Author’s note for revised synthesis and worknet
I began the process of creating the worknet with the worknet I was most comfortable with, the semantic worknet. Once I got comfortable with the process, I moved onto the others. I made sure to examine each source to determine which worknet was going to work best with the given source. The rest of the process of creating the worknets went fairly smoothly. I found the contextual and the semantic worknets to be the easiest to complete and understand, and the bibliographic and affinity-based to be harder to complete and understand. Writing the bibliographic and affinity-based explanations were a challenge for me, but with time I was able to complete them. I then moved on to the introductory synthesis part of the worknet assignment. This was a challenge for me, but it allowed me to improve myself as a writer by synthesizing the ideas of multiple sources to create an answer to my research questions. Overall, this process took careful planning and deliberation to complete.
12/8/2024 Revision - I added in each paragraph describing my worknet an explanation of why I chose each source and why it was helpful to me. I used the feedback given to me by my instructor after the midterm portfolio.
Revised Synthesis and annotated bibliography or worknet
Until 1954, schools in the United States were segregated. The Supreme Court case Brown vs Board of Education changed our system by ruling that the segregation of schools was unconstitutional. This ruling desegregated the schools in America. Questions arise when discussing Brown v Board of education such as how segregation in schools until 1954 has affected the education of people of color today and how Brown vs Board of Education has affected education in America today. Articles such as "Racial Segregation and the Black-White Test Score Gap," "60 Years After ‘Brown’: Trends and Consequences of School Segregation," and "The Influence of School Segregation on Students’ Educational Achievement" conclude that desegregation has led to the advancement in education and opportunity of students of color, but there are still achievement gaps in education as a result of the inequality for students of color for many years. From there, questions emerge about how these achievement gaps in education can be closed and how education can be improved for all students.
Most experts, such as the author of "Racial Segregation and the Black-White Test Score Gap," agree upon the argument that racial segregation in the past has led to an achievement gap of white students and students of color in the U.S. today. Some experts focus on emphasizing how Brown vs Board of Education came to be and how the ruling was decided. The Crash Course video titled "School Segregation and Brown v Board: Crash Course Black American History #33" talks about the importance of the courtroom for creating change for black Americans and the process of this change in law. These different focuses both still help to answer the questions regarding effects of desegregation and impact on education in the U.S.
Other experts focus their articles and sources on the effects after the ruling of Brown v Board of Education. 60 Years After ‘Brown’: Trends and Consequences of School Segregation discusses the segregation trends after the Supreme Court ruling, stating that data may be difficult to collect because there are various, nuanced ways to measure segregation. There are improvements for students in some social and economic areas, but there are declines/worse segregation in other areas such as income across schools. There are a vast variety of positive and critical viewpoints on the topic of desegregation in the U.S.. Some sources, such as 60 Years After ‘Brown’ and Racial segregation and the black–white test score gap argue that the lasting effects of segregation are still very prevalent in America, and that the U.S. hasn’t fully created a system of equal opportunity. Others, such as the NBC News video The Hidden History of Brown v. Board of Education, focus on the positive strides for equality-emphasizing the case’s impact on the Civil Rights Movement-that have been made as a result of desegregation of schools. Overall, regardless of which effects these different sources choose to focus on, the sources examined all discuss the impact of desegregation of schools and its impact on the U.S. from 1954 to today.
The Supreme Court case of Brown v Board no doubt has had an enormous impact on the education and opportunity for students in the United states from 1954 to today. Overall, the United States is moving in the right direction towards, but more change is required to close the achievement gap of students of color and white students. Empirical evidence shows that schools in certain areas of the U.S. still suffer from segregation and inequality effects, but the evidence in the advancement of our racial equality is evident from the case of Brown v Board of Education.
Worknet 1: Semantic
I chose this article because it discussed the effects seen today on schools segregation and provided me with many statistics to use in my journal article. The Influence of School Segregation on Students’ Educational Achievement focuses on the achievement gap that is seen between students of color and white students, hence the words achievement, school, race, students, and minority showing up the most. Achievement can be defined as a thing done successfully, typically by effort, courage, or skill. In the context of this article, achievement refers to academic achievement and the comparison between students of color and white students. This article focuses on the inequality in the U.S., but in schools specifically, so that is why the word school is mentioned frequently throughout the article. The article is about how segregation has affected students in schools, so segregation is heavily talked about. Segregation is the act of setting someone or something apart from others. Until 1954, schools were segregated so that black students could not go to school with white students. This has had a huge impact on education for students of color and white students. The article also uses the words race and minority frequently. Race is defined as a social construct that groups people based on perceived physical traits, social factors, and cultural backgrounds. Because of this social construct, an entire group of people was discriminated against and hated on for many years in America. In the article, the African American race is described as a minority, also known as a marginalized group. This means in the context of the article that they were given less opportunities than the white majority.
