Eng 024 course packet

SPRING 2015

CLASS MEETS IN:

Tuesdays = AD 107 Thursdays = AD 223 LAB

Prof. Holly-Katharine Johnson

Office Hours in ET 125:

Tues: 12-1pm

Thurs: 2:45-3:45pm

Wednesdays by appointment

Email: johnsonh@mccc.edu

hollykatharine@gmail.com

Website: keepithaka.com

ENG 024 - Course Packet POLITICS OF

RACE &

JUSTICE

Name: _________________________ _______________________ ________________________

Student’s email: Student’s cell:

PEER I CAN CALL FOR HELP Name: _________________________ Email: _________________________ Phone: _________________________

PEER I CAN CALL FOR HELP Name: _________________________ Email: _________________________ Phone: _________________________

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Table of Contents Deadlines and due dates Syllabus Schema Annotation

page 4 pages 5-7 pages 8-9 pages 10-11

Readings

“Everything you know about poverty...”

“Ain’t I a woman?”

“What I learned from my mother”

“Girl”

“Learning to read and write”

“Superman and me”

“Still I rise”

“homage to my hips”

“How it feels to be forcibly fed”

“Habeas Schmabeas”

“In Indian villages, the power of a woman”

“Throwing children is prison...”

pages 13-61 pages 15-23 page 25 page 26 page 27 pages 28-30 pages 33-34 page 35 page 37 pages 38-40 pages 42-58 page 59-60 page 61

Mercer Mail and Google Drive Setting up your essay in Docs

pages 63-70 pages 71-79

Worksheets & Info

Quotes + MLA citation explained

What kind of quote is it

Transitions

Timeline of African American history

Close text reading

Grading pie chart

Counter-Arguments

Transitions

Mercer by the numbers

Essay submission sheets

Peer Reviews Sheet

Scavenger hunt

pages 82-84 pages 85-86 page 87 pages 88-91 pages 93-97 page 99 pages 78-79 pages 80-81 pages 100-101 pages 103-111 page 113 page 115

The materials contained in this study packet are intended for student use only. Any reproduction requires permission of the author. © Prof. Holly K. Johnson 2015

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CLASS DEADLINES NOTE: Deadlines may be changed at the Instructor’s discretion.

Deadlines given in class override any deadlines written here.

Essay 1 Rough Draft

Thurs. Jan. 29

Essay 1 Final Draft

Thurs. Feb. 5

Essay 2 Rough Draft

Thurs. Feb. 19

Essay 2 Final Draft

Thurs. Feb. 26

Essay 3 - In Class - Midterm - Thurs. March 5 Essay 4 Rough Draft

Thurs. Mar. 26

Essay 4 Final Draft

Thurs. Apr. 2

Essay 5 Rough Draft

Thurs. Apr. 16

Essay 5 Final Draft

Thurs. Apr. 23

Final Exam* - In Class - Thurs. Apr. 30 *FINAL EXAMS WILL BE RETURNED IN CLASS ON TUES MAY. 5.

THURS. MAY 7 IS OPTIONAL OFFICE HOURS FOR THOSE WISHING TO DISCUSS THEIR GRADES AND RECEIVE ADVISING.

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ENG 024 -- Basic Comp. II Syllabus – Spring 2015 Student Requirements • • •

• •

Students must read all materials assigned -- and annotate all readings properly Students must participate in class discussion, activities and peer work Students must write a series of five essays and take a final exam ==> ==> ==> ALL WRITTEN ASSIGNMENTS MUST BE TYPED <== <== <== Students must complete two exams Students must develop good college study and classroom skills

Texts & Supplies Students should not purchase any textbooks in the bookstore. At the beginning of the semester, the instructor will give each student a course packet of readings, worksheets and other materials that they will use throughout the term. Students must bring their course packet to every class.

Students will also need: a notebook, a pack of pens or pencils, a folder for papers, and a stapler.

The Classroom The classroom is a sacred place, a place for discussion, debate, laughter and learning. It is not a place for rudeness, disrespect, ignorance or foolishness. Treat the space as if it was church, temple, mosque or other sanctuary.

Classroom Basic Behavior --- SLANT In class, you are expected to:

Sit up

Lean toward the speaker

Ask questions

Nod at things that you understand

Track the speaker with your eyes.

Homework Homework assignments alternate between reading a new text, annotating it and answering questions about it, and working on drafts of essays. Homework is a key component of the class. Students who come to class with missing or incomplete homework are cheating themselves out of an education. They will receive a score of 0 on that assignment.

Drafts & Peer Review For many assignments students write, there will be a drafting process. For these assignments students will bring three hard copies of their draft to class and exchange drafts with assigned classmates. They will then follow a checklist for evaluating their peers’ work. Any student who does not bring their rough draft on the day it is due will receive an automatic -30 point deduction on the grade of the final draft.

Computer Lab Classes One class per week is held in a computer lab. Computers must remain off until the instructor indicates that they are to be used. Students must be able to access their Mercer Mail so that they can use Google Drive to work on draft revisions. Students may print drafts for review or submission, however, they must bring their own stapler!

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Exams Unlike the other essays, essay 3 is written in class. The question is given ahead of time and students are allowed to prepare a brief outline. Students have 75 minutes to write the exam. Exams may be typed or handwritten depending on student preference. Essay 3 prepares students for the final exam, which follows the same format.

The final exam receives a PASS or FAIL grade. Students who fail the final cannot proceed to ENG 101.

Course Grade Your grade for the course is determined based on the following criteria: ➢ 20% = class participation ➢ 20% = homework completion (including reading annotation and questions) ➢ 50% = six essays

Essay 1 = 5%

Essay 2 = 5%

Essay 3 = 10% (This is an timed midterm essay - written in class)

Essay 4 = 15%

Essay 5 = 15% ➢ P/F = Final Exam - Students must past the final exam in order to proceed to ENG 101.

To take ENG 024 you must have either passed ENG 023 or been placed in according to Accuplacer score.

Academic Integrity – Honesty In Your Work Cheating in any form is not tolerated. Students may not copy any portion of their essay from the internet. They may not use other students’ work or submit work that was written primarily by someone else. Students may not submit work they have written for a different class. Students must generate their own ideas. In response to a violation, the instructor may fail a student on a single assignment or for the entire class. The instructor is also required to notify the college Academic Integrity Committee any time a student violates the policy. Read the full policy at www.mccc.edu/admissions_policies_integrity.shtml.

Missing Assignments You cannot pass the class unless all your essays are submitted. If there is an emergency, a student may request an extension for an assignment, but will only receive additional time IF he or she is caught up on all other work AND asks for the extension BEFORE the day the assignment is due.

Attendance & Lateness Attendance in this class is defined as: being present at the start of class, having your texts and notebook with you, having all assignments due with you, being fully prepared to discuss the readings, listening attentively to the instructor and taking substantive notes. Simply having your body present in the classroom does NOT constitute attendance.

Students found text messaging in class may be marked absent. Students can be absent three times for any reason and do not need to explain their reasons to the instructor. Any student who is absent four times, will be withdrawn from the course. Chronic lateness will lower the student’s final grade. If you come to class late, please get seated quietly; do not disrupt a class in progress. NOTE: It is not customary to bring doctors’ notes, court summons or other documents to college professors.

Special Accommodations Any student needing special accommodation because of disabilities must present the instructor an accommodation sheet from the Learning Center office (contact Arlene Stinson if you have not documented your disability) during the first week of class. The instructor is happy to work with students to ensure that special needs are met.

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Cell Phones Don’t use your cellphone in class unless asked to do so by the instructor. If you have an emergency or other situation that requires you to keep your phone on, discuss it with the instructor before class begins, sit near the exit and keep your phone on vibrate. Students who exit the room to take calls or whose phones ring in class will be asked to leave and marked absent.

Email Students may email the professor with questions but should seek answers on the class website first. In all emails, identify yourself and use proper English, good grammar, and respectful language if you wish the instructor to reply.

Office hours Office hours are held on the West Windsor campus in ET 125. Times are listed on the front of this course packet.

Respect Politeness and self-respect are expected in the classroom. No matter what one’s skill level in the subject matter, every student can and will maintain a fundamental level of human decency. Students who are disrespectful will be asked to leave class and marked absent. On-going behavior issues will lead to the student being withdrawn from the course.

In case of snow or class cancellation In the event that college is closed due to snow (or other emergency), continue to complete all course work according to the assignments schedule and check your Mercer email for special instructions from the professor.

If the professor is unexpectedly unable to teach –due to illness or emergency—class will be cancelled via Mercer mail. Please check your mail regularly.

Course Goal Upon completion of the course, the student should be ready to move into credit bearing college level composition courses.

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People are not just “good at writing” or “bad at writing.” The brain functions as a muscle. Students who work hard, learn skills they are being taught. Not all learn at the same pace, but all learn.

Your brain works like a muscle

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Schema (skee-ma)

Schema is everything you know personally or collectively (as a group) about a topic before you encounter it again, including factual information, personal associations, memories, and connections.

Schema helps you get oriented.

Every time we begin a new reading, our schema is activated. We have associations with the title and the topic. We may remember something fact as we go along. Each new thing we encounter helps us build our schema. Schema keeps us from becoming completely disoriented and is crucial for successful college work.

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Annotation Annotate every text you read: • •

•

•

•

Read with a pen in your hand.

As you go along, write short summaries of paragraph (you may want to copy these into your notebook).

Circle words you don’t know and look them up.

Write the definitions in the margin next to the word.

Underline or highlight sections that look important to you, and write a note at the side about what you think about this point.

Why did you find it significant?

Put large question marks in the margins next to parts you find confusing.

At the end, your text should be marked up, but still readable.

The point of annotating: • Your notes should help you when you go back to discuss and

write about the reading.

• Annotating helps you remember and comprehend what you read.

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PEN CIRCLE DEFINE UNDERLINE SUMMARIZE QUESTION COMMENT

A SAMPLE ANNOTATED PAGE FROM A COLLEGE TEXT BOOK

DEFINITION

QUESTION

THOUGHTS SUMMARY

EXTRA NOTES

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Readings

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NOTES

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What If Everything You Knew About Poverty Was Wrong?

Mother Jones Magazine - March. 25, 2014 By: Stephanie Mencimer Blond and midwestern cheerful, Kathryn Edin could be a cruise director, except that instead of showing off the lido deck, she’s pointing out where the sex traffickers live off a run-down strip of East Camden, New Jersey.

Her blue eyes sparkle as she highlights neighborhood landmarks: the scene of a hostage standoff where police shot a man after he’d murdered a couple in their home and abducted their four-year-old; the front yard where a guy was gunned down after trying to settle a dispute between his son and two other teens.

Edin, 51, talks to every stranger we pass. She chirps hello to some guys working on a car jacked up in their front yard, some dudes selling pot, and a little girl driving a pink plastic jeep on the sidewalk. Most of them look at her like she’s from another planet—which in a way, she is.

A sociologist at Johns Hopkins University, Edin is one of the nation’s preeminent poverty researchers. She has spent much of the past several decades studying some of the country’s most dangerous, impoverished neighborhoods. But unlike academics who draw conclusions about poverty from the ivory tower, Edin has gotten up close and personal with the people she studies—and in the process has shattered many myths about the poor, rocking sociology and public-policy circles.

For three years Edin lived with her family in a studio apartment smack in between the two crime scenes we just passed and a few blocks from one of the city’s largest and most notorious public housing projects. Here she spent years doing intensive fieldwork for her latest book, coauthored with husband and Johns Hopkins colleague Tim Nelson, on low-income, unwed fathers. Doing the Best I Can: Fatherhood in the Inner City is a complicated portrait of a group of people all but ignored by statistics-driven social-science research—in large part because there’s little ready-made data about them.

Disconnected from a welfare system that historically has helped researchers track single moms, these men are also often untethered from traditional institutions such as schools and churches. The places where you can find clusters of them—prisons and drug rehab programs—give you a skewed sample. And there’s a more basic problem, well documented in research: When sociologists ask whether they have kids, some men don’t know— or lie.

To get around these issues, Edin spent years getting to know low-income fathers, drawing them out to talk about their love lives and use of birth control, their reaction to pregnancies, and other intimate details. The result goes beyond the welfare-queen-style anecdotes that drive headlines and policy discussions, and instead gleans truth from ordinary experiences.

“Some social scientists will rent an office building and bring people in and interview them. But experiencing what other people are experiencing while you’re studying them is just critical.”

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“Conventional wisdom is that the moms are the only ones who care about the kids and the dads want to flee responsibility,” Edin says. But she and Nelson found that the reviled “absentee father” isn’t quite so absent nor does he want to be, and that whether he’s a deadbeat depends a lot on which of his kids you’re talking about.

Sociologist William Julius Wilson, one of the nation’s foremost chroniclers of inner-city poverty, heralds Edin’s work as groundbreaking. “I do research in those neighborhoods, and I found those stories quite revealing,” he says. “She uncovered things I hadn’t even thought about. I thought there would be some apprehension or concern that [the men] got a girl pregnant, but these guys were happy that they’d fathered a child. A child represented a life preserver for some of these guys.”

In the book, Edin and Nelson take as a starting point the public freak-out about the rise in unwed parenthood, a problem first highlighted by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) back in 1965 with the infamous report “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action [9].” Then an assistant labor secretary in the Johnson administration, Moynihan warned that the black family was on the verge of a “complete breakdown”—at the time, 1 in 5 black children was born out of wedlock. Today, it’s more than 1 in 3.

Unwed black fathers continue to be singled out for special scorn by everyone from conservative gadfly Gary Bauer (who blames them for crime among NFL players) to President Obama, who in 2008 told black churchgoers in Chicago that “what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child” and pledged to address the “national epidemic of absentee fathers.”

Over the past two decades, such views helped unleash a torrent of punitive policies aimed at raising the cost of unwed fatherhood. Yet the share of those having kids out of wedlock has continued to soar. In 1990, 28 percent of American births were to unmarried women. Today, it’s a record 41 percent, with much of the increase coming among low-income whites. More than a third of all children with single mothers live below the poverty line, four times the rate of those with married parents.

Conservatives have blamed the shift on cultural decay, immorality, and welfare benefits. Liberals have flagged

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the disappearance of well-paying manufacturing jobs. But when Edin started her research, it was clear that none of these explanations told the whole story. The disappearance of marriage was a true social-science mystery.

So she and Nelson decided to embed with their subjects. In 1995, while teaching at Rutgers University, Edin, Nelson, and their three-yearold daughter moved into a studio apartment near 36th and Westfield in Camden, one of the poorest cities in America. It was the beginning of two years of intensive fieldwork, followed by another five years of interviewing—or, as Edin puts it, “a rich opportunity for learning. Some social scientists will rent an office building and bring people in and interview them. But experiencing what other people are experiencing while you’re studying them is just critical.”

Once a thriving industrial center, home of RCA Victor and the Campbell Soup Company, Camden saw decades of white flight as the manufacturing sector disappeared. By 2000, five years after Edin arrived, 53 percent of Camden’s residents were black, 39 percent were Hispanic, and 36 percent lived below the poverty line. The year she moved in was the city’s bloodiest on record, with 58 murders among 86,000 residents.

About a block away from the blue clapboard Victorian where Edin lived is the former Presbyterian church where she taught Sunday school—one of the ways she got to know people in the community, along with volunteering at an after-school program. On the warm fall day I visited, the voice of a holy roller bellowing at his flock rang clear across the street.

Teaching Sunday school wasn’t just a research ploy. Edin hails from rural Minnesota, where she “grew up in the back of the van” that her mother drove for a Swedish Lutheran church. She worked there with needy families whose kids often cycled in and out of jail and foster care. “The religious tradition I came up in was very focused on social justice,” Edin says, citing Micah 6:8 (“To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God”).

She attended North Park University, a small Christian college in Chicago with a social-justice focus. There, she took extra-credit assignments working in the notorious Cabrini-Green public housing project. In her free time she did things like watch Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Franco Zeffirelli’s film about St. Francis of Assisi, and walk around campus barefoot in the winter to emulate the saint.

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Sunday school in Camden was different. One day, Edin recalls, she drew on a common evangelical trope, asking the kids what one thing they would save if their house were on fire. The answer is supposed to be “the Bible,” but for these kids the question was not a hypothetical. Most of the kids had actually been in that situation and could tell her exactly what they took. (Sometimes it was the Bible.)

Tragedy was endemic to her small class. In the space of a month, the fathers of two of the five students were killed in gun violence. Trauma made the kids “very vigilant,” she says. “They notice everything about you.”

Some of their comments yielded unexpected insights for her research on low-income women’s attitudes toward marriage, which they tended to view as hard work more than a source of pleasure. “One girl said to me, ‘You white women are really into your husbands,’” she says with a laugh. “Watching people respond to you reveals a lot.”

Not long after she and Nelson moved in, a teenager avoiding pursuers jumped through an open bathroom window, then raced out their front door. She recalls the time she put her baby’s empty car seat down in the front yard while unloading groceries. When she turned around, it was gone. She ran down the street to a garage that served as the neighborhood’s unofficial flea market, and found it already for sale.

Edin says her willingness to put up with the same routine annoyances as her neighbors helped persuade them to open up. “Lots of people said, ‘We know you’re the real thing. You’re not here just to study us, because you live here, too.’”

She had some other things working in her favor, namely her family—which, in a way, was also a product of her research. In 1992, she was studying residents of a public housing project in Charleston, South Carolina, and volunteering at a food bank, where she befriended an African American woman who lived with her children in a tarp-covered shack with no running water. The woman asked Edin and Nelson to adopt her youngest child; they were about to go through with it when the child’s father stepped in to take custody. The wrenching loss inspired Edin and Nelson to formally pursue adopting.

They were incensed by ads in the local paper from white couples looking for a white baby. So they placed their own, reading, “white couple looking to adopt your black or biracial child.” The newspaper told Edin the text was illegal because it mentioned race, but eventually published it anyway. They received four calls within an hour and soon adopted a baby; their second child came via the New Jersey foster care system.

Raising young children in Camden, where nearly 75 percent of kids are born out of wedlock, proved to be a sociological study in itself. One day, she was out doing fieldwork when she spotted her three-year-old crossing Route 130, a major highway, trailing behind her teenage babysitters without anyone holding her hand. “It’s just an expectation of maturity that middle-class parents do not expect their kids to have,” she says. “When you’re poor and you’re a single mom, you have to raise your kids to be tougher and more savvy sooner.”

