Syllabi https://urbanresearchnetwork.org Urban Research-Based Action Network Thu, 08 Feb 2024 01:09:46 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.2 https://i0.wp.com/urbanresearchnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/cropped-URBAN.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 Syllabi https://urbanresearchnetwork.org 32 32 Ferguson Syllabus https://urbanresearchnetwork.org/ferguson-syllabus/ Tue, 23 Dec 2014 21:09:28 +0000 http://urbanresearchnetwork.org/?p=2669 Read more…]]> This syllabus focuses on the death of teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and the subsequent non-indictment of Darren Wilson, the police officer who killed him.  The syllabus was created for a first-year composition class by Evan Kindley, Visiting Instructor in the Department of Literature at Claremont McKenna College.  It is in part the result of crowd-sourced conversation that began on Facebook.

URBAN is thankful for the opportunity to share this syllabus.  In the spirit of providing the authentic context from which this syllabus was created, the email written by Mr. Kindley to his students is included.

Author(s):

Evan Kindley

Publication Date:

2014

 

Dear all,

As those of you who were in class on Tuesday know, I’ve decided to make one final slight change to the syllabus. In light of the response to the non-indictment of Darren Wilson in Ferguson, MO, I thought it would be a good time to revisit James Baldwin. A lot of Baldwin’s writings from the sixties and seventies are still, sadly, relevant (and he’s been mentioned and quoted frequently in literary journalism about Ferguson so far), but this one, which was first published in The Progressive in December 1962 and reprinted in longer form in Baldwin’s 1963 book “The Fire Next Time,” is especially apt:

James Baldwin:  A Letter to My Nephew

Please read this (it’s short) and we’ll discuss it on Tuesday.

I also wanted to send a few contemporary responses to the Ferguson situation which we can talk about in the context of both Baldwin’s essay and the reading we’ve been doing all semester. Here are three of the most interesting, provocative pieces I’ve seen, all published within the last week:

Jelani Cobb in The New Yorker:  Chronicle of a Riot Foretold

Roxane Gay in The Toast:  Only Words

Jamelle Bouie in Slate:  Michael Brown Wasn’t a Superhuman Demon

Those four essays (Baldwin, Cobb, Gay, and Bouie) are all required reading, and your Sunday response paper should be on one or more of those articles. But there’s been a lot of extraordinary and illuminating writing on Ferguson, and for those of you who are interested in reading more, here’s a list of recommended links.

 

Background/Reporting/Documents:

New York Times explainer [good for covering the basic facts]:  What Happened in Ferguson?

Darren Wilson’s testimony:  State of Missouri v. Darren Wilson:  Grand Jury Volume V, September 16, 2014

Wilson testimony [annotated]:  Officer Darren Wilson’s Grand Jury Testimony in Ferguson, Mo., Shooting

Annotated transcript of grand jury decision:  Ferguson grand jury decision: between the lines of the St Louis County prosecutor’s announcement

Joel Anderson at BuzzFeed [reporting on protests]:  “The World Should See This”

 

Essays/Personal Reactions:

Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Atlantic [on Barack Obama’s reaction]:  Barack Obama, Ferguson, and the Evidence of Things Unsaid

Jazmine Hughes [on how black parents are dealing with Ferguson]:  What Black Parents Tell Their Sons About the Police

Bijan Stephen [response from a young writer, not much older than all of you]:  I Will Only Bleed Here

Aaron Bady [a critique of the media coverage]:  Verbs

 

Legal analyses of Wilson testimony and grand jury decision:

Dara Lind at Vox:  Darren Wilson’s grand jury: too much evidence, too little supervision

Jeffrey Toobin for The New Yorker:  How Not to Use a Grand Jury

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo:  Making Sense of Darren Wilson’s Story

***

There you are. This is only a drop in a very big bucket, of course; there’s been much more written and will continue to be in the weeks and months ahead. (By the way, I’d be open to people doing a final paper on the various reactions to, and media coverage of, Ferguson; come see me during office hours next week if you think you’d like to try that.)

