EWRT1A-62: Reading Response 8

Reading Response 8 has been shifted to Tuesday. So please do it as homework for Tuesday, June 5th.

Reading Response 8
Alison Bechdel, Fun Home chapters 1-2
Choose one. Please use specific evidence in your response.

• On page 15, Bechdel illustrates some of the ways she and her father are different. Despite the differences, how are she and her father similar? Consider characteristics of behavior and/or appearance.

• What elements contribute to Bechdel believing that her father’s death was a suicide? Do you agree that these elements warrant her conclusion?

• Where does Bechdel admit to the limits of her memory and understanding? Do these admissions weaken the narrative or do they serve some purpose? Explain.

• Choose a scene from the book and compare the narration with the monstration. What relationship do these share? In other words, what do the images show in comparison to what the words explain and how do the two work together in the scene to create meaning? Consider using McCloud.

EWRT1A-62: Fun Home reading questions

Fun Home  –  Reading Questions.
Use these questions to help focus your reading.

1. In what ways are Bechdel and her father different? In what ways are they alike?

2. Bechdel believes that her father committed suicide. Why? What does she think the motivation for him was? Why is this significant for her?

3. What role do books play in Bechdel’s relationship with her father? What role do they play in her own self discovery?

4. Can you find an image in the text that sums up Bechdel’s relationship with her father? Is its placement in the story significant?

5. In what ways is Bechdel’s father able to support her? How does he do so?

6. Why does Bechdel allude to so many literary texts? How do they relate to her parents? To herself?

7. At times Bechdel seems to judge her father, but at other times she seems to resist judging him. Find instances of both in the text. Does this show a limitation in her understanding?

8. What do you think the purpose of creating Fun Home was for Bechdel?

9. In what ways are the telling (the narration) different from what is in the showing (the monstration)? Think of McCloud’s categories. Also consider that the narration is an adult Bechdel looking back and the monstration is often a young Alison experiencing things for the first time.

10. Is Alison Bechdel a reliable narrator? What does she believe that others in the book may not believe? What biases might she have?

EWRT1A-62: essay 2

Remember that both drafts of essay 2 are due Tuesday, May 29th. If you have any questions e-mail me. Here are some general comments.

• Cause and effect. Most of the thesis statements deal with cause and effect, so be sure to show the cause and effect. If you are dealing with obstacles to identity make sure you explain how identity is obstructed by the obstacles. A lot of the papers name the obstacles, which is good, but don't make it clear how they are obstacles. In other words, they don't show the full effect.
• Clarify your argument. Some of the papers brought up ideas that didn't really relate to the main argument and ended up confusing things. Edit out sentences that don't contribute to your main argument.
• You don't need to follow a three point thesis/five paragraph essay model. That's the high school model. This is college. It's time to move on. The problem with the above model is that it makes students think about achieving a certain number of paragraphs instead of focusing on the argument. So they write fractured essays. A good essay doesn't argue a certain number of points, but makes a unified, insightful argument. If you do have three separate points, try to figure out how the points connect. Is there some underlying cause of all three? Try to go deeper.
• MLA works cited. Review Rules for Writers to make sure you are doing your works cited list correctly. Remember to indent every line after the first for each entry. Also, your list should be alphabetized by the authors' last names.

EWRT1A-62: midterm

Please bring pens and paper for the midterm. You may use your reader and a print dictionary, but no other books or notes. Try to get plenty of rest.

EWRT1A-62: Grammar Review 3 and appeals

Here is the link to grammar review 3.

And here is my page about appeals, if you'd like it.

transitions

Rules for Writers discusses transitions on pages 64-66. There is a partial list on page 65 and here's my own list. Also, page 29 of our reader has a brief discussion of transitions.

Tough Guise follow up

Here is a more recent video with Jackson Katz. This is at a panel in Australia and he recaps the concept of the "tough guise" and his perception of its negative effect, violence. He also makes it clear that he believes this is learned behavior; that it's not "natural." At the end of this clip, he shows a piece from the full Tough Guise movie which shows how toys, guns, and male bodies have changed in the media over the years. That part starts at 5:06.

EWRT1A62: Reading Response 5

Reading Response 5
Bernard Cooper “A Clack of Tiny Sparks…”
Choose one or come up with your own focus.

• The piece begins and ends with Theresa Sanchez. Why is Theresa so important for Bernard Cooper? What does she represent for him?
• Bernard Cooper was a teenager in the 1960s. Do you think things have changed much for homosexual teenagers in the years since? Please refer to specific parts of Cooper’s memoir in your response.
• Connect the ways Cooper’s true identity is repressed to the ways Jackson Katz says boys’ identities are repressed in the Tough Guise video. Look for similar causes.
• Compare and/or contrast Cooper’s experience with what Anzaldúa or Walker writes about. Look especially at assets. Does Cooper have the kind of help to find his true identity that Anzaldúa or Walker describes? Explain.

EWRT1A62: Tough Guise video

Tough Guise. Please watch the following video for Tuesday. It is a seven minute version of a one hour video. As you watch it, keep certain questions in mind.

• According to Jackson Katz, what are the obstacles young men face to being true to their own identities? Where do these obstacles come from?
• Katz says that concepts of masculinity and violence are connected. Is he convincing in this claim? Do you think that this is culturally reinforced, as Katz argues, or do you think this is a result of nature? Both?
• What are the effects on young men who "take on the tough guise," according to Katz? Do you agree with him?
• How does Katz think young men are going to be able to be "better men"?
• Does Katz offer enough evidence of to support his claims?
• Do your own experiences confirm or deny Katz's claims?

 

EWRT1A62: essay 1 final draft due Tuesday

Remember that both drafts of essay 1, the rough and the final, need to be handed in on Tuesday.

There are a lot of good suggestions for revising essays both in our reader on pages 20-23 and in Rules for Writers on pages 35-40. The most important thing to keep in mind is that you should revise before you edit. In other words, change big things before you worry about sentence-level issues such as grammar and clarity. You don't want to spend your time editing sentences that you later decide to get rid of because they don't fit. Cut, add, and rearrange material first (global revision); then fix grammar, spelling, and clarity (sentence editing, proofreading).

• Global revision
• Review essay purpose: topic & method. Are you answering the prompt?
• Rethink argument. Could your thesis be better?
• Redraft unworkable material.
• Add new material. What further evidence does the paper need?
• Delete material. If it doesn't fit the thesis, then it doesn't belong in the essay.
• Reorganize paragraphs. What is the best order of the paragraphs?
• See other suggestions on pages 36-37 of Rules for Writers and pages 21-22 of our reader.

• Final editing
• Reword sentences for clarity.
• Fix any fragments, run-ons, pronoun agreement, pronoun clarity, subject-verb agreement, and number agreement issues.
• Spell check your spell-checker.
• Have you done the MLA citation properly, both in-text and works cited?
• See the checklist on page 23 of our reader and use Rules for Writers.

           

EWRT1A-62: Grammar Review 2

Here is the pdf for Grammar Review 2. It's due Thursday.