EWRT1A-24: modifiers and reading response 9

Here is the modifiers worksheet.

Reading Response 9
Keeping in mind what you have read of Frankenstein so far, respond to one of the prompts below. Please use specific evidence from the novel to support your response.

• Compare and contrast the ambitions of Victor and Walton. How do the two men see their responsibilities to themselves and others? What kinds of values and motivations may be operating for each person?
• What are the effects of education as depicted in this novel? Does education liberate characters or ruin them? Consider Frankenstein, Clerval, and Walton (you don’t have to discuss all three, I’m just suggesting examples).
• Do you find Victor Frankenstein to be a responsible person? In answering this, don’t refer only to Victor’s relationship to his creation.
• How is nature depicted so far in the novel? What is its effect on the characters? Please refer to specific scenes.
• Look at the fate of Justine. How is she treated before William’s murder? How is she treated afterward? What does this contrast tell you about the society in the novel?
• Choose your own focus for analysis.

Lastly, here is a map of the early chapters of the novel, showing Walton's voyage and where Victor is in his early life.

EWRT1A-24: clear sentences and mixed structures

Here is the worksheet for Tuesday.

Also, be sure to bring your reader as well as Frankenstein on Tuesday. You will need both.

And just a quick note on CliffsNotes, SparkNotes, et al… Literature can be difficult, but the pleasure it provides is the pleasure you get from figuring it out yourself. And as I stated in class, what you are trying to do is form your own interpretation based on the evidence of what you've read. Something like SparkNotes is just somebody else's interpretation. And so if you go to SparkNotes too soon, you are giving up your chance of forming your own opinion. Don't throw away the opportunity to discover something on your own. Also, SparkNotes is not always right. For one, it just presents one interpretation and multiple interpretations are almost always possible. Also, it sometimes just gets things wrong. Have I ever used a study guide before? Yes. As I was reading James Joyce's Ulysses, I used The New Bloomsday Book: a Guide Through Ulysses by Harry Blamires. But what I did was read a chapter of Ulysses first and struggled with it on my own. Then I went to the Blamires book for help. That way, I could compare Blamires's interpretation to my own, not simply adopt his. So that's how I suggest you use aids like SparkNotes if you're going to use them at all. Read the literature first. Try to figure it out to the best of your abilities. Then look for outside help. This way you can develop your own ideas and see other ideas as just that– other ideas, not the only ideas possible. And it may also save you from inadvertently plagiarizing.

EWRT1A-24: reading response 8

Keep in mind that this blog is just a place to give you the reading responses, the grammar worksheets, and additional information. The thing that lists what is due for each class is the syllabus. If you haven't already, get in the habit of checking it regularly.

Reading Response 8
William Faulkner, “A Rose For Emily” (R 140-148)
Choose one of the prompts below. Please use specific evidence in your response.

• Analyze Emily Grierson’s character. Is she a criminal, a lunatic, or a heroine? Explain your choice with evidence from the text.
• What is the town’s attitude towards Emily Grierson? What is her attitude towards the townspeople? How do these two things contribute to the surprise ending?
• What obstacles stand in the way of Emily having her own voice? Despite these obstacles, how does she manage to assert herself?
• Emily Grierson is isolated from the town she lives in. Do you think her isolation is imposed upon her or self-created? Use specific evidence to respond.

And as an additional thing, here is the Yoshitoshi wood block print of the drowned ghost that I mentioned:

"No Name Woman" active reading guide

Looking around, I found this guide about active reading using "No Name Woman" as the text. It doesn't go through the whole short story, but it gives you an idea of questions you can ask of the text. Questions form the basis of critical thought.

EWRT1A-24: reading presentation groups, May 24th and 26th

Here are the groups for this Tuesday and Thursday. You can use the comments section here to get in touch with each other, if you'd like.

May 24th, "No Name Woman"
Mitchell
Nicole
Tiffany
Maggie

May 26th, "A Rose for Emily"
Cyrus
Alan Tsao
Jordan
David
Claudia

EWRT1A-24: midterm

The midterm is Thursday, May 19th. It will be composed of two parts.

• Part 1: grammar, 10 points. There will be ten sentences, like the ones from the grammar handouts. They will exhibit problems in the areas we've gone over: fragments, run-ons, pronouns, agreement, and shifts. You can write your revisions on the paper itself.
  
