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.

EWRT1A-24: "Tough Guise"

Here is the video for Tuesday:

And here's the link to it on Youtube.

Consider this video in the context of the central questions in this "finding a voice" section. What does this video say are the obstacles to having a true voice? What is this video advocating about what needs to be done so people can find their true voices? What does this video offer as the possible benefits of people being able to find their own voices?

EWRT1A-24: essay 1 due Tuesday, May 3rd

Remember that the final draft of essay 1 is due Tuesday. Two drafts are required, regardless if you handed in a first draft or not. MLA style, which includes both in-text citation and a works cited list as well as MLA formatting, is also required. Please e-mail me if you have any questions.

Here are some general comments based on the first drafts:

• One of the purposes of the essay is to engage with the readings in the class. This means both to use one of the readings as evidence in your paper and to engage with the ideas about education that the texts raise.
• Along the same lines as the previous point, one of the purposes of this paper is to relate your own experience to the readings. So don't simply discuss the reading and your experience separately. Focus on the places where they connect.
  
• Have a clear thesis statement that responds to the prompt and covers the scope of the entire essay. Also, I find it helpful to figure out if my thesis is one that is looking at effects (prompt 1) or causes (prompt 2). Clarifying this for yourself may help you to be clearer in your essay.
• Argue with specific evidence. A claim needs to be proven. You prove a claim with evidence. For this essay, evidence should come from one of the essays and from your own experience. And since your thesis is probably stating a cause and effect connection, your evidence needs to show that cause and effect connection.
  

Lastly, some of the overheads about body paragraphs that I used in class today can be found here and here.

EWRT1A-24: agreement exercise

Here is the agreement exercise. Do it carefully. Use the Longman to help you.

EWRT1A-24: pronouns exercise and reading response 3

Here is the pronouns exercise.

Reading Response 3: Alice Walker “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens.”
Choose one of the prompts below 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.

EWRT1A-24: thesis statement problems and more MLA

Here is a pdf of what we went over at the end of class on Tuesday, common problems with thesis statements.

Also keep in mind that The Longman has the MLA rules in it and I expect you to use the book to figure out how to cite things correctly. Some of the rules changed in 2009, which I went over on the handout. However, the only change that will probably affect you in regards to essay 1 is the fact that you need to state "print" at the end of your works cited entry.

If you want more help with MLA style, the best on-line resource I've found is at the Owl at Purdue.

EWRT1A-24: MLA walk-through

Here's the overhead I was trying (and failing) to use.

MLA in-text citation walk-through

Using ¶10, pages 48-49:

“In a sense, creating an English Self is a way of reconciling my old cultural
values with the new values required by English writing, without losing the former.”

How do I incorporate this sentence into my paper?

Direct quotation.

Start with a signal phrase:

Fan Shen states that…

Put borrowed words into quotation marks:

Fan Shen states that “creating an English Self is a way of reconciling [his] old cultural values with the new values required by English writing.”

Double check to make sure you quoted correctly. Put brackets around changed words. Only use ellipses (…) when removing words in middle of quotation, not at the beginning or end.

Put page number in parentheses after the quotation:

Fan Shen states that “creating an English Self is a way of reconciling [his] old cultural values with the new values required by English writing” (49).

Notice that you don’t need a “p.” before the number and the period comes after the parentheses.

The same applies for partial quotations:

Just as Fan Shen experienced, I had to reconcile “my old cultural values with the new values required by English writing” (49).

If you don’t use a signal phrase, put author (if no author, put title) before page number:

“Creating an English Self is a way of reconciling [his] old cultural values with the new values required by English writing” (Shen 49).

Paraphrases work the same way. Again, start with a signal phrase:

Fan Shen observes…

Then put the idea into your own words:

Fan Shen observes that students from different cultural backgrounds have to make a new identity to succeed in writing classes in the U.S. (49).

Make sure that when putting the idea into your own words that you do so completely and don’t misinterpret the author’s idea. Also, don’t forget the page number.

Works cited.

Obviously, providing page numbers only makes sense if the reader is told what books the pages are from. This is what the works cited page does. Since you provided a signal phrase that contains the author’s name, the works cited page is organized alphabetically by the name of the author.

Shen, Fan. “The Classroom and the Wider Culture: Identity as a Key to Learning English Composition.” EWRT1A Reader. Ed. Nick Mullins. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010. 44-54. Print.

Indent lines after first (the above lacks the correct formatting because of web limitations).

Usually a works cited page needs to be on a separate sheet of paper, but for this class you can simply put it at the end of your essay.

Here's a pdf of the above info.