Bard Civics - Fall Semester (2025)

Course Summary/Description

Who are you, and what is your role in the world around you?

This civics course explores the complexities of American identity, democracy, and moral responsibility through the essays of James Baldwin’s Notes of a Native Son (1955). Baldwin’s work confronts the contradictions at the heart of the American experiment—freedom and exclusion, justice and hypocrisy, belonging and alienation. Through close reading, discussion, and critical writing, students will engage Baldwin’s reflections on race, power, patriotism, and the individual's role in shaping a more just society. As we trace Baldwin’s personal and political journey—from Harlem to Paris to the American South—we will ask: What does it mean to be an American? And what does true civic duty demand?

Core Practices & Components

  • Independent Reading & Reading Conferences
  • Close Reading of Fiction & Nonfiction
  • Analytical, Expressive & Argumentative Writing
  • Discussion & Debate
  • Vocabulary & Language Development
  • Reading and Writing to Understand Society

Learning Goals

  • Build a strong, self-directed independent reading practice and reading stamina
  • Analyze and evaluate complex texts, including arguments, essays, memoirs, journalism, and fiction
  • Write analytical and argumentative essays using strong textual evidence and structure
  • Explore personal and civic identity through reading and writing
  • Participate in discussions with empathy, curiosity, and respect

Assignments/Grading

  • Expressive/Analytical Writing (50%) - Students will regularly complete writing based on their analysis of the texts we study. These assignments will build off of free-writes that students will do in class.
  • Annotations (20%) - Reading is an active process of constructing meaning and students will be expected to create evidence of the meaning they make in response to the texts we study. Students must have some system of annotation and their annotations will be assessed using a rubric.
  • Tests (20%) - Students will regularly take tests on class readings and concepts.
  • Professionalism (10%) - Students will be expected to comport themselves as college students

Unit 1: Stories of Survival – Citizenship, Identity, and Resilience in Literature and Life

Texts:

  • Essays and TED Talks on civic identity and community
  • Student-selected independent reading novels: Flight by Sherman Alexie, A Child Called It by Dave Pelzer, Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds.
  • “Notes of a Native Son” by James Baldwin

Skills Focus:

  • Thesis Writing
  • Paragraphing
  • Metacognitive reading reflection
  • Personal goal-setting through reading conferences

Major Writing Task:

  • Expressive/Analytical Essay (long-form essay)

Unit 2: Exile, Representation, and the Price of Citizenship — James Baldwin’s “Journey to Atlanta” and “Equal in Paris”

Texts:

  • “Journey to Atlanta” (1955)
  • “Equal in Paris” (1955)

Key Historical Themes:

  • The limits and contradictions of American citizenship for Black Americans
  • Exile as refuge and resistance: Paris as a space of possibility
  • The politics of Black representation in Cold War America
  • Comedy, absurdity, and tragedy in confronting racial injustice

Core Assignments:

  • Historical context essay: The Cold War, Civil Rights, and the politics of “representing” America abroad
  • Close reading: Baldwin’s use of irony, tone, and personal narrative in shaping political critique
  • Comparative analysis: Representations of freedom and incarceration in “Equal in Paris” vs. American narratives of justice
  • Creative project: Write a modern “journey” essay exploring identity, citizenship, and belonging in today’s global context

Unit 3: Mask, Protest, and the Limits of Representation — James Baldwin’s “Many Thousands Gone” and “Everybody’s Protest Novel”

 Texts:

  • “Everybody’s Protest Novel” (1949)
  • “Many Thousands Gone” (1951)

Key Historical Themes:

  • The role of literature in the Black freedom struggle: art vs. propaganda
  • The legacy of slavery and the creation of the “Negro” mask
  • Baldwin’s critique of sentimentalism and moral oversimplification
  • The psychological and cultural effects of racial caricature in American literature

Core Assignments:

  • Analytical essay: Baldwin vs. Wright — rethinking Native Son and the role of the protest novel
  • Seminar discussion: The “mask” and double consciousness — Baldwin in conversation with Du Bois
  • Rhetorical analysis: Baldwin’s critique of stereotype, sentimentality, and simplification

Creative assignment: Write a fictional character sketch that resists stereotype and embraces complexity