Week 1
Read https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125859207
Reflect Claude Steele talks to callers about moments in their lives where they encountered “stereotype threat,” i.e., when a stereotype about someone’s identity affects their performance. Many of the callers talk about their experiences in school with stereotype threat. Engage with Steele’s interview and use it as a frame for looking at the sample narratives and your own experiences. (Recommended: 150-300 words for each question)
● Look back at the sample narratives you read. How can you use what Claude Steele discusses in his interview to examine and explain what is happening in the sample narratives?
● How have you, in your own experiences, seen teachers, universities, or other students construct an idea of what social identities students should have? (Again, draw from what Claude Steele’s remarks throughout his interview as you answer this)
Please do not attach files to Journals. Enter your Journal posts directly into the text editor so that they can be read more easily.
Formatting Note: You may find distracting formatting shows up when you paste text from another document. If you type out your posts in another document, copy then paste the text into the text editor without formatting with one of the following key combinations:
● for PC: Ctrl + Shift +Vf
● or Mac: Shift + Option + Command + V
Then reformat the text as you like with the text editor tools.
Using the sample narratives you read earlier in the week as inspiration, in your post write three different narratives that describe your experiences with learning. For example, you can think through moments of difficulty learning or times you were learning in spaces other than school (such as learning a hobby, or sport, or an instrument…etc.). Write approximately 400-500 words for each narrative. You will use your three Educational Narratives next week to explore possible connections amongst the experiences with education in order to develop an inquiry for your Humans of Education (HoED) assignment.
Please do not attach files to Discussion Board posts. Enter your DB posts directly into the text editor so that they can be read by classmates more easily.
Formatting Note: You may find distracting formatting shows up when you paste text from another document. If you type out your posts in another document, copy then paste the text into the text editor without formatting with one of the following key combinations:
● for PC: Ctrl + Shift +V
● for Mac: Shift + Option + Command + V
Then reformat the text as you like with the text editor tools.
Week 2
Reflect
https://mashable.com/2013/10/15/humans-of-new-york/
Watch the two short videos above where Brandon Stanton explains his strategy for interviewing people. Then, respond to the following questions. Your goal is to develop an interview strategy (i.e., search strategy) for your Humans of Education series. (Recommended length: 250-300 words)
● How does Stanton get people to consent to photos and interviews? What is his physical (embodied) process?
● What are his questioning/interviewing strategies?
● How does Stanton’s approach to people or stories differ from other human interest stories you have encountered in the media?
● In what ways does Stanton seem to be engaging with the principles of ethical research?
● How might you adapt his processes to your own photos and interviews (via Zoom or socially distant)?
Week 3
Reflect
Compose a genre analysis of Stanton’s HONY work. This will help you situate your own project within the context of the HONY genre and its conventions.
In addition to posting individual stories on social media, Stanton has also curated people’s stories into specific series (e.g., a series on pediatric cancer stories). You can find the HONY Series here: https://www.humansofnewyork.com/series. Choose one series and explore three or more of the stories within a series. Then respond to the follow questions. Write 250 words for each section (aims, methods, materials).
Aims
● For the series you’ve chosen, what is Brandon Stanton’s goal? What is he trying to communicate or highlight about people and their stories? Why might he have created a series around this goal?
● What do you think is the purpose of gathering these stories into a series? What is the effect of seeing so many examples together?
● What is the context for the series you chose? What is happening in the country or the world when Stanton published this series? How do you think Stanton is intervening in this context? Google a keyword from the series and the date the stories were posted to find out (e.g., refugees + 2016).
Methods
● Where do you see traces of Stanton’s method (of approach, of photography) in the stories you chose? Why do you think Stanton uses text instead of a voice recording? Or a video?
● What do you notice about the pictures Stanton has paired with the stories? What are some similarities among the photos? When and why are some of the photos different?
● Why might Stanton have chosen to interview people he encounters on the street?
Materials
● What kinds of details does Stanton get from his interviewees?
● What do you notice about the relationship between the narrative and the photo? Why do you think Stanton picked that photograph?
● Which narrative(s) are you most drawn to? Why?