Overview
Your book review will be based on the review text you select from those listed below. You may review up to a maximum of two books for credit, with each review worth up to 15 points. Reviews should be typed, 12-point font, double-spaced, 800 words minimum (no maximum). This assignment is not like a book report you may have completed in high school; you should avoid summarizing or re-stating the themes of the book. Instead, use your book review to address the following three questions.
- What does the text suggest about the operations of race and racism? In answering this question, think about what dynamics the author or authors are addressing: How does the text address white supremacy? How does it delineate race and power relationships?
- Based on the authors’ or editors’ approach to the issues or any explicitly stated philosophy, what is the text’s underlying political and social agenda? The answer to this question should not be: “the book’s subject is…”, but rather, an identification of what the authors’ or editors’ want. What changes in policy, practice, or social structures do they want to bring about? What are they trying to persuade their readers of?
- How does the text relate to the course reserve readings, lectures or other materials? Be very explicit--- citing other readings, concepts from lectures, films, or speakers specifically. What does the text add to your understanding of the issues we are addressing in this course? Just mentioning other materials is not adequate. You should explain how they relate to the book or vice versa
- YOU MUST CITE THE BOOK BY BONILLA AT LEAST 6 TIMES IN YOUR ESSAY WITH QUOTES SO EACH QUESTION SHOULD BASICALLY HAVE 2 QUOTES EACH
You should only review books listed in the syllabus; substitutions will not be accepted. Book reviews will be graded based on: a) Clearly answering each of the three questions above, and b) Demonstrating that you’ve read, engaged with and thought carefully about the book. Grammar and writing style are not specifically part of the grading criterion, although obviously your review should be read-able. You do not need to include a bibliography in your book review, unless you use materials besides your review text and the course reserve readings.
The list of approved texts for book reviews is below. You can obtain book review texts on your own. All are available for purchase online, and several are available for free through the UC or Los Angeles library systems.
Eduardo Bonilla Silva, Racism Without Racist (here is the link to the book to use: http://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/321...) If this link doesnt work find one that does.
For written assignments, please use double-spacing, 12-point font, and insert page numbers. When citing materials, you may use any academic citation style (e.g. APA, MLA, ASA), as long as you use it consistently. You must cite all sources used. You may use footnotes, endnotes, or a bibliography, as you prefer. Uploads may be in PDF or Word only. Important: No assignments have “hidden” or unstated requirements not indicated explicitly in the syllabus, or in the assignment. There are no requirements regarding writing style or tone, and no formatting requirements besides those listed in this syllabus. Grammar and writing skill are not part of the grading criterion, although proofreading is recommended. Assignments written using AI-software, in whole or in part, are not accepted and violate anti-plagiarism policy. For this course, using Grammarly in editing your paper is not recommended; if you adopt recommended text edits suggested by Grammarly, it is plagiarism.
I will give you the readings from the course you choose which ones match the best with the book but cite them as much as you can. I CAN GIVE YOU MORE READINGS FROM THE COURSE ONCE YOU ACCEPT THIS SO LET ME KNOW IF YOU NEED THEM.
*************DO NOT USE any AI, ChatGPT, etc. NOTHING! This must be 100% in your own words. Make sure that it is 0% detectable on ALL AI detectors because the teacher will check, and so will I. Some of the AI detectors I will use to detect for AI is GPTzero, Grammarly, Quilbot, Copyleaks, zerogpt, etc. So please make sure there is absolutely no AI use.****************