Edin came of age at a time when the country was engaged in a heated debate about whether the government should provide cash benefits to help single mothers and their children. Ronald Reagan had helped set the stage with his attacks on the “welfare queen,” and writers like conservative Charles Murray and liberal Mickey Kaus insisted that benefits made women lazy and encouraged them to have babies out of wedlock. Kaus and Murray didn’t base their arguments on any significant fieldwork. Murray went so far as to create a fictional couple to illustrate his argument. But their conclusions were shaping public policy nonetheless.

Raising young children in Camden, where nearly 75 percent of kids are born out of wedlock, proved to be a sociological study in itself.

Edin stepped into this fight in the late 1980s while working on her master’s degree at Northwestern University.

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Sociologist Christopher Jencks had hired her to reinterview some of his subjects in a study on welfare. She’d been moonlighting by teaching college courses to welfare recipients, and one day Jencks asked what she was learning from her students. “Everyone cheats,” she said. Jencks perked up and said, “Can you prove it?”

Edin spent the next six years taking a deep dive into welfare home economics, pestering poor mothers in Chicago, Boston, San Antonio, and Charleston about how they managed to survive on benefits that averaged $370 a month. In 1997, she published her findings in a book called Making Ends Meet: How Single Mothers Survive Welfare and Low-Wage Work. It came on the heels of the Clinton-era welfare reform that overhauled the entitlement system to force single mothers into the workplace.

But Edin documented that most moms on welfare were already working under the table or in the underground economy, and that lovers, friends, family, and the fathers of their children were pitching in to help. They didn’t get legal jobs because of a straightforward economic calculus: Low wages drained by child care, transportation, and other expenses would have left them poorer than they were on welfare.

In a foreword to the book, Jencks notes that this simple math had been kept out of the political debate for years, as conservatives refused to admit that welfare benefits couldn’t support a family, and liberals were reluctant to acknowledge the extent of the deceptions. Edin’s work forced that discussion out into the open. “I don’t think we realize how difficult it is for low-income families living on minimum wage or less than minimum wage to survive,” says William Julius Wilson. “That’s why that book was so important—it documented what we should have known.”

Jencks says that Edin’s work also represented a “methodological innovation.” Rather than obsessing about getting a perfect sample for her study, he says, “she figured out that it was really better to get interviews and observations of people who were willing to trust you and would tell you the truth than it was to get interviews of people who were a random sample of the population who’d lie to you. That came as something of a shock to social scientists. The question of whether people were telling the truth had sort of slipped away.”

Next Edin took up the question of why low-income mothers so often put childbearing before marriage. Far from eschewing marriage as an institution, she found, poor women idealized it to such an extent that it became unattainable. They didn’t believe that a marriage born in poverty could survive.

In a society that increasingly saw marriage as a choice, not a requirement, low-income women were embracing the same preconditions as middle-class women. They wanted to be “set” before marrying, with economic independence to ensure a more equitable partnership and a fallback should things go bad. They also wanted men who were mature, stable, and who had mortgages and other signs of adulthood, not just jobs.

“People were embracing higher and higher standards for marriage,” Edin explains. From a financial standpoint alone, “the men that would have been marriageable [in the 1950s] are no longer marriageable now. That’s a cultural change.” The low-income women in Edin’s study reported that decent, trustworthy, available men were in short supply in their communities, where there were often major sex imbalances thanks to high incarceration rates. This, Edin found, was why low-income women were willing to decouple childbearing from marriage: “They believed if they waited until everything was perfect, they might never have children. And children,” says Edin, are “the thing in life you can’t live without.” As one subject explained, “I don’t wanna have a big trail of divorce, you know. I’d rather say, ‘Yes, I had my kids out of wedlock’ than say, ‘I married this idiot.’ It’s like a pride thing.”

Marriage was so taboo among her subjects that Edin discovered two couples in her sample who claimed they were unmarried at the time of their babies’ birth but were actually not. One of the women had even been chewed out by her grandmother for marrying the father of one of her children.

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All through this research, Edin says, she’d never been interested in studying men. “It’s fun to write about people with a strong heroic element to the story,” she says. “Women have that. Men don’t have that. [They’re] more complicated; they’re dogged with bad choices.” In addition, she admits, “I felt hostile after writing about the women. I really had their point of view in my head.”

It was Nelson who, after years of working on a book about religious experience in a black church, convinced her otherwise. Together, they spent several years canvassing Camden in search of dads to interview. They stopped men on the street and asked if they’d talk—sometimes right there on the spot. They put up flyers and worked with nonprofit groups and eventually knit together a sample of equal parts black and white men they interviewed at length over the better part of a decade.

“At every turn an unmarried man who seeks to be a father, not just a daddy, is rebuffed by a system that pushes him aside with one hand while reaching into his pocket with the other.”

Again, what they discovered surprised them. Rather than viewing unplanned fatherhood as a burden, the men almost uniformly saw it as a blessing. “It’s so antithetical to a middle-class perspective,” Edin says. “But it finally dawned on us that these guys thought that by bringing children in the world they were doing something good in the world.” Everything else around them—the violence, the poverty, their economic prospects—was so negative, she explains, a baby was “one little dot of color” on a black-and-white canvas.

Only a small percentage of the men, black or white, said the pregnancy was the result of an accident, and even fewer challenged the paternity. When the babies were born, most of the men reported a desire to be a big part of their lives. Among black men, 9 in 10 reported being deeply involved with their children under the age of two, meaning they had routine, in-person contact with their kids several times a month. But that involvement faded with time. Only a third of black fathers and a quarter of white fathers were still intensively involved with kids older than 10. Among the reasons, Edin identifies unstable relationships with the mothers—the average couple had been together only about six months before conceiving a child. The men also frequently struggled with substance abuse and stints in prison.

Government rules also stood in the way of meaningful fatherhood. The welfare system tends to view an unwed father solely as a paycheck, not as a coparent. In many states, even unwed fathers who live with their children and pay some of the bills can be sent to jail for failing to pay child support. And men who do pay don’t necessarily get to see their child.

“At every turn an unmarried man who seeks to be a father, not just a daddy, is rebuffed by a system that pushes him aside with one hand while reaching into his pocket with the other,” Edin and Nelson write.

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Edin sees in these obstacles to full-time fatherhood a partial explanation for what’s known as “multiple-partner fertility.” Among low-income, unwed parents, having children with more than one partner is now the norm. One long-running study found that in nearly 60 percent [18]of the unwed couples who had a baby, at least one parent already had a child with another partner.

Multiple-partner fertility is a formula for unstable families, and it’s really bad for children, which Edin acknowledges in the book. But rather than view “serial dads” as simply irresponsible, Edin suggests that they suffer from unrequited “father thirst,” the desire for the intense experience of being a full-time dad. Consciously or not, they keep trying until they finally sort of get it right, usually with the youngest child, to whom they devote most of their resources at the expense of the older ones.

Some of these insights came from friendships Edin formed while living in Camden. She first met Joe White when he was a teenager participating in an after-school program run by Urban Promise, a nonprofit that helped Edin with her research and on whose board she now serves. White grew up in the notorious (and sincedemolished) Westfield Acres housing project; his mom, who struggled with addiction, was once affiliated with a motorcycle gang.

“To establish a set of policies that require you to be a superhero doesn’t make sense,” she says. “These men have a tremendous amount to contribute if we can just find a way.”

I met White, now 36, at Urban Promise in September with Edin and Nelson. Sitting in the old church building that serves as its headquarters, White is a hulking and jovial figure in gray sweats, a sparkling white T-shirt, and sneakers. Before I can ask him a question, Edin jumps in, and I get a look at her technique in real time. She interrogates White, leaning forward with her blue eyes trained on him, hanging on his every word.

She urges White to talk about his life circa 1995, when they first met. Of the 58 people killed in Camden that year, “I knew at least 20 or 25 of those guys,” he says. “Because the city ain’t but so big.” He describes life in the projects: “Shoot-out right in front, come out to dead bodies.” As a teenager, he thought that after high school, “either you’re going to be a football player, or you look around and think, ‘I’m going to be dead when I’m 18.’ So when I got to 18, I was like, ‘Yeah!’”

Around that time, White discovered his girlfriend was pregnant. Ecstatic, he told his friends, “I just created a miracle!” White thought he’d overcome some pretty grim odds. “I’m going to be a dad, I’m 18, and I’m still alive! I’m passing a statistic,” he recalls.

White’s response to impending fatherhood was to look for an income. A number of the men in Edin’s book quit high school or college to work low-wage jobs trying to provide for their new children—giving up opportunities that would have helped them become better providers in the long run. Many turn to selling drugs because it pays better.

White began dealing as well. Eventually, he and his son’s mother split, and a few years later he had a daughter with another woman. But meanwhile, he’d started using drugs. At 24, he landed in a court-ordered drug treatment program and got clean. “My kids were my saviors,” he says. White’s girlfriend stuck with him, they had another daughter, and in 2006 they got married.

Today, White works full time at a screen-printing company, where he’s been for about 12 years, and spends his free time ferrying kids to sports practices and dentist appointments. He’s even got a house with a white fence— PVC, not picket—he put up himself.

Getting here hasn’t been easy. At one point, his first son’s mother, who now has two more kids, applied for

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welfare benefits. Even though White had always supported his son, the state automatically took him to court for child support, just as he got laid off from his truck-driving job.

His unemployment benefits were slow to come, so for about four months he had no income. The state threatened to revoke his commercial driver’s license. “My driving privilege was my job,” he says. He was able to pay in time to save his license, but the experience reinforced his sense that the welfare system “discourages a lot of guys from wanting to do the right thing. I’ve got family members right now who don’t even want to go work, because once child support gets done with their paycheck they’ve got $45, and that’s not enough to pay their bills,” he says.

Instead, they’re driven into the underground economy. “Don’t get me wrong,” White says. “There are some deadbeats out there that deserve that treatment. I’m not defending those guys. I’m defending the guys who actually take care of their kids regardless of a court order.”

As an academic, Edin generally shies away from policy recommendations. But she says the way to reunify families is not by beating up on men—particularly when the child support system doesn’t recognize the realities of the labor market. “To establish a set of policies that require you to be a superhero doesn’t make sense,” she says. “These men have a tremendous amount to contribute if we can just find a way.”

Not everyone comes to the same conclusions. Ron Haskins, a Republican architect of the Clinton-era welfare reform, is an old friend of Edin’s but thinks she’s being too kind to her subjects. Her book, he says, is “extremely valuable. But I think she put the best possible face on these young men. I think it’s possible to be much less sympathetic than she is. Someone has to start demanding that these guys shape up.”

Nonetheless, her research may already be prompting some changes. Joe Jones is the founder of the nonprofit Center for Urban Families in Baltimore, which works with low-income men, and serves on Obama’s Taskforce on Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families. He says Edin’s work has helped inform his effort in Maryland to pass legislation overhauling the welfare system to focus not just on women and children, but on couples and joint parenting. The bill would also offer men more access to job training and other supports that now go almost exclusively to women.

Edin, for her part, is on to another project. This one involves scouring the streets of Cleveland alongside Nelson, on a pair of purple cruiser bikes, to find the growing population of Americans living on less than $2 a day— “a third-world measure of poverty in first-world America,” Edin says.

In this pursuit, Edin has become obsessed with plasma centers. She now spends hours sitting in her car outside one, watching people come and go. She has zeroed in on a mother with no teeth who has raised herself since age 12 and recently lost her Walmart job after her aunt’s car died and she missed work. Edin is talking to people so poor they’re dependent on barter because they never have cash. One man she met is raising 12 children—four from his first wife, who just died of cancer, plus one of hers from another partner; three by his second, estranged wife, plus three of her kids from a previous relationship, and her niece. Since he lost his house in an eviction, they’ve all been squashed into his parents’ three-bedroom home, and he’s on the verge of losing the kids to foster care for lack of a bigger place to live.

Edin wants to tell stories like these to a larger audience to show how many people are not just struggling, but falling through the cracks entirely. When you lose the kind of low-wage, part-time work that dominates in places like East Camden, there are rarely unemployment benefits to cushion the blow. Welfare has been decimated, and food stamps can’t buy diapers.

Over a steaming bowl of chicken soup near the Urban Promise headquarters in Camden, Nelson and Edin

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marvel at how little policymakers know about the economic realities that poor people face. “You hear people say there’s not material poverty in the US,” says Nelson; census data, the argument goes, shows that most of America’s poor have TVs and air conditioning. But Edin—who is writing her first mass-market book on extreme poverty with colleague Luke Shaefer—*says the people they’re finding in Cleveland and other study sites “aren’t in the census.” Even she has trouble keeping track of her subjects. “They can just fall right off the map,” she says.

This is one reason why “people have been lulled into complacency thinking poverty is solved.” With the new book, Edin says, “we’re hoping to stoke the American conscience. These people are not a dependent class.

They’re trying to do the right thing.”

10 Poverty Myths

BUSTED By: Erika Eichelberger --Mother Jones Magazine

Myth 1. SINGLE MOMS ARE THE PROBLEM. Only 9 percent of low-income, urban moms have been single throughout their child’s first five years. Thirty-five percent were married to, or in a relationship with, the child’s father for that entire time.* Myth 2. ABSENT DADS ARE THE PROBLEM. Sixty percent of low-income dads see at least one of their children daily.

Another 16 percent see their children weekly.* Myth 3. BLACK DADS ARE THE PROBLEM. Among men who don’t live with their children, black fathers are more likely than white or Hispanic dads to have a daily presence in their kids’ lives.

Myth 4. POOR PEOPLE ARE LAZY. In 2004, there was at least one adult with a job in 60 percent of families on food stamps that had both kids and a nondisabled, working-age adult.

Myth 5. IF YOU’RE NOT OFFICIALLY POOR, YOU’RE DOING OKAY. The federal poverty line for a family of two parents and two children in 2012 was $23,283. Basic needs cost at least twice that in 615 of America’s cities and regions.

Myth 6. IF YOU GO TO COLLEGE, YOU GET OUT OF POVERTY. In 2012, about 1.1 million people who made less than $25,000 a year, worked full time, and were heads of household had a bachelor’s degree.** Myth 7. WE’RE WINNING THE WAR ON POVERTY. The number of households with children living on less than $2 a day per person has grown 160 percent since 1996, to 1.65 million families in 2011.

Myth 8. THE DAYS OF OLD LADIES EATING CAT FOOD ARE OVER. The share of elderly single women living in extreme poverty jumped 31 percent from 2011 to 2012.

Myth 9. THE HOMELESS ARE DRUNK STREET PEOPLE. One in 45 kids in the United States experiences homelessness each year. In New York City alone, 22,000 children are homeless.

Mythg 10. HANDOUTS ARE BANKRUPTING US. In 2012, total welfare funding was 0.47 percent of the federal budget. *Sources: Analysis by Dr. Laura Tach at Cornell University and US Census data.

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24

Ain’t I a Woman?

By: Sojourner Truth This Speech Was Delivered 1851 at the Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that ‘twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what’s all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mudpuddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman?

Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what’s this they call it? [A member of audience whispers, “intellect”] That’s it, honey.

What’s that got to do with women’s rights or negroes’ rights? If my cup won’t hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn’t you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ‘cause Christ wasn’t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him. If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain’t got nothing more to say.

Sojourner Truth - Biography Sojourner Truth was an abolitionist and women’s rights activist. Born a slave in New York State, she had at least three of her children sold away from her.

Truth was six feet tall, blessed with a powerful voice (she spoke English with a Dutch accent because her first owners, until she was 9, were Dutch). She was sold and resold several times. One of her owners beat and killed the man she wanted to marry, a slave named Robert who was owned by a different family. From 1810 to 1827 she was a slave to a family in Ulster County, NY where she bore some five children by a fellow slave. At least two of her daughters and one son were sold away from her during these years.

Truth escaped slavery in 1827. She moved first to New York City and worked as a domestic, became involved in reform and religion. She was illiterate but nevertheless acquired a wide knowledge of the Bible. At events and gatherings. she told stories and sang gospel songs that instructed and entertained. She took the name “Sojourner Truth” in 1843 and settled in Battle Creek, Michigan.

Truth’s most important legacy is the tone and substance of her language. She said the best thing to do with freed slaves was: “Give ‘em land and an outset, and hab teachers learn ‘em to read. Den they can be somebody.”

One time, almost 100 years before Rosa Parks, when Truth was brutally knocked off of Washington’s segregated streetcars, she said: “It is hard for the old slaveholding spirit to die, but die it must.” She herself died of old age and ulcerated legs in 1883; her funeral and burial in Battle Creek was the largest that city had ever seen.

Excerpted and edited from Reader’s Companion to American History. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors. Copyright © 1991 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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What I learned from my mother By: Julia Kasdorf I learned from my mother how to love the living, to have plenty of vases on hand in case you have to rush to the hospital with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole grieving household, to cube home-canned pears and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point.

I learned to attend viewings even if I didn’t know the deceased, to press the moist hands of the living, to look in their eyes and offer sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.

I learned that whatever we say means nothing, what anyone will remember is that we came.

I learned to believe I had the power to ease awful pains materially like an angel.

Like a doctor, I learned to create from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once you know how to do this, you can never refuse.

To every house you enter, you must offer healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself, the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.

JULIA KASDORF b. 1962 Award winning American poet.

Reprinted from Sleeping Preacher, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992, by permission of the publisher. First printed in West Branch, Vol. 30, 1992. Copyright © 1992 by Julia Kasdorf.