Worknet 2: Bibliographic
“60 Years After ‘Brown’: Trends and Consequences of School Segregation cites over 30 sources in its article. The three sources shown in the above worknet are among the most commonly cited sources of the 30 sources in the article. Johnson’s article focuses on the long-term impacts of school desegregation on adult socioeconomic statuses and health outcomes. Based on empirical evidence from a study following life trajectory from people born between 1945 and 1968, following until 2013, the data leads to the conclusion that the measures of desegregation in schools led to a decrease in class size, improving teacher to student ratios and improving educational outcomes. This provides a new perspective on the “60 Years After ‘Brown’” article because it focuses on the positive rather than the negative. Massey’s article focuses on the effects of residential segregation, specifically in metropolitan areas. The article affirms the hypothesis that there are five factors to look at when talking about residential segregation: evenness, exposure, concentration, centralization, and clustering. This article explains the “60 Years After ‘Brown’” article’s question of how desegregation has affected socioeconomic status. Logan’s article was published in the National Library of Medicine and discusses how rather than the U.S. desegregating entirely, instead it just focused its segregation on other ethnic groups and races, like Hispanics and Asians in the 1980s and 1990s. This further emphasizes the “60 Years” article’s point that segregation and its effects on the U.S. population are hard to measure. I chose this source because there was lots of credible information explaining many many studies showing the effects of school segregation on blacks today. This source provided great insight into my research question.
Worknet 3: Affinity
Clint Smith is the host of Crash Course’s YouTube video called School Segregation and Brown v Board: Crash Course Black American History #33. Clint Smith earned a Bachelor’s of Arts degree in English at Davidson University, and then earned a Ph.D. from Harvard in education. His work mainly focuses on African American advocacy. He published several books, his most famous including How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America and Above Ground. How the Word Is Passed tells the story of the slavery in the United States of America. The book tells about the Monticello Plantation in Virginia, where Thomas Jefferson wrote about the need for liberty while simultaneously enslaving over 400 people. The book also tells about the Whitney Plantation, one of the only former plantations preserved to show the experiences of the enslaved that worked there. How the Word Is Passed discusses the centuries of impact that slavery had on the United States. One of his other books, Above Ground, is about the complexity and challenges of fatherhood, especially relating to racial issues that he’s faced, the legacy of slavery and racism, and how they all coincide in our changing world. Finally, Clint Smith also hosted the next episode in the Crash Course series on Black American History called Emmett Till: Crash Course Black American History #34. This is the continuation of School Segregation and Brown v Board: Crash Course Black American History #33, focusing now on the story of Emmett Till, a young African American boy accused of offending a white woman who was abducted and lynched in Mississippi in 1955. All of the works that Clint has produced or published tell the story of black history in the United States. They all speak on important topics that deserve not to be skipped over when discussing history in America. Clint Smith advocates for the African American population through his work. I chose this source because it provided great background information into the history of Brown v Board of education and how it came to be. I was able to understand the history surrounding my topic much better, and from there create more research questions.
Worknet 4: Contextual
This YouTube video by NBC News was uploaded on May 31, 2024. This is the 70th Anniversary of the Supreme Court Brown vs Board of Education ruling. NBC wanted to highlight the importance and impact of Brown v. Board of Education and share new information about the case since it was the 70th Anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling. I wanted to use this source because, like the other video source, it provided depth and information surrounding the history of the monumental Supreme Court case. During this time, the Supreme Court case of Roe v Wade was overturned. This sparked huge controversy, and may have led news sources to focus on other past rulings of the Supreme Court and how the U.S. would be affected if they were overturned. During the time of this YouTube video, there is still a lot of racial injustice outrage following the events in 2020. There is a large focus, especially in the criminal justice system and police department, of racial injustice in today’s world. This could be why a news source would cover the history of Brown v Board of Education. They would want to draw attention to a significant racial change in the history of the United States. This video was also published in an election year. Since a significant portion of the U.S.’s voting population is black, calling attention to racial injustices and how certain candidates might affect these racial groups may sway these voters one way or another to vote for a certain candidate or vote against a certain candidate. All of these social and cultural factors during the time of the published video may have played a role in why and when this video was published and the significance of it.
