SJUS 2010 Final Essay
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SJUS 2010 Final essay The prompt Make a convincing case for the community collaboration that you’d like to devote your time to in the winter and spring: • Who are your proposed partners, and what do they do? • In what ways is the work that they do genuine social justice work? • What do you bring to the collaboration that you believe will be valuable to it? Please post a 500-word draft to your learning journal by the start of class next week (Tuesday, Nov. 10). A 1,000-word final draft will be due after finals, on Tuesday the 24 th . We’ll present our 500-word drafts to one another in class on the 10 th and the 17 th . Each of you will have 4 minutes to present, which is approximately the amount of time it takes to present a 500-word piece of writing if you’re reading at a nice, understandable pace. (See the next page to find when you’re scheduled.) Some tips Think of your audience as your classmates, Keelie, John, and members of the community organization or other group with whom you propose to collaborate. The LLC segment of that audience is familiar with terms and concepts from our class, but they don’t really know about your proposed partners and their work. And though your partners know all about their work, they haven’t been part of our class conversations and they don’t know you as well as we do. So, in each section, make sure that you’re explaining yourself clearly enough to be understood by the members of your audience who bring the smallest amount of background knowledge. You could probably write simple answers to any of the three questions in the prompt pretty easily. But your purpose here isn’t simply to answer the questions. Rather, your purpose is to make a convincing case: i.e., a well-reasoned argument that reflects your growing understanding of the nature of social justice work and of how you can contribute to it meaningfully. So here are some tips to help you: Who are your proposed partners, and what do they do? To flesh out this section, don’t just tell us what issue your proposed partners work on (e.g., homelessness, immigration, etc.); explain the issue, concisely but in enough detail that we understand what makes it a social justice issue. Likewise, explain the specific work that your proposed partner’s do in some detail. You can likely find info about your partner’s work on their website; you may find info to explain the issue there, too, though you may also want to hunt around on the internet a bit. In what ways is the work that they do genuine social justice work? Some of you will work with community partners who do straight up, grassroots social justice work. But many of you will work with groups who are also, or even primarily, charitable organizations or policy advocates. Whatever the case, make sure that you use the concepts we’ve developed in class to explain where in the overlapping fields of social justice work, charitable work, and policy work your proposed partner falls, with a special emphasis on social justice. What do you bring to the collaboration that you believe will be valuable to it? You bring a lot more to your proposed collaboration than energy, some free time, and a willingness to work hard. You all have unique experiences, knowledges, talents, passions, and ambitions. So, in this section, talk about how those special qualities make you specially suited to advancing the work. Finally: A few of you are not partnering with existing, off-campus groups, but are instead launching actions of your own that will involve creating groups of students, etc., on campus. If that’s you, then adjust your answers accordingly, i.e., talk about the folks on campus you plan to mobilize, about what makes the action you’re proposing to launch a genuine social justice action, and about what you’ll bring to the collaboration as a leader. (See next page for schedule of presentations)
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The assignment for the SJUS final paper and the steps leading to it.
Transcript of SJUS 2010 Final Essay
SJUS 2010 Final essay
The prompt Make a convincing case for the community collaboration that you’d like to devote your time to in the winter and spring: • Who are your proposed partners, and what do they do? • In what ways is the work that they do genuine social justice work? • What do you bring to the collaboration that you believe will be valuable to it? Please post a 500-word draft to your learning journal by the start of class next week (Tuesday, Nov. 10). A 1,000-word final draft will be due after finals, on Tuesday the 24th. We’ll present our 500-word drafts to one another in class on the 10th and the 17th. Each of you will have 4 minutes to present, which is approximately the amount of time it takes to present a 500-word piece of writing if you’re reading at a nice, understandable pace. (See the next page to find when you’re scheduled.)
Some tips Think of your audience as your classmates, Keelie, John, and members of the community organization or other group with whom you propose to collaborate. The LLC segment of that audience is familiar with terms and concepts from our class, but they don’t really know about your proposed partners and their work. And though your partners know all about their work, they haven’t been part of our class conversations and they don’t know you as well as we do. So, in each section, make sure that you’re explaining yourself clearly enough to be understood by the members of your audience who bring the smallest amount of background knowledge. You could probably write simple answers to any of the three questions in the prompt pretty easily. But your purpose here isn’t simply to answer the questions. Rather, your purpose is to make a convincing case: i.e., a well-reasoned argument that reflects your growing understanding of the nature of social justice work and of how you can contribute to it meaningfully. So here are some tips to help you: Who are your proposed partners, and what do they do? To flesh out this section, don’t just tell us what issue your proposed partners work on (e.g., homelessness, immigration, etc.); explain the issue, concisely but in enough detail that we understand what makes it a social justice issue. Likewise, explain the specific work that your proposed partner’s do in some detail. You can likely find info about your partner’s work on their website; you may find info to explain the issue there, too, though you may also want to hunt around on the internet a bit. In what ways is the work that they do genuine social justice work? Some of you will work with community partners who do straight up, grassroots social justice work. But many of you will work with groups who are also, or even primarily, charitable organizations or policy advocates. Whatever the case, make sure that you use the concepts we’ve developed in class to explain where in the overlapping fields of social justice work, charitable work, and policy work your proposed partner falls, with a special emphasis on social justice. What do you bring to the collaboration that you believe will be valuable to it? You bring a lot more to your proposed collaboration than energy, some free time, and a willingness to work hard. You all have unique experiences, knowledges, talents, passions, and ambitions. So, in this section, talk about how those special qualities make you specially suited to advancing the work. Finally: A few of you are not partnering with existing, off-campus groups, but are instead launching actions of your own that will involve creating groups of students, etc., on campus. If that’s you, then adjust your answers accordingly, i.e., talk about the folks on campus you plan to mobilize, about what makes the action you’re proposing to launch a genuine social justice action, and about what you’ll bring to the collaboration as a leader.
(See next page for schedule of presentations)
Schedule of presentations Tuesday, November 10 Tuesday, November 17 Cassidy Ciera Grace Amado Ariel Chalen Katherine Rob Meg Randy Ally
Alexis Gabriela Tess Stephanie Jessica Andis Marie Brendan Ingrid Queen Abby
