Welcome back! I hope you're ready for the home stretch! We're going to spend April writing and researching and reading Alice Walker's The Color Purple. We started this morning. Angel and I read up to page 11 maybe? In the later class we read up to page 21. In the early class we sprinkled our reading with references to Alice Walker: A Life. It was a great discussion. Most students brought their books. Homework is to find references to share Tuesday. Students were also told to look up The Color Purple on http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/purple/and read about the characters and plot. We will be responding to the study guide questions on Thursdays in the Writing Center. We will also respond to questions in the freewrites and in groups.

Research Paper
We will talk about this in class; however, the research paper will be on a Social Entrepreneur, an artist, who uses his or her work for social change. The person has to be alive and has to have been practicing his or her craft for minimally 10 years, though more would be great. This requirement is negotiable if you can present a convincing argument. The person has to be alive and in Northern California.

Students need to do a library search for potential prospects, then complete an initial research plan. Locate 10 sources both primary and secondary. Students are expected to locate material from at least three genres: print, web, multimedia such as radio, TV. I'd like students to visit the artist's gallery and arrange an interview, if possible.

Alice Walker is an example of a social entrepreneur. She uses her work as a vehicle for social change. I got a really great essay she wrote on the first day of spring. I have pasted in the comment section. I will give you a schedule for the research components this week. Do not procrastinate!

Fences and other field trips
I mentioned the play, Fences, as our next outing, but I have a conflict next 4/11. I want to suggest an event at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts 4/12. It is a collaboration between two fabulous women led dance companies. Saturday there will be an artist talk with one of the directors, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, of Urban Bush Women, at 6:30 p.m. Saturday. The publicist told me she can give us a 2 for 1, or tickets at $15. The theatre is at 700 Howard at Third Street in San Francisco. We can still take BART and get off at the Montgomery Street Station. (It is the same evening that Sweet Honey in the Rock are performing at UC Berkeley Zellerbach Hall.)

It's going to sell out. Let me know in class by Wednesday, April 2, if you'd like to attend. I might have to buy the tickets in advance and you can reimburse me. I'll let you know.

Description from the website:
This unique project is setting the performance world abuzz for bringing together African and African-American dance companies—one all-male and one all-female—and two powerhouse choreographers. Germaine Acogny, the "mother of contemporary African dance," explores community and identity with Brooklyn-based, Bessie Award–winning choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, of Urban Bush Women. Acogny’s all-male troupe, Jant-Bi, performed Fagaala at YBCA in 2005 to widespread acclaim and Urban Bush Women has, since 1984, brought the stories of disenfranchised people to light through dance inspired by African-American traditions. Don’t miss the premiere of this new piece in which artists from Africa collaborate with the children of the Diaspora on a work that explores the crossroads between culture and ethnicity, history and modernity.

If we arrive early we can visit the art exhibit: The Way We Rhyme before going to the theatre performance. Visit http://www.ybca.org/tickets/production.aspx?performanceNumber=4024 for the details about the exhibit. I can probably get free tickets for the gallery exhibit for interested students.

There are some other interesting theatre events happening. I'll get the details and let you know. Re: Fences at Lorraine Hansberry Theatre in San Francisco, I don't see any time in my schedule presently and the play closes April 20. I could do a 2 p.m. on Sunday, April 20. Let me know if you're interested. It's a great production.

Happy Spring! Today is the first day of the Spring Season! The vernal equinox was last night. Happy Easter or Resurrection Day to all who celebrate such also. I wanted to let you know about two performances I am attending this weekend, one Saturday, March 23, the other Sunday, March 24. The play at Lorraine Hansberry is $18for all seats and lunch is provided free afterwards. The event at Laney is less. Look at the links for the details. If you plan to attend either, let me know. I am going to get tickets for a Thursday field trip to see Fences. I am also going to see about the singing group Sweet Honey in the Rock at Zellerbach at UC Berkeley in April. We need to look at tickets fast. I'll get that information and post it next week. I'll let you know if I need to hear from you before we return.

http://www.lorrainehansberrytheatre.com/ and

http://www.livingartscenter.org/Playback/EveningOfPlayback/celebratingwomen.html

Today, if you need more time to study for your midterm, you have it. Turn it in by 8 a.m. Monday, March 24.

