EXWR 100-01: Basic Writing
19 November 1996

Paper 8: Crossing the Lines

For this paper there are 4 possible topics:

1. Get to know something about a group of people you feel unfamiliar with by attending a meeting lecture, film, art exhibit, or performance addressing the issues of people across some line--of race, religion, sexual orientation, age, gender, physical ability, __?___ (you fill in the blank). For this topic you could also visit a place, like a dorm or a dining hall or co-op.

   Immediately after the experience write about it. Describe what happened in the experience, but also try to describe what happened within you during the experience. What did you learn about your assumptions about the particular "line" of identification that you "crossed"? What did you learn about yourself?

2. As I've walked around campus this semester I've been struck by how many places here display pictures of heroes or models of one sort or another. The mural in the lounge of Third World House with its bright vision of liberation leaders, Chris Baymiller's photographs in Wilder of performers who've played campus, even the conference room where I sit every week in a meeting of College Faculty Council, the walls of which are populated by oil portraits of famous people at Oberlin (including John Langston and Adelia Field Johnson)--everywhere you look, it seems, you can find images of people who have been admired by members of our community(ies).

   For this topic I'd like for you to imagine you're contributing to a verbal mural. Paint a picture in words of someone you admire--someone who has accomplished something important in life to which you aspire. Describe for us what kind of person he or she is/was, his or her actions, his or her ability to speak to others through actions or words and inspire them. Imagine, also, where you'd install such a portrait so that others could be invigorated by it. What space would be most appropriate to its public reception?

3. Discuss your final overall reaction to reading West's Race Matters.

4. Substitute a paper for another class.