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Girl By: Jamaica Kincaid Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry; don’t walk barehead in the hot sun; cook pumpkin fritters in very hot sweet oil; soak your little cloths right after you take them off; when buying cotton to make yourself a nice blouse, be sure that it doesn’t have gum on it, because that way it won’t hold up well after a wash; soak salt fish overnight before you cook it; is it true that you sing benna in Sunday school?; always eat your food in such a way that it won’t turn someone else’s stomach; on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming; don’t sing benna in Sunday school; you mustn’t speak to wharf–rat boys, not even to give directions; don’t eat fruits on the street—flies will follow you; but I don’t sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school; this is how to sew on a button; this is how to make a button–hole for the button you have just sewed on; this is how to hem a dress when you see the hem coming down and so to prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are so bent on becoming; this is how you iron your father’s khaki shirt so that it doesn’t have a crease; this is how you iron your father’s khaki pants so that they don’t have a crease; this is how you grow okra—far from the house, because okra tree harbors red ants; when you are growing dasheen, make sure it gets plenty of water or else it makes your throat itch when you are eating it; this is how you sweep a corner; this is how you sweep a whole house; this is how you sweep a yard; this is how you smile to someone you don’t like too much; this is how you smile to someone you don’t like at all; this is how you smile to someone you like completely; this is how you set a table for tea; this is how you set a table for dinner; this is how you set a table for dinner with an important guest; this is how you set a table for lunch; this is how you set a table for breakfast; this is how to behave in the presence of men who don’t know you very well, and this way they won’t recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming; be sure to wash every day, even if it is with your own spit; don’t squat down to play marbles—you are not a boy, you know; don’t pick people’s flowers—you might catch something; don’t throw stones at blackbirds, because it might not be a blackbird at all; this is how to make a bread pudding; this is how to make doukona; this is how to make pepper pot; this is how to make a good medicine for a cold; this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child; this is how to catch a fish; this is how to throw back a fish you don’t like, and that way something bad won’t fall on you; this is how to bully a man; this is how a man bullies you; this is how to love a man; and if this doesn’t work there are other ways, and if they don’t work don’t feel too bad about giving up; this is how to spit up in the air if you feel like it, and this is how to move quick so that it doesn’t fall on you; this is how to make ends meet; always squeeze bread to make sure it’s fresh; but what if the baker won’t let me feel the bread?; you mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won’t let near the bread?

JAMAICA KINCAID - b. 1949 Award winning AntiguanAmerican novelist, essayist, gardener, and gardening writer. She lives in Bennington, VT.

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Leaning to Read and Write Frederick Douglass

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NOTES

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Bio for Sherman Alexie A Spokane/Coeur d’Alene Indian, Alexie grew up in Wellpinit, Washington, on the Spokane Indian Reservation.

Sherman Alexie is a poet, short story writer, novelist, and performer.

He has published 24 books including What I’ve Stolen, What I’ve Earned, poetry, from Hanging Loose Press; Blasphemy: New and Selected Stories, from Grove Press; and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, a novel from Little, Brown Books for Children.

Smoke Signals, the movie he wrote and co-produced, won the Audience Award and Filmmakers Trophy at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival.

He is a winner of numerous literay awards including the PEN/ Faulkner Award for Fiction.

Alexie has been an urban Indian since 1994 and lives in Seattle with his family.

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Superman and Me Original publication: Los Angeles Times, April 19, 1998, as part of a series, “The Joy of Reading and Writing.”

By: Sherman Alexie I learned to read with a Superman comic book.

Simple enough, I suppose. I cannot recall which particular Superman comic book I read, nor can I remember which villain he fought in that issue. I cannot remember the plot, nor the means by which I obtained the comic book.

What I can remember is this: I was 3 years old, a Spokane Indian boy living with his family on the Spokane Indian Reservation in eastern Washington state. We were poor by most standards, but one of my parents usually managed to find some minimum-wage job or another, which made us middle-class by reservation standards. I had a brother and three sisters. We lived on a combination of irregular paychecks, hope, fear and government surplus food.

My father, who is one of the few Indians who went to Catholic school on purpose, was an avid reader of westerns, spy thrillers, murder mysteries, gangster epics, basketball player biographies and anything else he could find. He bought his books by the pound at Dutch’s Pawn Shop, Goodwill, Salvation Army and Value Village. When he had extra money, he bought new novels at supermarkets, convenience stores and hospital gift shops. Our house was filled with books. They were stacked in crazy piles in the bathroom, bedrooms and living room. In a fit of unemployment-inspired creative energy, my father built a set of bookshelves and soon filled them with a random assortment of books about the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, the Vietnam War and the entire 23-book series of the Apache westerns. My father loved books, and since I loved my father with an aching devotion, I decided to love books as well.

I can remember picking up my father’s books before I could read. The words themselves were mostly foreign, but I still remember the exact moment when I first understood, with a sudden clarity, the purpose of a paragraph.

I didn’t have the vocabulary to say “paragraph,” but I realized that a paragraph was a fence that held words.

The words inside a paragraph worked together for a common purpose. They had some specific reason for being inside the same fence. This knowledge delighted me. I began to think of everything in terms of paragraphs. Our reservation was a small paragraph within the United States. My family’s house was a paragraph, distinct from the other paragraphs of the LeBrets to the north, the Fords to our south and the Tribal School to the west. Inside our house, each family member existed as a separate paragraph but still had genetics and common experiences to link us. Now, using this logic, I can see my changed family as an essay of seven paragraphs: mother, father, older brother, the deceased sister, my younger twin sisters and our adopted little brother.

At the same time I was seeing the world in paragraphs, I also picked up that Superman comic book. Each panel,

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complete with picture, dialogue and narrative was a three-dimensional paragraph. In one panel, Superman breaks through a door. His suit is red, blue and yellow. The brown door shatters into many pieces. I look at the narrative above the picture. I cannot read the words, but I assume it tells me that “Superman is breaking down the door.” Aloud, I pretend to read the words and say, “Superman is breaking down the door.” Words, dialogue, also float out of Superman’s mouth. Because he is breaking down the door, I assume he says, “I am breaking down the door.” Once again, I pretend to read the words and say aloud, “I am breaking down the door” In this way, I learned to read.

This might be an interesting story all by itself. A little Indian boy teaches himself to read at an early age and advances quickly. He reads “Grapes of Wrath” in kindergarten when other children are struggling through “Dick and Jane.” If he’d been anything but an Indian boy living on the reservation, he might have been called a prodigy. But he is an Indian boy living on the reservation and is simply an oddity. He grows into a man who often speaks of his childhood in the third-person, as if it will somehow dull the pain and make him sound more modest about his talents.

A smart Indian is a dangerous person, widely feared and ridiculed by Indians and non-Indians alike. I fought with my classmates on a daily basis. They wanted me to stay quiet when the non-Indian teacher asked for answers, for volunteers, for help. We were Indian children who were expected to be stupid. Most lived up to those expectations inside the classroom but subverted them on the outside. They struggled with basic reading in school but could remember how to sing a few dozen powwow songs. They were monosyllabic in front of their non-Indian teachers but could tell complicated stories and jokes at the dinner table. They submissively ducked their heads when confronted by a non-Indian adult but would slug it out with the Indian bully who was 10 years older. As Indian children, we were expected to fail in the non-Indian world. Those who failed were ceremonially accepted by other Indians and appropriately pitied by non-Indians.

I refused to fail. I was smart. I was arrogant. I was lucky. I read books late into the night, until I could barely keep my eyes open. I read books at recess, then during lunch, and in the few minutes left after I had finished my classroom assignments. I read books in the car when my family traveled to powwows or basketball games. In shopping malls, I ran to the bookstores and read bits and pieces of as many books as I could. I read the books my father brought home from the pawnshops and secondhand. I read the books I borrowed from the library. I read the backs of cereal boxes. I read the newspaper. I read the bulletins posted on the walls of the school, the clinic, the tribal offices, the post office. I read junk mail. I read auto-repair manuals. I read magazines. I read anything that had words and paragraphs. I read with equal parts joy and desperation. I loved those books, but I also knew that love had only one purpose. I was trying to save my life.

Despite all the books I read, I am still surprised I became a writer. I was going to be a pediatrician. These days, I write novels, short stories, and poems. I visit schools and teach creative writing to Indian kids. In all my years in the reservation school system, I was never taught how to write poetry, short stories or novels. I was certainly never taught that Indians wrote poetry, short stories and novels. Writing was something beyond Indians. I cannot recall a single time that a guest teacher visited the reservation. There must have been visiting teachers. Who were they? Where are they now? Do they exist? I visit the schools as often as possible. The Indian kids crowd the classroom. Many are writing their own poems, short stories and novels. They have read my books. They have read many other books. They look at me with bright eyes and arrogant wonder. They are trying to save their lives. Then there are the sullen and already defeated Indian kids who sit in the back rows and ignore me with theatrical precision. The pages of their notebooks are empty. They carry neither pencil nor pen. They stare out the window. They refuse and resist. “Books,” I say to them. “Books,” I say. I throw my weight against their locked doors. The door holds. I am smart. I am arrogant. I am lucky. I am trying to save our lives.

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Still I Rise By: Maya Angelou - 1928 - 2014 You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don’t you take it awful hard ‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I’ve got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs?

Maya Angelou - 1928 - 2014 American author, poet, dancer, actress and singer, Angelou is one of the most well regarded authors of the twentieth century.

She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, and several books of poetry. Angelou is best known for her book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), She became a poet and writer after a series of occupations as a young adult, including fry cook, prostitute, nightclub dancer and performer.

Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise I rise I rise

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Watch:

http://vimeo.com/36987057

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homage to my hips

BY LUCILLE CLIFTON these hips are big hips they need space to move around in. they don’t fit into little petty places. these hips are free hips. they don’t like to be held back. these hips have never been enslaved, they go where they want to go they do what they want to do. these hips are mighty hips. these hips are magic hips. i have known them to put a spell on a man and spin him like a top!

Lucille Clifton - 1936 - 2010 Lucille Clifton was born in Depew, New York, on June 27, 1936. She worked as a government employee even after her first book received good reviews. Her collections Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 19691980 (1987) and Two-Headed Woman (1980), were both Pulitzer Prize nominees.

After a long battle with cancer, Clifton died on February 13, 2010, at the age of 73.

Lucille Clifton, “homage to my hips” from Good Woman. Copyright © 1987 by Lucille Clifton.

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How it Feels to be Forcibly Fed The World Magazine - Sept. 6, 1914

By: Djuna Barnes

I have been forcibly fed!

In just what relation to the other incidents in my life does this one stand? For me it was an experiment. It was only tragic in my imagination. But it offered sensations sufficiently poignant to compel comprehension of certain of the day’s phenomena.

The hall they took me down was long and faintly lighted. I could hear the doctor walking ahead of me, stepping as all doctors step, with that little confiding gait that horses must have returning from funerals. It is not a sad or mournful step; perhaps it suggests suppressed satisfaction.

Every now and then one of the four men that followed turned his head to look at me; a woman by the stairs gazed wonderingly -- or was it contemptuously -- as I passed.

They brought me into a great room. A table loomed before me; my mind sensed it pregnant with the pains of the future -- it was the table whereon I must lie.

The doctor opened his bag, took out a heavy, white gown, a small white cap, a sheet, and laid them all upon the table.

Out across the city, in a flat, frail, coherent yet incoherent monotone, resounded the song of a million machines doing their bit in the universal whole. And the murmur was vital and confounding, for what was before me knew no song.

I shall be strictly professional, I assured myself. If it be an ordeal, it is familiar to my sex at this time; other women have suffered it in acute reality. Surely I have as much nerve as my English sisters? Then I held myself steady. I thought so, and I caught sight of my face in the glass. It was quite white; and I was swallowing convulsively.

And then I knew my soul stood terrified before a little yard of red rubber tubing.

The doctor was saying, ‘Help her upon the table.’

He was tying thin, twisted tapes about his arm; he was testing his instruments. He took the loose end of the sheet and began to bind me: he wrapped it round and round me, my arms tight to my sides, wrapped it up to my throat so that I could not move. I lay in as long and unbroken lines as any corpse -- unbroken definite lines that stretched away beyond my vision, for I saw only the skylight. My eyes wandered, outcasts in a world they knew.

It was the most concentrated moment of my life.

Three of the men approached me. The fourth stood at a distance, looking at the slow, crawling hands of a watch. The three took me not unkindly, but quite without compassion, one by the head, one by the feet; one sprawled above me, holding my hands down at my hips.

All life’s problems had now been reduced to one simple act -- to swallow or to choke. As I lay in passive revolt, a quizzical thought wandered across my beleaguered mind: This, at least, is one picture that will never go into the family album.

Oh, this ridiculous perturbation! -- I reassured myself. Yet how imagination can obsess! It is the truth that the lights of the windows -- pictures of a city’s skyline -- the walls, the men, all went out into a great blank as the doctor leaned down. Then suddenly the dark broke into a blotch of light, as he trailed the electric bulb up and down and across my face, stopping to examine my throat to make sure I was fully capable of swallowing.

He sprayed both nostrils with a mixture of cocaine and disinfectant. As it reached my throat, it burned and burned.

There was no progress on this pilgrimage. Now I abandoned myself. I was in the valley, and it seemed years that I lay there watching the pitcher as it rose in the hand of the doctor and hung, a devilish, inhuman menace. In it was the liquid food I was to have. It was milk, but I could not tell what it was, for all things are alike when they reach the stomach by a rubber tube.

He had inserted the red tubing, with the funnel at the end, through my nose into the passages of the throat. It is utterly impossible to

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describe the anguish of it.

The hands above my head tightened into a vise, and like answering vises the hands at my hips and those at my feet grew rigid and secure.

Unbidden visions of remote horrors danced madly through my mind. There arose the hideous thought of being gripped in the tentacles of some monster devil fish in the depths of a tropic sea, as the liquid slowly sensed its way along innumerable endless passages that seemed to traverse my nose, my ears, the inner interstices of my throbbing head. Unsuspected nerves thrilled pain tidings that racked the area of my face and bosom. They seared along my spine. They set my heart at catapultic plunging.

An instant that was an hour, and the liquid had reached my throat. It was ice cold, and sweat as cold broke out upon my forehead.

Still my heart plunged on with the irregular, meaningless motion that sunlight reflected from a mirror casts upon a wall. A dull ache grew and spread from my shoulders into the whole area of my back and through my chest.

The pit of my stomach had lapsed long ago, had gone out into absolute vacancy. Things around began to move lethargically; the electric light to my left took a hazy step or two toward the clock, which lurched forward to meet it; the windows could not keep still. I, too, was detached and moved as the room moved. The doctor’s eyes were always just before me. And I knew then that I was fainting.

I struggled against surrender. It was the futile defiance of nightmare. My utter hopelessness was a pain. I was conscious only of head and feet and that spot where someone was holding me by the hips.

Still the liquid trickled irresistibly down the tubing into my throat; every drop seemed a quart, and every quart slid over and down into space. I had lapsed into a physical mechanism without power to oppose or resent the outrage to my will.

The spirit was betrayed by the body’s weakness. There it is -- the outraged will. If I, playacting, felt my being burning with revolt at this brutal usurpation of my own functions, how they who actually suffered the ordeal in its acutest horror must have flamed at the violation of the sanctuaries of their spirits.

I saw in my hysteria a vision of a hundred women in grim prison hospitals, bound and shrouded on tables just like this, held in the rough grip of callous warders while white-robed doctors thrust rubber tubing into the delicate interstices of their nostrils and forced into their helpless bodies the crude fuel to sustain the life they longed to sacrifice.

Science had, then, deprived us of the right to die.

Still the liquid trickled irresistibly down the tubing into my throat.

Was my body so inept, I asked myself, as to be incapable of further struggle? Was the will powerless to so constrict that narrow passage to the life reservoir as to dam the hated flow? The thought flashed a defiant command to supine muscles. They gripped my throat with strangling bonds. Ominous shivers shook my body.

‘Be careful -- you’ll choke,’ shouted the doctor in my ear.

One could still choke, then. At least one could if the nerves did not betray.

And if one insisted on choking -- what then? Would they -- the callous warders and the servile doctors -- ruthlessly persist, even with grim death at their elbow?

Think of the paradox: those white robes assumed for the work of prolonging life would then be no better than shrouds; the linen envelope encasing the defiant victim a winding sheet.

Limits surely there are to the subservience even of those who must sternly execute the law. At least I have never heard of a militant choking herself into eternity.

It was over. I stood up, swaying in the returning light; I had shared the greatest experience of the bravest of my sex. The torture and outrage of it burned in my mind; a dull, shapeless, wordless anger arose to my lips, but I only smiled. The doctor had removed the towel about his face. The little, red mustache upon his upper lip was drawn out in a line of pleasant understanding. He had forgotten all but the play. The four men, having finished their minor roles in one minor tragedy, were already filing out at the door.

‘Isn’t there any other way of tying a person up?’ I asked. ‘That thing looks like -- ‘ ‘Yes, I know,’ he said, gently.

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NOTES

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Listen:

www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/331/habeas-schmabeas-2007

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This American Life: Habeas Schmabeas WBEZ Chicago Radio - Apr. 27, 2007

By: Ira Glass

© 2007 Chicago Public Media & Ira Glass Prologue.

Ira Glass So here’s how a lawyer meets with his client when his client is a prisoner at Guantanamo. There’s a little hut with a metal table.

Joseph Margulies He’s brought out of the box and shackled to an eye bolt in the floor with his back to the door. He’s forbidden to face the natural light.

Ira Glass Joe Margulies of the University of Chicago represents a few detainees at Guantanamo, and he says that to understand that thing about the natural light, you have to understand that the detention facilities at Guantanamo were designed to be the perfect interrogation chambers. And so anything the prisoner wants, including sunlight, he’s only going to get with the permission of his interrogators as a reward for cooperating. And anything can be used that way.

Joseph Margulies Another lawyer discovered when he first got there that his client, a middle-aged gentlemen with five children. He’s a London businessman who was picked up in the Gambia, and he wasn’t getting any mail from his family, and he couldn’t understand it because he felt abandoned and alone from his five children. And the lawyer had the presence of mind to make inquiries to see what was the matter and discovered that 16 letters were in the military’s possession that they had refused to deliver. And when they did finally deliver them, someone had actually taken the time to redact out the words from the children, we miss you daddy, we love you daddy, we’re thinking of you. That is apparently not right because it disrupts the sense of isolation and despair that they are trying to cultivate.

Ira Glass If prisoners feel despair, they’ll cooperate, they’ll talk. They’ll tell us all the dangerous things they know. That’s the idea.

Let’s make them feel hopeless.

Ever since President Bush announced the global war on terror, we’ve been told this is a different kind of war with different rules. The battlefield isn’t a jungle in Asia or a beach in France, it’s everywhere. Soldiers aren’t guys in uniform, they could be anybody. And prisoners of war are different too. So dangerous, we’re told, that we keep them in an offshore facility and as close to total secrecy as possible. To interrogate whenever we want, however long we want, using methods we have never approved for other wars.

And one thing that’s just weird about Guantanamo is that in all of these years that it’s been going, why haven’t we seen more of these guys on radio and TV? Roughly 400 of them have been released. About a year ago on our radio show we were talking about this and we realized that none of us had ever read or heard any interview with any of them. And so we decided that we were going to try to get some of these guys onto the air. And the show that we put together and put on the air a year ago with those interviews just won a big award, the Peabody Award. And so because of that, we bring you that show again today. Updated here and there where the facts have changed a little bit.

