JOURNEYLOVE TAYLOR: My name is Journeylove Taylor. I’m from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and I attend Wauwatosa West High School, and I’m here to teach you guys some research habits I’ve learned.

TITLE: Analyze Challenging Texts

JOURNEYLOVE TAYLOR: Researching things that hit very close to home helps me feel more passionate, and it makes me more engaged.

In a bit, I’ll show you how I break down an article and understand a text.

I’ve lived in Milwaukee my entire life, and a way I would describe it is very chaotic, very diverse, and I think it’s a very unique place full of different people, and it is very segregated. This is due to a lot of our history and redlining.

TEXT ON SCREEN: What Is Redlining?

JOURNEYLOVE TAYLOR: Redlining was when the government drew lines around neighborhoods to determine home loan eligibility. Neighborhoods with people of color were outlined in red and considered ineligible for these loans, enforcing racial segregation across the country.

Despite redlining being barred in 1968, it is still very present, as Milwaukee is one of the most segregated cities in America.

I can see the impacts of redlining in my daily life.

When you look at past redlined maps and compare it to today Milwaukee, you can see the impacts have everlasting effects.

To this day, minority groups have difficulties finding homes.

I’ve seen stuff from different cities, not even just Milwaukee, of people having the same issue. Initially I got a lot of my research off TikTok and other social media.

Tiktok user @darastarrtucker:
Through much of the twentieth century, Black folks who wanted to purchase a home were systematically denied bank loans through a practice called redlining. 

TikTok user @victoria_phd:
And Black people were not allowed to live in non-Black neighborhoods. 

TikTok user @james__tree:
What? Do I care about the people in the neighborhood?

JOURNEYLOVE TAYLOR: It’s O.K. to get your information from there. But now I doublecheck my sources, and I go to outside places to get information.

If you want to find out more about a topic, one thing that’s difficult is sorting through different articles.

In my civics class, we’ve had to annotate numerous articles, and my longest one was 56 pages long. Annotating can simplify your time so you don’t have to constantly go back to the same article and read through those lengthy pages again.

You have to condense. You have to put highlights. Simplify the information.

Now I’m going to show you an example of how I do this.

Taking this article: “How Redlining Continues to Shape Racial Segregation in Milwaukee,” by Leah Foltman and Malia Jones at the U.W. Applied Population Lab.

The first thing I would do when getting a tough article is to read it. It might sound very obvious.

It is helpful to know how an article is structured when looking to annotate it.

Many articles are written in the ACE process – answer, cite and exit.

TEXT ON SCREEN:
Answer
Cite
Exit

JOURNEYLOVE TAYLOR: When you answer, you kind of state your claim. When you cite, you present your evidence. And when you exit, you just wrap up your summarization and you conclude your point.

TEXT ON SCREEN:
What Is ACE?

JOURNEYLOVE TAYLOR: ACE is a writing strategy that I use to break down articles

I like to find key points of what I find most important.

TEXT ON SCREEN:
Answer

JOURNEYLOVE TAYLOR: Articles are usually written to answer a question.

Starting at the end of the introduction paragraph, the article states, “the historical practice and legal structure of redlining can shed light on how residential segregation in Milwaukee was birthed and maintained and how it informs current patterns of racial segregation.”

Finding the claim in an article is essential because it helps you discover the theme and the author’s intentional message.

TEXT ON SCREEN:
Cite

JOURNEYLOVE TAYLOR: It is extremely critical to present evidence when creating an argument, because if not, it’s just throwing out points that are not validated or certified.

When things are in quotes it means someone, someone had something good to say, usually.

One quote in this article that was prominent to me was something that hit very close to home.

“. . . at no time shall the land included in Washington Highlands or any part thereof, or any building thereon be purchased, owned, leased or occupied by any person other than of white race.”

This is a neighborhood near my school, so knowing that this was a previously redlined community is very disheartening.

I would rephrase that particular quote as saying that in previous years, Wauwatosa was a white-only community. It’s simple. A lot of times with annotating is shortening it. So, like, for an example, like with a 50-page article, you can’t put 50 pages onto your notes.

TEXT ON SCREEN:
Exit

JOURNEYLOVE TAYLOR: The point of an exit is to leave an impact on the reader. It really is the final impression of the article.

A segment from the conclusion of this article is “. . . redlining reduced opportunities for generational wealth accumulation among minority populations. Even if racism completely stopped in policy and interpersonal terms, it continued disparities in outcomes that would persist because of the deep imprint of this historical policy.”

A way I would summarize that conclusion is that the impacts of redlining in the past have, still, very present effects today in Milwaukee.

It’s helpful to go to the conclusion of the article because it can help you summarize the key points and give you the theme.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help and seek out others. Doublecheck sources, always. Looking for respectable sources to get information from, and unbiased sources as well, is very important.

Researching things that you’re passionate about – in my own experience it’s actually very fulfilling. I do feel very confident and secure with what I do know, and I think students feel the same. We learn so much more from just a simple five-minute read.

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