Document Type

Lesson/Unit Plans and Activities

Publication Date

Spring 2020

Department

Anthropology

Abstract

While adhering to the course learning objectives, the final project for my Ethnic Studies 100: Race and Ethnicity in America course has transformed into an opportunity for students to grapple with the pandemic through the critical lens they build on this quarter. It asks them to center their myriad experiences as CSUSB students and use them as guides to engage with their choice of an academic text from the course. Ethnic Studies, a discipline that emerged out of political movements that addressed systemic racism at the level of higher education, requires us to transcend the banking models of education that view instructors as repositories of knowledge, knowledge that is then delivered to students unidirectionally. This project, titled “Living a Pandemic” is inspired by bell hooks and her efforts to understand engaged pedagogy as “a site of resistance.”[1] It is designed for students to reexamine the readings from the quarter and apply the theoretical ideas stemming from these pieces to the world in which they are embedded. Considering COVID-19 has disproportionately targeted communities of color, it is imperative that students apply a racial analysis to critically examine the ways systems of oppression operate today. This project encourages this form of engagement and also allows for creative liberties so students can express themselves in nontraditional formats, including poetry, short stories, artwork, and reflection pieces. Each student is asked to submit their project to one of five “chapters” provided by the instructor. With students’ consent, the instructor compiles each of these submissions into a “mini-book” that gets shared with the entire class. Students are able to view each other’s submissions and the ways their expressions coalesce around certain themes. It becomes a traveling archive of ES 100 that students can draw from in their future explorations in Ethnic Studies and beyond.

[1] hooks, bell. 1994. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York, NY: Routledge. 21.

Comments

I'm unclear about who will be able to view this submission. Is it just our CSUSB community or will people be able to search for it on Google Scholar, for example, who are located outside of our institution?

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