You've got two things to do before next class:
1. Please watch Stanley Nelson's documentary The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution. You'll find it here. I'll adapt the questions you wrote for class this week to fit this film. Please note that this doc is about 2 hours long.
2. Please draft the second part of the MeZeMeWe assignment. In this second part you'll tell the story of a figure from the history of social justice whose life promises to illuminate your own. Your draft should be about 750 words long, and it should tell the story of the figure you’ve selected, in a way that makes it possible for you to connect their story to yours in part 3.
What does that mean?
- It means you’ll need to be selective. You’re not trying to pack your figure’s whole life story into a mere 750 words, like in an encyclopedia entry. Rather, you’ll choose one, maybe two specific stories from your figure’s life to tell in detail. It may help to outline the larger story of their life in a single short paragraph, just to set the context. But the majority of the section ought to consist of one, at most two, stories told in detail.
- It means you need to be thinking ahead to part 3, where you make connections between the “me” and the “ze.” The purpose of this project is to help you integrate your living and your learning using the life of a historical figure to help you begin to chart your own path forward. So pick a story from their life that really, truly resonates with you, personally.
(Please note, that you don’t need to actually make the connections between your life and your figure's life now, in part 2. You’ll do that in part 3. So forego making connections till then.)
- It means your writing should be “literary” in nature. You’re telling a story here — not making an argument or compiling a book report. Remember that stories tend to have a plot, with a beginning, a middle, and an end; they have richly drawn characters, too; and they typically aim to be written in a vivid, emotionally powerful style.
Starting can be a challenge, so here’s a way to get up and running quickly. Feel free to modify it to suit your own purposes or to flat-out steal it. I’m sharing this to give you a quick way to jump into your own writing.
So: Imagine that I’m writing a MeZeMeWe project myself, and that my chosen social justice figure is Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement. I think I’d begin my part 2 with a brief paragraph that transitions from my personal story (the subject of part 1) to Dorothy’s, like this:
Because my passion for social justice is focused on the struggle against economic exploitation, I’ve studied the life of Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement and a lifelong antipoverty activist. Day began her adult life as a writer and artist in Greenwich Village, before converting to Catholicism and full-time social justice work in the 1920s . . . (and here I’d finish the paragraph with brief snapshot of Day’s life overall, for a total of 4 or 5 sentences).Then I’d move to a specific story from Day’s life, which would fill the rest of my draft, starting with a paragraph that begins like this:
For someone like me, who wants to connect activism and the arts, the most fascinating part of Day’s life is the founding, in 1933, of the Catholic Worker newspaper. Day got the idea of starting a newspaper by and about the poor in a flash of inspiration, while she was watching other political activists sell their newspapers in New York’s Union Square. “If the communists and socialists and anarchists all have their own newspapers,” she thought, “shouldn’t Catholic activists have one, too?” . . . (and from here I’d write 4 or 5 or however many paragraphs focused just on the story of how Day’s newspaper was founded).And once I told this story, I’d be done — at least with part 2!
It makes sense to keep all parts of your MeZeMeWe project together, so go ahead and put your draft of Part 2 right after your draft of Part 1.
Happy writing! Let me know if I can offer any help or you have any questions!
