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Introduction: This assignment is intended to give students the opportunities to view previous midterms to help them better understand the stories and objectives discussed in class.  I simply read midterms from previous semesters and searched for the stories we were going to read in class and then copied the most helpful information I could find.

 

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2003 Midterm

“In the case of minority culture struggling with an identity No Name in the Street by James Baldwin also introduces two characters at opposite ends of the narrative spectrum – Baldwin himself and his former best friend. Baldwin was born in the United States. However, as an African American he has experienced stage three of the immigrant narrative his entire adult life. As a result, he rebels against the dominant culture. His friend, on the other hand, seems uninterested in the struggle. In the end, Baldwin laments that he continues his struggle on behalf of people like his friend (VA 290). The common thread throughout both the immigrant narrative and minority narrative is that time does not seem to play a role in the stage of the narrative development. Baldwin and his friend are presumably the same age, yet are affected by different influences. They are both many generations removed from the forced immigration of their ancestors, so their social contracts have been dictated by current trends. Conversely, Diego Torres and Stephen Paczkowski are both first generation immigrants with entirely different perspectives. Their contracts have likewise been dictated by current trends. In each case, the people have chosen either assimilation or resistance.”

 

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2003 Midterm

“The resistance is a way of minorities staying strong and showing that they are equal and have no need to assimilate because to assimilate does not mean to be better.  The dominant culture tends to call minorities who speak about the past as radicals who merely want to dwell in the past.  The dominant culture wants to move on, but to remember and remain in the past for the minority is to keep the progress rolling for better equality.”

 

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2002 Midterm

With regards to the war in Vietnam:

“Baldwin proposes fighting the institution, a definite minority attribute of this story, to attempt to right past wrongs and not allow the dominant society to forget the injustices suffered by the unwilling inductees into the American way of life through the slave trade.  Forcefully, Baldwin shows the reader an opposition to the American Dream immigrant narrative.”

 

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2003 Midterm

Toni Cade Bambara’s The Lesson also describes a group of people who are “just along for the ride,” it seems, with regards to the dominant culture in American society. Sylvia, the young black girl who narrates the story, learns “the lesson” from Miss Moore, an educated woman who has taken it upon herself to enlighten a group of inner-city children with regards to the harsh reality of the “haves” of society versus the “have-nots” by having the children observe how the “other half” lives, oblivious to the fact that there are those among them who have no concept of what it is like to eat every day, much less what it is like to spend over one thousand dollars for a toy sailboat.

 

           

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Conclusion: I liked the comparison of the two characters in No Name in the Street I thought that this was an interesting way to look at them because they are both minorities but they treat it very different.  The midterm regarding the story The Lesson mostly pointed out the obvious objectives in the story but I really liked the way the student described the dominate culture as being “along for the ride”--an interesting choice of words.