And so today you’re going to hear from two of these Guantanamo detainees who have been released. And I believe you’re going to be very surprised at what they’re like. We’re also going to try to explain, once and for all, what all of these kind of technical sounding things about hearings and raids and new rules of war that we all hear in the news from time to time, what it all adds up to. It’s This American Life from Chicago Public Radio, distributed by Public Radio International, I’m Ira Glass.

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Act One. There’s No U.S. In Habeas.

Ira Glass Our guide for all of this is Jack Hitt. Here he is.

Jack Hitt As best as they can tell, Badr Zaman Badr and his brother were imprisoned in Guantanamo for three years for telling a joke. Actually, for telling two jokes. They ran a satire magazine in Pakistan that poked fun at corrupt clerics, sort of the Pashto edition of The Onion.

The first joke that got them into trouble was when they published a poem about a politician called, “I am Glad to be a Leader.” Here’s Badr.

Badr Zaman Badr Let me translate a few lines for you.

Jack Hitt Sure.

Badr Zaman Badr Before I was so thin and weak and now I have big stomach. Stuff like that, yeah.

Jack Hitt So the guy with the big stomach called about Badr and his brother. He threatened them. And as best as they can tell, told authorities that they were linked to al-Qaeda, which landed them in Guantanamo, and which leads us to the second joke.

This one was in an issue of Badr’s magazine that came out in the ‘90s, after our government set a $5 million reward for Osama bin Laden. Badr’s magazine issued its own bounty for the capture of an American leader.

Badr Zaman Badr President Bill Clinton. Giving the details how to identify that he has blue eyes and he’s clean-shaven. And the most important thing is that there is some scandal going on between Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. If someone finds that man, he will be rewarded $5 million of money. Of [UNINTELLIGIBLE] currency, which was equal to $113 at that time. So it’s impossible to [UNINTELLIGIBLE].

Jack Hitt In Guantanamo, were you interrogated about your Clinton satire?

Badr Zaman Badr Exactly. They would see if we really to want to kill President Clinton. And we said, no, that was only a satire and it’s only a way of expression. It’s allowed. It’s protected in your country, in American law.

Jack Hitt How many times were you interrogated you think about the Clinton article?

Badr Zaman Badr Many times. Many times. Me and my brother, each one of us have been interrogated more than 150 times.

Jack Hitt So after hearing the punchline explained a 150 times, we finally get the joke, and sent Badr and his brother home. It had been three years since the Pakistani army surrounded their house in Peshawar, came into their living room, which is lined with wall to wall bookcases and arrested them. That’s Badr’s version of why we jailed him. Here’s President Bush’s.

President Bush These are people that got scooped up off a battlefield attempting to kill US troops. I want to make sure before they’re released that they don’t come back to kill again.

Jack Hitt The administration has never wavered on this point. Here’s Dick Cheney on Guantanamo.

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Dick Cheney The people that are there are people we picked up on the battlefield, primarily in Afghanistan. They’re terrorists. They’re bomb makers. They’re facilitators of terror. They’re members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Jack Hitt We’re told over and over that these prisoners are so terrible that we need an offshore facility away from US law to hold them. But then there’s Badr. And every day, more stories like his are coming out. And they raise the question, is Guantanamo a camp full of terrorists, or a camp full of mistakes?

In a new study from Seton Hall’s law school, researcher simply went to the trouble of reading the 517 Guantanamo case files released by the Pentagon. Here’s what they found.

Only 5% of our detainees in Guantanamo were scooped up by American troops on the battlefield, or anywhere else. 5%.

The rest, we never saw them fighting.

And here’s something else. Only 8% of the detainees in Guantanamo are classified by the Pentagon as al-Qaeda fighters. In fact, Michael Dunleavy, head of interrogations at Guantanamo, complained in 2002 that he was receiving too many quote, “Mickey Mouse prisoners.”

In 2004, the New York Times did a huge investigation, interviewing dozens of high-level military intelligence and law enforcement officials in the US, Europe, and the Middle East. There was a surprising consensus. That out of nearly 600 men at Guantanamo, the number who could give us useful information about al-Qaeda, was quote, “only a relative handful.”

Some put the number at about a dozen, others more than two dozen.

The Seton Hall study might help explain that. It revealed that 86% of the detainees were handed over to us by Pakistan or the Northern Alliance. And some were handed over to us by a new method. Here’s Badr.

Badr Zaman Badr Actually, in our interrogation, the American interrogators have been telling us that they have paid a lot of money to those who handed over us to American.

Jack Hitt The problem was, we were offering bounties. You know, $5,000 or $10,000. Al-Qaeda brought more than Taliban did and, so OK, fine, here’s your money. Take them to Gitmo. That’s where Admiral John Hutson, the Navy’s top lawyer. He was the judge advocate general until 2000. He says, essentially, we bought Badr and a whole lot of other prisoners.

John Hutson When you look at the economy at that part of the world, that really is kind of a king’s ransom.

Jack Hitt When the Pentagon started offering these rewards, large fees for top leaders, like Bin laden, and smaller payouts for lower level terrorists and Taliban, it seemed like a good idea. They didn’t think it would lead to innocent people being turned in. Here’s defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld in 2001, just two months after September 11.

Donald Rumsfeld We have large rewards out. And our hope is that the incentive through the great principle of University of Chicago economics incentivize a large number of people to begin crawling through those tunnels and caves looking for the bad folks.

Jack Hitt We all know this is a new war with new rules, but what were the old rules? Well, one had to do with POWs. The military has always known that all kinds of prisoners get picked up in the fog of war, so it was important to get those numbers down to just the real POWs since troops on the move didn’t want to be burdened with looking after lots and lots of captives. This problem had been more or less solved by the old Geneva Conventions, which required a quote, “competent tribunal.” It sounds crazy, a kind of impromptu court hearing, right after a battle. But that is exactly what used to happen.

And typically, some 75% to 90% of the people scooped up would be sent home.

In the Gulf War of 1991, we captured 982 people, released 750 of them right away, and the remainder were POWs. Like in the old war movies, they give name, rank, and serial number, and they got certain things. Everything from a pledge that they wouldn’t be tortured, to a promise that they would be released once the war ended, and even the right to send letters

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home. Here’s rear admiral Hutson, the navy’s top lawyer.

John Hutson And those were some of the things that now Attorney General Gonzales referred to as being quaint and outdated. You get athletic uniforms. You get a certain amount of money paid in Swiss francs, I believe. And those things probably are-Jack Hitt You get paid as a POW? John Hutson Yeah, it’s a very small amount of money, but to go to the commissary and buy chewing gum and cigarettes kind of thing.

And those things probably are largely outdated. And they are in some respects, quaint. What happened though, is by saying that the Geneva Conventions in those respects were quaint and outdated, they just threw the baby out with the bath water.

Jack Hitt This is a new kind of war after all, and the administration made the argument that the Geneva Conventions apply only when you’re fighting another country, a country with a uniformed army, not when you’re fighting terrorists.

Brian Boyle They do not apply where the individuals captured haven’t deserved, haven’t shown that they deserve those protections.

Jack Hitt That’s Brian Boyle. He was associate attorney general for President Bush when these decisions were made.

Brian Boyle They did not legally qualify as prisoners of war because they are not fighting in uniform. Because they try to blend in with the civilian population. Because they try to take cover in civilian areas.

Jack Hitt Hasn’t that been a problem for war for most of the 20th century, or at least, in the last couple of conflicts we’ve been in? I mean, is rooting out al-Qaeda any harder, or how is it harder than rooting out Viet Cong in a local village?

Brian Boyle And I take the point. I guess the point I was making earlier is that I don’t think you can conclude given the nature of the enemy we’re facing that how we treat al-Qaeda operatives that we’re able to capture is going to make any difference at all in how they would treat American personnel in their custody. It wouldn’t make a difference at all.

John Hutson That argument can really take you to some dark places, I think.

Jack Hitt Here’s rear admiral Hutson.

John Hutson If we pick and choose, then other countries can pick and choose whether they’re going to apply the Geneva Conventions.

That is a slippery slope that Secretary Powell and others did not want us to go down. Because they’re looking over the horizon. They know that this isn’t the last war we’re going to fight. It’s not even the next the last war we’re going to fight.

Jack Hitt This quarrel about the Geneva Conventions continued for three years and eventually, got down to one, very practical question. If you’re a prisoner and you’re not protected by the Geneva Conventions, and you might be held indefinitely, could you at least make an appeal in a US court? Here’s attorney general Alberto Gonzales.

Alberto Gonzales We really are, for all intents and purposes, at war. And so you need not provide access to counsel. You need not provide the ability to challenge their detention in a criminal court. It would be like saying that Germans that were captured during World War II would have to provided lawyers. The truth of the matter is, the rules and procedures of our criminal justice system simply do not apply in this case.

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Jack Hitt And he’s absolutely right, about the Germans. Except the Germans were covered by the Geneva Conventions.

Finally, in 2004, the United States Supreme Court stepped in. It said, if prisoners aren’t going to be covered by the Geneva Conventions, that’s fine. But they couldn’t be permitted to fall into a legal black hole, not protected by any law at all.

They had to be given some way to challenge their detainment. It’s one of the oldest rights in Western civilization, known as habeas corpus.

Habeas corpus, it’s a phrase we all know, but let’s be honest, can’t ever really remember what it means. It’s not a trial or anything like one. It’s more, well, primal. It’s a hearing that commands the executive-- in this case, the president-- to explain why he has jailed somebody. The idea dates back to 1215 England when the nobles forced King John to sign the Magna Carta and agree to the great writ, later known as habeas corpus.

In Latin, it means, “show me the body.” In other words, a neutral judge got to see the prisoner in person to check if he’d been tortured, and then the judge had the power to require the king to explain, why is this guy jailed? All the executive had to do was answer with a convincing story, and then the guy went back to the dungeon. It’s a right so elemental that it’s in Article 1 of the United States Constitution. It’s one of the reasons we fought the Revolutionary War. And after the Supreme Court granted the detainees access to the courts, right away President Bush started talking like a habeas loving King John.

President Bush Yeah, look, we are a nation of laws and to the extent that people say, well, America is no longer a nation of laws, that does hurt our reputation. But I think it’s an unfair criticism. As you might remember, our courts have made a ruling. They looked at the jurisdiction, the right of people in Guantanamo to have habeas review, and so we’re now complying with the court’s decisions.

Jack Hitt The administration quickly put together a kind of hearing based in part on the old Geneva Conventions hearing they’d abandoned. They called this hearing, a combatant status review tribunal, or in the elegant shorthand of the Pentagon, a CSRT. These new hearings have one oddity to them. The tribunal assumes all the evidence against the detainee is correct. If the detainee wants to prove them wrong, it will be difficult because he’s not allowed to see the evidence. It’s classified.

As a result, these hearings makes strange reading. In many of them, there comes a moment in the dialogue like this one between detainee Abdulmalik and the judging panel. Malik-Regarding the charge that I worked at various guest houses and offices, what was the work?

I cannot answer that. This is the first time we’ve seen the evidence. I know nothing more than what is written here.

Same with me. I don’t know anything about this. Regarding the charge that I was frequently seen at Osama bin Laden’s side, who saw me?

I don’t know.

If it says was frequently seen, you have to prove that.

The Supreme Court had said that the detainees didn’t deserve a full criminal trial, of course. Only the basics of a fair hearing, which came down to three things. A lawyer, an impartial judge, and the chance to see the evidence against them. In practice though, they get none of these.

Baher Azmy Baher Azmy is a lawyer who represents one of the detainees, but he couldn’t attend his client’s CSRT because actual lawyers aren’t allowed.

They were each appointed a personal representative who’s a military officer. Who, in my case, met with my client the day before for 15 minutes, sat silent, and failed to present all of the exculpatory evidence in his file. Which of course, any lawyer would have done. Not the personal representative.

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Jack Hitt And as for confronting the evidence, consider the case of Azmy’s client, Murat Kurnaz, a Turkish citizen raised in Germany. The Pentagon accidentally declassified the file with all of the secret evidence against him. And here’s what’s in it: nothing.

Baher Azmy The classified files contains-- the Washington Post wrote about it-- six statements from military intelligence. That’s really what the classified file is, memos saying this person was here, so and so witnessed him. In Kurnaz’s case, there are five or six statements saying, there’s no evidence of any connection to al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or threat to the United States.

The Germans have concluded he’s got no connection to al-Qaeda. There’s no evidence linking him to the Taliban, over and over and over again.

Jack Hitt But here’s the thing, at the hearing, nobody talks about any of that. His personal representative doesn’t bring it up. The tribunal doesn’t consider it and Kurnaz, himself, doesn’t even know about it. He’s declared an enemy combatant and sent back to his cell.

But wait, there’s more. The reason they give for holding him, a friend of his named [? Selcuk Bilgin ?] blew himself up as a suicide bomber in Turkey in 2003. That’s two years after Kurnaz got picked up.

Baher Azmy So setting aside the sort of remarkable legal proposition that one could be detained indefinitely for what one’s friend does, it’s factually preposterous. And a sort of simple Google search or a call to the Germans would have revealed that his friend is alive and well in [UNINTELLIGIBLE] and under no suspicion of any such thing.

Jack Hitt You heard that right. Kurnaz was held in Guantanamo because two years after he got picked up, some guy he knows became a suicide bomber. Except that he didn’t become a suicide bomber and is currently living in Germany.

Baher Azmy Yeah, he’s walking around in Germany. I’ve met him.

Jack Hitt Then there’s a bunch of Chinese Muslims who we accidentally picked up during our sweep in Afghanistan. They’re an ethnic minority known as the Uyghurs, and they’ve been battling the communist Chinese since World War II. Conservatives love the Uyghurs, which is why they’ve been passionately defended by the National Review and the Weekly Standard.

After a corporate lawyer named Sabin Willett heard about them, he volunteered to represent a Uyghur named Adel Abdul Hakim and some others, and he flew to Guantanamo to meet them.

Sabin Willett The main thing they wanted to talk about it and that was so puzzling to them was that the previous May, the military had told them that they were in their words, “innocent.” And why were they still here if they were innocent?

Jack Hitt What you’re saying is, is that Adel and the other Uyghurs are, in your opinion, have never been members of any kind of al-Qaeda or Jihad, or anything like that?

Sabin Willett Yeah, it’s not just my opinion. The Defense Department has determined that. That means they were never al-Qaeda, never Taliban, never any of that.

Jack Hitt When I interviewed Willett, back when this story was first broadcast a year ago, the government said they’d release Adel and the other Uyghurs if only it could find another country to send them to. At the time, there seemed like an obvious solution. Adel could go 90 miles north to Miami, where there’s an entire city of anti-communists. Or, he could be sent to one of the largest Uyghur ex-pat communities, Washington DC. So why didn’t that happen? Here’s Willett.

Sabin Willett I’ll tell you what I think the answer is, although no one from the government would admit this. I think the answer is that if

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anybody actually met these guys, actually looked at them, and took their pictures, and had them on TV shows or the radio, they’d be shocked. Because they’ve been told for four years that the people at Guantanamo are terrorists and that they’re the worst of the worst. And you take a look at Adel, you’re going to suddenly realize you’ve been lied to for a long time.

He struck me when I first him, like the kind of kid your college age son would bring home. You know, his roommate. His buddy from college home for the weekend. People who meet Adel for the first time, they walk out of the meeting and their jaw is a little bit unsprung, and they don’t say much. Because it’s hitting them like a ton of bricks. You know, this guy is in Guantanamo?

Jack Hitt If Willett’s right, this gets to the heart of habeas. The whole point is that the king shouldn’t have the right to just detain somebody because it’d be an embarrassment to have the guy free. The Pentagon has an acronym for people like the Uyghurs, it’s pronounced [? “en leck.” ?] It means, no longer enemy combatant. But as Willett notes, it should be never was enemy combatant.

Since I first talked to Willett for our original broadcast, the White House finally found a refugee center in Albania where they sent 5 of the 23 Uyghurs, including Adel. The others are still in Guantanamo and are classified as enemy combatants.

The problem with creating an offshore legal limbo, where there’s no habeas proceeding to separate the al-Qaeda fighter from the comedy writer, comes during interrogation. If we’ve labeled them as terrorists, then that’s how they get treated.

Josh Colangelo-Bryan is a lawyer at Dorsey & Whitney in New York who volunteered at Guantanamo. He represents Juma al-Dossary.

For a while, the government thought al-Dossary was a recruiter in America for al-Qaeda. Possibly involved in the case known as the Lackawanna Seven. But this is never brought up at his CSRT hearing. Instead, the government simply states that he’s al-Qaeda. And as proof, lists the various places he’s been. Afghanistan, Bosnia, Azerbaijan, the Pakistan border. Supposedly he was fighting in some of those places, but the government provides no evidence of that. They don’t quote witnesses. Nobody is on record saying he’s al-Qaeda. Here’s Colangelo-Bryan.

Josh Colangelo What’s interesting to me when we talk about what he was doing in that part of the world is the allegation that the US military makes against him. That he was quote, “present at Tora Bora,” close quote. The military offers no allegations as to when Juma was supposedly in Tora Bora. It says nothing about what supposedly he was doing. Simply that at some point in history, he was present in that place.

Now, Juma says that he’s never been to Tora bora. And again, even if that allegation is true, frankly, it doesn’t prove anything. Absent some evidence of some involvement in terrorist activity, I simply don’t know how you can call someone a terrorist.

Jack Hitt We tried out many of our new interrogation techniques on Juma al-Dossary. Colangelo-Bryan met with him many times and cataloged what was done with him.

Al-Dossary said that Americans forced him to the ground and urinated on him. We put out our cigarettes on him. We shocked him with an electric device. We spat on him. We poured a hot cup of tea on his head. We told him that quote, “we brought you here to kill you.” We beat him until he vomited blood. We threatened to have him raped. We dressed him in shorts and left him in a frigid, air conditioned room. We abandoned him in another room with no water. We invited him to drink from his toilet bowl, which he did. We wrapped him in an Israeli flag. We told him that we would hold him forever, and we told him that we would send him to Egypt to be tortured.

On a different day, we chained him to the floor and cut off his clothes while a female MP entered the room. We dripped what we said was menstrual blood on his body. When he spat at us, we smeared this blood on his face. We kissed the cross around our neck and said, “this is a gift from Christ for you Muslims.” We videotaped the entire episode.

There’s no way to confirm that all this happened to al-Dossary. But other prisoners, and officials at Guantanamo have described variations of every technique on the list, including the menstrual blood, the Israeli flag, the references to Christianity, the beatings, the sexual humiliation.

