Directions:

Go to the #ScholarStrike Youtube Channel and check out the various mini-lecture videos posted by professors across the country. They are each about 10 minutes long. I suggest you watch a few of them on topics that seem interesting (or challenging, confusing, or exciting) to you.

Then Select one video that makes you think, and ideally responding to, what the professor in the video is arguing. Please be sure to include the LINK to the specific video you are writing about at the start of your response essay. And Try to use ONE key sociological concept from one of the assigned readings (which are attached below) as a way of making sense of, and ideally responding to, what the professor in the video is arguing.

Length and organization:

Aim for about 500 words (that’s about 2 pages double-spaced).

For the first page, translate what the professor is talking about in the video. You can devote a paragraph to their big picture argument, and a paragraph to some specific aspect of their argument that is most interesting to you. (This draws on 2 strategies from the Reading Difficult Texts hand-out: looking for the scholar’s argument, and translating the scholar’s argument into our own words.)

In the second page, share your sociological response to this professor’s argument. Do not simply agree or disagree.

I recommend that you question and/or expand on what the professor is explaining. You can connect to your personal experiences; discuss what the video helped you better understand about how anti-blackness and/or carcerality works in our society systemically.