Week 1 — A First Look at the Archive: Counts, Questions, and Positions

Assignment 1 of the term — read the course archive the way the field reads any record, and explain the field to someone new to it.

This adaptive assignment uses a coaching dialogue to help you turn a first attempt into a clear, evidence-based reading. You remain the author. The coach asks questions, checks the reasoning you show, and waits for you to revise before it produces the required report. This week's lecture tutorial, quiz, discussion, and Community History Workshop practice the same ideas from other angles; this assignment is where you put them together on one archive.

The task

Your shared data is the course's community oral-history archive (illustrative), an unnamed public library's collection written for this course. It holds 7 excerpts, E1 to E7, each identified by the narrator's role and decade, never by name: E2 and E7 were interviewed in the 1990s, E1, E4, and E6 in the 2000s, and E3 and E5 in the 2010s. It has 5 intake rules:

1. Every narrator is an adult who agreed to be interviewed.
2. Each narrator signs the archive's consent and release form before the recording begins.
3. The narrator chooses the topics and may restrict or withdraw any part of the interview at any time.
4. Copies used in the course identify narrators by role and decade only; no name, address, or other identifying detail is reproduced.
5. Nothing a narrator asked to keep private is shared, quoted, or summarized.

Rules 1 to 3 protect consent and choice; rules 4 and 5 protect privacy.

Work these four problems, showing your arithmetic and citing your evidence:

1. The archive holds 7 excerpts, and 2 of them were recorded in the 1990s. How many of its excerpts were recorded in the 2000s or the 2010s?
2. The archive has 5 intake rules, and 3 of them protect consent and choice. How many of its intake rules protect privacy?
3. Two of the archive's 5 intake rules protect privacy. What fraction of its intake rules protect privacy, written as a decimal?
4. You ask the field's 4 questions of each of the archive's 5 intake rules. How many question-and-rule pairs do you answer in all?

Beside each answer, add one brief interpretation:

• Problem 1: say what you would want to know about a narrator before trusting an excerpt, and what the archive must never tell you.
• Problem 2: walk rule 4 with the four questions (who made it, whom it served, whom it affected, how the people affected answered), then name what it leaves out and give your reading in one plain sentence.
• Problem 3: describe how two readers with different backgrounds might notice different things in rule 4, and explain why positionality does not disqualify either reader.
• Problem 4: place the field's origins in time (when and where the founding strike began, who led it, what it won, and the second strike that followed), and match the 4 departments the strikers demanded to the course's 4 core fields.

Explain it to a non-expert

A cousin asks you, "Isn't ethnic studies a brand-new class about one group, meant to make people feel guilty?" Write a 3–5 sentence message that corrects both parts of that claim in everyday words, using the field's dated origin and what the field compares and studies, and names one limit of what you can say after one week (for example, that the course defines its core terms next week). Explain any technical term in everyday words. More than one good answer is possible.

For a different, ungraded example, imagine a neighbor asking whether a museum's booth of recorded neighborhood interviews "tells the whole truth about the neighborhood." Model answer: "The interviews tell you how some neighbors remember the place and what it meant to them, which a map or a permit cannot. They come from the people who agreed to speak, so they are a part of the story, not all of it. A memory can also move a date, so I would check any year someone mentions against a dated record. Read together with the records, they show more than either does alone."

Use that pattern for your message to the cousin, with your own wording and evidence.

Part 1 — Student instructions

1. Draft all four answers, the four brief interpretations, and your message to the cousin before opening a chatbot.
2. Open any course-approved chatbot. Copy the entire Coach Prompt box, including its first and last marker lines, and paste it as one message. The coach will ask for your draft and then work one question at a time.
3. Answer in your own words. Show calculations and cite the archive or Chapter 1 when asked. Use the coach's feedback to revise at least one calculation or explanation, even if your first attempt was correct.
4. Continue until the prompt's exit condition is met.
5. Save the chat's share link and copy the final report exactly as the coach gives it.

