English

What Can One Person Do? Secondary Research Project

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to create a shareable educational

resource about a particular structural inequality. In it, you will 1) describe the structural inequality and 2) recommend at least 1 specific action people can take to help disrupt, dismantle, or otherwise work against that structure. There are 3 major components to this project: the resource itself, a 2-3 page reflection piece, and a Works Cited. Instructions for each can be found below. In doing this assignment, you’ll get the chance to:

• Synthesize information and ideas you’ve come across in the readings, conversations, and assignments.

• Reflect on how education can be a crucial component of being an active, engaged member of your community and of society as a whole.

• Produce a concrete resource that you can put out into the world about your topic.

Educational Resource Instructions For the resource itself, I’m giving you a fair amount of freedom. You have to create an educational resource, but the exact form it takes is really up to you. Some options people have done in the past:

• Write an editorial/article about your topic that could be submitted to a newspaper or other periodical. (You don’t have to actually submit it.)

• Create a brochure about your topic that can be printed and distributed.

• Create a short zine about your topic that can be printed and distributed.

• Produce a short podcast or video about your topic. • Create a blog post (with links for more info) about your topic. • Create a website about your topic. • Create an educational board game or video game about your topic. • Something else that you come up with (and get approved by me)

While you have a lot of freedom for the form of the project, there are certain criteria that all projects must meet. To get full credit your resource must:

• Be targeted towards a particular audience (likely a particular group of stakeholders for the issue)—Think about whom you want to reach. Who is likely to care about the issue if they learned about it? Who might be willing and able to take action?

o Your target audience should influence the form and language of the project. For example, you probably

wouldn’t create a video game if your target audience is Idaho congresspeople (or maybe you would?).

• Contain the following components 1. A short background on the situation. Explain what is going

on, how it’s unequal, and why we should care about it. 2. A description of the communities that are most impacted by

the issue and how they are impacted. This is related to the previous component; one way to make people care about an issue is to show them the harm it is causing to a particular group of people.

3. A description of at least 1 important cultural story or belief that helps sustain the conditions of inequality. As Schwalbe argues in Ch. 4—Arresting the Imagination, cultural stories are important. The stories our culture tells about particular groups or situations are part of what cause us to act in particular ways. (For example, people of color were once almost universally believed to be less intelligent than white people in the U.S. This contributed to the idea that they needed to be “cared for” and “saved from themselves,” as well as the idea that they were best suited for manual labor—some of the primary justifications for slavery.) Your job here is to identify at least one cultural belief that justifies or otherwise supports the structural inequality you are discussing.

4. Any other information that is useful to understanding the processes and forces through which it is sustained.

5. A “call to action”—i.e. an explanation of what can be done to change things and why that would be effective.

Reflection Instructions You must submit a 2-3 page reflection that addresses the following:

1. Identify one or two of your social identities and explain how they are related to the issue you explored.

2. How does this project relate to your sense of responsibility to your community?

3. Why did you choose the particular audience you chose? How did the choice of audience influence other choices (format, content, call to action, etc.)?

4. What other ways can someone can get involved or work to make a difference with this issue? (Beyond what you identify in your resource)

Required Sources You need to have at least 5 sources for your project. At least two sources should be assigned materials from class (videos, articles, etc.) to help you ground your project in the theoretical frameworks we’re developing this semester. Additionally, at least three sources should be sources that you found on your own through outside research.

Works Cited Instructions As with any work you create, you should cite any sources you use. You should create a Works Cited page—either as a separate document or attached it to the end of your reflection. I’m not picky about citation style; feel free to use APA, MLA, or Chicago Style for your citations. You can find information on best practices for citing sources here: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/ Evaluation As usual, your evaluation will be based on the PECS criteria: P: Your writing should have a clear Purpose E: Your writing should Engage meaningfully with course texts. C: Your writing should display Critical thought about the ideas you present. I want to see some of your own ideas and analysis rather than just summaries. S: You need to Support every argument you make.