APELC Class Notes
Objectives: APELCers wrote a rhetorical analysis and an argument.
So did you as the objective states, first and third. We talked over your impressions of your own work with the little time we had before you were dismissed. Highlight and score your essays for next class when you’ll figure your overall score after completing the multiple-choice section of the practice exam.
Nothing else, but here’s something interesting, I guess: “The goat woman: Chinese grandmother, 101, grows mystery horn on forehead”.
APELC Class Notes
Objective: APELCers completed a synthesis essay.
You did as stated in the objective. Highlight and score the essay yourself; bring it Thursday or Friday. You’ll bring the highlighted and scored rhetorical analysis and argument you’ll complete tomorrow then, too.
You have a process due next class.
See you then.
APELC Class Notes
Periods 2 and 4, we did the same as yesterday. What would Malcolm X think of the situation of black in America today? How would he regard our President? Here’s a brief piece about how one personality and activist is approaching State of the Black Union in 2010: “PBS host Smiley calls meeting to urge black agenda”.
McDonald’s apparently has a solution to issues of race that continue to plague us by appealing to its customers in their own communities: See 365 Black, McDonald’s Black consumer site, and its Asian consumer site, Myinspirasian.com. I kid you not.
Remember, the first draft of your worldview paper in the form of a four page (minimum) paragraph outline is due Monday, March 22, the day we get back from Spring Recess. Write your outlines in complete sentences, punctuated appropriately, to create topical paragraphs that explain content and ideas. Focus on worldview facts, for what will essentially be an encyclopedia article of your own creation from your various sources, and your evaluations; include narrative elements if possible.
For quotation and citation purposes use MLA Formatting and Style Guide at Purdue’s Online Writing Lab; in particular see:
Details for content and sign-up for presentations will be available when we return from our week off.
See you Monday.
APELC Class Notes
Objectives: AEPCLers 1) processed an autobiography, and 2) researched their worldviews.
We finished The Autobiography of Malcolm X today with little fanfare, first and third. Cody asked a question about race, pigmentation, and designation when he entered class that was relevant to our reading and connected to our discussion of identity last week nicely. It made me think of the following article “‘White African-American’ Suing N.J. Med School for Discrimination”. I’ve not been able to find any more on the story since it broke, but I did find the article that Serodio wrote that apparently escalated his trouble at AllaboutRace.com: “Africa 102: A more colorful view than black and white”. For even more, see the Wikipedia entry “African American”.
See you next week for the practice exam; don’t forget your Brady process.
APELC Class Notes
Periods 2 and 4, we did much the same as your peers in 1 and 3 yesterday. Check their notes for objectives and details.
Bailey in fourth handed me this opinion by George Will (”The Equity of Inequality”) the other day: “Lack of character often is just that, not a disability”. She astutely connected it to our discussion of identity last week; it’s very easy for us to become wrapped-up in our real and imagined deficiencies debilitaties and focus on them as a structure for our identities often dismissing behavior as a consequence of mere being. Thus do we explain to others, “Well, that’s just the way I am. I can’t help it”. Have a read.
See you Friday, kids.
APELC Class Notes
Objectives: APELCers 1) processed a correspondence, and 2) processed a correspondence.
We completed the process of the King text today which led to our continued examination of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, which we will complete next class. Several of you asked about the differences between theology of the Nation of Islam and that of true Islam: Dig this comparison at the Nation of Islam entry at Wikipedia and the chart at Beliefnet.
Trevor opened first period with a narrative of his visit to the Guggenheim with his folks over the Rodeo break. What he described defies logic (and, I would add, aesthetic or educational quality), and so I found this review that you might look over as you consider the questions “What is art, and what service does it provide in culture?”: “Tino Sehgal’s work proves that talk is cheap”.
We briefly discussed the epistemological and metaphysical consequences of the post-modernism that informed the art installation Trevor experienced, and later in the day I happened to come across this article which might inform the brief back and forth we enjoyed this morning in class: Warning: Your reality is out of date”.
See you next class. After we conclude our conversation with Malcolm X, we’ll head to the liberry for research.
Peace.
APELC Class Notes
Objective: APELCers framed a correspondence.
APELCers of all periods, we did as the objective states with the King text I assigned over the break and that some of you read. We’ll finish proofing it next class, and we’ll begin to close out The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
Since we didn’t finish examining King today, I’d combine today’s notes with those you take next class and just make them one set. And since I collected notes and reviews for periods 1 and 2 today, I’d place good money on my collecting notes for 3 and 4 next Monday. And, since we’ll be in the liberry half of the hour on Thursday and Friday, you should be able to guess which day I’ll be collecting notes for.
I did some looking and found the following article on the theology of Martin Luther King: “Writings show King as liberal Christian, rejecting literalism”. It’s worth reading, I think, if we’re to understand King’s ethos.
Read the letter for next class, and be through chapter 17 of our longer text.
REMINDER. Comments are now open, again. Use only your first name and the initial of your surname if you decide to comment.
APELC Class Notes
Second and fourth APELCers, we did the same as your peers yesterday. Again, discussion was robust and interesting. Really phenomenal effort with plenty of strained brains at the end of the short hour.
I looked for clips from Spike Lee’s Macolm X, which I mentioned was on BET the other night, and I found this dance scene from the beginning of the film. It’s wild and acrobatic; think back to our reading of Langston Hughes and Malcolm’s description of life in Harlem
And here’s an authentic piece of text from Malcolm X’s time, a clip from 1941’s Hellzapoppin’ with a groovy swing dance.
Dig!
Once again, your revisions for timed-writing 6 and cover sheets are due Monday by 3:30 pm.
- Writers must have conferred with me over their initial paper to submit a revision;
- Papers must be accompanied by a cover sheet detailing its writer’s revision process (under Class Materials)—no cop-outs;
- Papers must be typed and formatted according to MLA style guidelines (I mean it)—use the template (under Class Materials)—and should be no less than two and half pages and no more than three pages long;
- Cover sheets are to be attached to the revision, former on top of the latter, with one staple, horizontally, in the upper-left hand corner;
- Papers containing more than four obvious errors in conventions and usage for formal, written, academic English or that deviate from MLA style (including not embedding quotations) will lose 7% from the final grade (I have several style books you can reference.);
- Writers who did not confer with me over their initial drafts or who chose not to revise their essays must still submit a cover sheet, blank except for name, date, title, and initial score and “I choose not to revise timed-writing X” in number 4, signed;
- Revision scores will replace initial in-class scores if merited.
Finish The Autobiography of Malcolm X for next week. Otherwise, enjoy your weekend.
NOTE. Comments are now open, again. I didn’t realize they’d been closed, but if you decide to post, use only your first name and the initial of your surname.
APELC Class Notes
Objective: APELCers analyzed and evaluated concepts of identity.
Period 1 and 3 APELCers, we engaged the text from The Star today, and I asked you to focus on what the commentators had to say about Malcolm X and identity. First period was quite lively with numerous voices arguing various ideas with many questions unasked and comments unheard because we ran out of time.
Below’s the billboard we discussed at the beginning of class and the accompanying report from ABC News I referenced: “Abortion Billboards: Strong Words Spark Debate in Atlanta’s Black Neighborhoods”.
The Endangered Species Project (as it’s called TooManyAborted.com) is sponsored by The Radiance Foundation. It’s opposed by SisterSong, a group that promotes what it calls reproductive justice for women of color; this unrelated critical commentary appeared in the Indiana Daily Student: “Pro-lifers co-opt race”. You might read the following article from The New York Times with more stat data: “Anti-Abortion Ads Split Atlanta”.
What more do you think? Is the project racist? Sexist? How would our current subject of study react to this effort? (I’ll get Comments working again. I didn’t realize they were off.)
Don’t forget: Your revisions for timed-writing 6 and cover sheets are due Monday by 3:30 pm.