Freewrite: Respond to 1 Wedneday, March 19 question about the reading and two student responses. I gave students a copy of the Literature and Its Times, Vol. 1 analysis of The Fire Next Time. For those who are ready to complete the midterm. Please respond to one question listed below in a 500 word essay. Please use citations from the text: 1 paraphrase, 1 direct quote and 1 block quote. Indicate page numbers also.

Essay questions:

1. How is the essay Down at the Cross a continuation of themes in My Dungeon Shook: Letter to My Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation"?

2. Talk about Baldwin's extensive analysis of the efficacy of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam's approach to that of racial inequities in this essay Down at the Cross. What does he see as its strengths and its weaknesses?

3. Discuss the structure of the essay and Baldwin's stylistic form of using the personal to illustrate a salient point that affects his constituency. Give several examples of this in your analysis. Who is Baldwin's audience and does this shift?

4. What does Baldwin mean by love and freedom? Are there any other terms which reoccur often in this essay which lend themselves to critique and greater analysis?

5. What does the term "fire" imply here? What is the burning? Who's at greatest risk?

6. Baldwin escapes into the church as his "racket instead of some other and surrendered to a spiritual seduction" (29). What does he mean by this and how did the church and his charade fail him?

I'm still working on the questions. Students will have a choice, answer a few questions using citations, one per response. The second choice is to respond to one question in a 500 word essay. This morning in the 9-10 a.m. class, I gave students a copy of the Literature and Its Times, Vol. 5 essay on James Baldwin's "The Fire Next Time." It is a great literary analysis. I also gave the second class a series of questions to think about. I will list them here. I am not certain if I will be able to get the essay questions posted by 3 p.m. I am falling asleep at the terminal :-) If you want me to consider your question for the essay, email me this afternoon or this evening.

Questions for reading
1. What themes reoccur in this essay? Why do these issues concern the writer?

2. Describe how Baldwin uses repetition of certain key words or terms to drive his point home.

3. Race and power are spoken of endlessly in this essay. Locate 4-8 places in the text that defines and fleshes out these terms.

4. Analyze the style and form of this essay. Talk about the writer's literary devices or craft. What does Baldwin do well as a writer--his writing demonstrates his verbal precision, there's poetry in this work and this is remarkable considering who's succeeding and how's failing.

Today we continued reading The Fire Next Time. I encouraged students to finish the essay by tomorrow so we can practice the midterm essay. I have postponed the lesson on argument until after the break. I am not assigning homework. We will return and read The Color Purple and prepare the research essay during the month of April. We will start Letters from Mississippi toward the end of April. If we have time, we'll read Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.

Oh, I am enjoying reading your Walker essays!

Today in class we read James Baldwin's second essay, Down at the Cross. I find it kind of appropriate considering the season--Easter and the third anniversary of the war. We read and discussed the essay. Your midterm question, which I haven't developed yet, will be taken from this reading. You'll have a number of choices. I'll give you the question Wednesday. Homework is to read up to page 62. We'll practice summarizing certain sections tomorrow after I show you the argumentation video. Read below for a recap of the rest of the week.

The 9-10 class completed the Womanism vs. Feminism 4-part essay. Please post the paragraphs here along with the names of the students who were in the group for credit. Please identify your argument. I was pleased with the second reading, especially the thesis and antithesis revisions. The introductory paragraph and conclusion were great from the start. The conclusion had to be adjusted to fit the revised antithesis, but the group did well.