Al-Dossary’s interrogated still, about once a month. During one visit last winter he asked Colangelo-Bryan, what can I do

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to keep myself from going crazy? A few months later, during a meeting, al-Dossary asked to go to the bathroom. Colangelo-Bryan and the MP stepped outside the hut and waited. After five minutes, colangelo-Bryan got concerned. He cracked the door open.

Josh Colangelo When I opened the door, the first thing I saw was a pool of blood on the floor in front of me. I then looked up and saw a figure hanging. I yelled to the MPs for help. They then began to cut down the noose around Juma’s neck.

Jack Hitt It wasn’t Al-Dossay’s first suicide attempt.

About three weeks later I was back in Guantanamo, Juma said to me that he didn’t want to kill himself without an outside witness. His fear was that if he died and only the military knew, nobody would have known what happened.

Of course, as we are often told, this war is different. Who wants to be the one that lets somebody go, who then turns out to be the next 9/11 hijacker. So for the military, there’s also this other new thing, a terrifying calculation that there can be no margin of error. Joe Margulies of the University of Chicago represents a few detainees, and has been trying to make sense of what’s happened at Guantanamo.

Joseph Margulies If we give them the benefit of the doubt, it is possible-- and there’s a lot of evidence to support this. They had no idea who they were going to be capturing. And they thought they might get more serious people. People who were more seriously involved. The reality is those people never came to Guantanamo. The most serious folks are the ones in CIA custody, of which there are approximately 30. 27, 30, something like that. Those are the people in black sites that we don’t even know where they are.

The people of any significance never arrived at Guantanamo, but they didn’t know that when the base opened. They said at the time that these were the worst of the worst, they were trained killers, they would gnaw through hydraulic lines to bring down the plane that was flying them to Guantanamo. I mean, they used the most inflammatory rhetoric. And it very quickly became apparent that they were just mistaken. And then they were stuck with this PR nightmare. And at the same time, there was this sense, this nagging sense, that, well, maybe they are really bad, but we just can’t find out. Maybe they’re not Afghan dirt farmers as all appearances seem to be. How do we really know? Maybe we need to use more aggressive techniques to find out. So they kept turning up the heat and using more and more coercive techniques on people who were less and less significant.

Meanwhile, our clients are experiencing this really scary deterioration in their mental health as hope gradually disappears.

They have become increasingly desperate, and so that’s why there’s a hunger strike there going on, an unknown number of people who are starving themselves. Who are being force fed through a tube through their nose that goes into their stomach, and they’re only staying alive through that.

Jack Hitt In this new war, the plan was to build a prison so bleak that the detainees would give up hope and talk. The military was given a mission and they did a good job. But many prisoners are now moving into year five. If they’re al-Qaeda, detainment is perfectly justified. No one argues that. But think about what these incarcerations are for men wrongfully and indefinitely detained. It’s like being buried alive in a coffin. Nobody knows how many of the prisoners are, in fact, the worst of the worst, and how many are innocent. But we have a way to find out, it’s called habeas corpus.

Ira Glass Jack Hitt. Coming up, the most popular poem among prisoners at Guantanamo. Or if not the most popular, at least it’s very, very popular we’re told. That is in a minute. From Chicago Public Radio and Public Radio International when our program continues.

Act Two. September 11th, 1660.

Ira Glass It’s This American Life, I’m Ira Glass. Our program today, “Habeas Schmabeas,” stories from Guantanamo. We’re rebroadcasting a show that we first broadcast one year ago.

So where do things stand now? Well, in the Fall of 2006, this past Fall, the president signed a law with solid bipartisan majorities that officially denies habeas rights to Guantanamo prisoners. At this point, the CSRT is still the closest thing the

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detainees have to a habeas hearing, and the CSRT rules have not changed. Prisoners don’t get to see the evidence that’s used against them. And evidence obtained through torture can be used. All of this is on appeal and will probably end up in the Supreme Court.

This actually brings us to act two of our show. Act two, “September 11, 1660.”

Habeas rights were originally created in England, and in one of the Supreme Court cases on this issue, 175 members of the British parliament filed a, “friend of the court” brief, an amicus brief. The first time in Supreme Court history that this has happened. And they argued first of all, that British citizens being held at Guantanamo deserved better than what they were getting in terms of these rights. And they also said, essentially, are you guys nuts? This is from their brief.

“The exercise of executive power without possibility of judicial review jeopardizes the keystone of our existence as nations. Namely, the rule of law.”

It also pointed out the history of habeas. How after World War II Winston Churchill wanted to suspend habeas rights for Nazi leaders and just shoot them. And it was the United States which argued for habeas and for trials, which led to the Nuremberg Trials. They also finally pointed out how badly it had gone the last time that they, in England, tried to suspend habeas like this.

“In the 1600s, they write, during the British Civil War, the British created their own version of Guantanamo Bay and dispatched undesirable prisoners to garrisons off the mainland, beyond the reach of habeas corpus relief.”

The guy who did that was named Lord Clarendon. And in England, one of our regular contributors, Jon Ronson, decided to look into it.

Jon Ronson So it turns out that the last person to come up with this exact same way to sidestep habeas corpus is a lord I have never heard of, a not household name lord called Clarendon. Who was he?

I went to a professional, Tony McDonnell, who said he’d take me to Clarendon’s grave in Westminster Abbey.

Tony Mcdonnell Yes, we’re here in the south of Westminster Abbey.

Jon Ronson I noticed we just passed Charles Darwin’s grave.

Tony Mcdonnell Yes, Charles Darwin is buried here.

Jon Ronson You said you were once showing an American party around and somebody spat it, spat at Charles Darwin’s grave.

Tony Mcdonnell On his grave, yes. And wanted to know why he was buried here.

Jon Ronson And we just passed the spot where Elton John sang “Candle in the Wind” at Princess diana’s funeral.

Tony Mcdonnell Yes, that was in front of Lord Stanhope’s memorial in the nave.

Jon Ronson You have to be famous or a great loyalist, or at least someone who worked here, like an organist to be buried here. Tony is a historian and a blue badge guide, an official Westminster tour guide. He took me down corridors and through chambers until we came to a flagstone on the floor, Lord Clarendon’s grave. He’s in [? vaulted ?] company. Henry the V is buried just to his left, and Elizabeth the I lies a couple of yards in front of him. Tony explains who Lord Clarendon was.

Tony Mcdonnell He was for want of a better word, nowadays he’d probably be called a prime minister. And he was the main adviser to the

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king.

Jon Ronson So Clarendon had this job. He was the king’s advisor in the middle of a civil war, in which the king was killed.

There were two sides. You’ve got the monarchists and then you’ve got the puritans who murdered the king because they saw the kingdom as debauched and decadent. Now I know you Americans see puritans as kindly settlers constantly sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner. We see them as bastards. They were religious fundamentalists. In other words, they were-Tony Mcdonnell Men who believed that all they had to do was to overthrow the government and the reign of Jesus Christ would come once more among them.

Jon Ronson So this was a bustle of civilization. It was a bustle of religious ideology.

Tony Mcdonnell It was most definitely a bustle of religious ideology.

Jon Ronson So as puritans, were they seen to be kind of crazy, religious fundamentalists, these people?

Tony Mcdonnell Some of the people were, and they were among the most persecuted after the Restoration.

Jon Ronson The Restoration. This is when the whole sending people away to offshore islands with dubious sovereignty business took place. It was the period after the war. The puritans had been defeated, a king, Charles the II was restored to power, along with his main advisor, Lord Clarendon.

Consider what it was like for Clarendon and the monarchists. They’d been in exile for years. Many of their friends and supporters had been locked up or killed. The puritans had been vicious. They had killed the king. And many of the men who’d done it, were still at large, plotting out there. It was a 9/11 style trauma and Clarendon behaved in a traumatized way.

Tony Mcdonnell He probably was paranoid to some extent. The whole of the new establishment were paranoid. They saw plots everywhere. And there was a feeling of retribution in the air. Some people say they had good reason to be paranoid.

Jon Ronson Well, these people had done the most unimaginably horrific acts. They killed the king.

Tony Mcdonnell They had killed the king and they were capable of anything is what that would have been said. That’s why they were put where they were and it was for the safety of all of us, and we’re doing you all a favor. Heaven knows what would have happened. They were wicked people and those were the people who were then shipped off by Clarendon.

Jon Ronson The exact location of Lord Clarendon’s Guantanamo is lost to history. It was probably in Jersey or Guernsey, which today are rather nice seaside tax havens for the rich. But suspending habeas corpus didn’t work out well for Lord Clarendon. He was impeached.

At his impeachment trial, he was accused of sending people away to, quote, “remote islands, garrisons, and other places, thereby to prevent them from the benefit of the law, and to produce precedence for the imprisoning of any other of his majesty’s subjects in like manner.” And remember, democracy as we know it is still centuries away. Innocent until proven guilty, one man one vote, only the most extreme radicals held these views. These were dark times. There were heads on spikes all over London. And still, the people were shocked by Clarendon’s disregard for habeas corpus.

Tony Mcdonnell People took it seriously and they would have bandied it about with each other, this idea that you had to produce somebody and accuse them in law in front of their own peers. The parallels are so obvious when you read the history of habeas

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corpus and the amount of times it’s just been suspended. That is what they always, always do. They say that these people are capable of anything. These people do not hold the same values as we do. They’re out to destroy our way of life. It’s more or less the same situation.

Jon Ronson The one outcome of all of this was the habeas corpus act of 1679, which specifically forbade what Clarendon had done and made it illegal to send a prison quote, “into Scotland, Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey, Tangier, or into parts, garrisons, islands, or places beyond the seas, which are, or at any time hereafter, shall be within or without the dominions of his majesty.” And forbade at his remains for 330 years. In England, anyway.

Ira Glass Jon Ronson. He does documentaries for the BBS and is the author of the book, Them.

Act Three. We Interrogate The Detainees.

Ira Glass Act Three, we interrogate the detainees. Yes, the US military had their chance with them. In this act, Jack Hitt talks to two former detainees from Guantanamo. One of these guys you’ve heard a little bit from earlier in our show, Badr Zaman Badr, the guy who ran the satirical magazine named Pashto with his brother in Pakistan.

The other guy was 19 when he was picked up, Abdullah Al Noaimi, a kid from a well to do family in Bahrain. Here’s Jack.

Jack Hitt Abdullah wound up in American custody the way a lot of the men at Guantanamo did, he was a foreigner in Pakistan and we were offering bounties for guys like that. Remember Murat Kurnaz, the guy whose friend was supposedly a suicide bomber and Juma’s al-Dossary? Same thing happened to them.

In Abdullah’s case, he was first taken to Kandahar, to a makeshift prison the US set up at an air base with about 20 men to a tent.

Abdullah When we first go in Kandahar, I was surprised, like I never seen those pictures or those views. Only in the ancient movies, like dark ages. We were chained by the legs, like shackled. And they ordered us to pick up rocks. Can you imagine this?

They said, you should pick up the rocks on the ground, like put it all together on a pile.

Badr Zaman Badr There was no water to make [UNINTELLIGIBLE] or to take a shower.

Jack Hitt Badr, the satirist, was taken to that same air base at Kandahar.

Badr Zaman Badr The MPs were treating us very harshly. We had to be on our knees for long hours and to put our hands on our head. And mostly they used the word [BLEEP]. And they used to tell us to put our [BLEEP] hands on our [BLEEP] heads. And we didn’t like that.

Jack Hitt In the camps, Badr got separated from his brother, the poet. So he devised a way to find him. The detainees didn’t have toilets, instead they got a bucket, which got filled up with what Badr modestly calls “dirt.”

Every day, some detainee get chosen to empty the buckets. Badr volunteered.

Badr Zaman Badr Because I wanted to meet my brother. To go from tent to tent. Then my brother, when I saw my brother and he was giving me his bucket to empty that was the first springtime. He said, what a spring it is. There are no flowers and instead of the smell of the flowers, we have this dirt smell. I can’t translate it. And actually, it’s in Pashto. These are really beautiful lines.

Jack Hitt The sanitary conditions were just as bad, if not worse, for Abdullah. The tent he shared with other detainees was open on all sides and located at the end of the military airstrip. Every takeoff and landing meant a tornado of dirt-- the literal kind--

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blasted through.

In the first few days, he heard the other prisoners in the tent talking about their interrogations.

Abdullah They told me that they had electric shocks on them. And one of them was threatened to be raped. And they took off his pants. And I was thinking, what am I going to do? They took me at night. There was two interrogators. They wanted me to say that I was a terrorist. I told them, no, I’m not and everything. Then they started pushing me and everything. And then they brought a cigarette that the interrogator was smoking. He blew the smoke on my face and then he came very close, very, very close to my face, and brought the cigarette between my eyes. And he said, I swear to God I’m going to put it in your forehead if you don’t tell me what I want to hear. I thought about it. I felt like this is a jungle and only the strong lived in it. But still there is small creatures that can live, but not by facing-- the lions aren’t facing big animals. No. But by maybe hiding or changing their colors as the trees. So I just told them whatever you want to hear from me I’m going to tell you. What do you want me to say? He said, say that you’re a terrorist. You want me to say I’m a terrorist? Are you going to let me go? Are you going to let me go sleep? Because they always torture, like not keeping me asleep. They keep me awake all the time. So I tell them, OK. I’m going to tell you whatever you want. Yeah, I’m a terrorist and go tell your bosses. They left me.

Jack Hitt This is not how he thought things would go with the Americans. In fact, back when he was being held on a Pakistan jail, when he found out that Americans would be taking them, he was relieved. He told the other prisoners it was good news.

He knew America, he knew how the people were.

Abdullah And I lived so many places, like Europe and England, and Germany, and France. But the difference was in the states, everywhere you go they welcome you. Like when you go in the supermarket, everybody goes, how you doing and everything. That’s the thing that was in my mind. I was like, please, everything’s going to be fine. They’re going to understand.

Jack Hitt So how did he know so much about American supermarkets? Well, in 1994, he came to America for the World Cup finals.

In fact, Abdullah’s been here a lot. He’s been downhill skiing in the Midwest. He attended Old Dominion University in Virginia for a while, and has taken other trips too.

Abdullah And in ‘96 I was in Disneyland in Orlando. For spring break I was in Daytona Beach with some of my friends.

Jack Hitt You were in Daytona Beach for spring break?

Abdullah Yeah, it was year 2000. Bikers week.

I remember the guys, young guys standing by the sidewalk having the signs for the car for [UNINTELLIGIBLE]. Some expressions [UNINTELLIGIBLE PHRASE], show us.

Jack Hitt Oh, right. That expression, the show us your-Abdullah Yeah, that expression. That’s the most I remember about Daytona.

Jack Hitt So a year after seeing the sights in Daytona Beach, Abdullah found himself facing an American interrogator in Kandahar.

Abdullah I got shocked. I got shocked when the first interview, like cursing me up and down. Cursing my father, cursing my family.

Cursing my country. Cursing my government, everything. Why? That was the question I wanted to know. What’s going on? Do I know you? What do you have against me? What did I do to you?

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Jack Hitt Badr had learned of the West from more scholarly sources. He’s a big fan of the Canterbury Tales and Gulliver’s Travels.

And he also knew about the Geneva Conventions and spoke up when he realized they weren’t going to apply.

Abdullah Actually, our complaint was that they were not accepting us as prisoner of war. They were not giving us those rights. And actually, they were just running from American legal system. I mean, I had told my interrogators many times, if we are really guilty, why don’t they put us on trial in American courts?

Jack Hitt Finally, Badr and Abdullah were each taken out of the camps at Kandahar and put on a plane to Guantanamo. Remember, this is an international flight from Afghanistan to Cuba, over 20 hours long.

Abdullah We were handcuffed and the handcuffs was tied to our stomachs. And there is a chain connected to our legs. Other detainees next to you are stuck to you.

Badr Zaman Badr They used to put [UNINTELLIGIBLE] on our head.

Abdullah And we had masks that we can hardly breath.

Badr Zaman Badr We could not hear, we could not see. We can even not touch. So they had to stop all senses completely.

Abdullah To have hearing, seeing, tasting, smelling, those things only human can have.

Jack Hitt Once they got to Guantanamo, both Badr and Abdullah described being stripped naked, medically examined, and then put into cages until a new round of interrogations began.

Abdullah Mostly they used to ask questions about the various organizations and how they get money why people hurt Americans and so and so. And there have been even stupid questions.

Jack Hitt Like?

Abdullah There have been stupid questions, that if we have seen Osama bin Laden, [UNINTELLIGIBLE], if we intend to attack Americans.

Badr Zaman Badr As if I know Osama bin Laden. I was shocked, I’m 19 years old.

Jack Hitt Abdullah and Badr, by the way, arrived at different times at the base, and never knew each other. But they both described meeting lots of ordinary people, farmers, teachers, cab drivers, who were also sold to the Americans. Abdullah talked to one guy who sold by his own father-in-law. Badr met men who had never even heard of Osama bin Laden.

Abdullah was originally arrested while traveling in Pakistan. A man offered him a meal, and a place to rest, and later turned him over to the army for the bounty. Abdullah says he saw the money change hands at the jail. Once in American custody, he was accused of traveling to Afghanistan and proclaiming his desire to carry out Jihad.

Abdullah Sometimes the interrogators want to put the stress on us. They come and ask me, do you want to go home? They don’t want to take me home, but they’re just asking. To make you angry and nervous that you’ll never go home and keep telling you those things. but in response, I tell them the same thing. No in fact, I don’t want to go to home. I’m OK here. I like you

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so much and I don’t want to leave you.

Jack Hitt Now did they think you were a smartass? How did they react to that?

Abdullah They got surprised the first time, but then they got used to it because everybody say it. Even if, for example. stop you from food, stop you from sleeping, stop you from talking. I don’t know why, you just keep smiling.

Jack Hitt So much of what we hear about Guantanamo is about the harsh treatment there. But of course, like any place, the days mostly pass in boredom. The interrogators might be rough, but the MPs and guards who had to spend time with the detainees sometimes would get comfortable and start talking to the prisoners.

