Contemporary Black Writers (AFN 322-170W) - Writing Intensive
Professor Campbell - Fall 2017
Monday & Thursday, 4-5:15pm
Email: [email protected]
Office Hours: Friday, 11am-2pm (or by appt.)
Required Reading & Materials
-​Homegoing​, by Yaa Gyasi (Knopf, 2016)
-Course Packet (contains readings for the semester)
-A selected book that you will need to choose and purchase by mid-semester (I will give
you the reading list by early November)
-A spiral notebook (to be used for in-class writing)
-A pocket folder (to store your typed assignments and homework readings)
Course Description
The objective of this course is to sharpen students' reading, writing, and analytical skills
by examining the work of contemporary black writers. Most of the work we will read is
class has been written by young authors within the last few decades. We will also
discuss ideas around race, nationalism, gender and sexual identity, class, and colorism,
among many other rich and complex topics. In our everyday lives, it is easy to shy away
from discussing these kinds of issues, but in this classroom, we welcome an intellectual
challenge, and the chance to expand our minds. A HUGE part of becoming a stronger
writer is becoming a stronger reader and thinker as well. Our in-class work will be a
combination of free-writing exercises, discussion, and working in small groups.
Homework will include reading/watching short stories as well as composing both
academic and creative writing.
Writing-Intensive Courses at BMCC
This is a Writing Intensive course that fulfills the WI requirement for graduation. Writing
intensive courses pay special attention to developing critical reading, writing, and
analytic skills to prepare students for college-level coursework in general. Both informal
and formal writing will be designed to maximize your understanding of the subject
matter. Formal writing assignments, at least 10-12 pages total, account for a significant
portion of your grade and will include opportunities for revision.
Student Learning Outcomes for WI courses:
● Student will be able to complete (a) formal writing assignment(s) of at least 10-12
pages in length that has/have gone through the revision process (e.g. research
paper, content-related report, essay.) ​Measurement: ​Midterm & Final paper.
● Student will be able to generate pieces of informal writing in response to a variety
of prompts, concepts, situations or reading assignments. ​Measurement:​ In-class
writing exercises, Autobiographical assignment, Summary/Presentation
assignment.
Attendance & Punctuality
You should arrive to each class on time and prepared with the necessary materials.
Students are allowed ​three excused absences​ from class. After three absences, your
letter grade will drop an increment per additional absence (for example, from a B to B-).
Punctuality is a must. Three late arrivals will be treated as an absence from class, for
grading purposes. If you are more than 20-minutes late for a class session, it will be
treated as an absence. If you are late for class, make sure you inform me at the end of
class in order to receive partial credit for attendance.
Participation & Homework
(20% of your final grade)
Actively participating in the class discussion as well as completing the homework
assignments are both critical components of your grade. If you do not complete the
readings or written homework assignments, you will not be prepared to contribute in
class. Make sure that you discipline yourself to become a stronger writer by being
prepared. Active participation includes raising your hand to keep the class discussion
alive, composing in-class “free-writes” and engaging with your classmates during group
work. If you show up to every class session on time and do all of the required work, you
will earn a B+ in the class, at best. In order to earn an A, you must participate and
contribute.
Course Assignments
Each assignment will be explained in advance of its due date, and will be ​due at the
beginning of class.​ A brief outline of each assignment is listed below:
Autobiography/Reading List Assignment (10%)
For the first essay, you will have a choice between two assignments: 1) writing an
autobiographical piece modeled after one of the autobiographical authors we have
reviewed and discussed in class (Whitehead, Coates, Adichie), or 2) creating a “reading
list” based on the NYTimes article we have discussed in class
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/08/us/black-school-racist-sexist-graffiti.html​. (Length
3-5 pages)
Midterm Assignment (20%)
For this assignment, you will be able to choose between three options: 1) writing an
original short story that is a sequel or prequel to one of the chapters from Yaa Gyasi’s
Homegoing​, 2) a thesis driven essay analyzing the use of 2-3 literary devices in one of
the selected stories or set of poems, or 3) creating a “playlist” for one of the central
characters from the selected short story. Each of the options for this assignment will be
explained in greater detail well in advance of its due date. (Length: 4-5 pages)
Summary & Presentation Assignment (10%)
As a foundation for your final research paper, you will select a book from the list I give
you in class. The list will be comprised of a variety of contemporary black writers and
poets. After reading your selected book closely, you will write a 1-2 page summary.
