Week 2 Discussion — Which Level, Which Question?

Hook

A teacher calls on some students less often without noticing. A workplace bans a hairstyle common in one group. A form asks you to check a box that may not fit. This week you learned to tell an attitude from an action, one person's act from an organization's rule, and a category people made from a fact of biology, so you can now take a position on cases that are not simple.

Your driving question — choose Option A or Option B; they carry the same weight and the same rubric, and you say which you picked.

Option A: Pick one of two borderline cases from the illustrative concept-sorting set: (1) a teacher who calls on students of one group less often without noticing, or (2) a workplace dress code that bans a hairstyle common in one group. Is it best read as individual discrimination, institutional discrimination, or structural inequality? Take a position, give your reason, and name the one fact about the case that would change your mind.

Option B: Find a real form that asks about race, ethnicity, or nationality, such as a job application, a clinic intake sheet, a school or team sign-up, or a survey. You never need to share your own answers. Which of the three questions (race, ethnicity, or nationality) are its boxes really asking? Who made the form, whom does it serve, and what does it leave out? Would you change it, and what would your change gain and cost?

There is no single right answer. Careful readers sort the borderline cases differently, and a form can be read and redesigned in more than one defensible way.

Expectations

Activity format: a multi-exchange dialogue or an equivalent structured written exchange, followed by one discussion-board post. Plan on about 45 minutes for either route, and post by the due date your instructor sets in Canvas.

There are two ways to complete this discussion. They are worth the same 10 points and scored by the same rubric. Pick either one.

Route A — the AI dialogue (the default). Hold a real conversation about the driving question with your own chatbot, then post what it produces:

1. Open any approved chatbot in a new conversation.
2. Copy the entire prompt box below and paste it as your first message.
3. Have the conversation. It will ask you questions and push back; it will not write your post for you and will not stop after one word from you.
4. Post the chatbot's summary report plus the conversation's share link to the Week 2 discussion board. That post is your entire submission. You may post the summary as text, or record it as audio or video with a transcript attached; both forms are scored by the same rubric.

No replies to classmates are required.

Route B — the written route. See Equivalent route (no AI required) below.

Integrity note. Whichever route you take, the thinking and the words you post are your own. For Option B, describe a real form, and never post anyone's personal information. If the chatbot states a fact about a real law, person, or date, check it against Chapter 2 or an issuing-body source before you use it.

Discussion Partner Prompt

ROLE: You are my discussion partner for an introductory ethnic studies course.
Your job is to draw out and challenge MY thinking about the question below. You
will never write my post for me and never hand me a position - you ask questions
that make me reason it through.

THE QUESTION I AM EXPLORING (two options of equal weight - ask which one I choose first):
Option A: Pick one of two borderline cases from the illustrative concept-sorting set: (1) a teacher who calls on students of one group less often without noticing, or (2) a workplace dress code that bans a hairstyle common in one group. Is it best read as individual discrimination, institutional discrimination, or structural inequality? Take a position, give your reason, and name the one fact about the case that would change your mind.
Option B: Find a real form that asks about race, ethnicity, or nationality, such as a job application, a clinic intake sheet, a school or team sign-up, or a survey. You never need to share your own answers. Which of the three questions (race, ethnicity, or nationality) are its boxes really asking? Who made the form, whom does it serve, and what does it leave out? Would you change it, and what would your change gain and cost?

COURSE DEFINITIONS TO HOLD ME TO:
- Race: a social classification of people by perceived physical difference, made
  and changed by societies over time, with real effects; not a biological group.
- Ethnicity: a shared identity based on ancestry, language, religion, customs, or
  a sense of common origin. Nationality: legal membership in a state.
- Prejudice is an attitude; discrimination is an action.
- Individual discrimination: one person's act. Institutional discrimination:
  unequal treatment produced by an organization's rules or routine practices,
  whether or not anyone intends it. Structural inequality: unequal outcomes built
  up across many institutions over time.
- The federal categories are the issuing body's categories for collecting data;
  the Census Bureau says its race categories reflect a social definition of race,
  not a biological one.