Abdullah They ask me, tell me the truth. Are you a terrorist or not? They were told that I’m a terrorist, but they still ask me. Why? Because of doubt in their hearts. They still have doubt. They don’t seem like as we’ve heard. And then we start talking and talking and talking. Most of the guards they told me that when I first came here I was trained that everybody over here is like monsters. They’re going to jump from the cages and they’re going to chew you up and everything. They said, we thought different. We thought that the American forces captured you in a battle or something. So some people they are forced to treat us bad. But you can see, you can tell from their eyes. And some they feel like this is not the right thing to do. They feel this is wrong. They told me themself. Some of them told me, if I don’t follow orders, I’m going to be in your place. I really miss them now.

Jack Hitt To pass the time, the prisoners would sing together, or try out new poems they’d written. They developed a secret postal system for passing notes and photos, and figured out how to talk to each other through the air conditioning vents. Sometimes, the guards and prisoners would hold little competitions, like the styrofoam cup challenge. The object was to turn the cup inside out without cracking it. The guards went first.

Abdullah They spent hours and hours and hours and they came back. They couldn’t do it. They said, OK, let’s try it to flip the cup underwater. They tried and it didn’t work. Then the detainees said, OK, we’re going to do it for you. The detainees did it.

They flipped the cup inside out. Like totally inside out. You could read the brand of the cup inside the cup instead of outside.

Jack Hitt What was the brand?

Abdullah It Dart.

Jack Hitt Dart.

Abdullah Yeah, one was Dart and the other was Oklahoma. Yeah, community of Oklahoma for blinds.

Jack Hitt Since pen and paper were forbidden, Badr’s brother wrote his poetry by scratching the words into styrofoam cups with his fingernails. After a year, they were allowed to use pens and to read books. Abdullah read David Copperfield. Badr and his brother composed some 25,000 lines of verse. The other inmates memorized the best of them. The most popular couplet went like this.

Badr Zaman Badr It says, [SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE] These are the first two lines. It means, they bring good and bad people to the same jail and there is no oil and salt in the rice.

Jack Hitt Get that? There’s no oil or salt in the rice.

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Badr Zaman Badr It’s really funny in Pashto if you just [UNINTELLIGIBLE] to any Pashto speaker in your country, he would really love that.

[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Jack Hitt Finally, one day, four years after he left Pakistan, Abdullah was pulled aside by a military officer who had news. Abdullah was going home. Abdullah says he was asked by a government lawyer, a major, to sign a contract promising not to join a terrorist group and giving the US permission to rearrest him at any time. He refused to sign. Other detainees say they were shown similar letters and also refused to sign, believing this was just another trick.

Jack Hitt Did they ever explain why they were letting you go?

Abdullah No. Jack Hitt But they told you they had made a mistake in the end?

Abdullah The government lawyer, he didn’t say a mistake by the lack of vocabulary of mistake. He didn’t say mistake. But he said we picked you up as enemy combatant, but it turned out that you are not one. We don’t see that you’re an enemy combatant. He just give me an example of a mistake, but he didn’t say we made a mistake.

Jack Hitt And just as suddenly, Abdullah was on an airplane and back in Bahrain. He was quickly ushered past the news media and into a room where he saw his family.

Abdullah They greeted me. They welcomed me. They hugged me and everything. Then they took me home. I didn’t tell them anything. Everybody’s crying. I left my sister and she was very young, about five, six years. I didn’t know her when I saw her.

She was like a lady.

Jack Hitt When you saw your brothers and your father, what was that like?

Abdullah Have you ever heard the expression, “home sweet home?”

Jack Hitt Yes, I have, actually.

Abdullah Yeah, of course. That’s the best time to say home sweet home.

Jack Hitt Americans are going to think that because you were at Guantanamo Bay that you were a terrorist. And that everybody there was. What would you say to them?

Abdullah I would say even if I were an angel, I would still be a terrorist to them because it’s the thing that they want. People don’t want to take the responsibilities of their mistakes. They want to put it on others. It’s like slaughtering a sheep, for example.

And when the sheep keeps shaking, and the blood’s spilling all over the place, they would scream at the sheep and say, you are a bad sheep. Bad, bad sheep because your blood came on my clothes or my [UNINTELLIGIBLE]. You know what I’m saying? They would take you, maybe torture you, or maybe kill you, or put you under so much stress and circumstance and then they would say, you’re a bad person because you’ve been through those things. Why did you put me in those things in the first place?

Jack Hitt

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In the years Abdullah was gone, his parents moved to new house, a big house, with lots of rooms. But there was no bedroom for him. His old clothes were gone. They thought he would never come home. He says it’s like he’s come back from the dead.

Ira Glass Jack Hitt. In the year since we first broadcast this show, Abdullah’s gotten married. He has a six month old son. He’s entered business school in Bahrain.

The other detainee that Jack talked to, Badr Zaman Badr is back in Pakistan. He and his brother wrote a book in Pashto about what happened to them in detention in Kandahar and Guantanamo. Because of this, Badr’s brother has been detained by the Pakistan government.

In this past year, about 200 detainees have been released. About 385 are still in Guantanamo. 38 of them are currently classified as NLEC, No Longer Enemy Combatants. That is, they’ve been found to be completely innocent, but they’re still in custody.

In September 2006, after criticism that not many truly dangerous prisoners were at Guantanamo, 14 high-value al-Qaeda prisoners were moved to Guantanamo from CIA black sites. And finally, just this week, the Justice Department filed petitions in federal court to try to curtail how often detainees can talk to their American lawyers, guys like Joe Margulies and the other attorneys that you heard this hour. An affidavit by a Navy lawyer, commander Patrick McCarthy, complained among other things, that those lawyers were providing information to the news media about the detainees.

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In Indian Villages, the Power of a Powerful Woman Published in The New York Times Jan. 14, 2015

By ROHINI PANDE There are two key requirements for a truly representative democracy: First, that anyone of good character can run for election, without regard to income, gender or social status; and second, that voters determine which qualities are most important in those they Rohini Pande is a professor of public policy at elect.

Harvard University. She co-directs the Evidence for Policy Design Initiative.

The Indian state of Rajasthan has struck a blow against both of these freedoms. Last month, the governor issued an executive order barring citizens with less than eight years of formal education from running for election for village council head. The rationale was to create more effective and less corrupt administrations. The effect, however, will be to disempower the historically disadvantaged — women and the poor. Upward of half the state’s adult male population and three-quarters of its adult female population have been disqualified from running in the elections that begin this week.

There are some 250,000 village councils, or Gram Panchayats, in India. Elections are held every five years, and voter turnout regularly surpasses that in state and national elections. The demographic makeup of those elected is also more diverse, in large part a result of the constitutional requirement that a certain fraction of council head positions, or Pradhans, be reserved for women, lower castes and tribal groups. As of 2009, only 11 percent of India’s national legislators were women, compared with 40 percent of village council heads.

The councils choose which public goods to invest in — from drinking-water facilities to roads — and where to put them. They implement welfare schemes and public jobs programs, and decide who will benefit. Over the last decade, as India has expanded its social safety net and increased investments in rural infrastructure, the financial stakes of village elections have risen. The politicians behind the education requirement have argued that less educated leaders failed to be effective administrators and were less able to resist corruption and negotiate with district officials.

There is some evidence that supports this position. However, it may also reflect a less enlightened agenda. The election of villagers from historically disadvantaged groups poses a major challenge to the traditional elite, who are used to controlling council resources.

The recent order is only the latest example of Rajasthan’s limiting voters’ choices. Earlier in December, the governor issued another ordinance requiring candidates to have a functional toilet, effectively eliminating many of the poor. And unfortunately, other states tend to follow Rajasthan’s example. Back in 1992, it became the first state to require that candidates for village council positions have no more than two children — a rule that particularly hurts lower castes and tribal groups, where fertility rates are highest. Since then, 10 other states have

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passed fertility limits on local leaders (though four have since revoked the law). A recent paper found that these limits increased the incidence of sex-selective abortions, and a qualitative study in Northern India from 2005 reported that men got around the law by disowning later-born children and occasionally deserting their wives.

Rajasthan has a terrible record on women’s education and female empowerment. The state has the country’s second-lowest female literacy rate: 52 percent. And it has some of the most skewed child sex ratios, as a result of sex-selective abortion and reduced parental investment in daughters. According to the 2011 census, there were 883 girls for every 1,000 boys under age 6.

Village councils headed by women can catalyze change. In research published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 2009 and in Science magazine in 2012, my colleagues and I showed that living in a village that had elected a female leader caused villagers to report lower bias against female leaders. By creating empowered female role models, it led villagers to state more equal aspirations for their teenage sons and daughters and to reduce their daughters’ domestic chores and increase their schooling.

In 2010, my colleagues and I surveyed newly elected village chiefs in 247 village councils, in regions where women have historically faced significant discrimination. Our sample included 34 women who had defeated male candidates for the council head position. These women, who had successfully challenged the traditional village male elite, were the aspirational symbols for new India. But this year, 82 percent of them have been disqualified from running.

The governor’s order won’t hurt only women who want to run for office; it will have negative consequences for all women living in these villages.

The governor issued the education requirement when the state legislature was out of session. As a result, it is open to a legal challenge, and a case is being heard in the state’s High Court. Unfortunately, any change will most likely come too late for this election.

Education is, of course, vital. In surveys, including ones we conducted in Rajasthan in 2010, voters consistently report a strong preference for educated leaders. Requiring a benchmark for education, however, will discriminate against able leaders who have been denied schooling because of gender, poverty or caste, and who have nevertheless worked to educate themselves.

There are better ways of ensuring that elected politicians are competent and effective. In the month before the 2010 election, we worked with a local nonprofit group in Rajasthan on a voter awareness campaign involving theater shows and the distribution of posters and calendars. The campaign caused more literate villagers to enter the fray as candidates, and these candidates gained a higher fraction of the vote. And if the state government is truly worried about the increasing administrative demands on council heads, it could simply provide them with better support.

Voters, not distant state officials, are likely to make the best choices as to who will most effectively represent them. A de facto handing over of local political control to the better off will not help solve Rajasthan’s gap between rich and poor, or stark gender inequality.

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Throwing children in prison turns out to be a really bad idea

June 15, 2013

By: Brad Plumer The United States still puts more children and teenagers in juvenile detention than any other developed nations in the world, with about 70,000 detained on any given day in 2010. And as it turns out, this is very likely a bad idea.

A new paper by economists Anna Aizer and Joseph J. Doyle, Jr. offers strong evidence that juvenile detention is a really counterproductive strategy for many youths under the age of 19. Not only does throwing a kid in detention often reduce the chance that he or she will graduate high school, but it also raises the chance that the youth will commit more crimes later on in life.

This seems intuitive enough, but the problem is actually measuring the effect. After all, the youths who commit crimes and get tossed in detention in the first place are presumably different from kids who never get detained.

So of course they’d have different outcomes. What we’d really want to know is whether detention itself is actually making things worse.

So, to figure this out, Aizer and Doyle took a look at the juvenile court system in Chicago, Illinois. The researchers found that certain judges in the system were more likely to recommend detention than others — even for similar crimes. That is, it’s possible to identify stricter and more lenient judges. And, since youths were assigned to judges at random, this created a randomized trial of sorts.

What the researchers found was striking. The kids who ended up incarcerated were 13 percentage points less likely to graduate high school and 22 percentage points more likely to end up back in prison as adults than the kids who went to court but were placed under, say, home monitoring instead. (This was after controlling for family background and so forth.) Juvenile detention appeared to be creating criminals, not stopping them.

The authors lay out a couple of reasons why this would be. Going to prison can obviously disrupt school and make it harder to get a job later on. But also, as other researchers have found, many people who end up behind bars end up making friends with other offenders and building “criminal capital.” Prison turns out to be excellent training for a life of crime.

The authors end with a few broad policy suggestions. They note that the United States now spends about $6 billion on juvenile corrections each year, despite evidence that other strategies might be more effective. Illinois, for instance, has started using electronic monitoring and well-enforced curfews as alternatives to detention for a number of nonviolent crimes (this doesn’t work in all cases — murderers, say, still get sent to prison).

These types of alternative punishments, the authors note, can often do just as much to deter crime, but they don’t do nearly as much long-term damage to the kids involved.

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NOTES

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Mercer Mail & Google Drive

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Mail & Google DOCS - STEP 1 1

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GO TO THE MCCC WEBSITE Go to MCCC.EDU, click on My Mercer

Mail & Google DOCS - STEP 2 2

LOG IN

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Login Info & Help:

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Mail & Google DOCS - STEP 3 3

CLICK ON THE MESSAGES ENVELOPE

YOUR INBOX WILL LOOK SOMETHING LIKE THIS

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Mail & Google DOCS - STEP 4 4

CLICK ON THE KEYPAD AND THEN SELECT THE DRIVE ICON

2

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1

Mail & Google DOCS - STEP 5 5

INSTALLING IS NOT NECESSARY

CLICK ON NO THANKS!!!

NOTE: On your home computer you can install Drive if you want, but it is not necessary. You can just use the mobile version. At school you should always skip the installation.

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CONGRATULATIONS! THIS IS GOOGLE DRIVE

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Setting up Your Essay in

Google Drive

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Open a new DOC - STEP 1 1

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CLICK ON THE “NEW” TAB AND SELECT “GOOGLE DOCS” Go to MCCC.EDU, click on My Mercer

Name your document - STEP 2 2

NAME YOUR DOCUMENT

Your new document will look like this:

Click on “Untitled document” and name your document following the pattern below. Use your own name.

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2

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Worksheets & Info

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Quotes MLA Citation

We quote other authors to help make an argument stronger.

MLA (Modern Language Association) style citation is a system of setting up quotes in formal writing that makes it easy to see whose ideas are whose.

THERE ARE TWO PARTS TO MLA CITATION IN TEXT CITATIONS

WORKS CITED PAGE

A PAGE AT THE END OF YOUR PAPER THAT GIVES ALL THE DETAILS OF EVERY OTHER PIECE YOU QUOTED IN THE PAPER.

SHORT QUOTE Use a short quote when you want to reference a specific piece of text that is about 3 to 4 lines long.

BLOCK QUOTE Use a block quote when you want to reference a specific piece of text that is about 5 to 8 lines long.

PARAPHRASE Use a paraphrase when you want to reference a short piece of text but want to put it in your own words, not use the exact words of the other person.

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Format: m First give the name of who said the quote and the name of the article or text in which they said it. m Put quotation marks “ ” on either side of the exact words the other person said. m After the quote put the page number where the words appeared in the other text, in parentheses. m Give two or three sentences explaining why you chose the quote and how it relates to your argument.

Format: m First give the name of who said the quote and the name of the article or text in which they said it. m Hit enter and start on a new line. m Don’t use any quotation marks. m Single space the whole quote. m Indent every line of the quote. m After the quote put the page number where the words appeared in the other text, in parentheses. m Give two or three sentences explaining why you chose the quote and how it relates to your argument.

STOP. We will not

use paraphrases in this class because they are not useful for our purposes. They run the highest risk for plagiarism or for accidentally getting information wrong.

Correct short quote example In the transcript from audio podcast called “Habeas Schmabeas” the journalist, Jack Hitt, says: “Ever since President Bush announced the global war on terror, we’ve been told this is a different kind of war with different rules. The battlefield isn’t a jungle in Asia or a beach in France, it’s everywhere. Soldiers aren’t guys in uniform, they could be anybody. And prisoners of war are different too” (45). When Hitt talks about how the guys could be anywhere, he’s telling us part of the problem with how we treat possible terrorists. He’s suggesting that it is actually really easy to get the wrong person or wrong people when it’s not obvious who is really an enemy. This supports this paper’s argument that politicians can create more terror instead of less.

Anatomy of a

Short quote

quoted text Title of text source

Author’s name

In the transcript from audio podcast called “Habeas Schmabeas” the journalist, Jack Hitt, says: “Ever since President Bush announced the global war on terror, we’ve been told this is a different kind of war with different rules. The battlefield isn’t a jungle in Asia or a beach in France, it’s everywhere. Soldiers aren’t guys in uniform, they could be anybody. And prisoners of war are different too” (45). When Hitt talks about how the guys could be anywhere, he’s telling us part of the problem with how we treat possible terrorists. He’s suggesting that it is actually really easy to get the wrong person or wrong people when it’s not obvious who is really an enemy. This supports this paper’s argument that politicians can create more terror instead of less. page number

quotation marks

sentences explaining the quote’s connection to the student’s thesis

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Correct block quote example In the transcript from audio podcast called “Habeas Schmabeas” the journalist, Jack Hitt, says: In this new war, the plan was to build a prison so bleak that the detainees would give up hope and talk.

The military was given a mission and they did a good job. But many prisoners are now moving into year five. If they’re al-Qaeda, detainment is perfectly justified. No one argues that. But think about what these incarcerations are for men wrongfully and indefinitely detained. It’s like being buried alive in a coffin. Nobody knows how many of the prisoners are, in fact, the worst of the worst, and how many are innocent. But we have a way to find out, it’s called habeas corpus. (57)

Even though Hitt makes it sound like this thing called “habeas corpus,” which is a legal idea that he describes later, is a solution for the people being held wrongly at Guantanimo, the title of the podcast actually makes it sound like no one in the U.S. military is taking this idea very seriously. We usually use the pair of a word and the same word with “sh” at the front to dismiss the idea. This shows that even though a solution exists, not even Hitt believes it is going to work.

Anatomy of a

Block quote

quoted text Title of text source

Author’s name

In the transcript from audio podcast called “Habeas Schmabeas” the journalist, Jack Hitt, says:

In this new war, the plan was to build a prison so bleak that the detainees would give up hope and talk.

The military was given a mission and they did a good job. But many prisoners are now moving into year five. If they’re al-Qaeda, detainment is perfectly justified. No one argues that. But think about what these incarcerations are for men wrongfully and indefinitely detained. It’s like being buried alive in a coffin. Nobody knows how many of the prisoners are, in fact, the worst of the worst, and how many are innocent. But we have a way to find out, it’s called habeas corpus. (57)

Even though Hitt makes it sound like this thing called “habeas corpus,” which is a legal idea that he describes later, is a solution for the people being held wrongly at Guantanimo, the title of the podcast actually makes it sound like no one in the U.S. military is taking this idea very seriously. We usually use the pair of a word and the same word with “sh” at the front to dismiss the idea. This shows that even though a solution exists, not even Hitt believes it is going to work.

page number

sentences explaining the quote’s connection to the student’s thesis

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What Kind of Quote is it, and is it Given Correctly?

Directions: 1.

Read the excerpts below. Decide if the example shows a short quote, a block quote, or a paraphrase.

2.

Write short, block, or para in the margin next to each.

3.