Additionally, you will sign up for a date to give a 3-minute oral presentation of your book
during class. I will give you specific instructions on your presentation closer to the due
date. (Length: 1-2 pages)
Final Paper Process (40% total)
Your final paper will be a thesis-driven research paper that analyzes the short stories of
a particular author. The final paper will focus on discussing the broader work (two or
more stories) of their selected author, and how this author uses common and/or
contrasting themes and literary devices in their work. As a part of the final paper
process, the Research Proposal will be a 2-page outline of the topics you are writing
about for your final paper, including your thesis statement, and must include an
attached annotated bibliography of the sources you will use. Your final research paper
is due at the end of the semester, and should be 7+ pages in length.
● Research Proposal & Annotated Bibliography (10%)
● Final Research Paper (30%)
Revisions
Students have the option of revising and re-submitting ANY written assignments during
the course of the semester if they are unsatisfied with their original grade. Revisions
must be turned in within one week of receiving the original paper back from the
professor. Students who plan to make revisions must make the necessary changes that
are listed in the comments on their original paper. The only exception is the final paper;
students will not be able to make any revisions to the final paper due at the end of the
semester.
Academic Adjustments for Students with Disabilities
Students with disabilities who require reasonable accommodations or academic
adjustments for this course must contact the Office of Services for Students with
Disabilities (Room N-320, OSSD telephone: (212) 220-8180 Fax: (212) 220-1264).
BMCC is committed to providing equal access to all programs and curricula to all
students.
Resources for Immigrant and Non-citizen Students
Presently, at CUNY, nearly 40% of our students were born in another country. What an
amazing testimony to the ways our campus and our country benefit from the talent and
ambition of all people. As our chancellor recently stated, “[CUNY’s] ​commitment to
protecting and supporting our students, regardless of their immigration status, is
unwavering.”
If you have any concerns or questions related to your immigration or citizenship status,
there are resources that are available to you (and your family) as a CUNY student.
Check out the Single Stop office (room S235) in the 199 Chambers building for info
about on-campus immigration clinics and/or any personal concerns regarding your
immigration status. You can also visit the CUNY Citizenship Now! website at
http://www1.cuny.edu/sites/citizenship-now​ to connect with free, confidential,
one-on-one law services. Also, check out CUNY CLEAR at
http://www.law.cuny.edu/academics/clinics/immigration/clear.html​, which offers
workshops, advice, and legal representation to the NYC immigrant community,
regardless of citizenship status. The college understands that students need support in
all areas of their lives in order to be successful!
Course Calendar
Week One
First Day, Intro to course
Week Two
Identity Exercise; Is it racist to talk about race?; Ta-Nehisi Coates “My President was Black”;
excerpt from ​Citizen ​(Claudia Rankine)
Week Three
Queer Black Literature: Octavia Butler (short story); Danez Smith (poetry); excerpt from
“Moonlight” (film)
Week Four
The Black Immigrant voices: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Edwidge Danticat (short story); Chris
Abani, Warsan Shire (poetry)
Week Five
Poetry lesson: Odes; Arecelis Girmay, Kevin Young, Marcus Jackson
Week Six
Colorism: “Dark Girls” (film); excerpt from ​Incognegro​ (Mat Johnson)
Week Seven & Eight
Homegoing​ by Yaa Gyasi
Week Nine
Family poems: lucille clifton, Nikki Giovanni, Ross Gay, Camille Dungy; excerpts from “Black
Nature: Four Centuries of African-American Nature Poetry” (Camille Dungy)
Week Ten
Black feminism: excerpt from “The Crunk Feminist Collective”, excerpt from bell hooks “ain’t i a
woman”
Week Eleven
Selected book presentations
Week Twelve
Class meets in computer lab; researching secondary sources
Week Thirteen
Citing sources in a research paper; annotated bibliography lesson
Week Fourteen
Drafting; How do you eat an elephant?
