Use the COA website to find two sources, one print, the other can be broadcast media like TV or radio on Barack Obama.
I want you to include these two sources in a bibliography. You do not have to cite both of them. Tomorrow we will develop outlines for our essays. I will post questions here for students to respond to them and to each other in a freewrite.
You can ask for clarification, test evidence, practice developing a thesis. If you have a question you like which I have not included, you can pose it here and I will let you know what I think.
Today share information about sources you have found in the COA library database, especially if it is good. Use MLA. I passed out two MLA quizzes from SPHE and a two sided quiz on sentence punctuation from SPHE.
Drafty Essay Questions
1. Many state that Dreams From My Father is a classic coming of age story with a twist. Perhaps the twist is the interracial component, the international flavor of Obama’s childhood, or the fact that except for the absentee father, his life was one of relative ease comparatively. Definitely, he wasn’t a descendent of Booker T. Washington (I jest). Talk about the author’s journey, his questions about identity and his quest for his dad so that he could find his place in the world.
2. What role does forgiveness play in the blame game and how does forgiveness help in allowing someone to move on?
3. How does Obama create himself through the presence and influence of his father who were the father figures in his life and what did they teach him?
4. “Dreams from My Father” is a coming-of-age story in which a Obama straddles two cultures as he searches for his identity. How does he succeed? What conclusions does he reach?
5. Talk about his work as a community social worker on Chicago's South Side. What does he learn or come to realize about his role in the African-American community?
6. Write about community in Obama’s book. What communities are there? How do they work (or not)? Explain how Obama evaluates various communities and show what he values in a community, as seen in his book.
7. Women have played a significant role in Barack Obama’s development. Identify 2-3 women. Clearly, his mother is a woman whose influence on Obama is immeasurable, Toot might be another, but what about his friends causal and otherwise who taught him lessons we see incorporated into the moral fabric of his life?
Use examples to show what values are. Do not list them, rather have Obama interpret them into his life as activity or action.
8. Family is a value shared in Dreams. One could say that Dreams is a journey where Obama clarifies what or who his family is. There is of course the family he is given, his biological parents; however, his extended or blended family has perhaps as much to do with the man he becomes as does his genes.
9.How does Obama’s shifting definition of family—family as community, family as one’s nation, family as one’s people— help Obama realize his place in the world is fluid and that the family he was searching for was a part of his life all along?
10. In Dreams, Obama's definition of what family means is fluid. Give examples of how this changing perspective helps Obama come into himself as a man.
11. Race is an obvious theme in a book where the protagonist is the child of an Kenyan and a white American; however, Obama says of himself that he is not the typical “tragic Mulatto.” What does he mean by this and does the fact that he is a man raised in a family where white-skin privilege is an unspoken given for most of his life, reason for this fact?
12. How does Obama create himself through the presence and influence of his father? Who were the father figures in his life, and what did they teach him?
13. What has Obama come to realize as a grass-roots activist about the community he lives in? What does he learn about himself? How is this education used to propel his political career which culminates later in a nomination for presidency?
14. How does Obama’s active and passive use of his paternal and maternal culture to shape his identity? What can other bi-racial adults, and those persons from single parent homes gain from his story?
I want you to include these two sources in a bibliography. You do not have to cite both of them. Tomorrow we will develop outlines for our essays. I will post questions here for students to respond to them and to each other in a freewrite.
You can ask for clarification, test evidence, practice developing a thesis. If you have a question you like which I have not included, you can pose it here and I will let you know what I think.
Today share information about sources you have found in the COA library database, especially if it is good. Use MLA. I passed out two MLA quizzes from SPHE and a two sided quiz on sentence punctuation from SPHE.
Drafty Essay Questions
1. Many state that Dreams From My Father is a classic coming of age story with a twist. Perhaps the twist is the interracial component, the international flavor of Obama’s childhood, or the fact that except for the absentee father, his life was one of relative ease comparatively. Definitely, he wasn’t a descendent of Booker T. Washington (I jest). Talk about the author’s journey, his questions about identity and his quest for his dad so that he could find his place in the world.
2. What role does forgiveness play in the blame game and how does forgiveness help in allowing someone to move on?
3. How does Obama create himself through the presence and influence of his father who were the father figures in his life and what did they teach him?
4. “Dreams from My Father” is a coming-of-age story in which a Obama straddles two cultures as he searches for his identity. How does he succeed? What conclusions does he reach?
5. Talk about his work as a community social worker on Chicago's South Side. What does he learn or come to realize about his role in the African-American community?
6. Write about community in Obama’s book. What communities are there? How do they work (or not)? Explain how Obama evaluates various communities and show what he values in a community, as seen in his book.
7. Women have played a significant role in Barack Obama’s development. Identify 2-3 women. Clearly, his mother is a woman whose influence on Obama is immeasurable, Toot might be another, but what about his friends causal and otherwise who taught him lessons we see incorporated into the moral fabric of his life?
Use examples to show what values are. Do not list them, rather have Obama interpret them into his life as activity or action.
8. Family is a value shared in Dreams. One could say that Dreams is a journey where Obama clarifies what or who his family is. There is of course the family he is given, his biological parents; however, his extended or blended family has perhaps as much to do with the man he becomes as does his genes.
9.How does Obama’s shifting definition of family—family as community, family as one’s nation, family as one’s people— help Obama realize his place in the world is fluid and that the family he was searching for was a part of his life all along?
10. In Dreams, Obama's definition of what family means is fluid. Give examples of how this changing perspective helps Obama come into himself as a man.
11. Race is an obvious theme in a book where the protagonist is the child of an Kenyan and a white American; however, Obama says of himself that he is not the typical “tragic Mulatto.” What does he mean by this and does the fact that he is a man raised in a family where white-skin privilege is an unspoken given for most of his life, reason for this fact?
12. How does Obama create himself through the presence and influence of his father? Who were the father figures in his life, and what did they teach him?
13. What has Obama come to realize as a grass-roots activist about the community he lives in? What does he learn about himself? How is this education used to propel his political career which culminates later in a nomination for presidency?
14. How does Obama’s active and passive use of his paternal and maternal culture to shape his identity? What can other bi-racial adults, and those persons from single parent homes gain from his story?
posted by Professor Wanda's Posse at 8:20 AM
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