English 11.67
Unit 2: Roots of Racism
Writing Spotlight: Logos & Organization

feeder 2A / feeder 2B

As we move from Unit 1 to Unit 2, our focus will shift from products of popular culture to the highly politicized arena of public issues. Our topic of choice will be racism, a variable that still wields a surprising amount of power even in developed, wealthy, and "enlightened" nations like Ireland and America. Related issues like affirmative action, racial profiling, and the continuing ratial imbalance across our prison system still constitute front-page news every now and then in the American media: race remains a volatile topic.

Given how quickly this issue can become personal and emotional, seeing it objectively might be helped by a preliminary act of cultural and temporal distancing.

Accordingly, this unit will touch on racism as a historically shaped, Irish entity (Feeders 2A and 2B) before engaging its presence in a modern, American milieu (Unit Project 2).

Feeder 2A: short, encyclopedic entry

Purpose: logical, objective explication of key historical events and trends
Audience: an "outsider," non-professional audience unfamiliar with Irish social history
Writing Foci: paper organization, paragraph organization, effective syntax, objective tone

This assignment will produce a series of related essays dealing with different elements of Irish social history that have impacted Irish attitudes towards other nations and ethnic groups. I will publish these essays on our course website, and your collected works will become a useful historical reference as we proceed throughout Unit 2.

Create a short and compact (400-500 word), encyclopedia-style entry on your assigned topic. This entry should employ no pathos or ethos, but rely solely on historical "fact." At the bottom of your entry, include an MLA-style Works Cited section (not a separate page) that lists the works on which you drew. Your essay should rework information from 3-5 sources, two of which should be information pulled from good, old-fashioned books that you will find on the stacks in Davis library, or reference texts specific to Irish history. Remember what you learned about concision from Unit 1; given the short length of this assignment, you should employ your cleanest, tightest prose style. Your entry should provide what you think are the most important highlights from the historical event/issue in question.

Draft Workshop: Fdr 2A

• Does the author primarily provide the most relevant, basic material, or do they unnecessarily digress into irrelevant, tangential information?
• Consider the order in which the author arranges the different pieces of information. MAKE AT LEAST THREE SUGGESTIONS FOR HOW THEY MIGHT REARRANGE THEIR INFO.
• Does the author use the most exact, concise language possible? MAKE SUGGESTIONS FOR HOW THEY MIGHT REWORD AND/OR MAKE MORE CONCISE THEIR LANGUAGE
• The author does NOT need to actually cite (quote or paraphrase) 3-5 sources, but they should be drawing on 3-5 sources, all of which should be listed in their Works Cited section beneath the entry itself. If and when they do quote or paraphrase, make sure they follow MLA guidelines.
• Does the author remain within the 400-500 word boundaries given by the assignment?

Assess the work of the 3 students who names fall beneath your own, REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THEY ARE IN YOUR GROUP OR NOT. Make sure to include me everytime you send comments back to your peers. This peer review session will begin at 7 a.m. in the morning, at which point you will have already sent your work to the three names ABOVE your own. As you send it to your three peers, send it to yourself simultaneously and open it to insure that the attachment actually went through and is readable. You will assess the work of the three students BELOW your own name.

Example: Whitney will send her work to Matt, Jordyn & Shannon, but will assess the work of Michelle, Jake & Kirsten.

Kirsten Ahlstrom (kahlstro@email.unc.edu)
Victoria Allen (allenva@email.unc.edu)
Rhyn Chung (rchung@email.unc.edu)
Amanda Corner (corner@email.unc.edu)
Sandeep Daiya (daiya@email.unc.edu)
Rachel Dent (rdent@email.unc.edu)
Justin Dobies (new) (dobies@email.unc.edu)
"Corey" (Chris) Eaton (cceaton@email.unc.edu)
Richard Haywood (haywoodr@email.unc.edu)
Erin Jones (reneejo@email.unc.edu)
Katie Lancaster (unckatie@email.unc.edu)
Simone Martin (srmartin@email.unc.edu)
Caitlin McShane (cmcshane@email.unc.edu)
Shannon Morrison (shannonm@email.unc.edu)
Jordyn Saunders (jasaunde@email.unc.edu)
Matt Scarborough (mtnbikermateo@yahoo.com)
Whitney Scarborough (wscarbor@email.unc.edu)
Michelle Sutton (mdsutton@email.unc.edu)
" Jake" (Jacob) Wilson (wilsonjb@email.unc.edu)

