The dessert
The texts for this discussion board ask you to look at the desert from a variety of points of view. The readings I included for today include a children’s book, a video from an advocacy group, and a Native American tribe’s description of their own history. Read through these. (Because two of the texts are specifically about the Sonoran Desert, I’ve included the Wikipedia page for that entry, which is optional reading. However, it might deepen your understanding of the other texts.)
After you’ve read these texts, I want you write a reflection of what you’ve learned by putting these texts side-by-side, using examples and details from the texts to support your analysis. Here are some guiding questions that you might use to help you brainstorm before you write:
- If you imagine these three texts as a conversation about the desert, who are the stakeholders in the conversation? What do they each want?
- How do these texts describe the desert in different ways?
What are the different adjectives and descriptive details used to characterize the desert and how do they compare and contrast?
- In what ways might the points of view represented be in direct opposition with each other?
Consider not just the description of the desert, but the political views of the desert, including the use of borders.
- What connections can you make between the the texts?
- What do these texts reveal about how your positionality (that is, things like your race, class, gender, ethnicity, etc) affect your view of a place, or your experience with a place?
- How do these texts reveal different ideas about ownership/stewardship/inhabitance of land?
- How do these texts build on our discussion from Tuesday?
- These are all very different kinds of texts – in what ways are the genres of the texts connected to the arguments they are making?
You don’t have to answer all of these questions in your reflection– use the ones that help you most. And you can draw connections between the texts even if they are not represented by a question I’ve included here.
Ultimately, I want you to write at least 300 words, make connections between the texts, and refer to the texts in your answer.
Part 2:
Draw specific connections to something beyond the readings, including particular academic/non-academic experiences, texts, and contexts. You might make connections to another part of your life/experience in or out of the university, a connection to another part of our class, a connection to another class you are taking or have taken, a connection to an issue in the media, etc.
LINK: