Scarlet+Letter+Assignment

Writing Assignment for ComCon Seminar #1 Due in American Literature class October 25 or 26, 2007 Length: 2-4 pages**
 * The American Other Rubric

The Community Connections program this year consists of six groups at work on issues and problems in the Chicago community. Four times a year, we conduct seminars in US History and in American Literature to give students a chance to hear about the range of those experiences and to reflect with each other across the six groups. Our focus for this first seminar grows out of a common reading that suggests an overarching theme for the year. By now, you have all met Hester Prynne, an outcast in the town of Boston: the people of her own town have branded Hester and set her apart: they have declared Hester to be other. One of the things that all six of our groups have in common is that we are working with populations that are other in America. For this first seminar, we want to explore the dynamics of American life and culture that have made these populations other. We want to examine the process that makes people other in America. People become other in America because they are: • Marginalized • Underserved • Silenced • Dehumanized • Demonized

In preparation for this first seminar, we ask you to write a three part paper about your awareness of otherness and the ways in which you connect your definition to the book you’ve read and to the experiences you have had so far with your group. 1. Choose one of the five kinds of otherness listed above; in your first paragraph, define what you think this mode or aspect of otherness means. We are not looking here for a dictionary definition: we want to know what you, based on your experiences so far this year in your ComCon group, have come to believe that otherness means. 2. Select an appropriate passage from The Scarlet Letter in which you find Hawthorne presenting this mode or aspect of otherness in the life of Puritan Boston. Make this passage the focus of your second paragraph by selecting several (three or more) brief quotations from the passage that help you illustrate the ways in which Puritans have made someone other. 3. **Write about your own experience in your Community Connections group this fall, focusing on an incident or encounter that illustrates the pattern of making people other – you might write about a person you’ve met, an activist you heard speak, a specific scene that unfolded, or you may choose to write about the assumptions that you or that people in general have about the population you are working with.** This assignment and two sample papers are on the Moodle website.