Foundations for Writing

SCSU Site for English 191

October 13, 2019
by Judith Kilborn
40 Comments

“100 mannequins representing homeless youth in the community go on display in St. Cloud Saturday”

This St. Cloud Times article describes an event sponsored yesterday by Pathways 4 Youth to raise awareness of youth homelessness in St. Cloud and the services available to these youth through the organization. Here’s the lead of the article, which also talks about how youth experiencing homelessness participated in the event and how people can help address this issue—a national issue that also affects our community and those in it:

More than 100 mannequins in blaze orange sweatshirts were set up along Minnesota Highway 23 in St. Cloud on Saturday.

The display — organized by Pathways 4 Youth — represented the number of youth experiencing homelessness on any given night in Central Minnesota.

“A lot of people in the community just don’t know,” said Tim Wensman, board chair and president of Pathways 4 Youth, in an interview with the Times on Tuesday. “We want to try to reach that audience by being on Division, having an outdoor experience, allowing people just to drive in and spend 10 or 20 minutes just to learn about it”
(https://www.sctimes.com/story/news/local/2019/10/12/mannequin-display-reveals-youth-homelessness-central-minnesota/3909862002/).


A group of more than 100 mannequins represent youth experiencing
homelessness in Central Minnesota on Saturday, Oct. 12, 2019 along
Minnesota Highway 23 in St. Cloud. (Photo: Jenny Berg,
jberg@stcloudtimes.com)

October 13, 2019
by Judith Kilborn
49 Comments

An MPR Podcast: “‘I’ve never told anyone’: Stories of life in Indian boarding schools”


A young girl prays at her bedside at a boarding school. A new book
by an Ojibwe author tells the stories life for American Indian children
in boarding schools designed to purge their language and culture.

Here’s the lead for the MPR podcast and article:

Denise Lajimodiere’s interest in the Indian boarding school experience began with the stories of her parents.

“Mama was made to kneel on a broomstick for not speaking English, locked in closets for not speaking English,” she said. “They would pee their pants and then the nuns would take them out [of the closet] and beat them for peeing their pants.”

Lajimodiere is Ojibwe, and a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in North Dakota. She was an educator for 44 years, working as an elementary school teacher and principal before ending her career recently as as an associate professor of educational leadership at North Dakota State University in Fargo.

Her parents were separated from their families and sent to federal government-run boarding schools as children. Thousands of Native children met the same fate during the boarding school era, which scholars estimate lasted from the late 1800s to well into the middle of the 20th century. (https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/10/03/stories-of-life-in-indian-boarding-schools)

 

October 12, 2019
by Judith Kilborn
43 Comments

Neil Gaiman: “Each of us has the right to say #IBelong.”

October 12, 2019
by Judith Kilborn
43 Comments

A podcast on “Why a suburb’s integrated schools are still failing black students”

In this Washington Post podcast, “Laura Meckler goes back to her hometown of Shaker Heights, Ohio, to try to understand why integration efforts in schools there are still not closing the achievement gap” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/why-a-suburbs-integrated-schools-are-still-failing-black-students/).

October 12, 2019
by Judith Kilborn
40 Comments

Protesting Crucet’s talk

According to the Washington Post (http://(https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/10/11/latina-novelist-spoke-about-white-privilege-students-burned-her-book-response/), here’s how students in Georgia responded to a book reading of Make Your Home among Strangers:


A Latina novelist spoke about white privilege. Students burned her book in response.

In response to Jennine Capó Crucet’s talk on campus Wednesday, where she focused her discussion on white privilege, students torched her novel “Make Your Home Among Strangers.”

And here’s Crucet’s official statement about the reading and what happened:

October 9, 2019
by Judith Kilborn
52 Comments

St. Cloud couple’s fight over gay wedding videos stays in district court

Here is the St. Cloud Times’ article describing the results of the recent court case from St. Cloud that was processed by the 8th Circuit. Here’s the lead:

Minnesota’s attorney general says the state will continue to fight a lawsuit in federal court that was filed by two Minnesota filmmakers who want the right to refuse to record same-sex weddings instead of taking the case to the full 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals or U.S. Supreme Court.

In an opinion piece published in Thursday’s Star Tribune , Attorney General Keith Ellison and Minnesota Human Rights Commissioner Rebecca Lucero say the state is taking the case back to federal district court because of the limited facts on record and the current composition of the Supreme Court.

A three-judge panel of the 8th Circuit reinstated the lawsuit filed by Telescope Media Group in St. Cloud in August . The filmmakers say videos are a form of speech with protections under the First Amendment.

The state says their intention to not serve LGBTQ couples violates the state Human Rights Act.

You can find the full article here: https://www.sctimes.com/story/news/local/2019/10/03/st-cloud-couples-fight-over-gay-wedding-videos-stays-district-court/3850304002/.

 

October 9, 2019
by Judith Kilborn
38 Comments

‘Taking ownership of what we look like’: Natural-hair movement takes root | MPR News

MPR has an interesting story (that you can listen to via a podcast or read) about the movement among parents of multiracial families learning to dress the natural hair of their adopted children. Some of you asked me what I meant by “natural hair.” According to MPR, ““Natural hair” means hair that hasn’t been chemically straightened or relaxed.” And “natural hair is becoming the fashion for African-American women.”

The article focuses on the need for learning techniques for managing natural hair since “Wearing natural hair for many black people has not always been the norm.”  This snippet of MPR’s article explains why:

Taylor said wearing your hair in its natural state has been a struggle, especially for black women. There’s a need to assimilate into mainstream culture and look the part.

“It’s Eurocentric. Let’s just be honest. It’s a very Eurocentric perspective,” she said. “It’s not just America, it’s any colonized country. We’ve had to subscribe to this colonizer’s beauty standard in order to get access to things, in order to get jobs, in order to be seen as acceptable.”

As people began to wear their hair natural, it became more accepted, but access to learning tools were still pretty limited to online.

“For the longest time we’ve had to change our hair texture to fit into mainstream society,” she added. “Now we’re reclaiming that power, but at the same time, it’s hard because you’ve never had any experience with it.”

To read the full article (or listen to the podcast), head here: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/09/27/natural-hair-movement-takes-root.

Skip to toolbar