Race & Ethnicity Open-ended Question
In Assignment 4, Short Survey About ETST 001 and its Topics, many members of this class mentioned something in the final open-ended question about how they became newly aware of various issues and intended to apply this knowledge. Some referenced specific things they wanted to apply, but most commentary was phrased in relatively general ways. Assignment 5 builds upon the last point and asks you to write about a few specific ideas you have for applying course concepts in your personal or professional lives.
Specifically, Assignment 5 asks you to write an “Applying Ethnic Studies” essay (you may use this title, but are encouraged to come up with something more creative) in which you translate course content including theories, specific examples from lectures, and ways of approaching education (e.g., what topics are (not) taught in K-12 education, what’s considered to be legitimate knowledge, how this ETST 001 class is designed) to specific things you aim to do such as ideas you plan to explore further, things you want to teach to others, actions you want to take, or approaches you plan to employ when you encounter racism or other –isms. Note that vague comments such as “I’m going to be more aware of ___” will not suffice for purposes of this assignment, as the intent is to reflect on specific actions or goals. Here are a few ideas of the sorts of things you might write about:
- future coursework or training you plan to pursue (in addition to formal opportunities that are actually called “training,” consider actions like attending certain types of events or reading about particular topics)
- what you think you’ll do the next time you encounter ____ (the blank is intended to reference major ideas from ETST 001. Some are negative such as overt and covert racism, settler colonialism, audism, and anti-blackness, but please also consider positive things such as reclamation, resurgence, and resistance)
- creative work you’d like to develop (many of you commented on the creative work that was featured in this class and how it influenced you)
- ways you intPostnd to approach public policy, whether through civic actions such as voting or engaging with elected representatives, or through more direct policy work
- how you’re going to (not) use language, or how you will socialize others, such as current or future peers and family members, to use language
- how you will guide others to approach topics in race and ethnicity (be sure that if you write about this, you do so in a way that references specific course content)
Assignment Rationale: The primary purpose of this assignment is to bring together course themes and to award you credit for actively thinking through the applicability of course concepts. Given that ETST 001, like most lower-division classes, is designed to have a final exam, this assignment is also intended to function in place of an exam.
Assignment Requirements: This 2–3 page double-spaced document should be submitted via the ETST 001 Canvas site. Be sure that your submission has your name and a clear description of the file (something like “ETST 001-Assignment 5”) in both the name of the file and at the top of the first page. A submission that is not clearly labeled in this way may not receive any credit. The first page should also include
- your section information
- the date
- if applicable, any additional information that your TA asks you to include
Beyond the clear heading as specified above, you may structure the essay as you wish (reflection essay, letter, blog entry, poem, etc.) but in addition to a general requirement of integrating topics from course lectures, readings, and discussions, there are two specific requirements regarding what to include:
- you must integrate and correctly cite at least one, ideally more, of the readings assigned during Weeks 7–9
- you must integrate specific material from at least one of the guest lectures that occurred during Weeks 7–9
(assignment 4 last question:
Please provide any comments you’d like about your survey answers or about the class overall.
answer: Recently, there have been many issues of discrimination against Asians, but most people are friendly. This lecture has taught me more about racial discrimination. If I can, I will choose race and ethnicity studies again)