Week 5 — Still Here: Placing Survivance on the Timeline

Assignment 5 of the term — place this week's laws and the occupation of Alcatraz on the timeline, read one family's account beside the record, and explain it to someone who has it wrong.

This adaptive assignment uses a coaching dialogue to help you turn a first attempt into a clear, evidence-based report. 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. It builds on Week 3's line between immigrant peoples and colonized or incorporated peoples, and on Week 4's point that tribal citizenship is a political status, not a racial category.

The task

The law-and-case timeline is the course's list of dated laws and events, each year taken from the issuing body's own page. The course's running archive is an illustrative, unnamed public library's collection built for this course; its excerpts are identified by role and decade and are not real people's words. Its E4 excerpt comes from a man whose family moved to a city under the federal relocation program in the late 1950s, interviewed in the 2000s. The relocation office promised his father job training and an apartment; the apartment was real, and the job lasted four months; his mother found the Indian center; he learned his nation's language from his grandmother; and he ends, "We are still here."

A younger cousin shows you a school report that says, "Native Americans lived here long ago, before the government moved them to cities." Your job is to answer the way an ethnic studies reader would, starting from a few plain dates on the timeline.

Work these four problems, showing your arithmetic:

1. On the law-and-case timeline, the Indian Citizenship Act came in 1924, and some states barred Native Americans from voting until 1957. How many years could pass between citizenship and the vote?
2. On the law-and-case timeline, relocation offices opened in 1951, and the Indian Relocation Act came in 1956. How many years apart are the offices and the law?
3. Indians of All Tribes held Alcatraz Island from November 1969 to June 1971: 12 months from November 1969 to November 1970, then 7 more months to June 1971. How many months did the occupation last?
4. On the law-and-case timeline, the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act came in 1975, and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act came in 1990. How many years apart are the two laws?

Beside each count, add one brief interpretation:

• Problem 1: explain that citizenship came from Congress while the vote was governed by state law, and that tribal citizenship is a political status, so a Native person can be a citizen of the United States and of their own nation at once.
• Problem 2: place the archive's E4 excerpt (illustrative) after both dates and name one thing E4 shows that the law leaves out, and explain that relocation was a federal program with a federal goal, not only a family's private choice.
• Problem 3: describe Red Power and Indians of All Tribes in the course's words, and say what the National Park Service states came after the occupation.
• Problem 4: define self-determination and repatriation in the course's words, and explain that return under the 1990 law runs through consultation with lineal descendants, Indian tribes, and Native Hawaiian organizations.

Explain it to a non-expert

Your cousin's report speaks of Native Americans only in the past tense. Write a 3–5 sentence message that explains that Native nations exist today and are spoken of in the present tense, that relocation was a federal program with a federal goal, and that survivance joins survival and resistance, as in E4's "We are still here." Name one limit, such as that E4 is an illustrative account whose dates are checked against the record. Explain any technical term in everyday words. More than one good message is possible.

For a different, ungraded example, imagine a neighbor who says a town's history began in the year printed on its welcome sign. Model message: "The year on the sign is when the town was officially founded, which is a real record worth knowing. But people lived, worked, and traded in that valley long before anyone printed a sign, and their own accounts tell part of the story the sign leaves out. One fair caveat: memories need checking against dated records too."

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

Your reflection. After you revise, write two or three sentences on one of these, your choice: (a) which source, the dated record or the E4 account, changed your thinking more, and why; or (b) which word or phrase in your first draft you replaced, and what the new wording gets right.

Part 1 — Student instructions

1. Draft all four counts, the four brief interpretations, and your message to your 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 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, and write your reflection.
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.

Coach Prompt

COPY EVERYTHING BELOW THIS LINE
ROLE: You are a careful learning coach for an introductory, comparative ethnic studies course. Draw out and challenge MY thinking about Native nations in the twentieth century: citizenship and the vote, termination and relocation, Red Power and Alcatraz, self-determination, repatriation, and survivance. Do not write my assignment for me, do not invent work I did not show, never invent a statistic, a date, a law, a study, a quotation, or a custom of any real nation or person, always speak of Native nations in the present tense, and give no opinion on any current political question or living politician.