- Writers must have conferred with me over their initial paper to submit a revision;
- Papers must be accompanied by a cover sheet detailing its writer’s revision process (under Class Materials)—no cop-outs;
- Papers must be typed and formatted according to MLA style guidelines (I mean it)—use the template (under Class Materials)—and should be no less than two and half pages and no more than three pages long;
- Cover sheets are to be attached to the revision, former on top of the latter, with one staple, horizontally, in the upper-left hand corner;
- Papers containing more than four obvious errors in conventions and usage for formal, written, academic English or that deviate from MLA style (including not embedding quotations) will lose 7% from the final grade (I have several style books you can reference.);
- Writers who did not confer with me over their initial drafts or who chose not to revise their essays must still submit a cover sheet, blank except for name, date, title, and initial score and “I choose not to revise timed-writing X” in number 4, signed;
- Revision scores will replace initial in-class scores if merited.
We’ll complete The Autobiography of Malcolm X next week, so please read on over the long weekend.
Enjoy the Fiesta de los Vaqueros!
APELC Class Notes
Objective: APELCers processed an autobiography.
Of course, we’re not done with The Autobiography of Malcolm X yet, juniors and seniors. I said from the beginning we’d cover between four and five chapters a week, so I’m too far off the mark for what I asked you to accomplish today. Much of the narrative has become tedious; while it was pretty exciting, I think, to read of Malcolm’s life growing up in Boston and Harlem, he tends to repeat himself after his conversion. I want you to focus on the details of his transformation: Today, I wanted you to consider how he’d changed from his days as Detroit Red to his station as Minister Malcolm X. We’ll talk more about this next class and decide how his worldview changed, too, and we’ll discuss next week how the Minister Malcolm then transformed into Al-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz.
Here’s the embed of The Hate That Hate Produced, mentioned in chapter 14 of the book. It’s long but worth maybe spending some time with to contextualize the time.
Remember that your revisions and cover sheets of timed-writing 6 are due Monday by 3:30 pm.
- Writers must have conferred with me over their initial paper to submit a revision;
- Papers must be accompanied by a cover sheet detailing its writer’s revision process (under Class Materials)—no cop-outs;
- Papers must be typed and formatted according to MLA style guidelines (I mean it)—use the template (under Class Materials)—and should be no less than two and half pages and no more than three pages long;
- Cover sheets are to be attached to the revision, former on top of the latter, with one staple, horizontally, in the upper-left hand corner;
- Papers containing more than four obvious errors in conventions and usage for formal, written, academic English or that deviate from MLA style (including not embedding quotations) will lose 7% from the final grade (I have several style books you can reference.);
- Writers who did not confer with me over their initial drafts or who chose not to revise their essays must still submit a cover sheet, blank except for name, date, title, and initial score and “I choose not to revise timed-writing X” in number 4, signed;
- Revision scores will replace initial in-class scores if merited.
Don’t forget your article for next class.
See you then.
APELC Class Notes
Second and fourth juniors and seniors, we did the same as your peers the day before. Check their notes of objectives and details.
All APELCers, remember the following as you continue your research and writing:
Before asking clarifying questions of your interview subject in an email, please politely ask if they have the time and inclination to attend your needs. Don’t simply introduce yourself and the assignment and begin asking questions; rather, give your interview subject an opportunity to assent to or decline your request for information.
When completing your first draft/outlines write in complete sentences, punctuated appropriately, to create topical paragraphs that explain your worldview content and ideas. Focus on worldview facts and your evaluations; include narrative elements if possible, but the bulk of this can wait until after we return for spring break. Your submission should be no less than four (4) pages.
For important and current MLA formatting information, there’s no better resource than Purdue’s Online Writing Lab; in particular see:
- MLA Formatting and Style Guide
- MLA In-Text Citations: The Basics
- MLA Formatting Quotations
- MLA Works Cited Page: Basic Format
I’ll see you Monday.
NOTE. I added several assignments to your class page. Please note their due dates to avoid anxiety.
