Hi everyone!  Just a friendly reminder– there will be no optional class on Mon, September 28 due to Yom Kippur.

Also: WE ARE NOW MOVING ON TO UNIT TWO!  From now on, use the category: Unit 2!

HOMEWORK DUE BY NOON, WEDNESDAY SEPT 30:

READ: “A Talk to Teachers” by James Baldwin. https://www.spps.org/cms/lib010/MN01910242/Centricity/Domain/125/baldwin_atalktoteachers_1_2.pdf

 WRITE:  Blog Post (at least 300 words) POST ON OPEN LAB (Category: Unit 2) 

In “A Talk to Teachers,” James Baldwin writes:  

I would try to make [the student] know that just as American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it, so is the world larger, more daring, more beautiful and more terrible, but principally larger – and that it belongs to him. I would teach him that he doesn’t have to be bound by the expediencies of any given administration, any given policy, any given morality; that he has the right and the necessity to examine everything. 

First of all, what do you think of what James Baldwin was saying (not just in this quote, but in his entire speech?) What do you think he means when he says “the world is larger?”

Secondly, what do you think you have the “necessity” to examine, or the obligation to learn more about? To put it another way: what do you wish had been taught to you in school that wasn’t? Why do you want to know about these topics?   

This assignment will help you come up with a topic for your next essay (which we’ll start to discuss on Weds) so it’s VERY IMPORTANT.  Also, James Baldwin is maybe the greatest American writer, so don’t skip this reading!! 

James Baldwin and Martin Luther King