Class Participation—Because this course is a speaking intensive seminar, students are required to contribute to class discussions daily to receive a passing grade. Grades will be based on whether a student participated and the substance of comments.
Introductory Presentation—At the beginning of the semester, students will give a five-minute presentation about themselves and how they relate to Virginia. As part of this assignment, students will need to incorporate multimedia into their presentation (e.g. Prezi, PowerPoint, Google Slides). This assignment counts towards your participation grade.
Community Engagement: Students are required to attend and participate in three events over the course of the semester that emphasize the importance of community. They are the following:
- Been Here Stay Here (2024)—Attend the public showing of Been Here Stay Here (2024) on Monday, September 14 at 7pm in Combs 139.
- Patawomeck Art Exhibit—Attend the opening reception of the Patawomeck Art Exhibit at the Fredericksburg Visitors Center (601 Caroline Street) on Friday, November 6 at 5pm.
- Civil Rights Trail—Walk Fredericksburg’s Rights Trail (Part 1) on their own time during the week of November 23. Here’s the map: https://fxbg.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Civil_Rights_Tour_Map_Part1_11_6_24-Updated-22205.pdf). As part of this assignment, students must take photographs of themselves at the following stops, make a photo collage, and send it to Dr. Moon:
- #1 (Shiloh Baptist Church (Old Site))
- #3 Sit Ins at People’s Drug Store, W. T. Grants, F. W. Woolworth’s, and Victoria Theater)
- #6 (Liberty Town Neighborhood)
- #11 (Former Greyhound/Trailways Bus Station)
All events/activities are mandatory. Non-attendance will lead to a full letter grade deduction in class participation. Medical and families emergencies are the only exceptions for not completing this assignment and will require appropriate documentation.
Before Loving Research Project: Over the course of the semester, students will work individually and in groups researching the experiences of interracial couples of Asian and white ancestries prior to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling, Loving v. Virginia (1967). Students will share their findings on our class website. The project includes the following assignments:
- Case Study Write-Up: Each student will be given an individual court case, which they will read, analyze, and conduct additional research. The culmination of this work will be a 3-5 paragraph write-up, with appropriate bibliographic citations using Chicago Manual of Style, on our class website.
- Research Archive: Students will assemble an archive of primary sources related to their court case, using OneDrive or Google Drive. Additionally, students will generate a spreadsheet with bibliographic information that they will use for citation purposes.
- Research Presentation: Students will provide a formal presentation on their court case. Grades will be based on the following criteria:
- Gives an overview of the court case.
- Engages historiographical literature read and discussed in our class (no outside sources).
- Provides 1-to-2 interesting anecdotes.
- Meets the 5-minute criteria.Speaks loudly and coherently.
- Uses suitable posture and gestures.
- Collaborative Map: Students will be broken up into groups to research other interracial couples who divorced in the Commonwealth and map the location of the courthouse where their paperwork was filed. As part of this assignment, students will need to find the original divorce filings, create a collaborative spreadsheet based on the information in these filings, and map the location of the courthouse using ArcGIS software.
In-Class Journaling—At the beginning of all reading discussions, students will spend time writing for 5-to-10 minutes in their journals based on a prompt given at the beginning of class. This assignment is to help students participate in class discussions and demonstrate that they have done the reading. Feedback will be given on each entry, and grades will be calculated at the end of the semester.
Final Essay— Students will take an in-class essay exam on the readings covered during the second half of the semester. Handwritten notes and/or hard copies of books/articles are allowed to help students write their essays.