Decide if the quote was given properly.

l Is it clear before the quote who is speaking and is the context explained?

l Is the quote formatted correctly?

l Is it clear how the quote relates to the person’s thesis If any element is missing or incorrect, write a note in the margin explaining it.

Check your work using the key provided at the end.

Quote 1: In the article “Top Chefs” it says: “There are many ways to judge how successful a chef really is, including how he handles his staff, how innovative his dishes are, and how well he runs his business.” (2).

Quote 2: In the article “Dangerous Deer” from Science magazine, biologist Becca Leslie describes the issues surrounding deer in suburban areas. She says:

Deer herds are growing bigger in suburban areas because their natural predators like wolves and coyotes have been driven out. This results in an increased number of deer related auto-ac cidents, but the solution is not allowing a longer deer hunting season. Hunting is one way to re duce the population, but creates another series of problems because hunting accidents are more likely in densely populated suburban areas. The only way to truly cut down the deer population effectively is to work on bringing back their natural predators (35).

This means that deer herds are expanding and hunting is not as good a way of dealing with the problem as bringing predators like wolves and coyotes back would be.

Quote 3: In the article “Nylon Lesbians” Janet Thrumbold talks about how the stereotypes of lesbians are being challenged by an increasing number of lesbians who act feminine, and wear lipstick and nylons (45).

Thrumbold shows that stereotypes are biased and unrealistic.

Quote 4: The book Executive Scandal is about white-collar criminals.

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Some people say that giving longer sentences to white-collar criminals is the best way to reduce this scourge on the American public, but unfortunately longer sentences don’t really work. (88)

Quote 5: Lars McGinty a senior official at FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Association) defends FEMA’s slow response during Hurricane Katrina in an interview published in U.S.A. Today on Nov. 3rd, 2006. He says: “We couldn’t have done more without greater assistance from the executive branch of the government. We had all hands on deck, but with no real resources there was only so much we could do”(5A). This underscores the problem: it wasn’t clear who exactly was supposed to provide the resources, FEMA or the central government.

There is an obvious breakdown in communications. So we see yet another way that we are fundamentally unprepared for real dangers on the home front.

Quote 6: On the website of the Textile Institute of Technology, a textile restoration expert, Rebecca Dibb, explains how your own saliva can be the best solvent for removing certain stains. She says:

“One way to remove small blood stains is to use a Q-Tip and the saliva of the person whose blood it was. Your body produces salivary amylase which breaks down your own proteins.” (www.tit.edu)

This is another example that helps prove how solutions to many problems can be surprisingly simple and yet unexpected.

Quote 7: The author of the website www.pedophiles.com discusses the psychiatric definition of a pedophile which includes “likes to hold young children; likes to touch and hug children; enjoys the company of children”(www. pedophiles.com). If you look at those criteria, practically every parent and daycare worker on earth could be considered a pedophile! Child sexual abuse is a real problem, but pedophiles are our modern boogey men. Our culture glorifies youth, and sexualizes it, but then gets panicked and creates a largely fictional scapegoat.

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TRANSITIONS TRANSITIONS Once you have become familiar with the basic critical essay format, you can begin to make your writing flow more smoothly by using transitions words and phrases. Things to remember: • •

•

A good transition looks back to where you’ve been, and forward to where you are going Good transitions are needed particularly at the beginning of paragraphs, but also within paragraphs to make relationships between ideas clear.

Use transitions at the start of each body paragraph in an essay.

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Brief Timeline of African American History in The United States 1619 - FIRST SLAVES IN THE COLONIES First slaves arrive to the English colony of Jamestown, Va. 1620 - MAYFLOWER LANDS Mayflower ship lands in Plymouth carrying first pilgrims to New England 1644 The first black legal protest in America occurs when 11 blacks successfully petition the government of New Amsterdam for their freedom.

1739 On Sept. 9, the Stono Rebellion (one of the earliest slave insurrections) leads to the deaths of at least 20 whites and more than 40 blacks west of Charleston, S.C. As a consequence of the uprising, white lawmakers impose a moratorium on slave imports and enact a harsher slave code.

1776 - Revolutionary War against British - US gains independence 1777 Vermont becomes the first state to abolish slavery.

1790 President George Washington appoints Benjamin Banneker, a free black who owns a farm near Baltimore, Md., to the District of Columbia Commission. A mathematician and compiler of almanacs, Banneker works on the survey of Washington, D.C. He becomes one of the first important African-American intellectuals.

1793 Congress passes the first Fugitive Slave Act, making it a crime to harbor an escaped slave or to interfere with his or her arrest.

1800 On Aug. 30, Gabriel Prosser plans the first major slave rebellion in U.S. history. Massing more than 1,000 armed slaves near Richmond, Va., Gabriel plans to revolt and create an independent black state. Following the failed insurrection, Gabriel and more than 30 of his companions are arrested, tried and hanged.

1829 Abolitionist David Walker publishes a pamphlet entitled “Appeal...to the Colored Citizens of the World...” It calls for a slave revolt.

1831 Nat Turner leads the only effective, sustained slave rebellion in U.S. history, attracting up to 75 fellow slaves and killing 60 whites. After the defeat of the insurrection, Turner is hanged on Nov. 11. Nat Turner’s rebellion put an end to the white Southern myth that slaves were either contented with their lot or too servile to mount an armed revolt.

1836 Alexander Lucius Twilight becomes the first black elected to public office; he serves in the Vermont legislature. Also the first African-American college graduate, Twilight had received his degree from Middlebury College in 1823.

1839 - AMISTAD Slaves revolt on the Spanish slave ship Amistad in the Caribbean. After their arrest in Long Island Sound, former U.S. president John Quincy Adams successfully defends the rebels before the Supreme Court.

1847 Frederick Douglass begins publication of the North Star, an antislavery newspaper. Douglass was one of the most eminent human-rights leaders of the 19th century.

1850 Harriet Tubman returns to Maryland to guide members of her family to freedom via the Underground Railroad. Later

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helping more than 300 slaves to escape, 1857 - DRED SCOTT In its Dred Scott decision, the U.S. Supreme Court legalizes slavery in all the territories, exacerbating the sectional controversy and pushing the nation toward civil war.

1861 - CIVIL WAR BEGINS The Civil War begins in Charleston, S.C., as the Confederates open fire on Fort Sumter, and lasts until April 1865. Also called the “war between the states,” the conflict pits the federal government of the United States and 11 Southern states that assert their right to secede from the Union. The eventual victory of the North results in the preservation of the Union, the abolition of slavery, and the granting of citizenship to the freed slaves. The war also marks the new economic and political ascendancy of the rapidly industrializing, increasingly urbanized states of the North.

1863 - LINCOLN SIGNS EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION President Abraham Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1 and thus frees the slaves of the Confederate states in rebellion against the Union. In addition to lifting the Civil War to the level of a crusade for human freedom, this edict brought substantial practical results because it allowed the Union to recruit black soldiers. African Americans responded in considerable numbers to this invitation to join the U.S. Army, with nearly 180,000 of them enlisting during the remainder of the war.

1865 - CIVIL WAR ENDS The Civil War ends on April 26, after the surrender of the Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and J.E. Johnston.

1865 - 1965 - - JIM CROW ERA BEGINS Jim Crow Laws were established during the period after the Civil War, an era called “Reconstruction.” These were segregation laws. The laws enforced the idea that blacks were equal to whites, but should remain separate on a day to day level. This meant separate drinking fountains, separate dining counters and so on.

These laws 1895 At the Atlanta Exposition, educator Booker T. Washington delivers his “Atlanta Compromise” speech, stressing the importance of vocational education for blacks over social equality or political office. In a time of serious racial tensions, Washington asserted that vocational education, which gave blacks an opportunity for economic security, was more valuable to them than social advantages or political office. White leaders in both the North and South greeted Washington’s speech with enthusiasm, but it disturbed black intellectuals who feared that Washington’s philosophy would doom blacks to indefinite subservience to whites. That fear led to the Niagara Movement and later to the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

1899 Composer and pianist Scott Joplin publishes “The Maple Leaf Rag,” one of the most important and popular compositions during the era of ragtime, precursor to jazz.

1903 W.E.B. DuBois publishes The Souls of Black Folk, which declares “the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line,” and discusses the dual identity of black Americans.

1916 Fritz Pollard is the first black football player to be named “All-American” as well as the first black player to appear in a Rose Bowl. He goes on to become the first African-American head coach in the NFL when he heads the Akron Pros in 1921 and is later inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1954.

1923 Pianist and orchestrator Fletcher Henderson becomes a bandleader. His prestigious band advances the careers of such black musicians as Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, and Roy Eldridge. This same year, Bessie Smith, discovered by pianist-composer Clarence Williams, makes her first recording. She will eventually become known as “Empress of the Blues.”

1940 Hattie McDaniel becomes the first black to receive an Oscar for her supporting role in Gone With the Wind.

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1945 Ebony magazine is founded by John H. Johnson of Chicago. Modeled after Life but intended for an emerging black middle class, the magazine is an instant success. This same year, Nat King Cole becomes the first black with his own network radio show. Cole is also the first black with his own network TV show, The Nat King Cole Show (1956).

1947 Jackie Robinson plays baseball for the Brooklyn Dodgers, the first black in the major leagues in the modern era. In 1962 he was the first black inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

1951 Amos ‘n’ Andy move from radio to television and become the first TV show to have an all-black cast.

1954 - BROWN V. BOARD OF ED On May 17 the U.S. Supreme Court rules unanimously in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that racial segregation in public schools violates the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

1955 - ROSA PARKS Rosa Parks, secretary of the Montgomery, Ala., chapter of the NAACP, refuses to surrender her seat when ordered by a local bus driver, leading to the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-56.

1960 - SIT INS The sit-in movement is launched at Greensboro, N.C., when black college students insist on service at a local segregated lunch counter.

1963 Medgar Evers, Mississippi field secretary for the NAACP, is shot and killed in an ambush in front of his home, following a historic broadcast on the subject of civil rights by President John F. Kennedy. In Birmingham, Ala., Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor uses water hoses and dogs against civil-rights protesters, many of whom are children, increasing pressure on President John F. Kennedy to act. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. writes “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” to eight clergymen who attacked his role in Birmingham. Widely reprinted, it soon becomes a classic of protest literature. The Civil Rights movement reaches its climax with a massive march on Washington, D.C. Among the themes of the march “for jobs and freedom” was a demand for passage of the Civil Rights Act. Sidney Poitier wins the Academy Award as best actor for his performance in Lilies of the Field in 1963.

1964 Martin Luther King Jr. is the youngest person awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He is 35.

1964 - CIVIL RIGHTS ACT IS PASSED - JIM CROW ENDS The Civil Rights Act is signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. It outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It ended unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that served the general public.

1965 - VOTING RIGHTS ACT The Civil Rights Act is signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. It protects racial discrimination in voting.

1967 Thurgood Marshall is the first African American to be appointed to the Supreme Court.

1968 - KING ASSASSINATED On April 4, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., is assassinated in Memphis, Tenn. The assassination is followed by a week of rioting in at least 125 cities across the nation, including Washington, D.C. 1982 Singer Michael Jackson creates a sensation with the album Thriller, which becomes one of the most popular albums of all time, selling more than 40 million copies.

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1989 President George Bush nominates Colin Powell as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, making him the first black officer to hold the highest military post in the United States. Oprah Winfrey becomes the first African-American to own her own television and film production company, Harpo Studios, Inc. 1992 Mae Jemison becomes the first African-American woman astronaut, spending more than a week orbiting Earth in the space shuttle Endeavour. Carol Moseley-Braun becomes the first African-American woman elected to the U.S. Senate, representing the state of Illinois.

1995 Minister Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, rises to the height of his influence as the most prominent organizer of the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Million Man Marchâ&#x20AC;? of African-American men in Washington, D.C. 2002 Halle Berry becomes the first African-American woman to be awarded an Oscar for best actress in a leading role.

2008 - FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT Barack Obama becomes first African American president of the United States.

2012-2015 Nation racial tensions intensify following the shooting of numerous young African American men such as Trayvon Martin in Florida, and Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO.

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Understanding Close Text Reading Q: What is close text reading?

A: Close text reading is a way of using quotes and text passages to support a position, by focusing in on specific words and phrases that give a quote a particular meaning.

Q: What is the point of close text reading?

Close text reading forces the author of an essay to be accountable to the texts from which he or she has drawn.

Close text reading also makes points more convincing, because they are rooted in precise analysis of another text.

When do you use close text reading?

You use close text reading any time you are using a quote to support a point. In the sentences following the quote, you direct the reader’s attention to specific key words and phrases from the text that are most important.

Example: In the book Life on the Outside, Marion Paley describes the difficulties she faced reentering society after 23 years in prison. She had entered prison at age 18 after a series of drug arrests in New York City. In prison she kicked her heroine habit, earned a college degree in psychology, and started a highly successful program to help incarcerated women form lasting and meaningful relationships with their children outside of prison. In prison, Marion Paley had been a success story. Outside of prison, however, things were very different. She writes,

I had a college degree and work experience in the field of psychology. I even knew quite a bit

about managing a small business on limited funds from having to scare up money to run the

Prison Mothers program. But despite all of this, despite having paid my debt to society, despite

having been clean for more than twenty years, no one on the outside would hire me. I went from

one job agency to another, spent hours on the phone with my parole officer. I couldn’t even get

a job at the local grocery store. As the months passed with no income I actually began to think

about robbery, something I’d never done even when I was a junky! (45) The quote from Paley begins to uncover the way in which the system sets up inmates to fail following their release. When she says “despite all of this, despite having paid my debt to society, despite having been clean for more than twenty years…” the repetitive use of the word “despite” serves to show the increasing frustration Paley is feeling. She talks about paying her “debt to society” which shows the contrast in expectations between the prisoner who thinks she is meant to be rehabilitated and the offender who the system sees as needing to be punished.

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How Not to Talk to Your Kids: The inverse power of praise From: New York Magazine Published Feb 11, 2007

By Po Bronson

According to a survey conducted by Columbia University, 85 percent of American parents think it’s important to tell their kids that they’re smart. In and around the New York area, according to my own (admittedly nonscientific) poll, the number is more like 100 percent. Everyone does it, habitually. The constant praise is meant to be an angel on the shoulder, ensuring that children do not sell their talents short.

But a growing body of research -and a new study from the trenches of the New York public-school systemstrongly suggests it might be the other way around. Giving kids the label of “smart” does not prevent them from underperforming. It might actually be causing it.

For the past ten years, psychologist Carol Dweck and her team at Columbia (she’s now at Stanford) studied the effect of praise on students in a dozen New York schools. Her seminal work -a series of experiments on 400 fifth-graders- paints the picture most clearly.

Dweck sent four female research assistants into New York fifth-grade classrooms. The researchers would take a single child out of the classroom for a nonverbal IQ test consisting of a series of puzzles - puzzles easy enough that all the children would do fairly well. Once the child finished the test, the researchers told each student his score, then gave him a single line of praise. Randomly divided into groups, some were praised for their intelligence. They were told, “You must be smart at this.” Other students were praised for their effort: “You must have worked really hard.”

Why just a single line of praise? “We wanted to see how sensitive children were,” Dweck explained.

“We had a hunch that one line might be enough to see an effect.”

Then the students were given a choice of test for the second round. One choice was a test that would be more difficult than the first, but the researchers told the kids that they’d learn a lot from attempting the puzzles. The other choice, Dweck’s team explained, was an easy test, just like the first. Of those praised for their effort, 90 percent chose the harder set of puzzles. Of those praised for their intelligence, a majority chose the easy test.

The “smart” kids took the cop-out.

Why did this happen? “When we praise children for their intelligence,” Dweck wrote in her study summary, “we tell them that this is the name of the game: Look smart, don’t risk making mistakes.” And that’s what the fifth-graders had done: They’d chosen to look smart and avoid the risk of being embarrassed.

In a subsequent round, none of the fifth-graders had a choice. The test was difficult, designed for kids two years ahead of their grade level. Predictably, everyone failed. But again, the two groups of children, divided at random at the study’s start, responded differently. Those praised for their effort on the first test assumed they simply hadn’t focused hard enough on this test. “They got very involved, willing to try every solution to the puzzles,” Dweck recalled. “Many of them remarked, unprovoked, ‘This is my favorite test.’ ” Not so for those praised for their smarts. They assumed their failure was evidence that they weren’t really smart at all. “Just watching them, you could see the strain. They were sweating and miserable.”

Having artificially induced a round of failure, Dweck’s researchers then gave all the fifth-graders a final round of tests that were engineered to be as easy as the first round. Those who had been praised for their effort significantly improved on their first score - by about 30 percent. Those who’d been told they were smart did worse than they had at the very beginning -by about 20 percent.

Dweck had suspected that praise could backfire, but even she was surprised by the magnitude of the effect. “Emphasizing effort gives a child a variable that they can control,” she explains. “They come to see themselves as in control of their success. Emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of the child’s control, and it provides no good recipe for responding to a failure.”

In follow-up interviews, Dweck discovered that those who think that innate intelligence is the key to

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success begin to discount the importance of effort. I am smart, the kids’ reasoning goes; I don’t need to put out effort. Expending effort becomes stigmatized - it’s public proof that you can’t cut it on your natural gifts.

Repeating her experiments, Dweck found this effect of praise on performance held true for students of every socioeconomic class. It hit both boys and girls -the very brightest girls especially (they collapsed the most following failure). Even preschoolers weren’t immune to the inverse power of praise.

The teachers at the Life Sciences Secondary School in East Harlem have seen Dweck’s theories applied to their junior-high students. Last week, Dweck and her protégée, Lisa Blackwell, published a report in the academic journal Child Development about the effect of a semester-long intervention conducted to improve students’ math scores.

Life Sciences is a health-science magnet school with high aspirations but 700 students whose main attributes are being predominantly minority and low achieving. Blackwell split her kids into two groups for an eight-session workshop. The control group was taught study skills, and the others got study skills and a special module on how intelligence is not innate. These students took turns reading aloud an essay on how the brain grows new neurons when challenged. They saw slides of the brain and acted out skits. “Even as I was teaching these ideas,” Blackwell noted, “I would hear the students joking, calling one another ‘dummy’ or ‘stupid.’”

After the module was concluded, Blackwell tracked her students’ grades to see if it had any effect.

It didn’t take long. The teachers -who hadn’t known which students had been assigned to which workshopcould pick out the students who had been taught that intelligence can be developed. They improved their study habits and grades. In a single semester, Blackwell reversed the students’ longtime trend of decreasing math grades.