Also, post your groups' thesis. It was a freewrite. Some of the Walker essays are still out. Get them in. I plan to give you your grades on these essays with comments by Thursday, if not sooner. If there is need for revision you can turn in the revised essay and a narrative explaining what you did, by Wednesday when you return. We'll begin reading, The Color Purple when you return. We will also talk about the research essay. See below for topics.

Announcements
Tomorrow Playback Theatre is in D-237 from 1-3 p.m. They'll be looking at the theme "diversity." Our very own, Rudy is one of the company members. If you attend and write about it, you can get extra credit. Post your response here.

Y'all missed it!
Visit my professional blog at www.wandaspicks.com and click on "blog" to see more images of Magda and Aisha and Alice Walker.

Homework for the weekend is to read either the first part of Letters from Mississippi or the second essay, "Down at the Cross: Letter from a Region of My Mind," by James Baldwin for Monday, March 17. We will be talking about the Baldwin essay 3/17 and "Letters" Tuesday, March 18.

If you are turning in your essay to me Monday, March 17, you can email it to me with all of the parts: final draft, bibliography, works cited, peer review and/or comments, all class notes and writing, including a vocabulary log. We will also complete the essay we started, 9-10 a.m. class on Womanism vs. Feminism.

Have a good weekend. If you go to a protest march Saturday or do something to mark the 5th anniversary of the US occupation in Iraq, if you write about it and post it here, you can have extra credit for a missed cyber-assignment, elsewhere (250 words min.)

The midterm on Thursday will take it's question from At the Cross or Letters. We will do prewriting activities next week, so read the material in advance. Bring Hacker in Monday, students are not using it effectively. An essay has a form; if you are unclear of that form, review the section: The Writing Process.

I'm going to show the video: The Write Course: Argumentation Tuesday beginning 5 minutes after the hour, we'll then use Letters from Mississippi to talk about argument. We'll continue this discussion on Wednesday. Students will need to read the Hacker handout on Argument I gave you a few weeks ago for Wednesday and do the exercises on page 367-368. We will review the answers on Wednesday and identify the corresponding pages in Hacker. We'll also talk about McClintock's propaganda techniques and how they translate into logical fallacies. Bring the essay to class.

We meet in the Writing Center Wednesday and Thursday this week. Bring your essays for peer comments tomorrow. We also want to complete the Womanism vs. Feminism collaborative essay we started yesterday in the second class (9-10). I have been meeting with students about their writing; we'll continue this tomorrow also and Thursday. Make sure I speak to you about your work. We'll try to keep the comments to 10 minutes so I can see more of you this first go round.

Re: Walker Field Trip
Alice Walker in Conversation with Saidiya Hartman, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm MoAD Salon
The Museum of the African Diaspora is located at Mission and Third in San Francisco

Announcement from website http://www.moadsf.org/visit/calendar.html
Please join us in welcoming this major American icon to MoAD as part of our Women’s History Month celebration. Born in Eatonton, Georgia in 1944 to sharecropper parents, Pulitzer-prize winning author Alice Walker is one of the most prolific and respected writers of the 21st Century.

Published in 1982 to unprecedented literary acclaim, The Color Purple established Walker as a major voice in modern literature. Since then, Ms. Walker’s novels, short stories, essays and poems have had a defining impact on our modern literary landscape.

Joining Ms. Walker, in conversation, will be Saidiya Hartman Columbia professor and author of Lose Your Mother, which explores the legacy of slavery and African diasporas identity. This important and free-ranging conversation will bring two generations of talented female authors together to discuss their work, their inspiration and their vision.

Ms. Walker and Ms. Hartman will sign their books following the talk.

Seats are limited. You must RSVP for admittance to program.
MoAD Members $10
General Admission $15

I have five reservations. There will be a list at the door. I plan to arrive at 5:30 p.m. to get a good seat.

Makda is the only student who has reimbursed me for the Sonny's Blues tickets.

