Saturday, September 24, 2016

time to take on Power....

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Notice that we will meet next week, then Yom Kuppur with assignments; THEN WORKSHOP! So you MUST JUMP INTO WORKSHOP PROJECT RIGHT AWAY! Put all reading and discussion into your project and meet with your class partner several times!



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<<<EXPERIENCE SET TWO: Change is happening:
What and Who are changed and make change? How do we take on Power?>>>

Tu 27 Sept: Alternate versions of power and change
• Keating, Chap 1 or 6; be prepared to say WHY you chose the one you did!
• Take Back, Chap 4 (be sure you have already read Chaps 1, 2, 5)
• something from your 5th book (either Octavia's Brood or Are You My Mother?) Be prepared to say what you chose and why. Impress us!
• Find out much MORE about the Take Back Collective! Who are they? What assumptions do you find you made about them?
• Continue finding out more about Keating and check your assumptions there too!

• Bring in notes on the following and be ready to discuss!! 

How do Keating and the Take Back collective understand what changes are going on in our shared present? 

What is the same about their understandings, what is different? 

How does analyzing this help you understand your own assumptions about what changes are happening and how do you know

What sorts of "identities" are involved?

Which countries do they know about and refer to? 

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From Mindomo: https://www.mindomo.com/mindmap/two-conceptions-of-power-81d6c44cc6e0c15efbb178411601725e



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Feminist versions of power shift among these horizons of unilateral and relational. 
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has an entire article on power worth reading, here is one bit from it: 

"Nancy Hartsock refers to the understanding of power “as energy and competence rather than dominance” as “the feminist theory of power” (Hartsock 1983, 224). Hartsock argues that precursors of this theory can be found in the work of some women who did not consider themselves to be feminists — most notably, Hannah Arendt, whose rejection of the command-obedience model of power and definition of ‘power’ as “the human ability not just to act but to act in concert” overlaps significantly with the feminist conception of power as empowerment (1970, 44). Arendt’s definition of ‘power’ brings out another aspect of the definition of ‘power’ as empowerment because of her focus on community or collective empowerment (on the relationship between power and community, see Hartsock 1983, 1996). This aspect of empowerment is evident in Mary Parker Follett’s distinction between power-over and power-with; for Follett, power-with is a collective ability that is a function of relationships of reciprocity between members of a group (Follett 1942). Hartsock finds it significant that the theme of power as capacity or empowerment has been so prominent in the work of women who have written about power. In her view, this points in the direction of a feminist standpoint that “should allow us to understand why the masculine community constructed…power, as domination, repression, and death, and why women’s accounts of power differ in specific and systematic ways from those put forward by men….such a standpoint might allow us to put forward an understanding of power that points in more liberatory directions” (Hartsock 1983, 226)." http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminist-power/

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Social Justice for Migrants in Ireland: "developing a critical analysis of power is key": http://www.mrci.ie/our-work/community-work/empowerment-2/



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time to take on Power....

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<<<EXPERIENCE SET TWO: Change is happening:
What and Who are changed and make change? How do we take on Power?>>>

Tu 27 Sept: Alternate versions of power and change
• Keating, Chap 1 or 6; be prepared to say WHY you chose the one you did!
• Take Back, Chap 4 (be sure you have already read Chaps 1, 2, 5)
• something from your 5th book (either Octavia's Brood or Are You My Mother?) Be prepared to say what you chose and why. Impress us!
• Find out much MORE about the Take Back Collective! Who are they? What assumptions do you find you made about them?
• Continue finding out more about Keating and check your assumptions there too!

• Bring in notes on the following and be ready to discuss!! 

How do Keating and the Take Back collective understand what changes are going on in our shared present? 

What is the same about their understandings, what is different? 

How does analyzing this help you understand your own assumptions about what changes are happening and how do you know

What sorts of "identities" are involved?

Which countries do they know about and refer to? 

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From Mindomo: https://www.mindomo.com/mindmap/two-conceptions-of-power-81d6c44cc6e0c15efbb178411601725e



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Feminist versions of power shift among these horizons of unilateral and relational. 
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has an entire article on power worth reading, here is one bit from it: 

