EWRT1A-25: appeals and a survey

If you want another look at the appeals handout I was projecting on the overhead tonight, you can get it here. I also have a list of transitions to supplement the one in your book.

I also wanted to offer a little unofficial survey. Keep in mind that the following numbers are based on a quick browse of the papers and may not be entirely accurate. Of the students who offered a clear opinion in reading response 6, fourteen agree with Miller and Swift that the gender bias that they point out in English does negatively affect women; one student agrees with the basic premise but thinks Miller and Swift argue it poorly; nine students discuss the audience of the essay and so don't offer an opinion. Only four students were unconvinced by Miller and Swift's argument.

I have a few reasons I want to share this with you. One, we are discussing voice and I wanted to make everyone's voice heard on this matter. Two, judging by the class discussion one could easily assume that the entire class disagreed with the ideas argued the essay. I certainly assumed that. Apparently (assuming everyone was honest in the reading responses) that's not true.

This then brings up two other points. One is about education, classrooms in particular, and how voices can be silenced. Obviously the class discussion did not elicit everyone's voice and so certain voices went unheard. Perhaps that was because of the way the discussion was handled. Or maybe people just don't like to talk. Or maybe people weren't sure at first what they believed. Or perhaps they felt intimidated by the more vocal members of the class. I'm not sure which answer is correct and it probably varies from student to student anyway. What do you think?

But this brings me to my second point and that is that voice is not only expressed by speaking. Voice is also expressed by writing and that was what the reading response was for, to allow a space for every student, no matter how shy, to make his or her voice heard. And this is one of the purposes of writing: it is a way of having a voice. This obviously relates to the theme were are reading about, but it also relates to what the entire class is about. Learning to write better is not just about getting better grades; it is about developing another way to make your voice heard.

EWRT1A-25: shifts exercise

Here is the shifts exercise. Remember to refer to the chapter in the Longman.

EWRT1A-25: 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?
• Use Devor’s concept of the dominant gender schema to explain how voice is oppressed in either Walker’s or Anzaldúa’s essay.

Also, Devor has a keynote speech he gave once in 1996 and again 1998 up on his website at the University of Victoria. It's called "How Many Sexes? How Many Genders? When Two Are Not Enough" and it covers some of the same ideas as the essay in our reader, but in a different context and using more first-hand testimony. I actually think it's probably a more accessible reading than the one in our book.

EWRT1A-25: essay 2

Here is a pdf of the prompt for essay 2.

EWRT1A-25: essay 1 due tomorrow

Remember that you need to hand in two different drafts, a first draft and a final draft.

If you want a bit more background about Gloria Anzaldúa, this is a nice write-up.

hard work is the inspiration

This quotation has been floating around the blogosphere for the past two days. I thought it was applicable.

"The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case."
-Chuck Close

EWRT1A-25: agreement exercise and reading response 3

Both of the following assignments are due this Thursday.

Here is the agreement exercise.

Here are the prompts for reading response 3.
Reading Response 3- Alice Walker “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens”
Choose one or come up with your own focus.

• According to what Walker shows in this essay, what are some of the forces that hinder people from finding their own voice? Use specific examples to demonstrate a larger theme.
• What does Walker’s essay show us about how people are able to find their own voices? What do people need? Use specific examples to demonstrate a larger theme.
• According to Walker’s essay, what effects are there when people are able to find their own voices? In other words, what is the benefit of artists finding ways to be artists? Use specific examples to demonstrate a larger theme.