English 1A Fall 2018 Books and Essay Assignments
Essay 1: Cooked and Arthur C. Brooks
Cooked and Arthur Brooks essay
Essay 2: Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad and Ta Nehisi Coates’ “The Case for Reparations”
Develop a thesis that shows how Debra J Dickerson’s “The Great White Way” and Ta Nehisi Coates’ “The Case for Reparations” support the claim that the historical atrocities rendered in Colson Whitehead’s novel The Underground Railroad are relevant today.
Show how Colson Whitehead’s novel The Underground Railroad builds on Debra J. Dickerson's argument in “The Great White Way” that race in America is a cruel invention designed to create a hierarchy of power, one that can be seen in all its horror in contemporary America.
Develop a thesis that addresses the claim that America’s kleptocracy, as defined in Ta Nehisi Coates’ essay “The Case for Reparations” supports the notion that Colson Whitehead’s novel Underground Railroad, while dealing with the historical past, is relevant to the kleptocracy that exists today.
In an essay of sufficient length, show how the novel illustrates Coates’ claim that America is a country whose power has been built on a kleptocracy.
Essay 3
One. Cal Newport and Passion Hypothesis (full week)
Two. “People Like Us” and tribalism argument
Three. “Prudence Or Cruelty,” and food stamps debate
Four. NFL and Steve Almond
Five. Bariatric surgery debate as seen in Vox
Immigration debate with Sweet Home Alabama video from Vice News
Essay 4
One. “The Caging of America” and The New Jim Crow (full week)
Two. Confederate Flag Debate (full week) : “Remembering History As Fable”
Jamelle Bouie’s essay “White Americans Have to Make a Choice,” on Confederacy and “I Used to Lead Tours at a Plantation”
Dickerson’s “The Great White Way,” Coates’ essay on reparations and kleptocracy and Get Out
Addressing Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, Jamelle Bouie’s “White Americans Have to Make a Choice,” Aisha Harris’ “Spring Time for the Confederacy,”, Margaret Biser’s “I Used to Lead Tours at a Plantation,” John Oliver’s Confederacy commentary, Coates’ “Why Do So Few Blacks Study the Civil War?”, and the film Get Out, support, refute, or complicate the argument that racism is not a faint echo of the past but is an ongoing assault on black people evidenced by a continued enabling of Confederate sympathizers and “The New Jim Crow.”
Three. Smartphones Ruin a Generation and Coddling of America (full week)
Essay 5
One. Linda Tirado blog and the question: Addressing Linda Tirado's famous blog post, write a 5-paragraph essay that supports or refutes the argument that poverty is not a "lifestyle choice" but a self-perpetuating trap.
Two. Two Bell Hooks Essays, including “Keeping Close to Home” and “Learning in the Shadow of Race and Class.” See review of Lubrano’s book Limbo.
Three. From Degrading to De-grading
Four. Standardized Testing
Five. Has Malcolm Gladwell been intellectually dishonest by presenting a “moral problem” about a college that serves gourmet food?
“How Malcolm Gladwell Choked on College Food”
Bowdoin college rips Malcolm Gladwell
“Should Colleges Serve Crappy Food on Purpose?”
FP Colleges should be abolished
“The World Might be Better Off Without College for Everyone”
Why College Rankings Are a Joke, Shut Up About Harvard
Miscellaneous
Why It Pays to be a Jerk and “Emptiness”; The Bet, Omelas, child labor,
One. Caging of America: Is mass incarceration the New Jim Crow?
Two and Three. Coates and Thirteenth: Is racism a relic of the past or an ongoing humanitarian crisis?
Four. Reparations debate.
Five. Confederate flag.
“What This Cruel War Was Over” Coates
“Why There Are No Nazi Statues in Germany”
“How Other Countries Have Dealt with Monuments”
“Should Confederate Flags be Banned in the US?”
One. Living in the Shadow Race and Class
Two. Against School
Three. Standardized Testing, John Oliver video
Four. From Degrading to Grading Alfie Kohn
Five. Nikole Hannah Jones
Or Tribalism, Cal Newport, Food Stamps
One and Two. Cal Newport Parts 1 and 2
Three. People Like Us
Four. Prudence Or Cruelty, “Messy Relationship Between Food Stamps and Health”
Five. I Used to be a Human Being, Nosedive, Flight from Conversation, NFL debate with Steve Almond;
“What Facebook Did to American Democracy”; “What Facebook and Google Can Learn from the First Major News Hoax”
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