"Nancy Hartsock refers to the understanding of power “as energy and competence rather than dominance” as “the feminist theory of power” (Hartsock 1983, 224). 
Hartsock argues that precursors of this theory can be found in the work of some women who did not consider themselves to be feminists — most notably, Hannah Arendt, whose rejection of the command-obedience model of power and definition of ‘power’ as “the human ability not just to act but to act in concert” overlaps significantly with the feminist conception of power as empowerment (1970, 44). Arendt’s definition of ‘power’ brings out another aspect of the definition of ‘power’ as empowerment because of her focus on community or collective empowerment (on the relationship between power and community, see Hartsock 1983, 1996).
This aspect of empowerment is evident in Mary Parker Follett’s distinction between power-over and power-with; for Follett, power-with is a collective ability that is a function of relationships of reciprocity between members of a group (Follett 1942). Hartsock finds it significant that the theme of power as capacity or empowerment has been so prominent in the work of women who have written about power. 
In her view, this points in the direction of a feminist standpoint that “should allow us to understand why the masculine community constructed…power, as domination, repression, and death, and why women’s accounts of power differ in specific and systematic ways from those put forward by men….such a standpoint might allow us to put forward an understanding of power that points in more liberatory directions” (Hartsock 1983, 226)." http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminist-power/

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Social Justice for Migrants in Ireland: "developing a critical analysis of power is key": http://www.mrci.ie/our-work/community-work/empowerment-2/



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• Find out much MORE about the Take Back Collective! Who are they? What assumptions do you find you made about them?

http://www.critical-theory.com/20-must-read-queer-theory-books/2/


http://takebackeconomy.net/?page_id=48




• Continue finding out more about Keating and check your assumptions there too!

http://myecdysis.blogspot.com/2007/06/nwsa_9779.html

"Gems from AnaLouise Keating:

"Feminism is not a white thing. We. Are. Feminists.
Spiritual Activism is not religion, it is a holistic approach to plitics and transformation. It is the belief that there is more to existence than the embodied world and the spirit infuses it. We are all connected and are accountable for the people down the street, across the border, across the seas.
It is not based on sameness, not about walking in a straight line.
Feminism must stretch to an unseen place."

• something from your 5th book (either Octavia's Brood or Are You My Mother?) Be prepared to say what you chose and why. Impress us!

Octavia Butler herself:

http://www.winnovating.com/octaviabutlerwinnovatingsciencefiction/



Octavia's Brood: the book comes into being:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/octavia-s-brood-science-fiction-stories-from-social-justice-movements#/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUz3jql9m0w



And Alison Bechdel? http://www.azquotes.com/author/1107-Alison_Bechdel



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FREEWRITING:

• where are you in your process for your paper & handout or poster & digital pics for Workshop 1?
• how you do understand the objectives of Workshop 1?
• what plans have you made already for working with your class partner for Workshop 1?

PROTOTYPING:

• draw a picture of the most curious element of your paper or poster
• draw pictures that show how what we read today is affecting your ideas for poster or paper
• draw pictures that illustrate a research process for Workshop 1.

What does prototyping have in common with drafting? when is a draft a prototype?

only one way to think about this, both applicable and not, yet curiously interesting: https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Rapid_Prototyping_Techniques


How collectives, in this case a museum, can use design processes to create changing action and projects: 

http://www.slideshare.net/dmitroff/design-thinking-at-museum-next-2014-for-slideshare

=freewrite, observe, seek stories in reading and the world, caring: EMPATHIZE
=working with class partner and perhaps with collaborator identify surprises and insights, problems and opportunities, be careful not to jump to conclusions, open to what you don't yet know: DEFINE
=generate ideas withOUT pre-judgments so you have more to test and wonder about: IDEATE
=make stuff: drawings, poster drafts, flow charts, outlines, journaling, thingies: PROTOTYPE
=TEST AT OUR WORKSHOP, get responses, make connections, learn what got left out

THEN BEGIN AGAIN FOR WORKSHOP 2 adding more readings, observations, insights....
REPEAT! 


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From Gibson-Graham, J. K. 1999 & (online) 2010. "Queer(y)ing Capitalism in and out of the Classroom," Journal of Geography in Higher Education 23/1: 80-85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03098269985623

"I [REMEMBER THIS IS ACTUALLY A COLLECTIVE AUTHOR!] was still trying to capture `what was happening out there’, like the researchers at the conference. Students were drawn to the certainty and urgency of tracing the `emergence of global capitalism’ in particular industrial sectors and regions, and the classroom became a site where the new world order was critically `pinned down’. At that point I was not thinking about the social representation my students and I were creating as constitutive of the world in which we would have to live. Yet the image of global capitalism that we were producing was actively participating in consolidating a new phase of capitalist hegemony [3]. Through my pedagogy and other forms of communication, I was representing an entity called the `global capitalist economy’, and that representation was becoming common sense to a generation of students and activists. Over a period of years this became increasingly clear to me and increasingly distressing.

