Discussion Question

Gender, Race, and Class in Contemporary Societies

Five-Week Online Summer Session 1

(1) Weekly Discussion Forum = 10 total points possible

Discussion forums are places where I will raise questions about readings, lectures, and/or films, and often, I will ask you to apply those readings, lectures, and films to your own life or the world around you.

When you post, your responses must be at least 250 words, and no more than 350 words. You must draw from the reading, lecture, and/or film in the class. I must see that you have done the work. Responses that have nothing to do with course material or have no substance (see below) will receive 0 points.

What kind of posts to the discussion boards am I looking for? Good question. Your posts to the discussion board each week must show me that you are engaging with the material, synthesizing it, critiquing it, thinking about it, and very importantly, reading it. As such, a post where you only talk about one of the readings is unacceptable; you must comment and critically reflect on the overarching themes that the readings raise. For example, this may mean that when we cover intersectionality you find that race is an important variable to consider when looking at feminism and women’s rights; you can talk about this theme, and use evidence from the readings to back it up. You may also choose to go more in depth about several of the readings and draw reference to the other readings that were assigned, or you may go into depth on all of the readings. Regularly, I will ask you to think about how points or concepts in the readings or films connect to your life, so I will want to see you apply the reading to the world around you. The point is that you must communicate in these forums that you have done all of the reading and engaged with it as a feminist scholar would. This means synthesizing the material and not merely listing the readings and telling me word for word what each reading states; I have already completed the readings, I do not need a word for word summary of them. Rather, I’d like an analysis of the readings/material.

You do not need a works cited for the discussion board– just use the author’s last name and page number when referring to her/his arguments, when appropriate.

The grading rubric applies to forums:

A 10-point response: Forum responses that summarize and critically analyze the claims, grounds, and theories presented in the readings. These posts, which address the overarching themes of the readings, lectures, and/or films, may elaborate on or question the ideas and arguments presented in the texts. These responses may also bring up course material that the readings did not include but is relevant, may bring in outside academic readings, may connect the week’s readings to other readings in the course, and may bring forth the underlying assumptions of the text.