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. \u00a0The syllabus was created for a first-year composition class by Evan Kindley, Visiting Instructor in the Department of Literature at Claremont McKenna College. \u00a0It is in part the result of crowd-sourced conversation that began on Facebook.<\/p>\n
URBAN is thankful for the opportunity to share this syllabus. \u00a0In the spirit of providing the authentic context from which this syllabus was created, the email written by Mr. Kindley to his students is included.<\/p>\n
Evan Kindley<\/p>\n
2014<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dear all,<\/span><\/p>\n 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:<\/p>\n James Baldwin: \u00a0A Letter to My Nephew<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Please read this (it’s short) and we’ll discuss it on Tuesday.<\/p>\n 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:<\/p>\n Jelani Cobb in The New Yorker: \u00a0Chronicle of a Riot Foretold<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Roxane Gay in The Toast: \u00a0Only Words<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Jamelle Bouie in Slate: \u00a0Michael Brown Wasn\u2019t a Superhuman Demon<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n New York Times explainer [good for covering the basic facts]: \u00a0What Happened in Ferguson?<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Darren Wilson’s testimony: \u00a0State of Missouri v. Darren Wilson: \u00a0Grand Jury Volume V, September 16, 2014<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Wilson testimony [annotated]: \u00a0Officer Darren Wilson\u2019s Grand Jury Testimony in Ferguson, Mo., Shooting<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Annotated transcript of grand jury decision: \u00a0Ferguson grand jury decision: between the lines of the St Louis County prosecutor’s announcement<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Joel Anderson at BuzzFeed [reporting on protests]: \u00a0\u201cThe World Should See This\u201d<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Atlantic [on Barack Obama’s reaction]: \u00a0Barack Obama, Ferguson, and the Evidence of Things Unsaid<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Jazmine Hughes [on how black parents are dealing with Ferguson]: \u00a0What Black Parents Tell Their Sons About the Police<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Bijan Stephen [response from a young writer, not much older than all of you]: \u00a0I Will Only Bleed Here<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Aaron Bady [a critique of the media coverage]: \u00a0Verbs<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dara Lind at Vox: \u00a0Darren Wilson’s grand jury: too much evidence, too little supervision<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Jeffrey Toobin for The New Yorker: \u00a0How Not to Use a Grand Jury<\/em><\/a><\/p>\nBackground\/Reporting\/Documents:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Essays\/Personal Reactions:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Legal analyses of Wilson testimony and grand jury decision:<\/strong><\/h3>\n