Assignment Guidelines
1) Final: Racial Narrative:
Students must reflect on their racial identity development and apply key concepts, theories, and ideas from the course material. Students are encouraged to draw on their experiences for this assignment; this is not a traditional autobiographical assignment. Students must engage with the course material to think through/describe the development of their racial identity. Students must answer: How has my racial identity shaped, impacted, and/or influenced my life? All course material (e.g. articles, text, poetry, videos) is fair game to help answer the prompt. When detailing your experiences, be specific and use examples. But keep in mind the largest criteria for the assignment is on how well students relate lived experience to concepts, ideas, and theories presented throughout the course.
*Note: I suggest students’ work on the final throughout the course of the semester jotting notes and reflecting on how each unit’s readings relate to your racial identity.
Guidelines and evaluation criteria:
1. The final should be between 5-6 pages in length, double- spaced, and 12inch font. Including a Reference page with cited sources (the Reference page does not count as one of the 5-6 pages).
2. Students must properly cite sources throughout the paper. Any citing method is acceptable, as long it is used consistently throughout the paper. **NOTE: Citation information for each article/book is available in APA format within the “APA Reference Sheet” Tab.
3. Material presented is in an organized and informative manner.
4. The paper clearly describes significant incidents or live experience related to the concepts/theories/ideas presented throughout the course
5. Demonstrates a clear understanding of key concepts and issues introduced in the paper.
6. Integrates course material, and demonstrates an understanding of material introduced.
7. Ability to apply and analyze course material in relation to your life experiences.
8. The paper should demonstrate that students have studied and reflected on the material covered throughout the course.
9. Demonstrates comprehension of the basic concepts, theories, and issues presented in the class (e.g. textbook, articles, videos, poems and short stories)
Below is a list of questions to incite your memory. These questions are NOT requirements for the paper, but heuristic in nature (i.e. questions to consider as you think through the project). Obviously this list will not be applicable to every life experience but will provide an understanding of the things I am looking for.
• How has race shaped your experiences, life chances, and sense of self?
• What type of privilege(s) have you gained because of historical consequences of racism and contemporary forms of structural racism embedded into the housing market, loans, inheritance, legacies, education system and the legal system? Describe this structural advantage or disadvantage.
• What has shaped the way that you racially identify yourself and others? What historical, social and political events impacted the way you racially identify?
• How does whiteness, a set of cultural practices that are usually unmarked and unnamed, manifest in your daily life? What are the consequences of this manifestation?
• How have other social identities and experiences, shaped and interacted with your race that make you feel out of place within your identified racial group? How does your race manifest with other social experiences of your gender, sexuality, class, ability, citizenship and so forth that complicate your racial experience?
• How does the history of race relations in the U.S. (or country of origin) emerge with your own experiences?
• How have your views or understanding of race relations been shaped by a binary view (black/white) of race in the U.S.? What challenges do other groups of color and poor whites make of the binary view of race?
• What does the role of law and ideological belief systems, like patriotism, have on race relations? How are these belief systems established and maintained?