APELC Class Notes
Objectives: APELCers 1) processed an autobiography, and 2) researched their worldviews.
First and third juniors and seniors, we began to delve into Malcolm X’s worldview as a a Nation of Islam convert, and I asked you to evaluate the truth claims of Malcolm X and those of Elijah Muhammad he report (read official literature “A Brief History on the Origin of the Nation of Islam in America A Nation of Peace & Beauty”, and more from Wikipedia about the Nation of Islam’s beliefs and theology).
We spent the last half of the class in the liberry where I conferences with students over timed-writings and others researched and wrote.
Keep reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X and analyzing your worldview topics and organizing the information that answers the guiding questions coherently. You might consider “Criteria of truth” and “The Coherence Theory of Truth” for kicks as you read and write.
See you Monday.
APELC Class Notes
Second and fourth APELCers, we did the same as your peers yesterday. Check their notes for objectives and details. Remember to think over your timed-writing revisions carefully: Be aware of what the prompt is asking you to do, read the sources critically.
During discussion of the Staples text in fourth, Larren mentioned a controversy over a March 2008 Vogue magazine cover featuring Lebron James and Gisele Bundchen, which I’ve included below. Have a read of this article from The Telepgraph, “Race row over ‘King Kong’ Vogue cover”
How can you connect it to our reading of “Black Men and Public Space” and issues in The Autobiography of Malcolm X?
APELC Class Notes
Objectives: APELCers 1) processed an essay, and 2) reviewed their synthesis essays.
We reviewed the Staples text today and you had time to begin highlighting your recent timed-writings. We discussed the nature of the prompt and some student assumptions that informed less than desirable performance on the essays.
Also, first period’s Daniel ate 50 Chicken McNuggets and one and a half orders of large fries and he drank a large soft drink for lunch at McDonald’s. Then he ran eight miles. God bless you Daniel. You are the wind beneath my wings.
See you next class kids.
APELC Class Notes
Objective: APELCers processed an autobiography.
Juniors and seniors, I reviewed with you my observations of your performance on your most recent timed-writings before we returned to our discussion of The Autobiography of Malcolm X. I ended the period with this groovy clip, “The Known Universe Scientifically Rendered For All to See”, from the American Museum of Natural History which is related to both considerations about space exploration (from your timed-writing) and descriptions, explanations, and foundations (which we can connect to worldview in the autobiography you’re reading and your own research).
Trevor mentioned the multiverse theory, and I challenged him arguing that no evidence exists for such a world ensemble. If you watch the following (very popular) clip of an interview about the idea with physicist and string theorist Michio Kaku, you’ll hear him suggest that the science fiction of the multiverse is about to become “hard fact”. However, I encourage those interested to observe carefully the evidence in his arguments.
The notion of actual infinities as it pertains to cosmology also came up, as did M-Theory. (Also dig this two-part And BBC Documentaries program from a couple of years ago, “A Brief History of Infinity: Space and the Universe”.) I’ll not go into more here, but I highly recommend you dig into these resources yourself.
And briefly, in second period, we speculated about astrobiological evidence for extraterrestrial life, but I argued that no certain evidence has been found to suggest other organisms exist in the cosmos. Even Stephen Hawking asks, “Why Isn’t the Milky Way “Crawling With Self-Designing Mechanical or Biological Life?”. What about recent discoveries on Mars? Read “Life on Mars, continued” for more on this issue.
How is this related to English, again Girard? Remember that artificers and thinkers create in an effort to express their conceptions of reality, truth, beauty, morality, and more, and each artifact and each idea is an argument, an attempt to answer essential questions implied in these abstractions. Each argument is undergirded by assumptions, and it’s our task to observe, analyze, and evaluate both and craft our own to them responses through the written and spoken word.
Snap!
Come for the rest of your timed-writings tomorrow.
APELC Class Notes
Second and fourth juniors and seniors, we did the same as your peers yesterday. Please check their notes for objectives and details.