Week Fifteen
Bring your draft to class; one-on-one check-ins
The Writing Intensive Course
Students are really afraid of writing papers, and I don’t blame them. Somewhere along
their educational journey, they have come to feel as though their essays are supposed
to say something new about the world, something critical and complex. When they feel
unable to hit that mark, they get anxious, shut down, or turn in “fluff” (that’s the
euphemism for what I really want to call it). In order to graduate from BMCC (Borough
of Manhattan Community College), all students must take one Writing Intensive (WI)
course. WI courses are offered in almost every subject, and the purpose of these
courses are to guide and challenge (but mostly, guide) students through the process of
producing a certain volume of academic writing. Ultimately, I think it’s a good idea,
especially for community college students who may be transferring to four-year schools
where they will need to know how to write longer papers as they advance through the
years.
This past semester was my first time teaching a WI course focused on literature, and in
Fall 2017, I will actually teach the above course on Contemporary Black Writers.
Faculty who teach these courses must go through a semester-long training which
consists of a series of workshops on pedagogy and writing. We focused on everything
from crafting more pedagogically thoughtful assignments to how to effectively comment
on student papers. It has been one of the best professional development experiences
I’ve had at BMCC so far. Teaching the course was an interesting experience as well.
Just by labeling the course “Writing Intensive”, some students seemed to come into
class with an added layer of anxiety and self-doubt about their ability to meet
expectations. All students in the course were within a semester of graduating. In all of
my classes, I spend a good amount of time of trying my best to encourage: ​this is
something YOU can do. If you have ideas (which we all do) you can put them in writing.
In that way, the students in my WI course were no different in their need for consistent
affirmation. They felt like when it came to writing, the ideas they brainstormed were not
important/complex/good enough to be considered worthy of putting in essay form.
Extra​ Contemporary Authors & The Creative Writing Conflict
For this course, it feels very important to use writing by people who have been
publishing within the last twenty years. In literature (and other creative fields), we seem
to place a high premium on what is old. I love delta blues music (circa 1920-1940s), but
I have no illusions about whether students would connect more with Muddy Waters
lyrics than they would Lupe Fiasco’s even though both artists talk about violence,
masculinity, and systematic oppression. And while I believe there’s a place for both old
and new, in this course, I want students to see the value in the art that they consume,
as opposed to what is canonical. Recently, I used a Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie TED
Talk in one of my composition classes, and I had no idea that Beyonce sampled some
of her words. My students informed me as we discussed the piece, and their
excitement at being able to draw that connection was palpable. The immediately had
more confidence in their ability to “get it” or understand the TED Talk better because of
the familiarity with Beyonce’s work as a point of entry. Personally, I don’t love Beyonce,
but thanks, Beyonce. I very much want to normalize anything and everything related to
their experience of the world.
During my first WI teaching experience, I struggled with the identity of the course as
either an academic writing course or a creative writing course. I wanted it to be both,
but felt sheepish about students being allowed to compose creative work in a WI
course. I usually teach creative writing courses, and I have strong feelings about how
useful it can be as a teaching tool. What better way to help students understand a
piece of writing than to have them attempt to compose their own version of it? This time
around, I’m embracing the creative identity of the course. I’ve included some graded
paper options that allow for the creative as well as low-stakes in-class writing exercises
(see Week Five: Odes).
