Ten Days of Resistance - SDS in 1968

ENGL 306 | Topic Exploraiton

October 17, 2016

Erika Zigman

1. What was the protest? If it was part of a larger movement, where are you drawing your boundaries (geographical, chronological, legislative, etc.) around your project?

I will focus on "Ten Days of Resistance" an anti-war, student led protest in 1968. There were many student led resistance groups, and many protests against the Vietnam War, therefore I will draw boundaries around my project by limiting the scope of my research to the influence and participation of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), one specific group that participated in the movement and in this protest.


2. Why do you believe that this identity is tied to the protest in a significant way? For whom is this tie significant?

SDS identity is tied to this protest because (1) they were the group that introduced teach-ins to the United States during the Vietnam War, (2) they organized this specific protest, and (3) following this movement the public response was largely to SDS. This tie is significant to people in the United States at the time, other student protesters, and specifically to SDS. It is important to the people because of the change in public awareness and in public involvement in the anti-war movement that resulted from this protest. It is significant to other protesters because this protest (to this day) is the largest student led protest in the United States; this protest was an example of techniques to encourage student involvement and to organize a nationwide protest that future students may refer to when planning a movement. This tie is significant to SDS as well, because of the name recognition they received following the protest. This involvement in mainstream media forced SDS to redefined their beliefs and policies to accomodate new groups of people.

3. How did this group that you're looking at participate in the protest?

SDS participated through sit-ins, teach-ins, rallies, marches and strikes. Students skipped class in order to participate in these acts of protest on campus, which was in itself an act of protest. I am planning on using the protest at Columbia University as a specfic example for the protest because (1) they are an example of active protest that resulted in more media coverage but more long-term issues and (2) involved one of the main spokespeople of SDS - Mark Rudd.


4. When you think about this project, what are you worried or  concerned about? Do your worries have anything to do specifically with whether you can tie your identity to the protest clearly? Are there questions that you think will be hard to answer? Do you have any methodological conerns? What part of this project do you think will be most difficult for you?

I am not worried about tying SDS's identity to this protest or finding enough information from enough sources. I am however concerned with how to organize my paper and which information is considered relevant. I think that I should organize my paper chronologically while finding specific points in the protest that are exemplative of important rhetorical techniques utilized by this group in this protest, but I am not sure how to do that in a manner that will flow and how to go into depth about certain points (without going into to much detail) but without being redundant.