Discipline: Humanities Degree Credit  [X]
Non Credit  [ ]
Nondegree Credit  [ ]
Comm Service  [ ]
 

Riverside Community College District
Integrated Course Outline of Record

Humanities 9


COURSE DESCRIPTION
9 American Voices Units: 3.00
 
Prerequisite(s): None.

Advisory: Qualification for English 1A
An interdisciplinary study of American voices across class, racial, ethnic, religious, and other boundaries. Close reading of American biographies and autobiographies of writers, artists, musicians, and other artists to analyze the evolving character of American identity. 54 hours lecture.
 
SHORT DESCRIPTION FOR CLASS SCHEDULE
An interdisciplinary study of the American voices in art and literature across class, racial, ethnic, religious, and other boundaries.
 
ADVISORY ENTRY SKILLS
Before entering the course, students will be able to:
  1. Critically discuss and analyze primary and secondary texts, recognizing key ideas and responding in both oral and written form;

  2. Analyze, synthesize, and evaluate concepts studied in primary and secondary texts using intermediate to advanced critical thinking skills;

  3. Compose developed, unified, stylistically competent writing assignments and adjust writing to the target audience with intermediate to advanced skill.
STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES
 Upon successful completion of the course, students should be able to:

Describe the diversity of American philosophical and cultural heritages as a continuing influence on American lives.

Demonstrate how the elements of art, literature, politics, and religion provide a vehicle for both forming and describing individual identity.

Analyze individual identity in a historical perspective, providing a basis for interpreting both individual and shared experiences.

Develop an appreciation of the peculiar challenges to forming an identity in a multicultural society.

Recognize and evaluate the forces which have shaped the student’s own experience and appraise those which would allow the individual previously unexplored options within American society.
 
COURSE CONTENT
  TOPICS
 

Focus of class readings should be on individual biographies, not cultural movements.  Individuals named are examples of those which might be chosen by individual instructors.  All sections of the class should cover at least three of the indicated five areas.

  1. Multicultural identity and the visual arts:  Lisa Fifield; Judy Chicago; Judith Baca; Jean-Michel Basquiat
  2. Multicultural identity and music:  Duke Ellington; Ethyl Waters; Charles Mingus
  3. Multicultural identity and literature:  Leslie Marmon Silko; Maxine Hong Kingston; Sherman Alexie
  4. Multicultural identity and politics:  Richard Rodriguez; Cherríe Moraga; Art Spiegelman
  5. Multicultural identity and religion:  Black Elk; Malcolm X; Thomas Merton
 
METHODS OF INSTRUCTION
 Methods of instruction used to achieve student learning outcomes may include, but are not limited to:

  • Class lectures/discussions on the nature of individual identity in American culture, as it is affected by race, class, gender, sexual orientation, immigration status, and other social roles.
  • Videos/films/slides/audio tapes depicting the experience of marginalized individuals in American culture, especially as seen through the arts.
  • Pair and small group activities/discussion of the overlapping social experiences which inform the experience of individual identity.
  • Reports and papers interpreting primary texts read in the class.
  • Guest lecturers on the role of individual experience in artistic creation.
  • Field trips to artistic performances focusing on multicultural identity.
  • On-line instruction focusing on Internet resources relevant to class readings.
 
METHODS OF EVALUATION
 Students will be evaluated for progress in and/or mastery of learning outcomes by methods of evaluation which may include, but are not limited to:

  • The writing of a minimum of 3000 words of formal interpretive prose. 
  • Oral reports/presentations/performances on texts read in the course and issues raised within them.
  • Written assignments interpreting course texts.
  • Quizzes/examinations on themes overlapping course texts.
  • Class and individual projects creating works which engage themes similar to those raised in class texts.
  • Final examination reviewing student mastery of texts and themes used in the course.

 
ASSIGNMENTS

Required Reading Assignments


Required Writing Assignments


Other Outside-of-Class Assignments
 
COURSE MATERIALS
 All materials used in this course will be periodically reviewed to ensure that they are appropriate for college level instruction. Possible texts include:

  • Kingston, Maxine Hong. The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts. New York: Vintage, 1977.
  • Malcolm X and Alex Haley. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York: Grove, 1966.
  • McBride, James. The Color of Water. New York: Riverhead Books, 1996.
  • Moraga, Cherrie. Loving in the War Years: lo que nunca pasó por sus labios. Boston: South End Press, 1983.
  • Rodriguez, Richard. Hunger of Memory: An Autobiography. New York: Bantam, 1982.
  • Spiegelman, Art. Maus I, A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History. New York: Pantheon, 1986.
  • Waters, Ethel and Charles Samuels. His Eye Is On The Sparrow. New York: Jove Books, 1978.
  • Software. software pub, 656 ed.
05/06
1207