For our next unit, which was supposed to be about gender issues, I have decided to focus on a unit I used to teach in English 1: how our identities are impacted by our class (or socio-economic status)

For our next unit, which was supposed to be about gender issues, I have decided to focus on a unit I used to teach in English 1: how our identities are impacted by our class (or socio-economic status) in America.

As we face unknowns as a community regarding health, education, economic stability, and food access (to name a few), I thought it would be more powerful to focus our conversation and research to thinking about the opportunities and the obstacles that are created by our own particular class statuses.

As you know, our American class system can simply be divided into lower, middle, and upper classes. This can then be divided even more into categories such as lower-middle class, upper-middle class, etc. These social classes each have their own challenges and hurdles, as well as opportunities. Our quest together then is to begin to understand the various issues and the various ways class impacts our lives in America.

We will begin with 4 different angles and 4 different readings:

1. How geography/location matters when we try to move up the socio-economic ladder to better opportunities:

             Reading: David Leonhardt’s New York Times’s article “In Climbing Income, Location Matters” https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/business/in-climbing-income-ladder-location-matters.html

2. How class status impacts our access to education:

             Reading: Jonathan Kozol’s “Fremont High School” p. 367-372

3: How class impacts our access to food:

             Reading: Lars Eighner’s “On Dumpster Diving” p. 31-40

4. How class stigmatizes and stereotypes people:

            Reading: Joey Franklin’s “Working at Wendy’s” p. 25-30

Your job after looking over these readings is to choose 1 of these 4 angles to conduct your conversation and research around for your last essay for me.

Here are the stages of the unit:

1. Do the Readings! Please take the first week to do the readings so that you understand the essay prompt

2. Choosing the Essay Prompt: Please read over the essay prompts. You will see that you have 2 essay prompts you can choose from: 1 essay prompt is a personal prompt where you get to write about the opportunities/obstacles you (or your family) face due to your socio-economic status – again this conversation will fall under a conversation based on the angles I have provided: location, education, access to food, and stereotypes/stigmas. The 2nd essay prompt is a more traditional prompt, where you don’t have to write about yourself in case you are uncomfortable with that. You will see this assignment in the module- please read those directions carefully before submitting your response.

3. Small Writing Reflection: Once you have picked the essay prompt and submitted that assignment, I'd like you to do  a small writing reflection about one of the readings that you will be incorporating into your essay. You will see this assignment in the module- please read those directions carefully.

4. Begin Your Reserach! To meet the research requirements for this paper, you will need to find 1 database source to support your conversation, and 1 credible website article or website resource (i.e. a government website, etc.) – this is when you will use the information you have learned in LR10 to help conduct research. Please read over the ideas/discussion I have provided for you as you begin your research. I tried to give you ideas that will help stimulate your research/searches based on each angle. 

5. Writing Your Thesis/Providing your Research Sources : So that I know what your direction will be for your essay, I would like you to submit a working thesis statement. I would also like you to provide the sources you have found so I know you have conducted your research  by providing the article titles and websites. Please look at this assignment for further instruction.

6. Introduction: Please write ¾ of a page introduction for your essay. 

7. 1st Draft: Please write 3 pages and include a Works Cited for full credit. All of your required sources must be incorporated into the draft.

8. Final Draft: Please write 4-5 pages and include a Works Cited for your final draft. 

I have tried to make this unit managable under the conditions we are facing from the pandemic. Please at any point let me know if you need extra support. Take a look at the deadlines for each assignment in the module so you stay on top of those deadlines.