My situation resembled that of the many other teachers and social theorists for whom the `object of critique’ has become a perennial and consequential theoretical issue. When theorists depict patriarchy, or racism, or compulsory heterosexuality, or capitalist hegemony they are not only delineating a formation they hope to see destabilised or replaced. They are also generating a representation of the social world and endowing it with performative force. To the extent that this representation becomes infuential it may contribute to the hegemony of a `hegemonic formation’; and it will undoubtedly infuence students, and other people’s ideas about the possibilities of difference and change, including the potential for successful political interventions. In the classroom the excitement of `identifying’ global capitalism was increasingly tempered by the seeming futility of any form of resistance to it, and some students became exasperated and disillusioned by the project.

A feeling of hopelessness is perhaps the most extreme and at the same time most familiar political sentiment in the face of a massive or monolithic patriarchy, racism, or capitalism. Perhaps it is partly for this reason that many social theorists have taken to theorising a hegemonic formation in the field of discourse (heteronormativity, for instance, or a binary gender hierarchy) while representing the social field as unruly and diverse [4]. A good example can be found in Sedgwick’s opening chapter to Epistemology of the Closet where she counterposes to a heteronormative discourse of sexuality the `obviousness’ [5] of the great and existing diversity of people’s relations to sex. In a similar fashion, bell hooks (1992) sets a dominant phallocentric discourse of black masculinity (and black racial identity) against the diverse social field of black masculinities and gender relations [6].

Like many political economists I had heretofore theorised the US social formation and `the global economy’ as sites of capitalist dominance, a dominance located squarely in the social (or economic) field. But a theoretical and pedagogical option now presented itself, one that could make a powerful difference: to depict economic discourse as hegemonised while rendering the social world as economically differentiated and complex. It is possible, I realised, and potentially productive to understand capitalist hegemony as a (dominant) discourse rather than as a social articulation or structure. Thus, one might represent economic practice as comprising a rich diversity of capitalist and non-capitalist activities and argue that the non-capitalist ones had until now been relatively `invisible’ because the concepts and discourses that could make them `visible’ have themselves been marginalised and suppressed.

In this project of discursive destabilisation, the first task is to undermine familiar representations of capitalism as the hegemonic form of economy, as necessarily and naturally dominant. This opens up a space for alternative economic representations.... (82)

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Tuesday, September 20, 2016

How is this theory?

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>>>WHY DOES SPECULATION MATTER IN FEMINIST THEORY? rounding out experience set 1

Tuesday 20 Sept – Embedded among economies: how is this theory? 
• WEB ASSIGNMENT: find out anything you can about the book Take Back the Economy and its authors.
• EXAMINE ECONOMY BOOK AS OBJECT CAREFULLY: how is the book itself a collective project? where can you find out about that?
• READ: Take Back Chps 2 & 5: 17-48 & 125-158; (you should have already read beginning and Introduction xiii -29 before.)
• REREAD bits from Sturgeon on Direct Theory at <HOME POST>
DUE: logbook 1 and any individual circle reports you need to add if you missed class <TEMPLATE HERE>

How do you understand this material as theory? What is theory? How is it similar or different to methodology, policy, activism? What is direct theory? 

What has our first experience set been all about? How do you know? What have you learned since that first post with Sturgeon's essay? 

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TIME CAPSULE TO YOUR FUTURE SELF, 

JUST READY TO FINISH THE CLASS AT THE END OF THE SEMESTER. FROM YOUR PRESENT SELF NOW, PAST SELF THEN: 

WHAT ARE YOU THINKING AND FEELING 
right now? 

[image from: https://www.cantonpl.org/sites/default/files/images/time%20capsule%20new.medium.jpg]

• FREEWRITING: have you done it before?


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_writing

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FW1: Why is the title of Experience Set 1 "Why does speculation matter in Feminist Theory?"

FW2: How does today's reading in Take Back the Economy fit into Experience Set 1?

FW3: How does what we are doing today fit into feminist theory as you understand it?

[image from: https://92ad8cb22cb16bc6b888-e82553a271b6cfdf0ae0f84b730ab65e.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/cTl5pO57PS_1439929253547.jpg  ]  

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BEFORE BOOK CIRCLES & general discussion:

=arrange for class PARTNER 
who will meet with you before workshops and LA so you mutually edit each other's work, and who can support you in assignments.

=LOTTERY for whether to start with poster or paper
in Workshop 1. (you will do the other one in Workshop 2).

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SEMESTER OVERVIEW: 


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CONCERNED ABOUT DOING POSTERS? 

For pep talks make an appointment with Katie to talk during office hrs Wed 10am-11:30am or after class!

