This week we finish the autobiography of Assata Shakur. For Monday 5/13, finish Assata: pages 215-274 (chapters 15-Postscript). Again, make sure to pay attention to the various poems she includes in the story on pages 240 (“Current Events”), 259 (“To My Daughter Kakuya”), and 263 (“The Tradition”). Think also about the themes that Mary Phillips raised in her talk on Wednesday. Also, here is the Democracy Now! newsmagazine story on recent developments in Assata’s case.
For Wednesday 5/15 (re)read my guide to final exams, “Zen and the Art of Finals” (PDF), which will help you begin to prepare for our final (and hopefully others as well). Think about major themes that we’ve been talking about all semester and bring questions to the class. We’ll spend the last class reflecting on the semester and have an open prep/ study session for the final exam.
As a reminder, the final is Monday, May 20, 1:30-3:30 PM in the regular classroom. Be sure to arrange for childcare/ time off work/ whatever you need to do now, as there will be no make-ups, except for extraordinary circumstances. Unless you can provide a hospital or arrest record (your own, not a family member’s), you get no make-up. “My family bought plane tickets to go on vacation” or similar is not an extraordinary circumstance in my book. Consider college a job and be up front with family, friends, etc. about what that commitment means.
Contemporary Urban Writers 