Journal Entry Overview
After exploring the stories behind single stories lets move on to transforming them and the world that creates them! Adichie explains, Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity (17:20).
In the spirit of moving toward social justice in our world, our communities, and our daily activities, Im inviting you to creatively re-create our world and offer a vision of justice and equity. The week 15 readings offer some examples of creative re-visions that
- challenge social, political, economic, and cultural aspect(s) of identity and
- disrupt single-story ideas, consider intersections of systems and structures.
These transformative visions challenge simple understandings of our identities and can thus be a tool to critique injustice and demand justice.
Journal Entry Instructions
Make something creative! Your creation should take one of the forms used by authors of our required texts. These forms are
- creative prose (Cisneros),
- a dictionary entry (Walker),
- a poem (Anzalda),
- a speech (Truth),
- a poster (Guerrilla Girls), and
- a manifesto (Freespirit and Aldebaran).
You can focus on an identity or a form of injustice in your creation and transform it in a way that you choose. You dont need to explore the same topics or ideas in this weeks texts. Your creative text should be at least 100 words unless you create a poster; the poster doesnt have a specific word requirement.
Write a minimum 150-word statement explaining why you chose a particular form and how you hope your creation will transform a single story about identity. As with other entries, you must cite specific parts of at least two required texts: one from week 15 and one from any week. (And, of course, youre welcome to refer to additional texts!)
