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African Diaspora Program Syllabus
The Africana Studies
Department at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and the Boston
Pan African
Forum are piloting a collaborative venture designed to create academic
achievement in an urban, high school system, especially for youth of African
descent. The program evaluates how students respond to a supplementary
curriculum that portrays the diverse and complex history of people of the
African Diaspora. The
site for the program is Codman Academy Charter School. The
hypertext syllabus, co-created by Robert Johnson and Deborah Whaley, focuses
on Africana history, study skills, personal, and community development. If you
would like to know more about the program contact Professor Robert Johnson,
Jr. at 617.287.6794, or by email at Robert.Johnson@umb.edu.
Program
Overview:
The
African Diaspora Program is designed as an after school development program
for youth of African descent in the greater Boston area. Interdisciplinary
instruction one day a week for two and one half hours in the history
and culture of the African Diaspora, mentoring, tutoring, collaborative
teamwork, community organizing, and events are designed to help students
succeed academically and provide students with leverage on their cultural
surround. The weekend seminars are arranged thematically and
historically. Themes in the program are as follows: Mapping Inter-cultural
Africa, Social Movements in the African Diaspora, Becoming African American, Representation and
Culture, Math, Science, and the African Diaspora. The historical time span is from antiquity
thru the 21st century.
Field
areas represented are cultural and social history, autobiography, popular
culture and the arts, math, science, and technology. Modes of instruction include lectures,
multi-media presentations, group work, and film viewings.
Additional workshops will include study techniques, goal setting,
financial management, career choices, and social awareness. Outside of course
instruction, students will attend field trips, guest speaker events, and
interact with the program’s website, hypertext syllabus, and electronic
listserv.
The African Diaspora Program will help students develop a proactive role in their own personal and educational development. This individual transformation, we expect, will develop concurrently with students’ growing consciousness of their history and environment leading to participation in community development and improvement in study skills and grades. As students work toward their education and career goals, they will gain the self-actualization and desire to transfer and use their knowledge constructively throughout their lives. We also hope that through successful completion of the program it might work as a magnet and university outreach program to encourage students to attend college. While the African Diaspora Program focuses on the humanities and social sciences and will primarily help students with reading, writing, and critical thinking, we also hope to pool together a critical mass of peer tutors in the areas of math and science.
About Codman Academy (School Site's Statement):
Codman
Academy Charter School’s mission is to prepare students for full
participation in the intellectual, economic and civic life of our society, by
ensuring their preparation for and access to further education, the skills and
vision to undertake a rewarding career, and the motivation and character
needed to engage deeply and productively in community life. We view parents
and community members as integral partners in this endeavor.
Our principles focus attention on what is important and principles that provide us with something to return to when we need guidance. Learning is an expedition into the unknown. Expeditions draw together personal experience and intellectual growth to promote self-discovery and construct knowledge. We believe that adults should guide students along this journey with care, compassion, and respect for their diverse learning styles, backgrounds, and needs. Addressing individual differences profoundly increases the potential for learning and creativity of each student. Given fundamental levels of health, safety, and love, all people can and want to learn. We believe expeditionary learning harnesses the natural passion to learn and is a powerful method for developing the curiosity, skills, knowledge, and courage needed to imagine a better world and work toward realizing it.
More about Codman Academy:
Program
Objectives:
By
the end of the program students will ideally:
1.
Gain historical and cultural knowledge of Africana history
2.
Increase their reading, comprehension, writing, public speaking, computer, and
study techniques
3.
Learn to work independently and collaboratively in groups
4.
Set career, educational, and financial goals
5.
Improve time management and multi-tasking
6. Gain an enhanced sense of themselves as active citizens and community organizers
Program
Readings:
Semester One and Two
·
John
Henrik Clarke, In Search of My Africa (African Diaspora * History)
·
Benedita de Silva,
An Afro-Brazilian Woman’s Story of Politics and Love (Brazil *
Biography)
·
Ngugi Wa Thiongo, Petals of Blood (Kenya * Fiction)
·
Julia Avarez, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (Dominican
American * Fiction)
Semester Three and
Four
·
Mario Azevedo, Africana Studies: A Survey of Africa and the Diaspora
(USA * History)
·
Darlene Clark Hine and Kathleen Thompson, A Shining Thread of Hope:
Black Women’s History (USA * History)
·
Benjamin
Quarles, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave
(USA * Auto-Biography)
·
William Andrews and Henry Louis Gates eds., Six Women’s Slave
Narratives (USA * Auto-Biography)
Semester Five and Six
·
Mark Mathabane, Kaffir Boy (South Africa * Autobiography)
·
Jacqueline McLeod, Sugar in the Raw: Voices of Young Black Girls in
America (USA * Auto-biography)
·
Todd Boyd, Young, Black, Rich, and Famous: The Rise of the NBA, The
Hiphop Invasion, and the Transformation of American Culture (USA *
Cultural Criticism)
·
Michel Laguerre, American Odyssey: Haitians in New York City
(Haitian American * Cultural History and Ethnography)
Semester Seven and
Eight
·
Robert Johnson, Jr., Two Plays of Initiation (USA * Theatre and
Drama)
·
Delia Poley and Virgil Suarez eds., Little Havana Blues: A Cuban
American Literature Anthology (Cuban American * Literature)
·
Richard Powell, Black Art: A Cultural History (USA * Cultural
History)
·
Juan Flores, From Bomba to Hiphop (Puerto Rico / USA * Popular
Culture Studies)
Documents:
·
13th and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution
·
Equal
Rights Amendment (Chronology and Amendment)
·
Martin Luther King, Letter
From a Birmingham Jail
Speeches:
·
Marcus Garvey, African
Fundamentalism (sound speeches)
·
Mary Church Terrell, Being
Colored in the Capital of the United States
·
Ida B. Wells, Lynch
Law in Georgia
·
W.E.B. Du Bois, The
Role of the Black Intellectual (sound speeches)
·
Booker T Washington, Atlanta
Exposition
·
Malcolm X, The
Ballot, or the Bullet
·
Sojourner Truth, Ain’t
I A Woman?