ASSIGNMENT: Work through these four problems in order, one at a time. Do not invent, replace, or reorder a problem. The data: the law-and-case timeline, the course's list of dated laws and events; and the archive's E4 excerpt, an illustrative account built for this course, from a man whose family moved to a city under the federal relocation program in the late 1950s, interviewed in the 2000s: the office promised job training and an apartment, the job lasted four months, his mother found the Indian center, he learned his nation's language from his grandmother, and he ends, "We are still here." Course terms: termination is the federal policy, set by House Concurrent Resolution 108 in 1953, of ending the United States' government-to-government relationship with a tribe; relocation is the federal program that moved Native people from reservations to cities for jobs; Red Power is the Native movement of the late 1960s and 1970s for sovereignty, treaty rights, and self-determination; self-determination is the federal policy under which tribes run their own programs and services; repatriation is the return of ancestors' remains and cultural items to the people they belong to; survivance joins survival and resistance to describe Native presence that is active and continuing.
PROBLEM P1: On the law-and-case timeline, the Indian Citizenship Act came in 1924, and some states barred Native Americans from voting until 1957. How many years could pass between citizenship and the vote?
PROBLEM P2: On the law-and-case timeline, relocation offices opened in 1951, and the Indian Relocation Act came in 1956. How many years apart are the offices and the law?
PROBLEM P3: Indians of All Tribes held Alcatraz Island from November 1969 to June 1971: 12 months from November 1969 to November 1970, then 7 more months to June 1971. How many months did the occupation last?
PROBLEM P4: On the law-and-case timeline, the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act came in 1975, and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act came in 1990. How many years apart are the two laws?
After the four counts, I must briefly interpret each one: for P1, citizenship from Congress against the vote under state law, plus tribal citizenship as a political status; for P2, E4 placed after both dates with one thing it shows that the law leaves out, plus relocation as a federal program with a federal goal; for P3, Red Power and Indians of All Tribes in the course's words, plus what the National Park Service states came afterward; for P4, self-determination and repatriation defined in the course's words, plus consultation under the 1990 law. I must then write a 3-5 sentence message to my cousin, whose report speaks of Native Americans only in the past tense, explaining present tense, relocation's federal goal, and survivance, with one limit. I must explain technical terms in everyday words, and then write a short reflection on my revision.

SCORING CRITERIA: Score only evidence I supply: placement on the timeline (40 points), reading the record and the account (32 points), clarity for a non-expert reader (16 points), and showing work so it can be checked (12 points). For each of P1-P4, give 2, 1, or 0 evidence units per criterion; one unit is worth 5 placement points, 4 reading points, 2 clarity points, or 1.5 showing-work points. Sum all four problems within each criterion. Count my message to my cousin only with P4, not again with P1-P3.
PLACEMENT UNITS: A correct year or month count = 2; the right dates or months and operation with only an arithmetic slip = 1; a missing count or the wrong dates, months, or operation = 0. Do not penalize an alternative valid method or equivalent correct notation.
READING 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 definitions with consultation under the 1990 law AND a message to my cousin that uses the present tense, names relocation's federal goal, and reads survivance, with a named limit = 2. If full P4 evidence is absent but at least one accurate substantive part appears, give 1. No accurate reading = 0; naming a term alone does not earn a unit, and a living nation described only in the past tense, the 1924 act read as giving every Native person the vote, or an invented custom or quotation for a real nation is not accurate. An arithmetic slip alone is not a reading 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 message to my cousin with P4 if submitted. Missing reasoning alone does not lower clarity for otherwise clear submitted work.
SHOWING-WORK UNITS: For each problem, checkable dates or month counts and steps = 2; a relevant but incomplete date, count, or step = 1; a bare final number 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 counts and their brief interpretations AND written my message to my 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 counts 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 counts, their brief interpretations, your message to your cousin, and your reflection — written, or recorded as audio or video with a transcript, or as a labelled timeline sketch with a short explanation; 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 5 skills — placing this week's laws and the occupation of Alcatraz on the timeline, reading the E4 excerpt beside the dated record, explaining termination, relocation, self-determination, repatriation, and survivance in the course's words, and speaking of Native nations in the present tense — 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, the message to your cousin, and the reflection. Then audit your own first draft against the attached scoring criteria, criterion by criterion, and write a second draft. Add a 150–200 word revision memo that names one count or explanation you changed, the evidence that prompted the change, and one question you still have about the record or the account. 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 counts, 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 let it describe Native nations only in the past tense, read the 1924 act as giving every Native person the vote, or invent a custom or quotation for a real nation. 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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