SUNY College at Old Westbury Family Identity and Pride Essay

Learning Objectives

a. Togaininsightintoyourpersonalandfamilyhistoryandidentities.

b. Tolearnwhatscholarsandauthorssayaboutfamilieslikeyours.

c. To consider the ways your family’s values have shaped your own.

Content

Throughout the paper, weave in items you deem important such as cultural elements folklore, family legends, strengths, mottos, and traditions.

Use this outline as a guide to write an essay about your family’s identity. Stive to address all the items in the outline.

Brief Personal and Family History – 30 points

a. Yourbirthplaceandchildhood,yourfamily’shistory/roots.

b. Important events in the history of your family, i.e. divorce, separation,

sickness, death, celebrations, reunions, immigration, migration.

c. What are your family’s most important values?

a. Howdoyouknowthesevalueswerehighlyregarded?

b. Howdidpeopleinyourfamilyletyouknowthatthesewereimportant

values?

c. How do the values you were taught differ from those you teach (or will

teach) your children? Why?

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Racial and Ethnic identity Your Family – 30 points

d. Whatareyourfamily’srace,ethnicityandreligion?

e. Whataresomeimportantsymbolsandtraditionsthatarepartofyour

family’s identity?

f. Were race/racism discussed in your family?

g. What were you taught about life as a person of your racial, ethnic and

religious background?

h. Wascolorismdiscussed?Howdid/doesitmanifestinyourfamily?

i. Is your family identity different from your personal identity?

j. If someone from a different culture visited your family and stayed for

several days, what would they notice about your family identity? In other words, how would your family identity “show itself?”

Research on Your Family’s Identity – 20 points

a. Includeresearchfromatleast2articles(magazine,lengthynewspaper article or journal article) about families like yours, focusing on race, ethnicity, religion, and social class. It’s fine to use one or more of the articles in the Readings area of our course.

b. IfyouarefromanAfricandescentfamily,includeatleastonereference to one of the chapters in the Abrorampah and Sudarkasa book. If not, find a third article about families like yours.

c. How do the observations and conclusions of the authors compare to the reality of your family?

Conclusion – 10 points

a. Summarize your paper. What are the implications of what you’ve discovered?

b. Whatdidyoulearnfromstudyingyourfamilyidentity?

c. How did the experience affect you?

d. What lingering questions are you left with? Do you plan to seek

answers to those questions?

e. Endwithasentencethatreallybringsclosuretoyourpaper.

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Format of Paper – 10 points

a. Cover page: name, date submitted, title, name of course, instructor’s name.

b. Length–about3to4pages

c. Margins – 1 inch

d. Doublespaced

e. Includepagenumbers

f. Saved as a .docx or .pdf document

g. Be sure to avoid plagiarism.

h. Savedwithyourlastnameandfamilyidentityasthenameofthefile

i. Proofread and spell/grammar check your paper carefully before you submit it.

My Race/Ethnicity: Black / African American

– though I know this is suppose to be based on my family and I, the information doesn’t have to be true. You can make up things as you go. haha. Thank you so much for your help.

– in the requirements, it asks if you can relate something from a reading to the families identity and if not just add another reference. I’ve uploaded a section of the reading in case you do want to add something from it