Introduction
Warning: This unit contains mature content. Please make sure your parents signed the permission slip before participating in this activity.
Anyone who pays even the slightest attention to the news is aware that racial tension is running high in America. Multitudes of people have flood the streets in protest following the deaths of young African-American boys like Treyvon Martin and Michael Brown, among others. These bewildered voices cry out in frustration that the African-American identity has been grossly misrepresented and is wildly misunderstood (<---click here to listen to Common's song, "Misunderstood.") (See video for an example of this perspective.)
[video:http://youtu.be/u9Wf8y_5Yn4 width:500 height:315 align:center]
Still, some argue that race is no longer an issue in America, racism is an old idea and that, in the case of Michael Brown, people are reacting to situations unaware of race. (See video of an example of this view.)
[video:http://youtu.be/jnn0YxVaSUg?t=26s width:500 height:315 align:center]
Regardless of ones view of the issue, many African-American authors, artists, musicians, and intellectuals have discussed an identity crisis that they argue emerged as a consequence of the history of American-American people in this country. For example, W.E.B Du Bois opened his collection of essays called, "The Souls of Black Folk," stating, "Herein lie buried many things which if read with patience may show the strange meaning of being black here in the dawning of the Twentieth Century. This meaning is not without interest to you, Gentle Reader; for the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line." In one of the essays in this collection, "Of Our Spiritual Strivings," Du Bois presents the idea of what he calls "Twoness." During this webquest, it will be your and your groups job to write a complete explanation of what Twoness is. Good luck and have fun!
Task
You and your groupmates should explore all the texts, images, videos, and songs in the Process stage of this webquest. Then you need to answer the following question using the P.E.E.L.E.R. strategy (click here for the powerpoint). Please type your response into the Twoness group document I created and shared with you. You will learn who your groupmates are when you open your document. :)
Question:
What is "Twoness" and how does the idea embody the relationship between the African-American person, his or herself, and the greater, dominant society? Be sure to use several pieces of texutal evidence from the process stage of this webquest. You are also welcome to pull in your own research as well.
Learning Targets:
1. I can grow an idea about a text.
2. I can find evidence in the text to support my idea.
3. I can explain how and why my evidence supports my idea.
4. I can use the PEELER strategy to write a great short response.
5. I can find the theme in a text and use textual evidence to show that my idea is reasonable.
6. I can find the central idea in a text by first finding all the supporting details and then adding them all into one big idea.
Process
Texts:
1. W.E.B Du Bois Description of Twoness (Read the full text if you'd like!):
Read the text with the video/audio as it might help.
"After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.
The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,—this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face" (Du Bois).
[video:http://youtu.be/iXQq-Gs_Fk4 width:500 height:315 align:center]
2. Paragraphs 1-5 in James Baldwin's, "Notes of a Native Son." (Click here to read the text.)
3. [video:http://youtu.be/JqOqo50LSZ0 width:500 height:315 align:center]
Artistic Representations of Twoness:
Media: Click here to read about the #IFTHEYGUNNEDMEDOWN Movement
Evaluation
Your rubric would go here.
Conclusion
Questions for further thought:
1. Did this project change your view of race and identity in any way?
2. Did you relate to aspects of this project in any way?
3. What might you do now and over the course of your life to help extinguish prejudice?