'T)
-how it relates to the theories we've studied in Core this year
-the key research questions you will answer
-your preliminary hypothesis for answering them
-you might include some kind of section outline (in my first section, I will focus on X, in my second section on Y, in my third section on Z, etc.)
Paragraph 2:
-Summarize existing research on the topic
-Focus in particular on your shovel(s), since you won't have read most of the rest
-Even without having read all of the sources, indicate which you think will be most useful
-It might be appropriate to use short quotations from the shovel(s) here
Paragraph 3:
-Gaps in existing research (you don't need to have read everything to get a sense of this)
-Flaws/mistakes in existing research
-Disagreements in existing research
-It might be appropriate to use short quotations here
-How your paper will address these gaps/flaws/disagreements (model: think about how Savarkar does this)
-Your general timetable and plan of action (what's next, etc.)
Paragraph 4:
-Why is your research timely or important?
-Why should anyone care about your research?
Friday, May 8, 2009
Class #18 postgame
Post your research follow-up question to your name story here. (For example... my last name is Winter, which is a German name. I had always assumed this was because my folks were Polish Jews and at some earlier time they had a German landlord... i.e. that they were basically serfs owned by that landlord. But apparently it was very unusual for Jews to be serfs in their area; often they were small farmers or ran small businesses in town. So where does the name come from? I would want to follow up on who owned land in that part of the world, what the basic economic and legal structure was, etc.)
Annotated bibliographies due Sunday night via email... see instructions a couple of posts back
Read ch. 28 & 29 of the Course Guide, about research methods
The next kickoff will be Priya & Monique, about Chaturvedi's lecture on Monday.
You might also consider getting a head start on the Ruth Kluger book, as we will start reading it next week.
Annotated bibliographies due Sunday night via email... see instructions a couple of posts back
Read ch. 28 & 29 of the Course Guide, about research methods
The next kickoff will be Priya & Monique, about Chaturvedi's lecture on Monday.
You might also consider getting a head start on the Ruth Kluger book, as we will start reading it next week.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Class #17 postgame
-Check your sample set of annotated bibliographies against the works cited templates in EZ Writer (to make sure the citations are correct).
-Read Chaturvedi's essay about his first name Vinayak (CR 170-84).
-Find out a story about your first, middle, or last name or that of a family member. Better yet if the story reveals something about political/historical doing.
-Steve & Ivan will kickoff something about the essay, perhaps using one of these discussion questions if they like.
-And your annotated bibliographies are due on Sunday night (see next post below for instructions).
These are the HumCore writing director's comments about the ABs we read. (I shall have to endeavor to be a better person, but as for now I do in fact lack the trust requisite to giving 22 of you the password to the entire HumCore instructor webpage.)
Bibliography 1 (about Arnold Schwarzenegger):
There are ways that it could be argued that body building could serve as a kind of counterpublic (maybe) and that physical culture does tie to course themes (Swaraj as self-improvement, Hindutva on physical readiness, and Nazi body-consciousness). However, this student seems to be struggling without a well-defined central primary source or a sense of how to read a source like the film Pumping Iron rhetorically or as an implicit argument or a set of images that can be deconstructed. Given the fact that the student did find some scholarly sources, there might be hope for this project nonetheless. I'd grade it around the middle of the HCC grading continuum at a B-.
Bibliography 2 (about genetically modified foods):
Not only does this student seem to lack a set of texts or objects of study to interpret, this student also seems to want to write a policy paper and has merely assembled pro and con arguments. Even taking "making" as broadly defined as possible or treating food activists as a counterpublic, the paper seems borrowed from another context (perhaps a research paper from high school). I would want to discourage this student by giving a non-passing grade on this mini-assignment. No higher than a C-.
-Read Chaturvedi's essay about his first name Vinayak (CR 170-84).
-Find out a story about your first, middle, or last name or that of a family member. Better yet if the story reveals something about political/historical doing.
-Steve & Ivan will kickoff something about the essay, perhaps using one of these discussion questions if they like.
-And your annotated bibliographies are due on Sunday night (see next post below for instructions).
