Students are responsible for the entire text of Slave and Citizen for Monday, which is broken up into different scans on the right-hand side of this blog. Please check the syllabus: you are responsible for the pages on the day they're listed.
IF you would prefer PDF copies of the reading, email me for them and I will send them to you as attachments.
Here are some potential Frequently Asked Questions and Answers related to this assignment.
Do I have to read the entire thing?
Technically, no. I expect you to read the opening, and then to begin reading the first sentence of every paragraph. When you get to a paragraph that's important or interesting, I'd like you to stop and read that paragraph. If you're reading a paragraph and you 'get the point,' move on to the next paragraph.
How do you propose I use my time?
You probably can't read this in one sitting. I would break it up into five sittings of 25 pages at a time. Since you're not reading all of those 25 pages in one sitting, let's say you read somewhere between 50-75% of the full text. Today you should read and scan the first 25 pages. Tomorrow you should read and scan the next 25. If you do the same on Saturday and Sunday, that's all of it read by Monday. You need to budget your time accordingly.
What if it's totally impossible for me to read the entire thing?
If that's the case, I would read at least some parts from each section, so that you've read parts of the beginning, middle and end of the text.
How will I know what's important?
This class assumes you've had the prerequisites for college reading and writing. We can review, but I'm comfortable that you can tell the difference between a claim an author is making (an assertion, or an argument) and when an author is giving evidence for that claim. The most important part of your reading process will be to identify the big arguments made and then to review some of the evidence.
With that last question in mind, can you give me an example?
Yes. On page four of the text, the author, Tannebaum, uses very outdated language to make a basic claim: in a paraphrase, he says that African-American women, and persons of color generally, were treated differently in Brazil ("the Empire") than in the United States. As an example, he gives a longer quote from another source (you can see it on page 4; it's the only indented, quoted block of text on the page). This is an example of the author giving a claim (slavery was different in Brazil than in the US) and then citing evidence.
It's important to note this because the author will sometimes give evidence for pages at a time to support one claim he makes. You don't have to read all those pages. But you have to read skillfully and note when new claims pop up. Look first in topic sentences. Also, keep track of these moments in your notes.
Will there be a reading quiz on this?
Yes. The quiz will be open note and open book if you can prove you did a 'majority' of the reading.
Can you offer me any other advice?
Sure. Look at the questions below. Ask yourself the following questions with a text like Slave and Citizen.
What do we notice about the style?
What do we notice about the tone or voice of the text?
What do we notice about the vocabulary?
What do we notice about the citations?
What do we notice about the geographic terms?
What do we notice about the data?
How are we able to define the terms?
How are we able to tell what passage is important?
How are we able to distinguish claims from facts?
How are we able to decide the difference between argument and evidence (or, major claim and supporting claim)?
How are we able to identify the most important claims? Or the one most important claim?
How are we able to identify major themes?
How are we able to decipher the purpose of specific paragraphs and passages?
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