Peer Review: See syllabus
Due Date: See syllabus
Assignment Length: 4 pages, double-spaced
Assignment Goal
Students should explain the causes and meaning of the 1964 Harlem riots using at least two main ideas, or keywords, from Walter Mosley's Workin on the Chain Gang.
The causes of the riot were....The riot is important because it showed...We can understand it better by looking to Walter Mosley's ideas of....and.....
Assignment Description
Material about the 1964 Harlem riots will be provided by the professor. These documents will be from the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives, which the students will later visit. The professor will also offer short lectures on relevant aspects of African-American history to help provide context for the students.
Students will examine the documents in groups and review them on their own. They will practice the skills of summary, paraphrase, and direct quotation in their reading of these documents.
Meanwhile, the class will consider some of the ideas of Walter Mosley in Workin on the Chain Gang. Students will identify one or more keywords, or words that unlock or explain other ideas, from this text. They will then create an argument that allows them to explain one or more aspects of the 1964 Harlem riots. Their argument will revolve around how they use Mosley's ideas to explain the riot as an event. Students will define the keyword(s) using Mosley's definition, their own definition, or a combination of the two - students can be creative with how they interpret the evidence they use in their arguments.
Essay Structure
Students will learn a basic opening to an introduction paragraph; they will learn what a thesis is and where to place it in the introduction; they will learn how to organize paragraphs according to main ideas found in topic sentences; they will learn how to directly quote from evidence and how to paraphrase that evidence; and they will learn at least one analytical writing strategy: keywords and their definitions.