I’m encouraged watching this year’s project unfold; mostly I’m happy to see students sharing their worldviews with each other. Several times in the liberry, I’ve overheard APELCers explaining their various religious and secular beliefs to each other. Now, as you know, I’m the first to point out that worldviews necessarily contradict each other, and perhaps you’re discovering that the popular notion that “All belief is fundamentally the same, and systems vary only in their details” is actually false. However, sharing ideas respectfully is important to mitigating fear and suspicion of others and their understandings of the world.
Thank you Meg, Janet, Larren, Marissa, Sierra, and the rest of the Canyon Singers for their lovely serenade from my Valentine, Jean-Paul. It was terrific!
See you all on Monday.
APELC Class Notes
Objectives: APELCers 1) processed an autobiography, and 2) researched their worldviews.
First and third period APELCers, we discussed The Autobiography of Malcolm X today, the first several chapters that detail Malcolm’s boyhood and his lives in New York and Boston. I asked you to pinpoint transformational moments in his growth that affected his perceptions of himself and his world; we’re witnessing the foundations of Malcolm’s personal worldview according to which he’ll act and that’ll lead him to prison.
We spent the last half of the period in the liberry where you researched your worldviews. I reminded you where you should be in your process and I enumerated considerations you’ll need to attend as you reach out for interviews with experts or adherents.
Remember to tune-in for television gold tonight on channel 13 at 7:00 for the premier of Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains.
As I explained, watch Survivor to meet and observe every personality archetype you’ll meet in your life.
I’ll see you next class.
APELC Class Notes
Second and fourth APELCers, you completed the same work your peers did yesterday. It was all we could do with this, our second half day in a few weeks. Come by tomorrow (Thursday) afternoon to sign-up for a revision conference; I’ll have your papers back to you Friday in class.
Apropos of our prompt and my mention Monday of the film, here’s the trailer for Moon with Sam Rockwell. It’s a great movie that’ll engender many essential, existential questions; I heartily recommend it.
See you Friday.
APELC Class Notes
Objective: APELCers completed a synthesis essay.
Period 1 and 3 juniors and seniors, you completed your fifth timed-writing today (actually your ninth overall), and we had time to discuss your arguments and use of sources.
Here’s something fun. As you were working today, I was looking for photos of the crew of Apollo 11 (source G from your synthesis essay is an excerpt from Apollo 11’s command module pilot Michael Collins’ memoir of his days as an astronaut). Here’s the history-making crew in 1969, with commander Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin:
And here’s the crew in 2009 at “Celebrate Apollo”, the 40th Anniversary of the flight of Apollo 11 and the Apollo program, along with Christ Kraft, former NASA flight director and Director of the Johnson Space Center:
As I was looking through the Apollo Celebration Gallery, though, I came across a familiar face. I clicked on the third tab of the gallery and saw none other than former APELCer Simone Collins, apparent NASA fan and maybe a future astronaut, and two of her fellow Cavaliers who attended the celebration, too.
Go girl!
APELC Class Notes
Objective: APELCers framed a descriptive essay.
We had little time to tackle the entire Hughes piece today boys and girls, but we tried, and it generated some good discussion. Shayne in first period, I think offered the best text of the text, roughly (but embellished): “Black Americans aren’t novelty”. Also in first period, Riley astutely connected this to piece to the Miner text suggesting that Hughes criticized white curiosity-seekers who came to Harlem to observe its inhabitants in the same manner Miner criticized anthropologists disconnected observations of exotic cultures. Great stuff.
Here’s more on “The Magical Negro” stereotype and “The Noble Savage” archetype, and the original article by Richard Brookshier in National Review Online, “The Numinous Negro”.
Finally and serendipitously, here’s a piece from today’s New York Times, “Blacks Question Obama’s Approach to Race”. And here’re links to those comments (with video) by Hardball’s Chris Matthews: “Chris Matthews: ‘I Felt This Thrill Going Up My Leg’” As Obama Spoke and “Chris Matthews: ‘I Forgot Obama Was Black For An Hour’”.