Assignments:
I.
Time Management Worksheet
Semester One:
Students will write a one-to-two page time management worksheet. On this
worksheet, students will chart their day’s activities and expected
activities into realistic time allocations.
The purpose of this assignment is to help students allocate appropriate
time to family, studying, work, extra-curricular activities, and community
development. After the workshop
and completed worksheet, students should find that they have adequate time to
complete their work and fulfill their responsibilities, and that time
management will help them gain control over their daily schedules.
II.
Savings and Budget Worksheet
Semester Two:
The two-page budget students’ construct will follow a template given to
students from Microsoft Money. After our workshops on budget maintenance, expected income,
living costs, and student loans, students will construct working budgets for
post-high school use and/or budgeting directed toward their college finances.
This worksheet is designed to help students think through financing and saving
before they graduate to foster future financial planning.
III. Community Service Project
Semesters Three and
Four:
The community service project asks that students work collaboratively with one
other student and write a one-page proposal for an event or hands-on
intervention in their community that influences their community for the
better. In addition to the one-page description of students’ community
project, they will give presentations on the completed projects following the
poster style format to their peers, program staff, parents and instructors at
the end of the program’s year. The community service project will help
students think about collaborative ways to affect change in their communities
on a micro-level, which will lead to larger, macro-level results.
IV. Research Project
Semesters Five and
Six:
Students will write a five-to-seven page mini-research paper on any aspect of
the African Diaspora using course material, the Internet, and library sources.
Students may write on a historical or cultural event, social movements,
politicians, community organizations, the arts and humanities, scientific
innovation, oral histories, Africans role in math development, etc. This project will be turned in in three
stages: concept paragraph and five source annotative bibliography, outline,
rough draft, and final paper.
V.
Personal Essay of Background, Education, and Career Objectives
Semester
Seven: The
personal statement students will write consists of a description of their
education and career goals. Students will also articulate youth programs,
community development, and relevant extra-curricular activities that have
shaped those goals. The essay will demonstrate that their identities and life
experiences provide the tools through struggle, tenacity, and success to work
towards a degree in higher education. Students’ participation in the youth
program will offer substantive material to form their statement of objectives.
This assignment is handed in in three different stages: concept
paragraph and outline, rough draft, and final. The goal of this assignment is
for students to have a viable college application essay completed before they
finish the program.
VI.
Discussions
Discussion
sessions on current events, film viewings, and conflict resolution between and
among youth of African descent will be organized by students in consultation
with the program director, staff, and faculty. Throughout the program’s
duration, students will gain increased ability to dialogue and debate with
their peers intellectually, passionately, and collegially.
VII.
Reading and Viewing Journals
Students
will write one-page journal entries in response to questions or prompts about
the reading and viewing material. One
paragraph will respond directly to the question and the second paragraph will
constitute an informal discussion about their thoughts on what they read.
Periodically, these journals will be read aloud in the seminar or in program
meetings and events. Students are asked to bring their journals every
time they attend a program session and will turn in these journals
periodically throughout the year. The
use of journals is two-fold: Students improve their critical thinking skills
by responding to the question prompts and they will have an opportunity to
keep their journals, which will document their comprehension of the reading
and viewing over the program’s year.
**In
all, after students complete the program, they will have a portfolio which
includes the above sections.
This will allow students the opportunity to archive their work and
experiences with the program in written form. It is expected that students
will use the portfolio after graduation to guide them through post-high school
planning.
Program Multi-Media
Films:
·
Biko (To
accompany the Mathabane book)
·
Get On
the Bus (To accompany the Boyd book)
·
Daughters of the Dust
(To accompany the Hine book)
Documentaries:
·
Africans
in America (On Colonialism and Africans in America)
·
Eyes
on the Prize (On Boston Busing)
·
Ethnic
Notions (On Ethnic Stereotypes)
·
Skin Deep
(On College Campus Racism)
Music: Funkamentals, Education By Any Means Necessary (Science, Math, Language, World History selections). Other selections are spontaneous and will elucidate the day’s reading or activities. They will include selections from Africa, Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, and Afro-America.
Life Workshops:
·
Goals Setting
·
Time Management
·
Writing a Personal Essay for College Admissions
·
Community Organizing
·
Budgeting
· Multi-cultural Awareness