• Part 2: in-class essay, 90 points. There will be a series of prompts to choose from. Each prompt will address a different theme and each will ask you to synthesize one of the education essays (Freire-Rodriguez) with one of the voice essays (Walker-Kakutani). Look at the reading responses to get ideas. For the essay you can use your reader and a print dictionary, but no other books or notes. You will also need paper.
  

California budget news

It seems like California is doing better than expected. The budget is up by $6.6 billion, which isn't enough to solve the debt, but means the amount of cuts to education that people had been fearing won't come to pass. Hopefully this means that we've hit the bottom and we'll be on the way back up. More will need to be done, but it looks as if the worst case scenarios people have been throwing around won't happen.

EWRT1A-24: essay 2 first draft

I sent this out in e-mail earlier today.

The first draft of essay 2 is due Tuesday. If you are having trouble coming up with ideas, here are some suggestions.

Personally, I like making lists. So one thing to do is take each prompt and make a list of themes from the essays that relate to each prompt.

What obstacles are there to finding a voice (prompt 2)?
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What assets does a person need to be able to find a voice (prompt 1)?
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What effects are there to having a voice (prompt 3)?
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After you have a list of themes for each prompt, list which essays relate to which themes. For instance, if under "what assets does a person need to be able to find a voice" you put "a role model," you could list Walker and Anzaldúa. Devor's concept of "significant other" may fit there, too.

Yet the themes you have listed are probably a bit broad, so you would probably want to go deeper with each theme. One way to do that is to ask the questions I brought up when we discussed revising thesis statements: how, why, and what is the significance. For example, if under "what obstacles are there to finding a voice" you put "language," you could ask how language acts as an obstacle.

Another way to go about this is to start with which essay you got the most out of. Then figure out which of the prompts you think this essay best relates to and formulate an answer to the prompt from there. After that, try to figure out which other essay (or essays) relates to the same theme.

You can bring in essays from the education section if you'd like, but my intent with essay 2 is to get you to engage with the ideas brought up by the texts in the "finding a voice" section.

Obviously, how far you go with all of this is correlated to how actively you've read. Critical reading is the foundation of everything, from writing to test taking.

If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me.

EWRT1A-24: "The Word Police" by Michiko Kakutani

Here is a direct link the the article. If you want to view it all on a single page, click here. Bring a print-out to use in class Thursday.

EWRT1A-24: shifts exercise

Here.

EWRT1A-24: more Devor

Aaron Devor has a lot on-line. This is one article that you may find interesting. It defines a lot of the terms he uses in the essay in our reader. It also provides faces to illustrate his theories by using historical examples and first-hand testimony.

EWRT1A-24: reading response 5

Reading Response 5
Aaron Devor “Becoming Members of Society…”
Choose one or come up with your own focus.

• Explain Devor’s distinction between “I” and “me” (paragraphs 7 and 8). How may this separation contribute to problems with finding one’s own voice? Use examples from the reading, other readings, or your own experience and observation.

• Do some of the aspects of the traditional gender roles described by Devor seem to be changing? If so, which ones, and how? Contrast specific aspects of Devor’s essay with specific examples of your own.

• Use Devor’s concept of the dominant gender schema to explain how voice is oppressed in either the essay by Walker or Anzaldúa or the Tough Guise video.

Luke Skywalker and G.I. Joe: toys through the decades

The Luke Skywalker toy from the late 1970s and the one from the 1990s. What has changed? Freud would have a field day with the increased length of the lightsaber alone.



How about G.I. Joe?

Here's an early G.I. Joe toy. He is basically a doll, with clothes that boys could take on and off. Notice also that while he has a rifle, most of his gear is for surviving the elements, not for killing people. I love his stance, too. Not über-masculine.



Here's the first G.I. Joe toy I owned, back in the 1980s. He's more militaristic that the original G.I. Joe, but look at his body. And be sure to notice that he didn't come with a gun.


And here's how the figures looked in the early 2000s. This shot doesn't show the weapons, but you can see the change in the bodies.


And here's what G.I. Joe toys looked like in 2009 with the release of the movie:



And for comparison, here's the 2009 version of the first one I had. Obviously the makers have gone for more ethnic diversity, but they have also gone for more guns. And, curiously, the age recommendation has dropped a year.


Whether or not you agree with Jackson Katz, it's pretty obvious that toys for boys have gotten more masculine over the decades: broader chests, wider shoulders, more weapons, larger guns… So why have toy manufacturers decided to make their toys more masculine over the years? Whether or not this has had any effect on the boys that play with them is another question.