Today in the early class we watched the film Murder in Mississippi about the three Civil Rights workers who were murdered. As we watched the film, students came in a spoke to me about their papers and other writing. I hope all of you will make a point of talking to me about an essay, if not all of your work before your essay is due Thursday, March 12. Some students in the later class asked if I could give them another day to write. So the 9-10 a.m. class will meet in the Writing Center Wednesday, March 11, at 9 a.m. to post their essays and respond to each other's using Microsoft Comment. Tomorrow we will complete our collaborative essay on Womanism vs. Feminism. I'll post it tomorrow after class here. Final drafts of essays are still due Thursday, March 12. If you haven't finished the book and need more time, I'll accept essays up to Monday, March 17. After this, you need to talk to me.

Remember, you are turning in your essays on a disk or jump drive. If you don't have disk drives, you can copy it onto one here in the Writing Center. The bookstore sells disks. For those who are strapped for cash, I have disks I can give you for the semester's work.

I enjoyed reading the responses to McClintock. Don't forget to post your Walker essays at the post below tomorrow if it's finished and your like feedback in class.

Someone asked me about extra credit. Extra credit is fine, but it won't take the place of the essays attached to books: Alice Walker: A Life; The Color Purple; and The Fire Next Time, Letters from Mississippi. All it can do is replace some of the cyber-assignments or essays responses.

Midterm
We'll have a midterm next week--a parting present:-) We'll write it in class Thursday, March 20. You'll have 50 minutes to write a 500 word essay. There will be no makeups and no revisions. I will give your grades immediately via email. You will submit the essays on a disk. The topic will be connected to one of our books, probably Baldwin. If you don't have the book, the essay is on-line, make a copy of it. I am not. I will show you the film on Argumentation next week, and Revision Strategies.

When you get back from Spring Break (3/24-30), we'll talk about the research project, which will look at art as activism, something I think Alice Walker's life exemplifies. I'd like students to look for an artist, preferably living in Northern California, who is using art as a social change medium. It can be any art form: visual arts which includes film and photography, performance arts, or literary arts. It would be great if this person has been doing the work for minimally 10 years, 20 is better, 5 is okay.

Fierce Speech at Women of Color program last night
We had a great time last night at the celebration of International Women's Day event at the First Congregational Church of Oakland.

Lecture Thursday evening at First Congregational Church
I proposed we attend the lecture at the church on 27th and Harrison 3/6 at 7 p.m. I think. Visit www.wandaspicks.com to read the information about the event or www.wcrc.org for the "Fierce Words" lecture featuring a lot of women activists: politicians, poets, organizers, and others. The price is sliding scale. Oh, I got a call from Word for Word director Susan Harlow, we owe the money. I am going to send the theatre a check. You can pay me next week. Thanks!

Propaganda Techniques in Today's Advertising Cyber-Assignment due 3/6

Post your 250 word essay here. Also, if you like, you can post your response to the questions for Close Reading and Questions about the Writer's Craft.

Walker Essay posts
Post you Walker essay plans here: Planning Sheet answers, outline and introduction and conclusions. We might also post early drafts due Tuesday, March 11.

Your first big essay is due next week and I am scrambling to catch up just as some of you are scrambling to get Alice Walker: A Life read so you can do the necessary planning to ensure a well-written essay. Today we are having an open class where students can work on a variety of writing assignments. I think we'll continue this Monday, March 10, so I can help students with the essays due on 3/11.

Today or when it is completed, I want students to post their Initial Plans, Outline for Walker essay, and an introduction and a conclusion by Monday, March 10.

Assignment Recap
The essay needs to address a clearly articulated theme with evidence from the book and one scholarly source. The essay is to be minimally 4 pages with the 5th page a works cited page. Again you have two sources: White and a scholarly article. The first draft is due, Tuesday, March 11. The final draft is due, Thursday, March 13. You are to bring the essay on a diskette or a jump drive. I do not want you to email me. It gets too confusing.

The article can be found, I'm sure in Expanded Academic on the COA library website. Ask a librarian for help. You can do this today or Monday.

