For each session, you will read/watch (at least) six resources. Four of those resources will be required resources that everyone resources (denoted by being bolded and asterisked below), and the remaining two resources can be selected from the other posted resources. If you would like to read all of the optional resources, please feel free to do so and these are certainly worth considering for your final paper. If you have read/watched all ten resources and would enjoy additional resources, please ask your teaching team member or the course instructor and we will happily provide these to you.
After completing the readings for the day, share a story from your own life that demonstrates how you understand, connect with, or experience tension around this day’s resources. This assignment reflects our commitment to balancing resources from the shelves (what has been published for others) and resources from our selves (our own experiences and understanding of our own lives). Elements of a story include context (when and where are you and who else is there), and drama (i.e. action, uncertainty, change, and feelings). Your story should comprise of 60-75% of your assignment.
The other 25-40% is explaining how your story connects with the shelf resources. For each reflection, you need to cite and connect to at least three of the ten assigned class readings (at least two required readings and at least one elective reading). Use our EDUC 251 APA guidelines (Links to an external site.) to include in-text citations and a reference list at the end of your document. As you cite your references, please consider: what specific aspects of the resources are you connecting with? How do these connections leave you feeling? What do these connections or tensions tell you about the broader world? Do NOT summarize the resources as we have already read/watched all of them. We are most interested in your story and how you are connecting it to our course content.
If you don’t think that you have any stories to tell related to these resources, please share why you believe you don’t have any stories. Is it because your families, communities, or schools never talked about these topics? If so, why do you think that is? Is it because you have never thought about these topics in terms of diversity, equity, and social justice? What would it mean to begin developing stories that support you developing this understanding?
Pre-class reflections should be between 500 and 700 words total for each assignment and uploaded as a Microsoft Word document or PDF. (All UW students have access to Google docs through your UW email account. You can then download your Google doc as a Word document or PDF.) We require this so that our teaching team can offer you in-text feedback on each assignment. To view these comments after your assignments have been graded please click on the “View Feedback” button on Canvas.
*** Arana, G. (2012). My so-called ex-gay life. Prospect.org. http://prospect.org/article/my-so-called-ex-gay-life (Links to an external site.)
*** Baldwin, J. (2001). Here be dragons. In R.P. Byrd & B. Guy-Sheftall (Eds.), Traps: African-American men on gender and sexuality (pp. 207-218). Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press. http://challengingmalesupremacy.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Here-be-Dragons-James-Baldwin.pdf (Links to an external site.)
*** Beck, K. (2013 December 8). Passing for white and straight: How my looks hide my identity. Salon.com. www.salon.com/2013/12/09/passing_for_white_and_straight_how_my_looks_hide_my_identity/ (Links to an external site.)
Lerum, K. (2015 May 26). Cisgender femmeNist reflections on trans* justice: Moving from adoration to action. TheFeministWire.com. http://www.thefeministwire.com/2015/05/cisgender-femmenist-reflections-on-trans-justice-moving-from-adoration-to-action/ (Links to an external site.)
Pascoe, C.J. (2007). Dude you’re a fag: Masculinity and sexuality in high school (pp. 1-24). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. https://www.mobt3ath.com/uplode/book/book-62018.pdf (Links to an external site.) (again, only pp 1-24!)
Peng, Y. (2015). A Man Fights Gay Conversion Clinics In China. AJ+.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2f4AfwnPlo (Links to an external site.)
Rivas, J. (2015 February 23). The surprising history of gay marriage in the Navajo nation. Splinter News. https://splinternews.com/the-surprising-history-of-gay-marriage-in-the-navajo-na-1793845543 (Links to an external site.)
Tatum, E. (2015 March 29). 10 examples of straight privilege. EverydayFeminism.com. http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/03/examples-straight-privilege/ (Links to an external site.)
TSER (2016). LGBTQ+ Definitions. TransStudents.org. http://www.transstudent.org/definitions (Links to an external site.)
Yoshino, K. (2006 January 15). The pressure to cover. NYTimes.com. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/15/magazine/15gays.html (Links to an external site.) (Required for 05a)
Possible story stems:
In class we’ve discussed how race is “socially constructed and socially real” in the words of Jodi Newman. That is, there are aspects of race that go beyond biology and skin color (for instance, our ethnicities, or foods, or housing stories). Similarly, what has been your experience of learning that sexual identity is both personal and social?
1) When and how did you learn about sexual identity as a person’s own identity shaping their own choices for themselves? When and how did you learn your own sexual identity as something that is personal to you that shapes your own decisions for yourself?
2) When and how did you learn about sexual identity as a social identity shaping how a person is seen or wants to be seen by others? When and how did you learn your own sexual identity as something that is social where other people will see and choose to treat you differently based on how they read you? And where you might change how you behave to have people treat you differently?
Setting: I am a Heterosexual male Chinese student who is currently 21 and attending university in the US