an open letter to my mother to stop her stereotype towards African American and eliminate the racial bias

1. Overview

In this final project, you will write a letter explaining some of your current thoughts about racism to someone you know.

In Project 2, we spent a lot of time learning about racial bias through research. But we haven’t really had a chance to process what that might mean to us in our lives. In other words, we have learned a lot about racism, and to some extent we each need to ask ourselves, “Now what?” The purpose of this final letter writing project is offer a conclusion to the course by reflecting more personally on racial discrimination.

The project has 3 sections:

• A letter
• An analysis of the letter
• An annotated version of the letter

Section I. The letter (500-1200 words)

The letter should have a date and a specific recipient (Dear ___, or To ___,). Otherwise, you will decide on the content and structure of your letter.

Section II. Analysis of the rhetorical situation (500-1000 words)

The analysis will describe the choices you made while making the letter. One thing we will be wondering as we read your letter is “Why did you choose this recipient? What do you want to convince them of? How did you design your letter to convince them?”

You’ll need to discuss these 4 questions:

1. Describe the rhetorical situation (why you are writing to this particular recipient).
2. What was your purpose in writing this letter? Tell us about some questions you were thinking about as you formed this letter.
3. Describe some rhetorical choices you made that were specifically for the recipient (the “intended” audience).
4. Describe some rhetorical choices you made that were aimed at the “open” audience (the unintended audience).

Section III. Annotated Version (minimum 5 annotations)

In this section, you’ll copy and paste your letter from Section I and add at least 5 annotations (i.e. marginal comments) that explain what you were thinking when you wrote a certain part.

Formatting & Citations

There are no special formatting requirements in terms of margins, font, etc. Just make sure it is neat and tidy.

As for citations, you might not need to cite anything for this project. However, if you do bring in articles, studies, quotations/paraphrases, or research, you should cite it.

I recommend using a footnote style like Chicago Style

What is an open letter? (Genre)

An open letter is a letter addressed to a specific recipient but intended to be read by a wider audience. The genre has an interesting history within anti-racism efforts. The literary scholar, Emily Lordi, observes that the open letter is “a powerful form of literary activism, especially for writers of color who have used it to protest racism and to build community in the Black Lives Matter era.”2 This may be because open letters allow outsiders to glimpse into the world of the writer. These letters create intimate worlds where raw truths can be spoken.

3. What should my letter be about? (Purpose)

The content of your letter should be determined by who you’re sending it to. Who’s your recipient? What do you know about racism that they don’t know? What is the most urgent thing that needs to be said?

As you decide on your topic and recipient, think about a conversation that would be hard to have… a conversation where you can feel some tension or internal conflict when you think of the situation. That may lead to the complexity that will make your project both challenging and rewarding to write.

By the way, your letter doesn’t have to be in English! You could write it in your home language. Just offer us a translation if so.

4. To whom should I write my letter? (Audience)

Anyone that you know! It could be your mom, an uncle, a friend, an acquaintance, a teacher… You can create a pseudonym for the person if you don’t want to make them public. The interesting thing about the open letter is that you do not actually have to share this letter with that person.