Oliver Mogga
Short Writing Assignment for Students
2005 Workshop on Improving Student Writing
Center for Writing Excellence
Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching
INTRODUCTION FOR FACULTY TO THIS SHORT ASSIGNMENT
Strength Through Cultural Diversity (IDS 159)
This interdisciplinary course is a component of The Miami Plan for Liberal Education. It is therefore a course that all undergraduates are required to take before they can graduate from their respective programs.
The two assignments designed during and after a four-day workshop facilitated by the Miami University’s Center for Writing Excellence aim to achieve the broad objectives of the course: To promote understanding of cultural differences; and to apply such understanding to foster respect for differences.
This assignment is short and designed as an in-class group activity. It employs an approach called Debate on Propositions used with permission from Chris M. Anson and Deanna P. Dannels, authors of Using Informal Writing and Speaking to Enhance Learning: Fifteen Strategies. Instructions for the assignment explain how this approach works.
Purpose of the Assignment The purpose of this assignment is to achieve the broader objectives of the course (IDS 159). These objectives stated broadly are twofold:
Specific teaching and learning objectives of Debate on Propositions, Anson and Dannels’s approach are threefold:
Instructions Each pair of propositions below consists of dialectical propositions. Students are required to form teams, which pick a proposition from each pair, and spend ten minutes arguing for or against it in writing. Take a turn to present their argument(s) to the rest of the class members. The class members then respond to the two opposing views presented by the groups. Propositions: Pair One Proposition One: Affirmative action is certainly a meaningful way to address social inequalities in our society. It is a policy that “encourages those who control the coveted social and technoeconomic positions of society to take positive steps to make such positions available to minorities by giving preference to qualified individual members of minority groups and by seeking out such individuals. Affirmative action may or may not involve quotas.” (Ogbu, 1978, p.347) Proposition Two: Affirmative action is a reverse discrimination. It is seen in this manner because Whites, for example, feel that affirmative action denies them opportunities.
Pair Two Proposition One: Assimilation is a means to achieve social integration. It takes place “when a group takes on the characteristics of the dominant culture, losing most of the characteristics of the original culture.” (Heuberger, 2001, p.32) Proposition Two: Social integration can still be achieved through accommodation without assimilation. Accommodation without assimilation means minority participating in the dominant culture without abandoning their own culture and language (Gibson, 1991, quoted in Ogbu, 1991). ==================================== Evaulation and Distribution of Points Your work will be evaluated according to the stipulations provided in the attached evaluation rubric. Each group member will earn points only and only if he or she has contributed sufficiently to the project. This project is worth 10 points. Evaluation Rubric for Final Product
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