Learning specialists interested in how some technologies used well might open up learning as this sort of fun develop so-called constructionist pedagogies. The MIT Media Lab’s “lifelong kindergarden” group are people who work with learning as a form of play. Making things, making ideas, making connections and patterns, enjoying these with others, these are all elements in constructionist ideas about learning. Physically getting up and moving around, talking passionately with other students, enjoying the not-quite-under-control elements of communication and thinking and coming up with something new. Our class conferences are ways of putting constructionist learning into action in our class, as are the web posters, our uses of web actions, and even the paper handouts.




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NOTICE THAT HOW THE POSTER LOOKS -- FANCY OR NOT -- IS MUCH LESS IMPORTANT THAN HOW WELL IT TELLS US THE RESULTS OF YOUR READING, SPECULATIONS, & RESEARCH AND HOW YOU PUT THESE TOGETHER!! bibliography and citations necessary.

Crafty posters on poster board with fabulous research contents will get better grades than the nicest electronic poster with sketchy content. If you don't already know how to do fancy electronic posters, then don't use your time learning how now. Do a simple poster demonstrating excellent research practices and outcomes that work with the messy interests in how feminisms name themselves and others, why, and in what forms.




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You can use powerpoint to create a single poster frame, as a graphics package,  BUT A POWERPOINT SLIDE SHOW WILL NOT BE ACCEPTABLE!

And if you do do something electronic, you must bring a print out of it -- do it cheap! -- to share, or bring YOUR OWN LAPTOP to show it on using wireless. You cannot use the class projector, or computer, or Katie's laptop.   

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Sunday, September 18, 2016

Of Interest to folks in our course! an event ....

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http://pottershousedc.org/event-blog/2016/9/6/intersectionality-author-talk-with-patricia-hill-collins

Intersectionality - Author Talk with Patricia Hill Collins

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In this new book Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge provide a much-needed introduction to the field of intersectional knowledge and praxis. They analyze the emergence, growth and contours of the concept and show how intersectional frameworks speak to topics as diverse as human rights, neoliberalism, identity politics, immigration, hip hop, global social protest, diversity, digital media, Black feminism in Brazil, violence and World Cup soccer. Accessibly written and drawing on a plethora of lively examples to illustrate its arguments, the book highlights intersectionality's potential for understanding inequality and bringing about social justice oriented change.
Intersectionality will be an invaluable resource for anyone grappling with the main ideas, debates and new directions in this field.
RSVP via Facebook https://www.facebook.com/events/891198434346065/  

The Potter’s House is a nonprofit cafĂ©, bookstore, and event space in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, DC. Since opening our doors in 1960 we have been a key place for deeper conversation, creative expression, and community transformation. 
After closing in 2013 for major renovations, The Potter’s House re-opened in spring 2015 with a renewed space and revitalized offerings.
In our rapidly changing city - one in which development so often means displacement - The Potter's House is a deeply rooted space where we can build relationships across our differences, envision just alternatives, and grow the movements that will make them possible.

1658 COLUMBIA ROAD NORTHWEST  WASHINGTON, DC, 20009  202.232.5483  INFO@POTTERSHOUSEDC.ORG
MONDAY - FRIDAY | 7AM - 9PM   SATURDAY | 8AM - 10PM   SUNDAY | 8AM-6PM  

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Monday, September 12, 2016

Be sure to attend a panel at REIMAGINING EVERYTHING EVENT THIS FRIDAY!

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We are asking everyone in our WMST classes to consider attending at least one of the panels of this fabulous event created by Dr. LaMonda H. Stallings in our department. To see the full schedule and plan which panel you will attend click HERE and to register click HERE (it's free!)

When: Friday, September 16, 2016 9:15 AM - 4:30 PM
Where: Tawes Hall, Room 1100
Cost: FREE
See: http://ter.ps/boggs
Description: Full schedule and online registration at http://ter.ps/boggs


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Friday, September 9, 2016

fluid terminologies


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>>>WHY DOES SPECULATION MATTER IN FEMINIST THEORY? 
experience set 1

Tuesday 13 Sept – The many meanings of Opposition: being fluid 
• from now on assume that BEFORE EVERY CLASS you examine the website for new stuff and read links and prepare BEFORE EVERY CLASS your web assignments and your readings. Come to class ready to check in with our MAKING attendance portraits. 
• remember you will be meeting in your book circle and putting together a report on this material at the beginning of class, so bring notes you made while preparing so the collective discussion and report will be easier and more fun! 

• WEB ASSIGNMENT: read this Keating link and then search yourself for additional information: bring that into class to share: http://www.twu.edu/ws/keating.asp  
• EXAMINE KEATING BOOK AS OBJECT CAREFULLY: what can you tell about it from its production, drawings, arrangement, TOC and what else?
• READ: Keating: Giving Thanks & Introduction (xiii -29)

What comparisons can you make between Transformation Now & Take Back the Economy? What effects do these two objects want to have on the world? How do you know? 