Week Two: The Identity Exercise
The social identity exercise is one I found through Sylvia Beltran, and classmate and
colleague who teaches critical thinking. The exercise asks students to fill out a chart (it
almost looks like a Bingo card) based on how they personally identify by race, ethnicity,
religion, language, age, gender, etc. Afterwards, they must check boxes that indicate
how aware or unaware they are of those identities in different settings (ie, at school, at
home, at work). Once students have completed the exercise, they’re asked to share
some of the results.
I want to begin the course with this exercise for a few reasons. No matter how students
identify racially, they all embody some privileged identities. It feels important to
acknowledge that right away in a course that will lean heavily on discussions that speak
to the complexity of social identity in America. We are all implicated in some way or
another; we all can relate to being in both the minority and the majority. I want ALL
students in the class to be reflective about their identity. That feels critical to the course.
Also, I think this exercise highlights how imprecise and overlapping social categorization
can be. It tries to get at ideas that are often socially constructed more so than tangibly
accurate. This exercise is also helpful in beginning to put language to some of the
ideas around identity that will inevitably arise in this course.
The Coates and Rankine excerpts will provide both poetic and essayist voices in a
conversation centered around why it is so uncomfortable to discuss race and identity
(but, especially race) in America. This conversation must happen immediately in the
course. Being able to be open about our discomfort is the only way we can begin to
move past it, and have richer more honest conversation related to the readings and
course content.
Week Three: Queer Black Literature/Week Ten: Black Feminism
In all of my writing and literature courses (not just this one), I begin the semester by
reading the work of queer writers, whether it is essays, poems, short fiction. This is
intentional on my part as an instructor. Gender and sexual identity are the issues that
challenge my students most in regards to their own biases. It’s always interesting and
ironic to encounter their bias since easily 95% of my students are either non-white,
immigrant, Muslim, or some combination of nontraditional identities that challenge the
dominant culture of both America and academia. Reading queer work early on sets a
certain tone in class early on around openness, and about my expectations of tolerance
and respect as a professor. By placing an emphasis on the value of queer authors, my
hope is to indirectly normalize and value queerness in our classroom.
In ​Teaching to Transgress​, bell hooks discusses the need for instructors to not only
include materials by nontraditional authors in their course content, but to explicitly
discuss the identities of these authors in order to practice effective pedagogy. Octavia
Butler is so important to black literature. She was challenging mainstream ideas around
race, gender, and sexuality before it was en vogue and before the term “intersectional”
was a blastula in the academic mind. All of her novels and short stories present
romantic relationships that make readers uncomfortable in masterful and productive
ways whether through queerness, age differential, and even incest. I could not teach a
black literature course without her. While she identified as bisexual during her lifetime,
to my knowledge, she was not necessarily loud and proud about any aspect of her
social identity. I’m fascinated by this because it is, perhaps, the truest way of subverting
the white-gaze, male-gaze, hetero-gaze, etc. In her writing, and in her life, she just
simply existed as herself without making it into a statement. That was her statement.
It’s a difficult way of being in the world when you have an identity that falls outside of the
dominant culture. A 6’1” black woman with a strange, deep voice, slouching posture,
cropped hair, and an imagination before her time. For this class, students will read the
short story “Speech Sounds”, and while the two protagonists are involved in a
heterosexual relationship, I look forward to sharing info/YouTube videos about her
identity as a way to emphasize the limitlessness of her creative ability.
I want to use Danez Smith’s poetry for this lesson as well. There is something
especially challenging about the gay black male experience, especially within the black
community. My hope is to use his work as a way to discuss this discomfort and
challenge ideas of masculinity, in particular, black masculinity. This is, perhaps, one of
the most important ideas in the course, in my opinion. Smith’s poems are explicit, raw,
and like a punch to the gut. I think students will enjoy his writer’s voice, and also the
performance cadence of his work. I can pair the poems with YouTube videos of his
performance poetry as well.
