IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR THE END OF THE SEMESTER

*********TOMORROW'S CLASS IS CANCELED********** (Wednesday APRIL 30)

Unfortunately, I have to cancel tomorrow's class, so our class meetings are now officially over.  We do not have class on Monday, May 5.  Before you work on your final essay, you should read and analyze Freire's "The Banking Concept of Education".  Here, again, is the link to that essay:

http://learning.writing101.net/wp-content/readings/freire_the_banking_concept_of_education.pdf

For your final essay, you will be writing an educational autobiography, which will be in letter form.  You will begin with "Dear Professor Carr" (or Dr. Carr, or Karen) and go on to write an in-depth examination of your educational history.  This should not be a simple chronology but, rather, an extensive look at the ways you were taught to think about learning, education, and the process of making meaning from/for your lives.  

You must refer to the articles that we have read for this section, which are found in the "Schooling" section of the textbook.  You must also work extensively with Freire's essay, by discussing the extent to which the "banking concept" was the pedagogical method employed by your teachers.  

The essay is due, via email, by Monday, May 12 at noon.

kcarr@ric.edu

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me.

Reading for Monday, April  14

Paolo Freire -- "The Banking Concept of Education"

http://www2.webster.edu/~corbetre/philosophy/education/freire/freire-2.html

there is no new reading for tomorrow, april 7.  we will be using your interviews in class, so make sure to have them with you.

for monday, april 7

interview and essay

the last step of the process before the essay is to conduct an interview with your parent(s), or the people who you live with who bought/rented your house/apartment.

interview questions . . .these are preliminary questions. feel free to add you own. the aim here is to go beyond simple answers and to work to engage the person in a conversation:

when, exactly, did you move here?

what made you choose this neighborhood?

what made you choose this particular house/apartment?

what do you like about the neighborhood?

what do you dislike about the neighborhood?

would you say that the house itself or the neighborhood is your primary reason for being there?

essay due on monday april 14

once you have conducted your interview, take everything you've done for this project -- from your early interviews with classmates about neighborhood, to your walking tour, to your search for public art -- and create an essay in which you work out an analysis of place and space, and the role it plays in shaping identity. this essay needs to examine space and place in considerable depth.

assignment for monday, march 31

street art

find some public art/street art and spend some time looking at it, and the surrounding neighborhood.  write a short essay about the art, as well as the neighborhood. what is the art communicating?  how does the art seem to fit into the surrounding neighborhood?  is it working with or against the identity of the neighborhood?   explain.  discuss the street art in the context of the banksy film and or the article about chicano murals.  

*****     *****

assignment for april 2

mapping your neighborhood and another

for this assignment, you will need to walk and map your own neighborhood, and another, unfamiliar neighborhood.  as you walk, you should be taking notes for both a map and an eventual longer piece which will explore your own relationship to place/space.

-begin by walking the perimeter of what you define as your neighborhood.  walk to the limits in every direction, and notice what, exactly, demarcates the edges of your neighborhood.  is it a physical change, an emotional one, both?

-walk at least 2 blocks (or their equivalent) past what you think of as the edge of your neighborhood.  notice your responses.  how/why do things feel different in this area?  

-identify any particular ideas you have about any aspect of your neighborhood as you walk along.  for instance, the house with the tall grass, that everyone from the neighborhood stays away from, or the house with the barking dogs, or the house that always leaves their trash cans out.  try to identify ways that you think about the people who represent a departure from the neighborhood norms, and from this thinking, develop an idea of what the norm is for your neighborhood.  once you have figured out your neighborhood norms, incorporate them into a key for your map, and make sure your map addresses the specifics if which houses/streets are seen as fitting the norm.

-- try to infer things about the history of the neighborhood from your walk through it.  

-as you walk both neighborhoods, make note of things like race, gender, age, social class, religion.  how do these demographics affect the way you see both neighborhoods, and their  boundaries?

--notice the art in both neighborhoods.  if there is none, mark its absence somehow on your map.  if there is art, make sure you include it on your map.

--notice the presence of absence of things like trees, fences, grocery stores, bodegas, liquor stores, and any other features of the neighborhood that distinguish it as a neighborhood.

Upcoming Assignments

For Monday, March 24:  Lopez:  "Caring for the Woods" (p.277)

Davis:  "Fortress Los Angeles:  the Militarization of Urban Space (p.287)

For Wednesday, March 26:  Cockcraft and Barnet-Sanchez: Signs from the Heart:  California Chicano Murals (p.303); Visual Essay, Banksy -- "The Most Honest Artform Available" (p.310)

For Monday, March 31:  walking tour of your neighborhood and another.  Maps

For Wednesday, April 2:  Interviews

For Monday April 7:  place essays due

Assignment for Wednesday March 19

Read the article entitled "Black Men and  Public Space", by Brent Staples http://themes2014.weebly.com/uploads/1/9/7/1/19711205/unjust_judgments.pdf

and Tina Ansa's, "the Center of the Universe" in Chapter 6 of  Reading Culture 

Write a short comparison (1-2 pages) of the different ways that each conceptualizes space in terms of its relationship to African-American identity.