Tracing Our Spiritual and Cultural Legacies

Purpose: The purpose of this assignment is for students to utilize class concepts to better understand the spiritual and cultural practices, roots, and assumptions of their families and communities. Students will draw on Dillard’s framework of (re)membering: (re)searching, (re)visioning, (re)cognizing, (re)presenting, and (re)claiming to examine their personal histories and analyze the seductions that have caused them to forget and deny their existence. 

  • Skills: 

    • Examining personal histories and those of family

    • Giving examples of spiritual beliefs, sacred practices, and cultural values and how they have been present within one's family and community 

    • Analyzing the systems, structures, and practices that have caused you to forget these personal histories and invalidate their importance

  • Knowledge: This assignment will also help you become familiar with the ways of knowing across Black communities, and how those ways of knowing are deeply connected to spiritual consciousness and sacred practices. 

Task: 

  • Part 1 of the assignment: Documenting of artifacts. Choose at least two artifacts (family photos, heirlooms, blankets, books, jewelry, etc) that were representative of your home and community. In looking at these artifacts, reflect and write on the following questions: 

    • How do these artifacts function? 

    • Where did they come from?

    • What is the story that your family and community tell about them? 

    • What do these artifacts say about you and your cultural community?

    • What do these artifacts tell you about spiritual discernment and direction in your family and community?

Please provide a photo or sketch of these artifacts to be included in your paper.

  • Part 2 of Assignment: Family or Community Interview

    • You will interview 1 person: an older relative as well as an elder in your community who reflects your racial and/or ethnic identity. Students will come up with a set of questions that will help them understand their spiritual and cultural legacy of their family and culture, and are encouraged to use questions from their journals, weekly readings, and in class conversations to guide the formation of those questions. Students will keep a written transcript of their interview that should be turned in with the assignment.

    • Each paper should also contain the students’ own interaction with the interview. How do these practices relate to the students' practices and set of beliefs that are currently observed? What difference does observation and practice make in the way the student (re)members and generates knowledge in the classroom and beyond? In what ways has the student denied or suppressed these ways of knowing in order to fit into the classroom and other spaces OR how has the 

  • Part 3: Analyzing and writing your paper: 

    • You have worked hard on gathering data for your paper by considering relevant artifacts and have also interviewed someone from your family or community. Now it is time to put all of these components together to create a larger work about who your family is. Think of this processing like curating an art exhibit where you get to put all of these pieces you have gathered together to create a particular story - what is the story that you want to tell? Use your own reflections as well as what we have worked on over the last semester to help you tell that story. This should include the integration of concepts from our readings and class discussions. 

Criteria for success: 

  • You will turn in a set of questions for their interviews and identify the artifacts that you will be using for your paper four weeks into the start of the semester

  • Students will turn in a first draft of their papers consisting of at least 8 pages no later than half-way through the semester

  • Students will turn in the final paper consisting of at least 8 pages no later than the last day of the semester

  • Each paper/draft should include a title page complete with your name, the date, and the name of the assignment. The title page is not included in the length requirement. 

  • Utilizing APA 7, a sample paper formatting could look something like this: 

    • A 150 word abstract with keywords 

    • Introduction

    • Data collection: 

      • Identification of artifacts

      • Interviews (include the full transcript from your interviews as an appendix)

    • Analysis and integration of data with Dillard’s framework of (re)membering and other course material. As you make sense of the data, what are the themes that emerge that you would like to express?

    • Conclusion

    • References (not included in the count of your pages)