The Crunk Feminist Collective​ by Brittney Cooper, Susana Morris and Robin Boylorn is
extra-contemporary in a way that will be great to use to discuss popular ideas of black
feminism. I wanted to pair it with something just a little bit older, hence, bell hooks’ ​ain’t
i a woman​ because there are some points of commonality, but also contrast in ways of
thinking about black womanhood. Also, with ​The Crunk Feminist Collective​, I like the
manifesto style writing. I’m going to use it as a free-writing exercise to try to get
students to compose their own manifestos.
Week Four: Black Immigrant Voices
One thing that has been bothering me is the lack of Caribbean authors on my syllabus.
I’m not going to be able to cover both Danticat and Adichie, but both of their voices are
important so whomever is not covered during this week, I will make sure to include in a
more general lesson (perhaps, Adichie’s TED Talk during the black feminism week?).
Chris Abani is one of the most brilliant writers I have ever read, and he is a dynamic
teacher of writing. He is a Nigerian poet and novelist, and also has a TED Talk titled
“Telling Stories from Africa”. I plan to use either his poems and/or TED Talk for the
course. Also, Warsan Shire is a British writer of Somali descent who has written some
brilliant poems about the immigrant/refugee experience (even Beyonce has shouted out
her work). Both represent an important experience of being a black immigrant in a
predominantly white, English-speaking nation.
Edwidge Danticat is interesting because I’ve always found her to be begrudgingly
American. She recognizes the opportunities she has encountered her, but also has
family members that have literally lost their lives at the hands of racist American
immigration policy. Much of her writing embodies this ambivalence. I think it is a worthy
conversation around immigration, racism, and America. This is one of those lessons
that I’m assuming that even non-black immigrant students will be able to relate to,
especially within its contemporary anti-immigrant relevance.
Week Five: Odes
What do odes have to do with black people? One thing I’m struggling with regarding
this course is how to give time and attention to intersectional ideas in a way that feels
intentional, but not compartmentalized. Should there be a “queer week” or “immigrant
week”, or should those authors and ideas be woven into a lessons organized around
literary subgenres, such as odes or nature poetry?
My solution was to organize lessons around both intersectional identity and genre. It
felt important to organize some classes around genre for the sake of highlighting the
diversity of writing that black writers produce as well. Not all poems are about race or
blackness. In Kevin Young’s “Ode to the Midwest”, the poet uses couplets to narrate a
somewhat satirical experience of living in middle America. Similarly, Marcus Jackson’s
“Ode to the Pager” details teenage life in the 1990s, and its obsession with pagers in
the age before cell phones. Neither poem explicitly mentions blackness, but touches
indirectly on a common cultural perspective related to its topic. Odes also provide an
excellent point of entry for free-writing during class. Literally, anyone can write an ode.
For years now, I’ve been using an exercise by Matthew Burgess, a poet and professor
at Brooklyn College, who was also my mentor there back when I was first taking my
teaching practicum. You can find the link to his exercise on the Poetry Foundation
website using the following link:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/resources/learning/articles/detail/70028​.
Week Six: Colorism
Touching on colorism before we read ​Homegoing​ is important because some of the
characters in the novel are directly impacted by their how light- or dark-skinned they
are. This introduces ideas around “passing” and difficult intra-communal conversations
around preference and internalized self-hatred. My hope is that students of color from
non-black communities will relate and weigh in on these discussions as well (ie, Latinx,
Asian, and Arab students). This phenomenon is not unique to black people. For now,
the film “Dark Girls” seems an appropriate source, especially with its gender arc as
these color dynamics affect men and women in different ways. Also, I like Mat
Johnson’s ​Incognegro​ as a text for this lesson because it brings graphic novel fiction
into the classroom (though it is based on a true story and true protagonist). The novel is
about a fair-skinned black man who “passes” as white, and goes undercover in the
1930s in the American South in order to collect and document the identities of violent
white supremacists. The book does an great job of both telling and ​showing​ the
complexities of the one-drop rule in America using comic form. It’s interesting that both
sources for this week are visual sources as the idea of colorism is so heavily based
upon aesthetic preference.
Week Seven/Eight: ​Homegoing
Choosing one foundational text for the course was difficult because there are just so
many good options to choose from. In the end, this book won for a few reasons. It’s
accessible in terms of language, but complex and rich in content. ​Homegoing​ is a novel
that follows the ancestral lineage of two sisters in West Africa, beginning in the era of
the slave trade. One sister is sold into slavery, and her descendants tell the story of the
African-American experience from slavery to present. The other sister remains in West
Africa, and her descendants experience the cultural losses and changes that came with
the arrival of European traders to their territory. Each chapter of the book follows one
specific character during a specific point along this timeline. I wanted to choose a
foundational text that really got at the heart of the African diaspora, African-American
historical reality (and its impact upon the present), and the connection to place and time.
I also like that each chapter feels like its own unit or short story. It adds to both the
accessibility factor as well as relativity of historical events across the timeline of
characters.
Using only one foundational text for this course was intentional. I want to cut costs for
students by using excerpted materials when possible. Also, I want to cast as wide a net
as possible by exposing them to as many different writers as possible within the fifteen
week semester. For the final paper assignment, they will have the option of reading and
writing about the complete work of any of the authors/books we have read excerpts
from during the semester. For example, if they really liked Danez Smith’s poems, they
can read and write their final paper on ​[insert boy] ​and ​Black Movie​. If they really
enjoyed Chris Abani’s poetry, they can read and write a paper about his novel
Graceland.​ If they enjoyed reading the graphic novel excerpt from ​Incognegro​, they can
read the entire book and write about for their final paper assignment.
Week Nine: Family Poems, Nature Poems
Similarly to the lesson on odes, I want students to read black authors who are creating
work where their identity is present, but not necessarily the explicit subject of their
writing. A part of the reason why Camille Dungy put together ​Black Nature: Four
Centuries of African-American Nature Poetry​ was to dispel the contemporary myth of
black people as an exclusively urban-dwelling community. I believe some of the
modern resistance of black people to claim nature has to do with limited access, but
also with historical stigmas around agricultural labor. My grandparents migrated north
in the 1940s to work in factories instead of on farms in Arkansas and Louisiana, where
their grandparents had worked as slaves just decades earlier. A contemporary
understanding of “black nature” is important as not to limit our identity as a people.
Black people have always been close to the land. In this anthology, black poets capture
that physical and proverbial closeness with words.
Weeks Eleven through Fifteen: Getting Down to Business
Woven throughout the course, beginning around weeks 6-7, are lessons around writing
thesis statements, how to properly use quoted and paraphrased information to support
one’s ideas, and academic essay structure. I do this in all of my courses, not just the
WI courses. At the end of the day, it’s an English class, and it’s also good practice for
students to revisit these basic lessons during their first few years of college.
As a way of scaffolding for the final paper, the last four weeks of class are entirely
dedicated to guiding students through the researching and writing processes. We
spend an entire class session in the computer lab. I give a 10-minute lesson, then
students have the rest of the time to research sources for their paper. From there, we
look at sample annotated bibliographies, and use class time to create the the
annotations for the sources they’ll use for their respective annotated bibliography
assignments.
How do you eat an elephant? Answer: one bite at a time! My students think I’m
super-corny, but I can usually get them to laugh or smile. We break the 7-page paper
down into three segments of 2-pages each (the intro and conclusion usually amount to
a full page to fulfill the page-limit. We spend class time outlining these two pages, then
for homework, typing them up and bringing them in for peer reviewing with classmates.
By the last week of class, they’re amazed. Not only have they composed the
intimidating 7-page paper, but it wasn’t even that terrible or difficult. It was something
that they could do.
It’s a bit prescriptive, but this is the kind of writing they’ll be doing through college and
grad school, for those who continue with their studies. My hope is to offer an approach
that demystifies the longer paper. It’s really just a series of shorter papers strung
together by their sustained ideas. And their ideas are ALWAYS worthy of being
captured in writing.