Writing Across Cultures

LAB: 5-10 minute check in. Check in with your reading groups. How is your reading going? What issues do you think are interesting in the book? Which characters and scenes are most vivid or difficult? What questions or issues do you have? Discuss. At 7:40, please turn your attention to your portfolio. Portfolio PROMPT ideas: Challenge a stereotype (explore how a character's outer image reflects on his/her inner image, or explore how certain behaviors lead us--or a character--to judge that character's personality or future behavior, etc.) Write about an event that happens on one single day. Tell the story of  at least  3 characters who experience that event on that single day. Write a story/poem outside your identified culture (if you are Black, write from a White perspective, if you are Asian, write from a Black or Latino perspective, if you are female write from a male perspective, if you are straight write from a gay or lesbian perspective, etc.) Make a short film a...

Spike Lee  Directors like  Spike Lee  are encouraged to make films for a black audience. Many other actors, directors, and writers begin expanding the ground opened by blaxploitation films, while other black directors are searching for voices that include black experiences or culture, some assimilate the subject, like the most recent films: Black Panther (Ryan Coogler, 2018),  Moonlight (Barry Jenkins, 2016) and A Wrinkle in Time (Ava DuVernay, 2018), while others continue to examine Black cinema's traditional themes of racism, slavery and freedom ( Amistad (directed by Steven Spielberg, 1997),  Belle (Amma Asante, 2013), Dear White People (Justin Simien, 2014) Selma (Ava DuVernay, 2015), and Mudbound (Dee Rees, 2017) as just a few examples. In any case, Spike Lee 's films helped pave the way for black directors and writers in feature films. His films are often thoughtful, satiric, violent, and sexist. They represent the times in which they we...

Lab: (until 7: 50) It's not a lot of time, but please use the lab time to work on your portfolio or workshop something you've written. If this hasn't happened yet, make a schedule for yourself during our Feb. break to write (and complete the required reading). See prompts in the last few posts for ideas for your writing. Remember that the "epic theater" prompt is required. You could also create a draft to send off to Geva's upcoming playwriting contest (March 1 deadline). Remember that you are graded for your behavior during the lab. If the class doesn't use the time to write, we'll use it for other stuff. At 7:45 please go to the classroom to conclude The Caucasian Chalk Circle . When we complete the play, please get together in your small reading groups based on your chosen book: Song of Solomon  by  Toni Morrison   Manchild in the Promised Land  by  Claude Brown  Native Son  by  Richard Wright   The Color of Water  by...

Lab: Please use the lab time to work on your portfolio. See prompts in the last few posts for ideas for your writing. Remember that the "epic theater" prompt is required. You could also create a draft to send off to Geva's upcoming playwriting contest (March 1 deadline). If you didn't read the articles/poems last class please do so now. At the end of period 1 (about 8:05) please go to the library to pick up one of the following book choices for our unit (there will only be 5 copies of each text...first come, first served): Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (literary/magical realism; identity/family) Manchild in the Promised Land by Claude Brown (realistic fictional memoir; gangs/crime) Native Son by Richard Wright (literary/suspense/crime fiction; ethics, social issues) The Color of Water by James McBride (non-fiction memoir; identity/family) We'll begin working with your chosen book next class. Please read chapter 1 of the book you chose, and...

Lab: Period 1 Morning reading task:  please read the following short articles about key political ideas concerning race and culture.  Consider some of the following prompts: Respond to Lincoln's statement that "no man is good enough to govern another man, without that other's consent."  Consider how we, as citizens, give tacit (silent) consent to others in our lives by not speaking out, or examine the history of hypocrisy of the American government. Are people or certain hegemonies or cultures equal? Examine why there are inequalities in our society? How does pop culture and/or media contribute to or fight this inequality? Is our government, as Thoreau feared, the agent of injustice? Explore the idea. How and/or why? Do you have a personal story that you can relate? Tell it. How should the government or governmental institutions (like education, for example) get out of people's way to allow them to flourish? Dream of a conversation between Thoreau, Linco...

Lab: Period 1 Morning reading task: please read the following short articles about key ideas involving race from a variety of thinkers: Adam Ferguson's "Mankind Have Always Wandered or Settled...In Troops and Companies", W.E.B. DuBois' "The Problem of the 20th Century is the Problem of the Color Line", Paul Gilroy's "There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack", and Elijah Anderson's "The Ghetto is Where the Black People Live." Consider some of the following prompts: Examine an area of human or cultural progress and explain the social cost of this progress (Ferguson) Is Ferguson correct in stating that "commercial growth is driven by self-interest...happening at the expense of traditional values or cooperation"? How might we advocate an issue (for example concerning race) of civic spirit, encouraging people to act in the interest of society rather than self-interest. Respond to W.E.B. DuBois' ideas. Have thi...

Period 1: We will hold our socratic seminar on the book The Distance Between Us . After our discussion, we will continue reading The Caucasian Chalk Circle . See information on Bertold Brecht and epic theater in the post below. Period 2: Caucasian Chalk Circle , etc. Prompt: Find a contemporary issue, perhaps one on race, minorities, class struggle, or clashes with ethnicity. Using Brecht's characteristics of epic theater, write a story or play that utilizes some of these elements. Bring your ideas to our lab next class to work on. We will start looking at some Sociology and Political Science to help inspire you. Bring your play scripts back with you next class. HOMEWORK: None. See the prompt above and prepare to write next class.