Discussion board-Jemez Principles of Democratic Organizing
Review Questions
1. Do you have questions about either of the Week 8 readings: Youth to
Power Chapter 4 or Rescuing Ruska?
2. What do you consider the most important information or idea(s) in Youth to
Power Chapter 4, on creating a youth movement, particularly as you begin thinking
about organizing a (hypothetical) event for Assignment 4?
3. What genre have you decided on for Assignment 5? We have already considered
a short story ("The Precedent"), a piece of non-fiction writing (the three sections
of Challenge Everything), a TED Talk, and a children's book about a social issue, and
beginning this week we will read a more complex piece of fiction. But there are other
possibilities. Do you have questions about writing in any of these genres?
Preview Questions
1. What experiences or observations do you have about organizing events or direct
actions?
2. Check out the Beautiful Trouble (Links to an external site.) website and tell us
how it might be helpful to us in doing Assignment 4.
3. Check out the Stories (Links to an external site.) section of Beautiful Trouble, give
us a quick overview, and then give us a more detailed account of at least one of the
stories.
4. Check out the Tactics (Links to an external site.) section of Beautiful Trouble, give
us a quick overview, and then give us a more detailed account of at least one of the
tactics described.
5. What's the difference between an event and an action?
6. "The Precedent" dramatized some fairly radical ideas about responsibility,
retribution, perpetrators, and victims of climate change, but even in the real world these
are concepts that we need to think about. When you think about climate change, do
you think in terms of who is most responsible, who is less responsible, and who is
a victim?
7. Are you a reader of speculative fiction or any of its subcategories, including
science fiction and the latest sub-genre, climate fiction or cli-fi? If so, tell us about some
of your favorite works of speculative fiction, and explain briefly how this kind of fiction
differs from regular fiction.
8. Our final reading for the semester will be "Entanglement," another climate fiction
short story, as a kind of bookend to "The Precedent." While "The Precedent" was a
dystopian story, "Entanglement" is more hopeful. It is also longer than "The Precedent";
in fact it is sometimes referred to as a novella, which is a work of fiction somewhere
between a short story and a novel. It is divided into five parts, and we will read one part
each week. If you would like to learn more about the genre of climate fiction, read one
or more of the following articles and/or watch one or more of the videos, and tell us what
you learned.
https://grist.org/climate/with-the-world-on-fire-climate-fiction-no-longer-looks-like-
fantasy/ (Links to an external site.)
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1062318169 (Links to an external
Answer preview:
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