We’ll talk on Tuesday about the reading for the rest of the week and beyond, but expect to read the title essay of Leslie Jamison’s “The Empathy Exams” for Thursday.

All best, and take care,

Evan

]]> Civic Media: Collaborative Design Studio https://urbanresearchnetwork.org/civic-media-collaborative-design-studio/ Tue, 19 Nov 2013 18:43:01 +0000 http://urbanresearchnetwork.org/?p=1827 Read more…]]> The Civic Media: Codesign Studio provides a service-learning opportunity for students wherein they are organized into multidisciplinary, diverse teams that work together with a community partner to create civic media projects based on real-world needs. The studio is also a space for shared inquiry into the theory, history, best practices, and critiques of various approaches to community inclusion in iterative stages of project ideation, design, implementation, testing, and evaluation.

Read more here

Author(s):

Sasha Costanza-Chock

Publication Date:

2013

 

Image by Civic Media: Codesign Studio

]]> The Theory of Participatory Action Research https://urbanresearchnetwork.org/the-theory-of-participatory-action-research/ Fri, 08 Nov 2013 21:21:04 +0000 http://urbanresearchnetwork.org/?p=1131 Read more…]]> This course provides an introduction to the theory of participatory action research and more generally to competing ideas about the uses of social research to promote social change. Students will explore the epistemological foundation for action research, knowledge generation in action research, the role of the “friendly outsider,” action science and organizational learning, participatory evaluation and arguments for and against phronetic social science.

Read more here.

Author(s):

Dayna Cunningham

Larry Susskind

Publication Date:

2013

 

Image by Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Urban Studies and Planning 

]]> Outside the School Box https://urbanresearchnetwork.org/outside-the-school-box/ Fri, 25 Oct 2013 17:55:24 +0000 http://urbanresearchnetwork.org/?p=949 Read more…]]> This course explores historical and contemporary challenges involved in the policy and practice of viewing education more broadly than schooling alone. Students will explore several historical case studies, conceptual frames, and current policy challenges, culminating in a research project in service to the Norris Square community in Philadelphia.

Read more here.

Author(s):

Michael Johanek

Publication Date:

2013

 

Image by Penn GSE

]]> Civic & Community Engagement (in Urban Schools) Honors Course https://urbanresearchnetwork.org/civic-community-engagement-in-urban-schools-honors-course/ Fri, 25 Oct 2013 17:50:40 +0000 http://urbanresearchnetwork.org/?p=941 Read more…]]> This course was developed as a partnership between the education department at Penn State-Berks, The Penn State Educational Partnership Program’s Urban Teacher Leadership Program, and the school district of the city of Reading, PA. Themes explored in this course include: urban education, youth civic engagement, and action research. Students in the course engaged in service learning (mentoring middle and high school students) and action research. This syllabus may be particularly helpful for those interested in integrating action research into service-learning courses. The instructor for this course, Kira Baker-Doyle, is now Assistant Professor of Education and Director of Programs in Literacies, Technologies, and Citizenship Studies at the Arcadia University School of Education. For more information about this course, please contact her at bakerdoylek@arcadia.edu.

Read more here.

Author(s):

Kira Baker-Doyle

Publication Date:

2011

 

Image by Penn State Berks

]]> Guidebook for Designing Community-Based Courses https://urbanresearchnetwork.org/guidebook-for-designing-community-based-courses/ Thu, 24 Oct 2013 16:59:24 +0000 http://urbanresearchnetwork.org/?p=769 Read more…]]> Developed by the Cal Corps Public Service Center at the University of California, Berkeley, this handbook provides resources to assist scholars in creating, implementing, and strengthening engaged scholarship courses. Some of the resources include guiding questions to help practitioners in thinking through their own ideas. Themes related to community-engaged teaching, research, and service are explored.

Read more here.

Author(s):

Cathy Avila-Linn

Kathleen Rice

Suzan Akin

Publication Date:

2012

 

Image by University of California Berkeley Public Service Center

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