WMST 200 January 2012: Occupy Events for MLK Day

Monday, January 16, 2012

Occupy Events for MLK Day

Just FYI, folks... a post from OCCUPY PROVIDENCE

Monday, January 16th: Martin Luther King Day!

2:00PM-Rally at the State House: the for profit corporate charter school "Achievement First" is trying to snatch public money from Providence schools, & on January 19, the Board of Regents will decide whether or not to allow their venture to proceed.

5:00PM-Facilitation Working Group Meeting: (131 Washington (2nd Fl - AS220 Merchantile Block)

*6:00PM-General Assembly (Potentially at Mathewson St. Chapel / Potentially at 131 Washington (2nd Fl - AS220 Merchantile Block)

No comments:

Occupy Assignment

Sometime before Jan. 23, you need to visit the Occupy Providence Camp in Burnside Park. Think of yourself as a journalist gathering information about the Occupy Movement. You can find more information about daily events, meetings and activities on Facebook or online.

Your assignment is to visit the site, talk to the activists who are camping out there and find out why they occupy. What issues matter to them? What are they fighting for and why? As you write about your experiences on your blog, please make connections to at least 2 of our course texts. The websites you are reading for 1/16 and the readings for 1/18 will be very helpful here. Please post this assignment on your blog by Monday, January 23.

Why We Use Blogs in WMST 200

In the context of this course, your blog has three purposes:

1) Your blog will provide a space for you to keep all of your Talking Points assignments over the course of our three weeks together. You will not hand in written assignments to us each day; rather you will post them on your blog. In this sense, your blog is merely your assignment notebook that you will use as you read and prepare for class each day. You will also be posting any additional thoughts you have: responses to class discussion, after thoughts, things you forgot to say in class, relevant experiences you have, etc.

2) But importantly, your blog is a public space and as you post (and comment on others'), you will gain a much richer understanding of everything we read and discuss in class. I want you to think of it as interactive and intertextual in that way. Blogging is not the same as writing a paper in Microsoft Word — you have to stretch your brain to make sure you are taking advantage of this unique technological and communal experience.

3) Creating your own blog will also introduce you to the blogisphere if you don't know this place already. I hope that you will discover creative personal and professional uses for this online medium. You will see how easy it is to use blogger.com, and perhaps it will inspire you to use blogging as a form of activism and community.