FYE/SOC20/EWRT/READ Winter 2013 Myhre/Leonard/Quigley/Quintero/Malavade
As Herbert Kohl pointed out so effectively in The Politics of Childrens Literature, much of what we learn about social movements focuses on individual heroes, if we learn anything at all. This diminishes the massive organizing work done by all the many participants in a social movement. Or we learn about progress as if it just happens, rather than as if it is something won at great cost by the collective and disciplined struggle of people fighting for change. However, there is a large body of research in sociology about how people come together most effectively to try to solve social problems. In SOC20, we have been studying what sociologists have identified as the most effective kinds of claims, recruitment, mobilization and solidarity-building techniques, strategies, and organizational forms. Yet, stories about social movements often do not teach us about these techniques for making change. The goal of this project is to analyze different kinds of narratives about social movements for what they do and dont teach us about how people make change.Choose social movement from the following list to research different kinds of movement narratives: the U.S. womens suffrage movement, the U.S. womens liberation movement, the abolitionist movement in the U.S., the civil rights movement, the Chicano movement (including the farmworkers movement), the anti-apartheid movement, the American Indian Movement, the U.S. labor movement, the disability rights movement, the Black Power movement, the environmental or environment justice movements, the anti-globalization movement, or the gay/lesbian rights movement. (You may propose a movement to Jen that is not on this list but it has to be a movement about which you can find the different kinds of narratives listed below.)Your first job is to compile a bibliography (using MLA citation format) that includes of the following 7 types of sources: A childrens book about the social movement, preferably a picture book if possible but otherwise a childrens book for kids up to age 10 A Wikipedia entry about the social movement An academic encyclopedia reference about the social movement An academic, peer-reviewed journal article about the social movement A popular newspaper or newsmagazine article about the social movement A credible website (one that fulfills the CRAP test) with information about the social movement A primary source about the movement (including but not limited to movement organization website, print or online interviews with movement activists, movement documents or art, activist generated writing, documentaries featuring living movement activists, etc.)Below is a list of questions to guide your thinking as you read the seven movement narratives you identified. These questions are based on the kinds of questions sociologists ask about how social movements work. Where do the texts overlapwhat similar story are they telling? And where do they diverge? Given what you learned above, your next task is to write descriptive and evaluative summaries on each of the seven sources you compiled above. In your annotated bibliography summaries, tell us which of the questions above this source answers and how. See related handout for further explanation and instructions for completing an annotated bibliography using MLA format.

10 different sources