Dear Dr.Jack,
In order to achieve my goal of getting an A in CODE122, here are the goals I’ve set for myself and how I’ll show my progress towards them.
1.c: Provides leadership in civic engagement activities (20%). Based on this outcome, I’ll show my portfolio via the MBG and some pictures and related sources that will be shown in my project through this first semester.
8.c:Develops clear, innovative central messages with significant supporting material(20%). In other words,this means I would like to be able to make a point or give information and be able to back my information with sources.I’ll include any written papers or documents that will support the findings in my research. The outline will show my main points I’m trying to make and the evidence that I will have to back up.
11.a:Evaluates texts’ scholarly significance to apply reading to other context or issues(20%). It could be evaluating a particular part in our research group and making note of what we have read that can connect to issues of race and identity outside of just school. This skill is important because making connections is key and if it’s good or bad, you can relate a situation to something that was discussed in class and how you or any information you found could relate to that topic.
In the below image this was from my first SA 1 which we had a discussion on restorative justice and how it made an impact on the St. Louis community in particular. It is important to know about restorative justice because since we are partnered up with MOBOT it is critical that we take into account about how the history of enslavement was taking place and the garden finally coming somewhat to light about the deep history and not just about the pretty flowers or events at the garden but people and their wrongdoings and how we cannot change the past but as a way now to move forward and making sure our story is being told.
13.a: Demonstrating a thorough understanding of context, audience, and purpose (20%). This means me being able to understand the information that I have in front of me, what that information is saying and what it means based on the reading and ultimately understanding the audience and that their response might be based on the context of the MBG.
This was a podcast video that we listened to for class about teaching the hard history of slavery and particularly in schools to elementary school students and high school students. The idea behind this was to not to change the course for the students but to expand on it so they would have relevant knowledge of what took place in your own country. This can be a sensitive topic for most people and some states even banning the teaching of African American history to students. This correlates with our work with MOBOT because we have to get the knowledge about slavery out to the public so people can see that the garden is not just a magical place with beautiful flowers but with a history that should be at people’s fingertips for knowledge and understanding.
5.a: Defines the scope of research questions effectively and selects information cogently to address them (20%). My goal for this outcome is to make sure that all the research I do for my projects has sufficient evidence to be backed up. I’ll have those brainstorming documents in my e portfolio to show my progression. They will show my evidence that links clearly and directly to the argument that I will be proposing with the MBG.
Below as you can see my group and I did a Qualtrics survey for people at MOBOT to gauge the audience in our main research question which was “Should the archives related to slavery be on display at the garden”? This was very helpful to see the strong and weak points about the people who work or visit the gardens so then we could move forward on how to implement ways for people who are regular visitors of the garden to engage with the history of the past so they can be informed and up to date about why the garden is the way it is today.
Sincerely,
Zachary Tobias