For each week, you will read/watch (at least) six resources. Four of those resources will be required resources that everyone resources (denoted by being bolded and asterisked below), and the remaining two resources can be selected from the other posted resources. If you would like to read all of the optional resources, please feel free to do so and these are certainly worth considering for your final paper. If you have read/watched all ten resources and would enjoy additional resources, please ask your teaching team member or the course instructor and we will happily provide these to you.
After completing the readings for the week, share a story from your own life that demonstrates how you understand, connect with, or experience tension around this week’s resources. This assignment reflects our commitment to balancing resources from the shelves (what has been published for others) and resources from our selves (our own experiences and understanding of our own lives). Elements of a story include context (when and where are you and who else is there), and drama (i.e. action, uncertainty, change, and feelings). Your story should comprise of 60-75% of your assignment.
The other 25-40% is explaining how your story connects with the shelf resources. For each pre, you need to cite and connect to at least three of the ten assigned weekly class readings (at least two required readings and at least one elective reading from this week). Use our APA guidelines (Links to an external site.) to include in-text citations and a reference list at the end of your document. As you cite your references, please consider: what specific aspects of the resources are you connecting with? How do these connections leave you feeling? What do these connections or tensions tell you about the broader world? Do NOT summarize the resources as we have already read/watched all of them. We are most interested in your story and how you are connecting it to our course content.
If you don’t think that you have any stories to tell related to these resources, please share why you believe you don’t have any stories. Is it because your families, communities, or schools never talked about these topics? If so, why do you think that is? Is it because you have never thought about these topics in terms of diversity, equity, and social justice? What would it mean to begin developing stories that support you developing this understanding?
Pre-class reflections should be between 500 and 700 words total for each assignment and uploaded as a Microsoft Word document or PDF. (All UW students have access to Google docs through your UW email account. You can then download your Google doc as a Word document or PDF.) We require this so that our teaching team can offer you in-text feedback on each assignment. To view these comments after your assignments have been graded please click on the “View Feedback” button on Canvas.
Reflection assignments are due on Canvas by 11:59 pm each Friday.
(Please note because of our extenuating circumstances, there will be a one week grace period for all assignments.)
Aleem, Z. (2015 February 3). Why do so many rich people think they’re in the middle class? Mic.com. http://mic.com/articles/109742/why-do-so-many-rich-people-think-they-re-in-the-middle-class#.b1vOvj38A (Links to an external site.)
*** Evans, G.W., Brooks-Gunn, J., & Klebanov, P.K. (2011, Winter). Stressing out the poor: Chronic physiological stress and the income-achievement gap. Pathways: A magazine on poverty, inequality, and social policy. Retrieved from www.inequality.com. http://inequality.stanford.edu/_media/pdf/pathways/winter_2011/PathwaysWinter11_Evans.pdf (Links to an external site.)
Chen, T.P. & Jordan, M. (2016 May 1). Why so many Chinese students come to the U.S. Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-so-many-chinese-students-come-to-the-u-s-1462123552 (Links to an external site.)
*** Farrell, H. (2015 September 23). Why are working class kids less likely to get elite jobs? They study too hard at college. WashingtonPost.com. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/09/23/why-are-working-class-kids-less-likely-to-get-elite-jobs-they-study-too-hard-at-college/
Actions
Galuppo, M. (2016 March 11). Disney, Pixar misrepresent class struggle in children’s films, study finds. HollywoodReporter.com. www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/disney-pixar-misrepresent-class-struggle-874781 (Links to an external site.)
*** Kamp, K. (2013 September 20). By the numbers: The incredibly shrinking American middle class. BillMoyers.com. http://billmoyers.com/2013/09/20/by-the-numbers-the-incredibly-shrinking-american-middle-class/ (Links to an external site.)
Khazan, O. (2014 September 15). When you can’t afford to sleep. The Atlantic. http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/09/when-you-cant-afford-sleep/380128/ (Links to an external site.)
*** Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). The honorable harvest. In Braiding sweetgrass (pp. 175-201). Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions. https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B46EdHzXSVRnRWZmX2V0eHhIVms3YnVFOTd1cE5pUjZmdllB (Links to an external site.)
Summers, J. (2014). Rich kid, poor kid: For 30 years, Baltimore study tracked who gets ahead. NPR.org. https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2014/08/07/335285098/rich-kid-poor-kid-for-30-years-baltimore-study-tracked-who-gets-ahead (Links to an external site.)
Toghesity, D.Z. & Bazil, M. (2015). Rights versus responsibility . Beyond Boarding.Rights vs Responsibilities (Links to an external site.)
Possible Story Stems:
Social class exists because social classes exist as defined by the borders between people in different social classes. That is, there are clusters of people who share the same socioeconomic conditions and are in a social class together. Then there are people who are materially and socially in different groups because of their access to and ownership of different levels and types of possessions, power, and opportunities. These differences mark the boundaries between classes and can at different times be quite stark and at other times quite murky.
1) How have you experienced your own social class? How and when do you recognize people as being in a similar social class to you? How does it feel to be with other people in the same social class?
2) How have you experienced other social classes? How and when do you recognize people as being in a different social class to you? How does it feel to be with other people in different social classes?
Last Completed Projects
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