Class 11 - Assignment Briefing and Quiz

Welcome back!

Assignment briefing

Today, we’re going to look at your first assignment. Here’s the guidance:

Assignment Guidance

Your assignment is to write an essay with a total word length between 1200 and 1500 words, not including the bibliography.

Please use APA referencing style. Please also note the crucial detail about contemporary or recent scholarly texts. This means you need to do some serious reading first, before you start writing. Don’t just write, and then stick in some references later to make it look “scholarly.” You can read what I’ve written about this here: A Cook’s Guide to Writing Essays.

Upload in .doc or .docx format on Canvas. Use 12 pt Times New Roman font, and double-space your text. This is a widely-accepted standard.

Essay Questions

1. Stuart Hall writes about race as a “floating signifier.” Write an essay exploring how race works as a floating signifier within your own cultural context or contexts, drawing on the original text, and at least three contemporary or recent scholarly texts (not blogs or websites).
2. To what extent does Kapuściński’s view of “the Other” exhibit a Eurocentric bias? If there is such a bias, what issues does this raise? Answer these questions, making close reference to specific passages in Kapuściński’s text, and to at least three contemporary or recent scholarly texts (not blogs or websites).
3. What are the barriers to building a multicultural society? Answer this question with reference to either Morrison or Kapuściński’s work, and to at least three other contemporary or recent scholarly texts (not blogs or websites).
4. What can we learn from Augustine about how we should best respond to human diversity? Answer this question through an in-depth discussion of Augustine’s argument about human “monstrosity”, making close reference to the text, and at least three contemporary or recent scholarly texts (not blogs or websites) that are relevant to your argument.

Rubric

You will be marked on the following:

1. Clarity of writing (keep it simple!)
2. Close-reading of the original texts.
3. The existence of a clear line of argument, leading to a conclusion.
4. A demonstrable ability to engage with the arguments of other scholars, and reading of secondary academic literature.
5. Originality and flair!

For the research you must read relevant scholarly papers and books, outside the readings we have explored together. If you don’t do this, and fail to give evidence of this, you will struggle to get more than a C.

Your readings must be a part of the fabric of the argument you are making.

Discussion

In groups, discuss:

• Which of these questions is most appealing / interesting to you?
• What strategies would you have for answering them?
• Can you articulate a provisional thesis that you might want to argue in response to this question?
• How will you go about researching this? What resources will you use?

We’ll feed back afterwards!

Quiz

Okay! For the final part of the session, we’ll be doing the first of our two quizzes. We’ll do these in breakout groups. You can talk through the questions with your fellow students. If you finish the quiz, you are free to leave!

The deadline is the end of today, ICT.