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ES 375: Ecosocial Advocacy
CASE STUDIES OF ECOSOCIAL ACTIVISM
Student reports and research paper
This assignment is your opportunity to expand your understanding of activism by analyzing actual case studies of activism and individual activists. There are several goals for this exercise.
- Knowing your history : to learn more about the heritage of the activism, and thus feel more a part of a tradition.
- Analyzing actual cases and people : to learn what has worked and why, what did not and why, what obstacles were faced and overcome or not, and what was achieved and not achieved.
- Evaluating actual cases and people : to think critically about the goals, methods, attitudes, and achievements of movements and their leaders and their significance to your own activism.
While history, policy, law, ethics, etc., will likely play a part of the study, the focus should be on ACTIVISM, a critical analysis of
- what the activism was
- why the group/individual chose that form(s) of activism
- what was achieved and why, what was not and why
- what contemporary activists can learn from this case study of activism
Be sure to keep in mind the information on the various sheets on analyzing case studies of activism
There are also several skills you will be developing in this exercise.
- Research . You will find information about a particular case study.
- Critical thinking . You will go beyond reporting information to deep questioning and probing evaluation.
- Public speaking . This will be practice in three important types of communication: giving a brief, efficient report; leading a discussion; and being a part of a discussion that others are leading.
Your first task is to decide on a case study. Your decision should be based on the following:
- Is it interesting to you? Will what you learn be useful to you?
- Is it a case study that will fit with the course: its focus and the time limitations?
- Is there enough information about it to analyze it, evaluate it, and raise substantive questions?
- Is there so much information and analyses that you will feel overwhelmed?
By the first class meeting of the third week of the semester (check the syllabus) , you should submit your choice of case study, sending it to me as an email attachment (with your name on the attachment). That submission should:
- Identify the case you will be analyzing.
- Specify what aspects or other limiting factors of the case will help you narrow the topic
- Include an initial bibliography from a variety of types of sources.
- Be at least one page, but not more than two pages. I expect they will be much closer to one page than two.
Each student will give a report andlead a class session about the case study.
- Give a brief summary of the case: information, analysis, and evaluation, with enough information for students to ask questions. Highlight the complexities of the case: differences of opinions, values, conceptions; conflicts; ambiguous results, etc., all of which leads to questions and conflicting interpretations. Approximately 10 minutes.
- Lead a class discussion . Students may have enough questions, but you should come with questions to ask your audience. Approximately 15 minutes. (Total time 25 minutes.)
- When this type of assignment done well, it is exciting and stimulating. When it is done half-heartedly, it is usually a pain all around.
Your written analysis of the case study is a research paper, so you will need to find sources and evaluate which ones are most helpful to your paper.
- You should find information from a variety of types of sources, not just one or two: books, scholarly articles in periodicals, governmental documents, popular media, internet sources, non-profit organizations (including advocacy organizations of various political persuasions).
- Be sure to evaluate the validity and the relevance of the sources – not everything you come across (especially on the web) will be valid.
- The sources should, taken together, reveal the complexities involved and lead to probing analysis and critical thinking.
- While the paper is largely a research paper about a case, your evaluation of the group/action/individual should be communicated to the reader.
- The paper should be 5-6 pages (typed, double-spaced, one-inch margins, Times New Roman font), not including the bibliography. You don’t need to have a separate title page. I encourage you to print on both sides.
- Proper spelling, grammar, and citations, including a full bibliography.
- Hand in a hard copy, and also send an electronic copy to me as an email attachment (in MS Word).
The paper will be evaluated in terms of
- Proper topic and focus on activism.
- Extent of research done.
- Clarity, correctness, and efficiency of information given.
- Deep probing and insightful critical thinking.
- The persuasiveness of your evaluation.
- The quality of writing.
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