Thursday, a cyber-assignment is due. Answer all the questions on page 311 in the Ann McClintock essay, "Propaganda Techniques," then post a 250 (three paragraphs or so) response to one of the 5 Writing Assignments on pages 311-12.

Conferences
We didn't have time to complete the student conferences. We will continue next week Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. If you have any worries, you can go early. I also told students that I was available after 3 on MW or after 12 noon TTh if you let me know. One-on-one is the best way to succeed in college. One visit with me can really effect your performance.

Today in class in the early class (8-9) we shared profiles of Alice Walker. It was an exercise in developing descriptions of Walker that both created for one's audience a sense of the author, and practice using the text to once again substantiate one's claims. I was not looking for a chronology which is what a few students did. I lot of students were absent this morning in the early class.

Students in the early class are not coming regularly and those who attended today are still behind in the reading. This is the same situation in the 9-10 class. In the later class we explored the topic: Womanism vs. Feminism. Chris found the definition on page 377.

The thesis I developed is: Alice Walker felt the term womanist reflected the history hand experiences of black women better than the term feminism (377).

Students then got into groups and developed an introductory paragraph (5 sentences, one the thesis on a direct quote). We went around the room and shared. Eva's group, Chris' or Yolanda's table, Jerrold's group and Michael's group were good drafts. We will continue tomorrow.

Homework
Homework was to revise the Initial Planning Sheet per my recommendations. Some students were looking at themes outside of Alice Walker's life. It's all about Alice. The theme is important only because of how it is integrated into Walker's life, per Evelyn C. White.

If students have not read enough of the book to develop an outline for their essay based on themes from the book, then the assignment was to for the 9-10 a.m. class, to look for evidence in the book to support the Womanism vs. Feminism theme. We will spend class time tomorrow writing an essay on that topic (4 paragraphs). I want the group essays posted here.

Walker Essay Due Dates
Oh, just in case there is any confusion, the first drafts of the essay are due, Tuesday, March 11. The final draft is due Thursday, March 13. I have office hours on Tuesday and Thursday. You can bring your essays by and we can review them together. You can also email me questions about the essay before March 13. I was thinking of changing the deadline and decided against it. We don't want to run out of time and I think Spring Break begins that weekend.

You can't go wrong by reading the rest of the book. This is really important. We will read The Color Purple after this book, followed by Letters from Mississippi.

Oh, I appreciate students who are on top of their assignments-- both in class and on the blog.. You know who you are. I have been reading your posts and commented on a few.

Today in class we completed the "beauty for sale" assignment. Rudy shared a photo he took from a plane of a sunrise. Ali shared a cosmetic product supposedly good for acne, and Nadia shared an ad for a lip stick product. Deon, as usual and Angel spoke of the products merits. Deon had seen the model in the cosmetic ad in person while in New York. He said she really was as beautiful as the photo. He did agree, though, with me that even so, she wasn't as perfect as the photo. I said technology had removed her flaws, however slight.

We'll have conferences tomorrow and Wednesday. Students gave me guidelines on what they'd like me to look for and comment on in their writing when we get together this week.

On Thursday, we are supposed to go to a play; however, the Women of Color Resource Center is hosting a great program at the First Congregational Church Thursday and I want to attend that show. It is at 7, I think. could we attend the play at The Marsh another day, like Saturday? Let me know.

Homework is to develop an essay plan for your Alice Walker: A Life essay. Chose a theme. Bring the plans to class. Tomorrow we were going to watch a film. It's either that or an opportunity to develop an outline for your essay due next Tuesday, March 11.

We also looked at argumentation. I have copies of the Hacker chapter on this in the bin at L-236. Pick up a copy if you don't have the book. Read it and respond to the questions. We'll talk more about this later.

I handed out an essay: Propaganda Techniques. It is a Cyber-Essay due Thursday. I think, I'll have students work on this in the 8-9 AM class while I conduct the conferences. We'll see how things go tomorrow or I might still show the film.