Contents
- 1 Module overview
- 2 Assignments
- 3 Lesson 2.1: Close Reading and Annotation
- 4 Lesson 2.2: Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow”
- 4.1 WATCH – Video Intro – Part 1
- 4.2 READ – Reading 2.2 – M. Alexander, “The New Jim Crow” – Part 1
- 4.3 COMPLETE – Self-assessment quiz #1
- 4.4 WATCH – Video overview – part 2
- 4.5 READ and ANNOTATE – Reading 2.3 – M. Alexander, “The New Jim crow” – Part 2
- 4.6 COMPLETE – Self-assessment quiz #2
- 4.7 COMPLETE – Discussion Board 2 – on the New Jim Crow
- 4.8 WRITE and UPLOAD – Response Paper 2
- 5 WATCH – Module 2 summary video
Module overview
By the end of this module, you will:
– become familiar with Michelle Alexander’s arguments about the “New Jim Crow”.
– have a basic working knowledge of fundamental political concepts, such as: race, state, power, ideology, and how they intersect in everyday life
– Identify key ideas across several readings and assigned materials
– have practiced text annotation of the assigned reading
– critically analyze assigned text and video material
Assignments
Assignments (Discussion Board posts and Reading Response papers) will always be due by Sunday, 11:59pm for each given week, unless otherwise noted. Read the description, then click on the title of the assignment to open it. You can navigate back to this page by using the navigation buttons at the top of the page, or by clicking the back button on your web browser.
Lesson 2.1: Close Reading and Annotation
Close reading is a SLOW, thoughtful, critical reading of a text that you want to understand well (this means, to understand some writing in all of its layers; to be able to explain to someone else what the reading was about, and to make your own judgements about it (do you agree with it, do you find problems with it, are there parts that you don’t understand, does it inspire you, or piss you off, etc.). To achieve such understanding, of the text, we have to understand the form of the text (how it is put together), its meanings, style. In other words, we have to annotate the text that we’re reading. To get you started, complete the following readings and assignments in order, from top to bottom.
WATCH – Intro video
Begin this module by watching this video I made, which will give an overview of the material in this module, as well as contain important points related to what we’re studying here:
WATCH – What is close reading?
Watch the following video, which explores what close-reading is all about. You will be asked about the strategies when completing upcoming assignments:
EST Time: 7 minutes
WATCH – How to annotate a reading
Text annotation is a crucial part of close reading. Watch the following video, which models one way of annotating texts. Pay attention to the techniques described in the video, because in the last part of this lesson, you will be annotating your first reading in this course:
EST Time: 4 minutes
COMPLETE – Reading 2.1 – annotating our first reading assignment!
This is the first text we’ll be studying in our course. It is an excerpt from Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow”.
Your assignment is to:
1. Do a careful close reading of this text.
2. Annotate this text. To annotate the reading:
– click on the file above to open it
3. Annotate the text using some of the strategies in the video above, or some of the strategies you have of your own.
Lesson 2.2: Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow”
In this lesson, we will begin our study of American politics by analyzing Michelle Alexander’s key arguments from her influential book The New Jim Crow. Again, I’d like to remind you to do the lesson by going all of the assignments in-order, chronologically, from top to bottom.
WATCH – Video Intro – Part 1
In this video, I give a general intro to the M. Alexander readings, while focusing on the first reading:
READ – Reading 2.2 – M. Alexander, “The New Jim Crow” – Part 1
COMPLETE – Self-assessment quiz #1
Let’s re-read the excerpt that you annotated in Lesson 1. This time, after you read the text, press the button below and take the self-assessment to review your understanding of M. Alexander’s basic arguments made in that excerpt:
WATCH – Video overview – part 2
READ and ANNOTATE – Reading 2.3 – M. Alexander, “The New Jim crow” – Part 2
After reading and annotating the excerpt, take the self-assessment quiz:
COMPLETE – Self-assessment quiz #2
COMPLETE – Discussion Board 2 – on the New Jim Crow
Let’s head over to the discussion boards:
And here’s part two of Discussion Board 2:
WRITE and UPLOAD – Response Paper 2
Answer the following question in your Response Paper for Module 2:
- What surprised your about the arguments M. Alexander is making?
Upload your paper by clicking on the link below:
https://www.dropbox.com/request/sF2dRPsTaACB7sdMAwEr
WATCH – Module 2 summary video
In this video, I summarize some of the key points I’d like to emphasize in the material covered in Module 2. This is a very useful video to watch when preparing for the exam:
