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Extra Credit & Make-up Assignments

Below are four assignments that provide you with an opportunity to make up points lost or to gain extra-credit points. You may choose more than one assignment.

Assignment One:

This interview assignment is the most valuable in terms of extra-credit points because I can provide no leads. The task here is to find a teen-aged Latino girl who has been involved in migrant work. Because of the nature of Hispanic family dynamics, the family will have to be a part of the interview process. This means that you will need to talk to the teen in front of an adult family member. Make clear to whomever you talk to that the family can be part of the interview process.

I need such an interview for the book I’m currently working on. I am particularly interested in African-American and Hispanic relations. How does a Latino teen view a teenage African American? And what is life like as a migrant worker?

A good place to pick up a lead would be at an English as Second Language Lab (ESL). Start at this university first, then call others. The city may run an ESL program as well.

Use a tape recorder. Make sure it’s working periodically during your interview. Don’t rely exclusively on the recorder; also take notes—jotting down key phrases, describing facial expressions, etc. Transcribe the interview word for word. Do not paraphrase.

1. Introduce yourself.

2. Tell your initial contact that you need to conduct an interview for a class you’re taking at USA. Ask for help, leads. Mention my name and the project goal: to provide a positive view of immigrants.

3. Set up an interview time.

The goal here is not to get a list of facts but to get people to tell stories and to provide details about their lives that most people don’t know about, to that end, you would need to ask personal questions that force the respondent to tell a story. Your questions would be something like the following:

1. Tell me about the first thing you remember.

2. Tell me about the time you were beaten up by a bully.

3. Have you ever been dancing? Tell me about that time?

4. Have you been baptized? What happened that day?

5. Tell me about a time when you were embarrassed?

6. Have you ever seen a monster or a ghost? Tell me that story.

7. Tell me about the time you caught a fish.

I suggest you come up with your own list of about 20 questions or prompts. Once the interview starts, go with the flow. Don’t interrupt the respondent if she is talking. Remember your goal is to get the respondent talking.

I will accept at least 1000 words of transcription.

This assignment is worth 550 points.

Assignment Two:

Create a list of at least 30 proverbs/old wives' tales that would be considered Southern (beliefs originating in the southern united states or those beliefs greatly held in the southern U.S.) Please cite your sources.

Set up your list in the following format:

Eating carrots improves your night vision

Half-truth

Carrots do contain Beta-carotene, which is converted to vitamin A in the small intestine. Vitamin A is a precursor to the protein Rhodopsin, a component of the rods (a photoreceptor cell) in the Retina that is very sensitive to light. Vitamin A helps to maintain healthy bones, but the carrots do not contain enough calcium to make any significant difference. This tale started in the Second World War when the British spread a rumor that their plane spotters were eating carrots to give them improved vision, concealing the truth about the invention of radar. Also the night fighter ace John Cunningham (21 kills) who was an early proponent of airborne radar in his Bristol Beaufighter, was nicknamed "Cat's Eyes" and alluded to have exceptional night vision because of his carrot eating (citation goes here).

Having sex standing up is a contraceptive

False

This is an example of an old wives' tale in peer sex education. Sperm cells are capable of swimming up the vaginal canal, through the uterus to the fallopian tubes, where they may fertilize an egg, (which also actively pulls the sperm towards it), regardless of the body's position during or after sexual intercourse. It is also believed that certain muscular actions during intercourse draw the spermatozoa upward, as well

The tale is believed to have originated as a misunderstanding of advice by fertility specialists not to be standing up during coitus, if one is attempting to become pregnant. While it is true that some positions encourage pregnancy, the converse idea that some positions prevent it is false (citation goes here).

Chocolate causes acne

False

Chocolate does not cause acne in healthy individuals, but can have an extreme effect if one is sensitive to a specific ingredient in certain confections, such as pasteurized milk or hydrogenated oil. Caffeine contained in many chocolate products can, however, cause increased stress which may temporarily increase the manifestations to individuals already affected with acne (citation goes here).

The following are examples of “Southern” proverbs, superstitions and old wives’ tales:

1. Never step over a sleeping baby because you will shorten its life.

2. Never step over a sleeping child you will stunt her growth.

3. Never leave an ax or a broom in the house overnight because the broom will beat you and the ax will chop you.

This assignment is worth 100 points.

Assignment Three:

Create a list of at least 10 wild plants that grow in the southeastern United Sates that could be used for medicinal purposes. Include at least 2 recipes for preparing these plants. (You may substitute up to half of list with a listing of non-traditional healing methods, i.e. putting chewing tobacco on a wasp sting to bring down swelling.)

In addition to looking through publications, please conduct at least two interviews: talk to the elderly (particularly African-Americans) or to an ethnobotonist. Cite your sources.

Here is a sample entry:

1. Blackberry, raspberry, and dewberry
Rubus species

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Description: These plants have prickly stems (canes) that grow upward, arching back toward the ground. They have alternate, usually compound leaves. Their fruits may be red, black, yellow, or orange.

Habitat and Distribution: These plants grow in open, sunny areas at the margin of woods, lakes, streams, and roads throughout temperate regions. There is also an arctic raspberry.

Edible Parts: The fruits and peeled young shoots are edible. Flavor varies greatly.

Medicinal Use: Use the leaves to make tea. To treat diarrhea, drink a tea made by brewing the dried root bark of the blackberry bush. (citation goes here).

Interview Transcription: “Dew berries can be very bitter,” says Dr. Maria Lombardi, a biologist at the University of Southern Mississippi. “One summer a whole bunch of them were growing right outside the house in the backyard. My mother had eaten a whole pack of graham crackers and was constipated, so my father went out with some thick work gloves, tore up some of the roots, stripped them with his pocket knife and boiled the roots into a tea. It cured my mother. Unfortunately, a few weeks later, the men from our lawn service came and poured diesel all over the bushes. My father was furious. People just don’t know the value of things” (contact information goes Here).

This assignment is worth 210 points.

Assignment Four:

Create a list of at least 15 wild, edible plants that grow in the southeastern United Sates. Include at least 3 recipes for preparing or cooking these plants.

In addition to looking through publications, please conduct at least two interviews: talk to the elderly (particularly African-Americans) or to an ethnobotonist. Please cite your sources.

Here is a sample entry:

1. GroundNut (Apios Tuberosa)

This plant most frequently occurs in marshy grounds and moist thickets throughout a large part of the United States and Canada from Ontario to Florida and westward to the Missouri River basin. It is a climbing perennial vine with milky juice and leaves composed of usually 5 to 7 leaflets. To the midsummer rambler it betrays its presence by the violet-like fragrance exhaled by bunchy racemes of odd, brownish-purple flowers of the type of the pea (citation goes here).

Interview: “It is very bitter,” says Dr. Maria Lombardi, a biologist at the University of Southern Mississippi. “One summer my father and I went swimming in the Tangipahoa—in Southeast Louisiana—we found tons of it growing there—we took some home to my mother. She didn’t know what to do with. I’ll never forget the look on her face. It said ‘What is this crap? This is like from another plant or something!’

My father was always doing things like that—finding strange plants for us to take home. I think that’s why I became interested in biology (contact information goes Here).

This assignment is worth 300 points.

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