These are the HumCore writing director's comments about the ABs we read. (I shall have to endeavor to be a better person, but as for now I do in fact lack the trust requisite to giving 22 of you the password to the entire HumCore instructor webpage.)
Bibliography 1 (about Arnold Schwarzenegger):
There are ways that it could be argued that body building could serve as a kind of counterpublic (maybe) and that physical culture does tie to course themes (Swaraj as self-improvement, Hindutva on physical readiness, and Nazi body-consciousness). However, this student seems to be struggling without a well-defined central primary source or a sense of how to read a source like the film Pumping Iron rhetorically or as an implicit argument or a set of images that can be deconstructed. Given the fact that the student did find some scholarly sources, there might be hope for this project nonetheless. I'd grade it around the middle of the HCC grading continuum at a B-.
Bibliography 2 (about genetically modified foods):
Not only does this student seem to lack a set of texts or objects of study to interpret, this student also seems to want to write a policy paper and has merely assembled pro and con arguments. Even taking "making" as broadly defined as possible or treating food activists as a counterpublic, the paper seems borrowed from another context (perhaps a research paper from high school). I would want to discourage this student by giving a non-passing grade on this mini-assignment. No higher than a C-.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Class #16 postgame
It seems like every week we have one of those classes where we mostly just figure out what our upcoming schedule is. But those are useful days too. Anyhow, our next class on Wednesday will be half Virod and half annotated bibliographies. (It occurs to me that I should teach you how to do a proper works cited entry.)
Sample annotated bibliographies. We'll look at these in class on Wednesday. Click on the blue text for the annotations.
Basic guidelines for ABs: Summarize the thesis of the source in 1-3 sentences. Summarize its audience and purpose in 1 sentence. Discuss its relationship to your paper in 1-2 sentences (secondary source? primary source? how central? context? model? how does it relate to other sources... agrees? disagrees? reframes? etc.) Do this for at least one major primary source, two major secondary sources, and three secondary articles. But this may vary somewhat depending on your topic.
Read: C.R. 167-69 and answer your study question.
Note: In case this was bugging you, we are not going to do Discovery Task #6. It totally slipped my mind... turns out it's basically the same thing we did the day we were in the library.
Bonus: I recommend this excellent Malcolm Gladwell piece about strategies that underdogs use to defeat the more powerful (his examples range from David & Goliath to the full-court press in basketball)... I think this can relate to Gandhi & Savarkar.
Calendar:
5/10 = Sunday p.m. = Annotated Bibliographies due (email)
5/14 = Thursday p.m. = Research Prospectus (eee dropbox)
5/22 = Friday in class = Exam (substitute teacher)
5/27-6/5 = The Project = See reply below to view/add brainstorms
5/28 = Thursday p.m. = Working Draft of Rsch. Paper (dropbox)
6/13 = Saturday a.m. = Final Draft of Rsch. paper (turnitin.com)
Sample annotated bibliographies. We'll look at these in class on Wednesday. Click on the blue text for the annotations.
Basic guidelines for ABs: Summarize the thesis of the source in 1-3 sentences. Summarize its audience and purpose in 1 sentence. Discuss its relationship to your paper in 1-2 sentences (secondary source? primary source? how central? context? model? how does it relate to other sources... agrees? disagrees? reframes? etc.) Do this for at least one major primary source, two major secondary sources, and three secondary articles. But this may vary somewhat depending on your topic.
Read: C.R. 167-69 and answer your study question.
Note: In case this was bugging you, we are not going to do Discovery Task #6. It totally slipped my mind... turns out it's basically the same thing we did the day we were in the library.
Bonus: I recommend this excellent Malcolm Gladwell piece about strategies that underdogs use to defeat the more powerful (his examples range from David & Goliath to the full-court press in basketball)... I think this can relate to Gandhi & Savarkar.
