Week 15 Discussion — Together, Not the Same — Traditional alternative (no AI)

Instructors: publish this instead of the adaptive version if you prefer, and unpublish or delete the adaptive one.

Hook

A coalition asks groups with different histories to act as one without becoming one. A government answering a past wrong faces a different choice: say sorry, pay, or give something back. This week you read three coalitions, three laws of apology, payment, and return, and the archive through every lens of the course.

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

Option A: The Third World Liberation Front joined Black, Latino, Asian American, and Native American students and demanded four departments within one college. At Delano in 1965, Filipino farmworkers struck first and Mexican American farmworkers voted to join 8 days later. Indians of All Tribes joined people from many Native nations on one island for 19 months. Pick one of these coalitions. What held it together more, what its groups shared or what each group was allowed to keep? Use cross-group coalition and solidarity, and give the other view its strongest case.

Option B: The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 apologized and paid 20,000 dollars to each surviving person who had been incarcerated. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 requires the return of Native American human remains and cultural items through consultation, and its text contains no apology. The 1993 apology to Native Hawaiians says it settles no claims. Of the three kinds of act these laws contain, an apology, a payment, or a return, which does the most to answer a documented wrong, and what does it leave undone? Use formal apology and redress, and give another kind of act its strongest case.

There is no single right answer. A coalition can be held together by a shared goal or by the room it leaves each group, and an apology, a payment, and a return each repair something different; pick the option you care about, and show us your reasoning.

Expectations

Activity format: one initial post followed by two substantive peer replies. Plan on about 45 minutes across the two deadlines; your instructor sets both due dates in Canvas.

Working on your own: this version of the discussion is written entirely from your own reasoning, in your own words.

Your initial post — by the first due date (early in the module week):

• Say which option you chose.
• For Option A, pick one coalition and say whether what its groups shared or what each group kept did more to hold it together; for Option B, say whether an apology, a payment, or a return does the most to answer a documented wrong, and what it leaves undone.
• Use at least two of this week's terms (cross-group coalition, solidarity, formal apology, redress) correctly.
• Give your judgment, with a reason, and give the other view or the other kind of act its strongest case.
• State documented history plainly: removal, incarceration, the overthrow, and the taking of remains are facts, not "both sides" questions. This discussion is about the three laws already passed; if you mention a current proposal, present it only as a debate with each side's strongest case.
• Length: roughly 150–250 words if written. You may instead record your post as audio or video (about two minutes) and attach a transcript; both forms are scored by the same rubric.

Your replies — by the second due date (the end of the module week):

• Reply substantively to at least two classmates.
• A substantive reply does more than agree: point out what a classmate's chosen coalition or act leaves out, offer the strongest case for the position they did not take, or name a dated event from this week that supports or complicates their reading. "Nice point!" on its own does not count.

What a strong post looks like:

I chose Option A and the Delano grape strike. I think what each group kept held the strike together more than the shared goal: Filipino farmworkers began it, Mexican American farmworkers voted to join 8 days later, and each group joined the picket line under its own union's name. The other side has a point: without the shared demand for better pay, the two groups had no reason to stand together at all. I would still check how each union described the joining vote in its own records.

Notice how it names who began and who joined, keeps each group named, gives the other side its due, and says what it would still check. That is the bar.

Participation rubric

This discussion is worth 10 points. The three criteria below look at your initial post and your peer replies.

Post early if you can — the best threads happen when people have time to reply before the second due date.

Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com