Think about the class in terms of Experience Sets. This one asks the question Why Does Speculation Matter in Feminist Theory? How would Keating respond to that question? How would the authors of Take Back the Economy, given what you have read and also their website? 

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Uses of speculative feminisms: 
Keating and Octavia's Brood; Are You my Mother?
Feminist SF: http://adanewmedia.org/issues/issue-archives/issue3/

The many meanings of Opposition: being fluid 
Speculative realism and Keating's polarities and Chela Sandoval's oppositional-differential consciousness  

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Juhasz, A. and Balsamo, A. 2012. An Idea Whose Time is Here: FemTechNet — A Distributed Online Collaborative Course (DOCC). Ada, a journal of Gender, New Media & Technology, No.1. http://adanewmedia.org/2012/11/issue1-juhasz/

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• ESTABLISHING PRACTICES: We will consider what sort of learning space and community we are creating, and how we enter that space. Here is one example of what one class did. What do we want to do in a similar vein? 



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HOW TO COMPLETE LOGBOOKS 1 - 4 

DOWNLOAD LOGBOOK TEMPLATE HERE IN WORD FROM GOOGLE DOC CAN FILL IN
DOWLOAD SAMPLES IN PDF: SAMPLE ONE LOGBOOK 1 & SAMPLE TWO LOGBOOK 3

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Friday, September 2, 2016

Transformation Now

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Tuesday 6 Sept – Transformative Change: participations
If this is your first time in this class, as soon as you arrive, introduce yourself to two people already there and ask them to help you get up to speed on what happened in the first class. Be sure to read the syllabus online and to note what to do when one misses any classes.

>BEFORE CLASS:
NOTICE ANYTHING NEW ON THE CLASS WEBSITE AND READ BOTH POSTS AND LINKS.
WEB ASSIGNMENT: How are activists encouraged to use the Take Back the Economy book on the book's companion website here: http://takebackeconomy.net/?page_id=627
READ: Embedded excerpts online of the four required books, either from Google or Amazon:

• Collins. 2016. Intersectionality. Wiley.
https://www.amazon.com/Intersectionality-Concepts-Patricia-Hill-Collins/dp/0745684491/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1472562887&sr=8-1&keywords=intersectionality+collins

GO TO LINK AND click LOOK INSIDE, like this (below):



• Gibson-Graham. 2013. Take Back the Economy: An Ethical Guide for Transforming Our Communities. Minnesota.
https://www.amazon.com/Take-Back-Economy-Transforming-Communities-ebook/dp/B00D02BM5M/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1472562578&sr=8-1#nav-subnav

GO TO LINK AND click LOOK INSIDE, like this (below):



• Haraway. 2016. Manifestly Haraway. Minnesota.
https://www.amazon.com/Manifestly-Haraway-Posthumanities-Donna-J-ebook/dp/B01D406H7M/ref=sr_1_1_twi_kin_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1472562776&sr=8-1&keywords=manifestly+haraway#nav-subnav

GO TO LINK AND click LOOK INSIDE, like this (below):



• Keating. 2012. Transformation Now!: Toward a Post-Oppositional Politics of Change. Illinois.

Read embedded excerpt here:

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>IN CLASS:
HANDED OUT: Syllabus & 2 weeks assignments, Info Sheet, Book Circle Inventory, Book Circle Report Template
MAKING: 2 min. Attendance Portraits (Barry. 2014. Syllabus. Drawn & Quarterly. p. 56.) https://www.drawnandquarterly.com/syllabus
CLASS BUDDIES
BOOK CIRCLES BEGIN

After our Attendance Portraits we will begin creating book circles. Everyone will be in one. You will create a name for your circle, we will number them, and otherwise organize them using our inventory

Then you will work on your first Circle Report, with the reading assignments for today, using our Book Circle Report template

Book circles will report to the entire class on their activities and projects. What do you want to do about your fifth book? How will you choose it? 


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Perkins. 2016. "Using Project-Based Learning To Flip Bloom’s Taxonomy For Deeper Learning." Teach Thought: we grow teachers Blog.
http://www.teachthought.com/learning/project-based-learning/using-project-based-learning-flip-blooms-taxonomy-deeper-learning/

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We are asking everyone in the class, in most of the WMST classes, to commit to attending one of the panels of this fabulous event created by Dr. LaMonda H. Stallings in our department. To see the full schedule and plan which panel you will attend click HERE and to register click HERE (it's free!)



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