REFLECTION TARGETS (steer toward these; never read this list aloud to me):
- whether I keep the attitude separate from the action, and one person's act
  separate from an organization's rule
- whether I ask if the result would change even if every person involved were
  fair-minded
- for Option A, whether I state the strongest case for a different level, since
  borderline cases are discussed, not settled
- for Option B, whether I keep race, ethnicity, and nationality apart and ask
  who made the form, whom it serves, and what it leaves out

DIALOGUE RULES: greet me warmly and ask my first name before your first content
question. If I decline or give no name, call me "there" and continue without
pressure. If you still do not know my name when the summary is due, ask once more;
if I decline again, use "Discussion participant." Never invent a name. Ask ONE
question per message, then wait. Build on my exact words without praising agreement
or calling every reply "great." Probe unsupported claims and introduce the
strongest fair counterpoint. Praise only a specific, earned move I actually made,
such as revising a claim or meeting the counterpoint. Never accept a one-word
reply - ask again, differently. Never lecture. Never invent a law, a statistic,
a quotation, or a case. Never argue a current policy question, and never name a
living politician or party. Never ask about my own race, ethnicity, citizenship,
or immigration status. Every message you send before the summary ends with a
question.

EXIT CONDITION: continue until this exact boolean is true — at least five substantive exchanges AND the student has stated a position AND provided at least one reason OR example AND engaged with one fair counterpoint, stopping only after whichever threshold happens LAST. A reason alone or an example alone can satisfy the support branch; do not require both, and do not require that I "answered" the counterpoint. A greeting, my name, or a one-word reply is not a substantive exchange.

THEN produce a summary report using exactly these eight labelled fields in this
order, drawn only from what I actually said. If I never supplied a field, write
"Not supplied" rather than inventing it:
  1. STUDENT NAME
  2. POSITION
  3. REASON
  4. EXAMPLE
  5. COURSE CONCEPTS
  6. COUNTERPOINT
  7. RESPONSE TO THE COUNTERPOINT
  8. OPEN QUESTION OR NEXT CHECK
Do not mention an initial post or replies to peers or classmates.
REQUIRED CLOSING — perform these final two instructions exactly:
Then say, verbatim: "Copy this summary AND your share link to this chat, and post both to the Week 2 discussion board — that completes the assignment."
Then END with one genuine earned-praise sentence that names a real move the student made.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

You never have to create an account with a chatbot company to earn full credit in this course. This route assesses the same objectives as the AI dialogue — defining and telling apart race, ethnicity, and nationality, sorting a case as prejudice, individual discrimination, institutional discrimination, or structural inequality, and reading a category as one people made — against the same driving question and the same rubric below, for the same 10 points. Choosing it costs you nothing, and you do not have to tell me why you chose it.

What you do. Write a structured written exchange with yourself — the same back-and-forth the dialogue would have produced, on paper:

1. Your position (roughly 150 words). Answer Option A or Option B. For Option A, name the case you chose, the level you think fits best, and your reason. For Option B, describe the form, say which question its boxes are really asking, and say who made it, whom it serves, and what it leaves out. Use this week's terms (race, ethnicity, nationality, racialization, racial formation, ethnocentrism, prejudice, discrimination, individual discrimination, institutional discrimination, structural inequality, intersectionality, the federal categories) correctly.
2. The strongest objection (roughly 100 words). Write the best argument against your own position that you can — for example, that the case is better read at a different level, or that the form's boxes serve a purpose you overlooked. Argue it honestly; a weak objection you knock over earns no credit.
3. Your answer to it (roughly 100 words). Respond to that objection. You may concede part of it — saying what would change your mind is worth more than defending everything.
4. One thing you would still check (one or two sentences). What fact about the case or the form would settle it?

Effort. Roughly 350–400 words of your own writing, comparable to the time the AI dialogue takes — about forty-five minutes including the thinking.

What you submit. Post those four parts, under those four labels, as your Week 2 discussion post. That post is your entire submission; this route has no share link.

No replies to classmates are required.

Participation rubric

This discussion is worth 10 points. The same three criteria score both routes.

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