The only difference between the control group and the test group were two lessons, a total of 50 minutes spent teaching not math but a single idea: that the brain is a muscle. Giving it a harder workout makes you smarter. That alone improved their math scores.

“These are very persuasive findings,” says Columbia’s Dr. Geraldine Downey, a specialist in children’s sensitivity to rejection. “They show how you can take a specific theory and develop a curriculum that works.”

Downey’s comment is typical of what other scholars in the field are saying. Dr. Mahzarin Banaji, a Harvard social psychologist who is an expert in stereotyping, told me, “Carol Dweck is a flat-out genius. I hope the work is taken seriously. It scares people when they see these results.”

Since the 1969 publication of The Psychology of Self-Esteem, in which Nathaniel Branden opined that self-esteem was the single most important facet of a person, the belief that one must do whatever he can to achieve positive self-esteem has become a movement with broad societal effects. Anything potentially damaging to kids’ self-esteem was axed. Competitions were frowned upon. Soccer coaches stopped counting goals and handed out trophies to everyone. Teachers threw out their red pencils. Criticism was replaced with ubiquitous, even undeserved, praise.

Dweck and Blackwell’s work is part of a larger academic challenge to one of the self-esteem movement’s key tenets: that praise, self-esteem, and performance rise and fall together. From 1970 to 2000, there were over 15,000 scholarly articles written on self-esteem and its relationship to everything - from sex to career advancement. But results were often contradictory or inconclusive. So in 2003 the Association for Psychological Science asked Dr. Roy Baumeister, then a leading proponent of self-esteem, to review this literature. His team concluded that self-esteem was polluted with flawed science. Only 200 of those 15,000 studies met their rigorous standards.

After reviewing those 200 studies, Baumeister concluded that having high self-esteem didn’t improve grades or career achievement. It didn’t even reduce alcohol usage. And it especially did not lower violence of any sort. (Highly aggressive, violent people happen to think very highly of themselves, debunking the theory that people are aggressive to make up for low self-esteem.) At the time, Baumeister was quoted as saying that his findings were “the biggest disappointment of my career.”

Now he’s on Dweck’s side of the argument, and his work is going in a similar direction: He will soon publish an article showing that for college students on the verge of failing in class, esteem-building praise causes their grades to sink further. Baumeister has come to believe the continued appeal of self-esteem is largely tied to parents’ pride in their children’s achievements: It’s so strong that “when they praise their kids, it’s not

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that far from praising themselves.”

By and large, the literature on praise shows that it can be effective -a positive, motivating force. In one study, University of Notre Dame researchers tested praise’s efficacy on a losing college hockey team. The experiment worked: The team got into the playoffs. But all praise is not equal -and, as Dweck demonstrated, the effects of praise can vary significantly depending on the praise given. To be effective, researchers have found, praise needs to be specific. (The hockey players were specifically complimented on the number of times they checked an opponent.)

Sincerity of praise is also crucial. Just as we can sniff out the true meaning of a backhanded compliment or a disingenuous apology, children, too, scrutinize praise for hidden agendas. Only young children -under the age of 7- take praise at face value: Older children are just as suspicious of it as adults.

Psychologist Wulf-Uwe Meyer, a pioneer in the field, conducted a series of studies where children watched other students receive praise. According to Meyer’s findings, by the age of 12, children believe that earning praise from a teacher is not a sign you did well; it’s actually a sign you lack ability and the teacher thinks you need extra encouragement. And teens, Meyer found, discounted praise to such an extent that they believed it’s a teacher’s criticism -not praise at all- that really conveys a positive belief in a student’s aptitude.

In the opinion of cognitive scientist Daniel T. Willingham, a teacher who praises a child may be unwittingly sending the message that the student reached the limit of his innate ability, while a teacher who criticizes a pupil conveys the message that he can improve his performance even further.

New York University professor of psychiatry Judith Brook explains that the issue for parents is one of credibility. “Praise is important, but not empty praise,” she says. “It has to be based on a real thing: some skill or talent they have.” Once children hear praise they interpret as meritless, they discount not just the insincere praise, but sincere praise as well.

Scholars from Reed College and Stanford reviewed over 150 praise studies. Their meta-analysis determined that praised students become risk-averse and lack perceived autonomy. The scholars found consistent correlations between a liberal use of praise and students’ shorter task persistence, more eye-checking with the teacher, and inflected speech such that answers have the intonation of questions.

Dweck’s research on overpraised kids strongly suggests that image maintenance becomes their primary concern; they are more competitive and more interested in tearing others down. A raft of very alarming studies illustrate this.

Students turn to cheating because they haven’t developed a strategy for handling failure. The problem is compounded when a parent ignores a child’s failures and insists he’ll do better next time. Michigan scholar Jennifer Crocker studies this exact scenario and explains that the child may come to believe failure is something so terrible, the family can’t acknowledge its existence. A child deprived of the opportunity to discuss mistakes can’t learn from them.

It turns out that the ability to repeatedly respond to failure by exerting more effort -instead of simply giving up- is a trait well studied in psychology. People with this trait, persistence, rebound well and can sustain their motivation through long periods of delayed gratification.

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Practice with Close Text Reading Directions: Read the excerpt from “How Not to Talk to Your Kids” by Po Bronson from New York Magazine.

As you read, look for quotes you could use to support the following thesis statement: THESIS: Despite the fact that many people blame low self-esteem for their various problems, when parents and teachers try to build self esteem by offering praise –sometimes even offering praise beyond what is warranted— they don’t make students stronger, in fact, they undermine students.

Write down a quote from the reading that supports the statement above, being sure to write down all of the quote that is relevant but no more than is needed. __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________

Read the quote you have selected over and circle the specific words or phrases in the quote are most important for supporting the statement above.

In the space below, write two or three sentences connecting your quote with the thesis statement. Be sure to focus on the words and phrases you circled and explain exactly how they help prove the thesis statement. __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________

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PAPER GRADING Understand how your paper grade will be determined.

Argument = 50% • Paper has clearly stated thesis statement/argument that is complex and nuanced • The thesis is introduced at the beginning of the paper, and remains consistent throughout • Most of the paper is the students own new ideas rather than summary of information.

Text Usage = 25% • The paper uses short and block quotes given in MLA style • The student uses quotes that support her argument explains shows how they do • Before every quote the student explains who the speaker is and what the context of the quote is.

• After every quote the student explains what the quote means and how it supports her thesis.

Organization = 12.5% • Ideas are presented in a logical order.

• Paragraphs begin with topic sentences.

• Transitions are used between paragraphs.

Presentation = 12.5% • Paper is double spaced • Paper uses Times New Roman 12pt font • Paper has a forecasting title, page numbers and students information on top left of first page • Paper has page numbers, is printed neatly and is stapled or paper clipped with the peer reviewed documents attached at the back.

• Paper contains no extra lines between paragraphs • Paper contains no spelling, grammar, syntax or punctuation errors • Paper is the required length A A- B+ B B- C+ C D

= 95-100 = 90-94 = 87-89 = 84-86 = 80-83 = 76-79 = 70-75 = 60-70

F

= 0-60

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Mercer By The Numbers IF YOU WANT TO GRADUATE, YOU MUST BEAT THE ODDS 60% of new, first time, full time students end up taking a remedial class such as ENG 023, 024, 033, 024, etc.

Most students do NOT graduate in 2 years.

Outcomes for those who stay for 3 years, are as follows.

For white students 18% Graduate in 3 Years 30% Transfer out in 3 Years For African-American students 6% Graduate in 3 Years 25% Transfer out in 3 Years For Hispanic Students 10% Graduate in 3 Years 18% Transfer out in 3 Years For Asian Students 24% Graduate in 3 Years 22% Transfer out in 3 Years You have a 50-50 chance of getting out of here in 3 years, if you are white.

You have a 1 in 3 chance of getting out of here in 3 years, if you are black.

You have a 1 in 3 chance of getting out of here in 3 years if you are Hispanic.

You have a 40% chance of getting out of here in 3 years if you are Asian.

If you transfer to TCNJ or Rutgers – You will have a 70% or less chance of finishing and getting your bachelors degree. Which means 1/3rd of those who make it out of MCCC still won’t see that BA. Data comes from 2013 NJ Dept of Education – Institutional Profiles. Numbers have been rounded up. http://www.state.nj.us/highereducation/IP/IP2013/index.shtml

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How to Increase Your Chances of Being One of Those Who Succeeds • o

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Watch what the strong students do, and try to be like them In class, S.L.A.N.T – Sit up, listen, ask questions, nod when you understand, and track the speaker with your eyes. Do this in every class, not just at the beginning.

Sit near the front.

Bring a notebook and several pencils from the first day onward and ALWAYS be taking notes.

Write down everything that the teacher puts on the board and if you may not remember what it means later, add a little note to explain it to yourself Write down important things the teacher says, whether or not they get put on the board Get your books in the first week and always do the readings Take notes on the readings Keep an assignment book and figure out exactly when you are going to get things done – stick to it Get started with assignments early Go to office hours or stop and check in with your teacher now and then, particularly if you get a lower grade than you want on an assignment Ask if you can fix or rewrite an assignment for a higher grade Ask if there is extra credit Do not sit near the students who are distracted and acting stupid Do not let poor students, and even poor teachers distract you from your goals Do not expect anyone to get you out of here except you Do not feel sorry for yourself if you are working a lot, struggling to make ends meet, facing personal problems. If they are overwhelming, stop college and come back when you have time to succeed.

At the beginning of the semester, exchange contact info with classmates who seem to be good students Agree to share your notes with them for any day they miss, and get them to do the same for you. Don’t ask your teacher “what did I miss?” if you are absent. You should know what you missed.

If you are absent, get the work done ahead of time, or catch up on your own. For example, if you missed peer review day in class, do some version of it with classmates via email. Contact those who you exchanged addresses with.

Use formal, proper communications with your professors whenever you email them, and keep such communication minimal.

Do not ask to use the bathroom.

Do not come to class late.

Do not miss class.

Do not make excuses.

Keep your phone in your bag and don’t get distracted by it.

Do not leave class to take a phone call.

Do MORE than you have to, whenever you can. Meaning, take time to review your notes, even if there is no exam. Summarize what you have written, so it sticks better in your head.

Make visuals to help you keep your goals in mind, such as a poster of yourself where you draw on a graduation gown and write the date you want to graduate on it. Keep it where you can see it at home.

If your family members don’t encourage you or support you, find a hiding place where you can get work done without them making it harder. Use the library. Force them to take you seriously, by taking yourself seriously.

Don’t look for short cuts.

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ENG 023 - ESSAY SUBMISSION SHEET Your Name: ____________________________ Directions: Complete this sheet before submitting your essay.

1.

The area of my writing that I worked on most for this essay was:

2.

Finish this sentence. Compared to my other work this semester, I feel this paper is:

3.

For me, the most challenging aspect of writing this essay was:

4.

For me, the most rewarding aspect of writing this essay was:

5.

My peer reviewers for this assignment were:

6.

My paper is the following number of pages long ___________

IN THE BODY OF YOUR FINAL DRAFT: 1.

Underline or highlight the thesis of your paper (this may have more than one portion) and write â&#x20AC;&#x153;THESISâ&#x20AC;? next to it in the margin.

2.

Underline or highlight what you thought might have been your strongest or most successful moment in your essay and put a star next to it.

3.

Underline or highlight what you thought might have been your weakest moment in your essay and put a question mark next to it.

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ENG 023 - ESSAY SUBMISSION SHEET Your Name: ____________________________ Directions: Complete this sheet before submitting your essay.

1.

The area of my writing that I worked on most for this essay was:

2.

Finish this sentence. Compared to my other work this semester, I feel this paper is:

3.

For me, the most challenging aspect of writing this essay was:

4.

For me, the most rewarding aspect of writing this essay was:

5.

My peer reviewers for this assignment were:

6.

My paper is the following number of pages long ___________

IN THE BODY OF YOUR FINAL DRAFT: 1.

Underline or highlight the thesis of your paper (this may have more than one portion) and write â&#x20AC;&#x153;THESISâ&#x20AC;? next to it in the margin.

2.

Underline or highlight what you thought might have been your strongest or most successful moment in your essay and put a star next to it.

3.

Underline or highlight what you thought might have been your weakest moment in your essay and put a question mark next to it.

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ENG 023 - ESSAY SUBMISSION SHEET Your Name: ____________________________ Directions: Complete this sheet before submitting your essay.

1.

The area of my writing that I worked on most for this essay was:

2.

Finish this sentence. Compared to my other work this semester, I feel this paper is:

3.

For me, the most challenging aspect of writing this essay was:

4.

For me, the most rewarding aspect of writing this essay was:

5.

My peer reviewers for this assignment were:

6.

My paper is the following number of pages long ___________

IN THE BODY OF YOUR FINAL DRAFT: 1.

Underline or highlight the thesis of your paper (this may have more than one portion) and write â&#x20AC;&#x153;THESISâ&#x20AC;? next to it in the margin.

2.

Underline or highlight what you thought might have been your strongest or most successful moment in your essay and put a star next to it.

3.

Underline or highlight what you thought might have been your weakest moment in your essay and put a question mark next to it.

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ENG 023 - ESSAY SUBMISSION SHEET Your Name: ____________________________ Directions: Complete this sheet before submitting your essay.

1.

The area of my writing that I worked on most for this essay was:

2.

Finish this sentence. Compared to my other work this semester, I feel this paper is:

3.

For me, the most challenging aspect of writing this essay was:

4.

For me, the most rewarding aspect of writing this essay was:

5.

My peer reviewers for this assignment were:

6.

My paper is the following number of pages long ___________

IN THE BODY OF YOUR FINAL DRAFT: 1.

Underline or highlight the thesis of your paper (this may have more than one portion) and write â&#x20AC;&#x153;THESISâ&#x20AC;? next to it in the margin.

2.

Underline or highlight what you thought might have been your strongest or most successful moment in your essay and put a star next to it.

3.

Underline or highlight what you thought might have been your weakest moment in your essay and put a question mark next to it.

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ENG 023 - ESSAY SUBMISSION SHEET Your Name: ____________________________ Directions: Complete this sheet before submitting your essay.

1.

The area of my writing that I worked on most for this essay was:

2.

Finish this sentence. Compared to my other work this semester, I feel this paper is:

3.

For me, the most challenging aspect of writing this essay was:

4.

For me, the most rewarding aspect of writing this essay was:

5.

My peer reviewers for this assignment were:

6.

My paper is the following number of pages long ___________

IN THE BODY OF YOUR FINAL DRAFT: 1.

Underline or highlight the thesis of your paper (this may have more than one portion) and write â&#x20AC;&#x153;THESISâ&#x20AC;? next to it in the margin.

2.

Underline or highlight what you thought might have been your strongest or most successful moment in your essay and put a star next to it.

3.

Underline or highlight what you thought might have been your weakest moment in your essay and put a question mark next to it.

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ROUGH DRAFT - PEER REVIEW SHEET NOTES BEFORE YOU BEGIN

m Always bring THREE PRINTED COPIES of your rough draft on peer review days. Do not be late for class because you are printing. m Any student who fails to complete the peer review assignment will automatically have their final paper grade reduced by a half grade (B becomes B-, C+ becomes C etc.). m It does not matter whether the paper you are reviewing is more or less successful than your own, you still have the capability to help the other writer improve. Each paper should take about 25 minutes to review. m When you submit your final draft, also submit all peer comments your received.

FIRST SCAN

Check all the basics. If any of these items is missing, make a note in the margins! Does this essay have: m m

m

m m m m m

Page numbers (typed, in the lower left of right hand corner of each page)?

A good title (this should reflect the argument the author will make. The title should have proper capitalization and be centered)?

The student’s name, the date, and the draft number written in the upper left hand corner of the first page (single spaced)?

The whole paper double-spaced after the title (not including block quotes)?

No extra blank lines between paragraphs?

Consistent normal margins (any Word program will do this automatically)?

Times New Roman, 12-point font (should look exactly like the font used here)?

Evidence of quotes?

FULL PEER REVIEW READ THROUGH 1.

In the opening paragraph did the student start by introducing the text or texts, giving the titles, saying who wrote them and providing brief descriptions of what each is about?

2.

Also in the opening paragraph did the student give an idea of the question they are addressing?

3.

Also in the opening paragraph did the student give a complete, clear thesis that answers the question you were asked?

4.

Did the student have quotes in his or her opening paragraph, because they don’t belong here. If they do, make a note to move them.

5.

Do the middle paragraphs include transitions and topic sentences at the beginning of each?

6.

Do the middle paragraphs each have just one point and is that point supported by at least one quote?

7.

Are all of the quotes set up, formatted and followed correctly?

8.

Does the paper have a forecasting title?

9.

Is the paper in Times New Roman 12 point?

10.

Is the paper set up correctly on the page?

Highlight put a note next to the best moment in the student’s paper.

Highlight put a note next to the weakest moment in the student’s paper.

Write a note on the first page, near the top, giving your overall perspective on the student’s paper.

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ENG 024 - Scavenger Hunt Name ____________________________ Directions: To help familiarize you with the course, the college and your instructor, complete this activity in the time given. When teams are assigned they must work together.

Part I: Syllabus 1. According to your syllabus, when does your professor have office hours?

2. According to your syllabus, what percentage of your final grade does class participation count for?

3. What does S.L.A.N.T. stand for?

4. Do you have to come to class the Tuesday after you take your final exam? On what page did you find this information?

5. How many papers will you be asked to write in this class?

6. If you are caught cheating, is there something the instructor is required to do? If so, what?

7. Every team member who has a phone must take a photo of the course deadlines listed in this packet.

Part II: The Campus 1. The Learning Center provides tutoring services for students enrolled in ENG 024. Tutors can work with you to help you become a better writer. Where is the Learning Center located and during what days and hours is it open? One team member must take a picture of the door (extra points if the hours are in the picture) 2. Computers are available in several places on campus. Name at least two locations where computers are located?

3. Which lab has the most computer terminals? One team member must take a picture of the lab with the most terminals.

4. On what days and during what hours is the library computer lab open?

5. To print in the computer lab you need to buy a print card. Where do you buy one? Take a picture of it.

Part III: Email Use an open computer lab to enter your MyMercer homepage (follow the link at mccc.edu). Sign into your account. Send a brief email to me at johnsonh@mccc.edu from your MercerMail account. Use your best English spelling and grammar. In your email, tell me: your name, your current job, your dream job, any languages you speak other than English, your intended major at MCCC, and one thing you like to read.

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