Calendar:
5/10 = Sunday p.m. = Annotated Bibliographies due (email)
5/14 = Thursday p.m. = Research Prospectus (eee dropbox)
5/22 = Friday in class = Exam (substitute teacher)
5/27-6/5 = The Project = See reply below to view/add brainstorms
5/28 = Thursday p.m. = Working Draft of Rsch. Paper (dropbox)
6/13 = Saturday a.m. = Final Draft of Rsch. paper (turnitin.com)
Friday, May 1, 2009
Class #15 postgame
Post your Gandhi vs. Savarkar opinions here. (Which can make other intellectual comparisons like Luther vs. Kohlhaas, Guantanamo Bay, your revenge against the people who threw eggs at your dorm, whatever.) The question is whether the ends justify the means.
You should also read ch. 25-27 of the Course Guide, which will pertain to your research paper.
Over the weekend, I recommend that you skim through your top few research books and crack the best best one or two open and read them. Your research prospectus is due on Friday; see instructions below.
Rosa & Yen will do the next kickoff, about Chaturvedi's Monday lecture or something in the Savarkar text.
This book review gives some background on Indian religious history, specifically the idea that "Hinduism" is not one religion like Christianity or Islam, but rather a broad set of overlapping traditions.
Oh, and I am desperate for more suggestions for the Doing project. Thanks.
Research Prospectus (due Friday)
Write your prospectus in paragraph form. These are guidelines for what you should try to accomplish in each paragraph, but they're not necessarily in order, and they don't necessarily require equal space. You may notice that the sample prospectus I gave you before does all of these things, but in a completely different order. The purpose of this exercise is simply to create a preview of your research project so that you and I both know what we're getting into.
Paragraph 1
-your topic (one aspect of this might be clarifying what your topic ISN'T)
-how it relates to the theories we've studied in Core this year
-the key research questions you will answer
-your preliminary hypothesis for answering them
Paragraph 2:
-Summarize existing research on the topic
-Focus in particular on your shovel(s), since you won't have read most of the rest
-Even without having read all of the sources, indicate which you think will be most useful
-It might be appropriate to use short quotations from the shovel(s) here
Paragraph 3:
-Gaps in existing research (you don't need to have read everything to get a sense of this)
-Flaws/mistakes in existing research
-Disagreements in existing research
-It might be appropriate to use short quotations here
-How your paper will address these gaps/flaws/disagreements (model: think about how Savarkar does this)
-Your general timetable and plan of action (what's next, etc.)
Paragraph 4:
-Why is your research timely or important?
-Why should anyone care about your research?
You should also read ch. 25-27 of the Course Guide, which will pertain to your research paper.
Over the weekend, I recommend that you skim through your top few research books and crack the best best one or two open and read them. Your research prospectus is due on Friday; see instructions below.
Rosa & Yen will do the next kickoff, about Chaturvedi's Monday lecture or something in the Savarkar text.
This book review gives some background on Indian religious history, specifically the idea that "Hinduism" is not one religion like Christianity or Islam, but rather a broad set of overlapping traditions.
Oh, and I am desperate for more suggestions for the Doing project. Thanks.
Research Prospectus (due Friday)
Write your prospectus in paragraph form. These are guidelines for what you should try to accomplish in each paragraph, but they're not necessarily in order, and they don't necessarily require equal space. You may notice that the sample prospectus I gave you before does all of these things, but in a completely different order. The purpose of this exercise is simply to create a preview of your research project so that you and I both know what we're getting into.
Paragraph 1
-your topic (one aspect of this might be clarifying what your topic ISN'T)
-how it relates to the theories we've studied in Core this year
-the key research questions you will answer
-your preliminary hypothesis for answering them
Paragraph 2:
-Summarize existing research on the topic
-Focus in particular on your shovel(s), since you won't have read most of the rest
-Even without having read all of the sources, indicate which you think will be most useful
-It might be appropriate to use short quotations from the shovel(s) here
Paragraph 3:
-Gaps in existing research (you don't need to have read everything to get a sense of this)
-Flaws/mistakes in existing research
-Disagreements in existing research
-It might be appropriate to use short quotations here
-How your paper will address these gaps/flaws/disagreements (model: think about how Savarkar does this)
-Your general timetable and plan of action (what's next, etc.)
Paragraph 4:
-Why is your research timely or important?
-Why should anyone care about your research?
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