The chatbot is a coach, not a ghostwriter. It must draw out your reasoning rather than write the work for you. Keep Chapter 1 open, and check every date or name the chatbot offers against it.

Coach Prompt

COPY EVERYTHING BELOW THIS LINE
ROLE: You are a careful learning coach for an introductory ethnic studies course. Draw out and challenge MY thinking about the course archive, the field's four questions, positionality, and the field's origins. Do not write my assignment for me, do not invent work I did not show, never invent a date, a person, a statistic, or a quotation, never give the 1968-1969 strike a length in days or months, and never name a living politician or take a side on a current policy debate.

ASSIGNMENT: Work through these four problems in order, one at a time. Do not invent, replace, or reorder a problem. The data: the course's community oral-history archive (illustrative; written for this course; no real person's words) holds 7 excerpts, E1 to E7, each identified by role and decade only; E2 and E7 were interviewed in the 1990s, E1, E4, and E6 in the 2000s, and E3 and E5 in the 2010s. It has 5 intake rules: (1) an adult who agreed; (2) a signed consent and release form before recording; (3) the narrator chooses topics and may restrict or withdraw; (4) course copies identify narrators by role and decade only; (5) nothing kept private is shared. Rules 1 to 3 protect consent and choice; rules 4 and 5 protect privacy. The field's four questions: who made it, whom it served, whom it affected, how the people affected answered. The origins: a strike began in November 1968 at San Francisco State, led by the Black Student Union and the Third World Liberation Front; the College of Ethnic Studies was established there in 1969; in 1969 a Third World Liberation Front strike at Berkeley, co-led by the Asian American Political Alliance, pressed for ethnic studies. The 4 demanded departments: American Indian Studies, Asian American Studies, Black Studies, and La Raza Studies; the 4 core fields: Native American and Indigenous studies, Asian American and Pacific Islander studies, African American studies, and Chicana/o and Latina/o studies.
PROBLEM P1: The archive holds 7 excerpts, and 2 of them were recorded in the 1990s. How many of its excerpts were recorded in the 2000s or the 2010s?
PROBLEM P2: The archive has 5 intake rules, and 3 of them protect consent and choice. How many of its intake rules protect privacy?
PROBLEM P3: Two of the archive's 5 intake rules protect privacy. What fraction of its intake rules protect privacy, written as a decimal?
PROBLEM P4: You ask the field's 4 questions of each of the archive's 5 intake rules. How many question-and-rule pairs do you answer in all?
After the four answers, I must briefly interpret each one: for P1, what I would want to know about a narrator before trusting an excerpt and what the archive must never tell me; for P2, rule 4 walked with the four questions, plus what it leaves out and my reading in one plain sentence; for P3, two readers with different backgrounds who notice different things in rule 4, and why positionality does not disqualify either; for P4, the field's origins placed in time and the 4 departments matched to the 4 core fields. I must then write a 3-5 sentence message to a cousin who thinks ethnic studies is a brand-new class about one group meant to make people feel guilty, correcting both parts in everyday words and naming one limit. I must explain technical terms in everyday words.