______________________________

Feeder 2B: editorial for college newspaper

Purpose: to persuade others that racism can be explained in part by socio-historical factors
Audience: an "outsider," college audience presumably ignorant of Irish racism's historical roots
Writing Foci: concision, organization (at all levels: sentence, paragraph, paper), an arguable and well-supported thesis

Using the links provided by the course resources page by Tommy (the librarian), locate a recent news article detailing racial tensions between Ireland and either Britain or one of those countries whose recent immigrants have created a visible presence in Ireland. Referencing one or two of the summaries created by your peers [link], provide a possible rationale (not an excuse, but an explanation) for the existence of such tensions.

As with this unit's first feeder, this assignment will privilege logos over pathos. Your argument's strength should spring from its well-reasoned ideas and logical structure, not from emotionally evocative images or provocative language.

Your 2-page essay will conform to MLA standards for formatting and citation, and will include a Works Cited page.

Draft Workshop: Fdr 2B

• Does the student effectively summarize the recent racism article they chose? That is, from the student's summary, can you say you understand its contents without having read the article itself?
• Does the author provide a rationale for the presence of this racism, a rationale rooted at least partially in the historical or more recent socio-political summaries provided by Feeder 2A? This rationale does not need to be directly relevant to the incident of racism related in the article, but it should be at least contextually appropriate. For instance, an article relating racist acts by Irish individuals against Nigerian immigrants could: 1) argue that lingering, simmering anger in the Republic of Ireland originally directed at British injustice has "spilled over" towards other nationalities; 2) argue that this racism is heavily ironic given centuries of Irish immigration to other countries, that the Irish have forgotten the deb they owe to the rest of the world.
• Is the author's thesis statement (about the possible causes of the racist incident in question) clearly stated?
• Does their argument support their thesis?
• Are you convinced of the essay's argument? If so, what convinced you, the author's well-reasoned points, or their (inappropriate) use of emotionally evocative images, diction or situations? That is, does the author rely more heavily on a logical argument than a pathetic one?
• Does the author use the most exact, concise language possible?

Tomorrow, before class, you need to send your Feeder 2B draft to the three students whose names fall BELOW your own. In class, you will assess the work of the 3 students who names lie ABOVE your own. Make sure to include me each time you send comments back to your peers throughout the day.

Example: Amanda will send her work to Sandeep, Rachel and Justin, but will assess the work of Rhyn, Victoria & Kirsten.

Kirsten Ahlstrom (kahlstro@email.unc.edu)
Victoria Allen (allenva@email.unc.edu)
Rhyn Chung (rchung@email.unc.edu)
Amanda Corner (corner@email.unc.edu)
Sandeep Daiya (daiya@email.unc.edu)
Rachel Dent (rdent@email.unc.edu)
Justin Dobies (new) (dobies@email.unc.edu)
" Corey" (Chris) Eaton (cceaton@email.unc.edu)
Richard Haywood (haywoodr@email.unc.edu)
Erin Jones (reneejo@email.unc.edu)
Katie Lancaster (unckatie@email.unc.edu)
Simone Martin (srmartin@email.unc.edu)
Caitlin McShane (cmcshane@email.unc.edu)
Shannon Morrison (shannonm@email.unc.edu)
Jordyn Saunders (jasaunde@email.unc.edu)
Matt Scarborough (mtnbikermateo@yahoo.com)
Whitney Scarborough (wscarbor@email.unc.edu)
Michelle Sutton (mdsutton@email.unc.edu)
" Jake" (Jacob) Wilson (wilsonjb@email.unc.edu)

Paul Marchbanks
marchban@email.unc.edu