Worknet 5: Semantic
Brown v. Board of Education is an article of the summary of the Supreme Court ruling in 1954 to desegregate schools in the United States. I chose this article because it strictly provided the facts of the case and acted as a great historical document. Since it heavily discusses the court case, the word amendment appears very often in the text. An amendment is a change designed to improve a piece of text or legislation. In the case of this article, an amendment refers to the changes or additions to our constitution. The article also uses the word education frequently. Brown vs Board of Education segregated schools, which affected the education of students in America. This is why the article uses the word schools often as well. The article discusses the arguments reasoning the case of Brown v. Board, which includes the discussion of schools across America. Segregation, the action of setting someone or something apart from the others, of course is dealt with heavily in this article because of the discussion of segregation in schools. The word equal is mentioned often in the article as well. Equal is defined as being of the same value. If supposedly all men are created equal, as stated in the U.S. Constitution, yet a large portion of the U.S. population was not offered equal education, then there’s an injustice in America. This was an argument for the case of Brown v Board. Equality in education for students was and is deserved for everyone. Equality of opportunity was and is also deserved for everyone. Cases also appears a lot in the article, due to the mention of past Supreme Court cases. All of these words relate to and emphasize the main point in the article, summarizing Brown v Board of Education and how it came to be.
Worknet 6: Contextual
I chose this article because it went into specifics about the black-white test score gap. It provided great detail for that area of my research. “Racial segregation and the black-white test score gap” was an article published in December of 2007. 2007 was a year full of many important events. One of the most significant events was the rise in hate groups, specifically racial hate groups. The number of hate groups rose a staggering amount in 2007, rising by 48%. This is a staggering and worrying statistic. This could be why the author of this article wanted to bring awareness to racial segregation and racial injustices in education. The Baghdad bombings also happened in 2007, another horrific event. The Baghdad bombings were caused by a terrorist attack on the capital of Iraq, Baghdad. People were also upset over income inequality in 2007. Many Americans were becoming pessimistic in their opportunity for growth in America because they believed the rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer. This can be related to the opportunity for African-Americans as well. President Bush was also president at the time, and there were many people swaying away from Bush and looking for a blue candidate, which turned out to be our first Black president, Barack Obama. This marked huge steps for racial equality, opportunity, and representation in the United States of America. All of these important world, social, political, and cultural events may have factored into the publication of this article in 2007.
Worknet Works Cited
Card, D., & Rothstein, J. (2007). Racial segregation and the black–white test score gap. Journal of Public Economics, 91(11), 2158–2184. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2007.03.006
Reardon, Sean F., and Ann Owens. “60 Years After ‘Brown’: Trends and Consequences of School Segregation.” Annual Review of Sociology, vol. 40, 2014, pp. 199–218. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43049532. Accessed 16 Sept. 2024.
Smith, Clint. School Segregation and Brown v Board: Crash Course Black American History #33. 2022. Crash Course, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBlqcAEv4nk.
The Hidden History of Brown v. Board of Education. 2024. NBC News, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnQYYm-2nsg.
Vivian, Lea. "The influence of school segregation on students’ educational achievement." Perspectives 9.1 (2017): 11.
https://scholars.unh.edu/perspectives/vol9/iss1/11/
Warren, Chief Justice Earl. "Brown v. board of education." United States Reports 347.1954 (1954): 483.
https://www.whatsoproudlywehail.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Warren_Brown-v-Board-of-Education.pdf
In the next section, you will see three sample portfolios from previous UN 1015 students. There are different ways to read this:
At the beginning of the course, skim each of the portfolios to see how the assignment sequence works and what the final product you are working toward will look like. This can give you a sense of how each of the tasks you complete will work together.
As you proceed through the course, review all three examples of the primary core assignments/writing projects as you approach your own. How do each of the three students take similar or different approaches to the writing task? What strengths do they each have? What techniques might you use?
At the end of the course, review the complete portfolios for examples and ideas about how the writers have assembled their portfolio, reflected on their learning and documented their self-assessments through metacognitive writing.