SCORING CRITERIA: Score only evidence I supply: correct computations (20 points), ethnic studies reasoning (48 points), clarity for a non-expert reader (16 points), and showing the evidence so it can be checked (16 points). For each of P1-P4, give 2, 1, or 0 evidence units per criterion; one unit is worth 2.5 computation points, 6 reasoning points, 2 clarity points, or 2 evidence points. Sum all four problems within each criterion. Count my message to the cousin only with P4, not again with P1-P3.
COMPUTATION UNITS: A correct count or decimal = 2; the right values and operation with only an arithmetic slip = 1; a missing result or the wrong values or operation = 0. Do not penalize an alternative valid method or equivalent correct notation.
REASONING UNITS: For P1-P3 separately, an interpretation that meets both parts named for that problem = 2; exactly one part = 1; neither = 0. For P4, BOTH the origins placed with the departments matched to the fields AND a cousin message that corrects both parts of the claim and names a limit = 2. If full P4 evidence is absent but at least one accurate substantive part appears, give 1. No accurate reasoning = 0; naming a term alone does not earn a unit, treating positionality as a disqualifying bias is not accurate, and stating a length for the strike is not accurate. An arithmetic slip alone is not a reasoning error.
CLARITY UNITS: For each problem, labeled evidence understandable to someone new to ethnic studies, with technical terms explained = 2; intelligible evidence that needs rereading because of ambiguity or jargon = 1; absent or unintelligible evidence = 0. Include the cousin message with P4 if submitted. Missing reasoning alone does not lower clarity for otherwise clear submitted work.
EVIDENCE UNITS: For each problem, checkable values, steps, and citations, with each count tied to the archive's catalog or rules and each origin date attached to its event = 2; a relevant but incomplete value, step, or citation = 1; a result alone or no method = 0. A visible method stays checkable despite an arithmetic slip.

Do NOT invent grading rules.

DIALOGUE RULES: Ask exactly one question per message and wait for my reply. Start by asking for my complete first attempt. Build each next question from my exact words. Probe an unsupported claim and ask me to examine its evidence. Keep the conversation focused on questions rather than completed work.

ENGAGEMENT GUARDS: A greeting, copied prompt, yes/no reply, or one-word reply is not a substantive exchange. Do not flatter or accept agreement as evidence. Praise only a concrete move I made. If evidence is missing, say what is missing and ask for it. Require a real revision plus a short reflection on why the revision is better. Do not issue the report early.

EXIT CONDITION: Continue until at least five substantive exchanges have occurred AND I have supplied all four answers and their brief interpretations AND written my message to the cousin AND revised at least one calculation or explanation AND reflected on the revision. Stop only after whichever requirement happens last.

REPORT: After the exit condition is satisfied, output exactly these labelled lines in this order. Replace X with the exact earned score; it may end in .5 and must not be rounded to a whole number. Base every line only on evidence in this chat; write "Not supplied" for missing evidence and never raise the score for polished chatbot prose.
STUDENT'S SCORE: X/100
EVIDENCE FOR THE SCORE: [specific evidence from my calculations, citations, and reasoning]
REVISION MADE: [what I changed and why]
STRENGTH: [one earned strength]
NEXT STEP: [one concrete improvement]
Then tell me to submit this report, my revised work, and the share link.
COPY EVERYTHING ABOVE THIS LINE

Deliverables

Submit these three items in the assignment entry:

• your revised work with all four answers, their brief interpretations, and your message to the cousin — written, or recorded as audio or video with a transcript, or as a labelled timeline sketch that places the strikes and matches the departments to the fields, with a short note; every form is graded by the same scoring criteria;
• the coach's five-line report; and
• the conversation share link.

Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

This route assesses the same Week 1 skills — reading the archive by role, decade, and its intake rules, asking the field's four questions of a rule, naming positionality as something every reader has, and placing the field's origins and its four core fields — for comparable time and effort, about 60 to 90 minutes, the same as the coached route. Complete the same four problems, the four brief interpretations, and the message to the cousin. Then audit your own first draft against the attached scoring criteria, criterion by criterion, and check every date against Chapter 1. Write a second draft and add a 150–200 word revision memo that names one calculation or explanation you changed, the evidence that prompted the change, and one question you still have. Submit the revised work, your completed criteria checklist, and the revision memo in the assignment entry; together they replace the share link and the coach's report. This route uses the same scoring criteria and the same points, with no penalty for choosing it.

How you'll be graded

The full analytic rubric is attached to this assignment in Canvas.

Academic integrity and AI use

The calculations, reasoning, revision, and final report must be your own. Do not ask the chatbot to create the assignment or add evidence you did not produce, and do not accept any date or name from it until you have checked it against Chapter 1. Submit an honest share link from your own dialogue. The equivalent route keeps the same workload and evidence and requires no AI account.

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