Sample Plans

Miranda ______________

Plan # 1

Loneliness was the force that urged Hart to challenge the odds put against Mexican Americans and to obtain a sense of belonging in the American society.

A. Hart was destined for loneliness the moment she was born.

1) “As for me, my mother was embarrassed when I was born,” (72)

2) “I grew up with a vague feeling of being unwanted and wondering if anyone could love a child like me. I spent much time feeling as though I bothered everyone; the only time I was right was when I was alone. And I was alone a lot,” (73).

3) Elva’s mother almost let Nina, her sister, adopt Elva when she was born. “She even let Nina name me, at the hospital, in anticipation of the adoption,” (53). All the other sisters have names that start with the letter D. Since Elva’s name starts with an E, she is immediately different from her siblings when she is born.

4) “In the womb was the first time I was unwanted, not part of the family. Five children were enough; my mother hadn’t wanted another one at her breast,” (204).

 

B. Elva’s loneliness was reinforced every summer when the Trevino family went to Minnesota to work on the beet fields.

1) Elva’s job on the beet fields was away from the family. “I got used to being alone at the edge of the field,” (39).

2) “They had each other all day, while I had no one,” (40).

3) Elva was alone so often during the summer, that she became grew shy and could only be herself when she was alone. “I enjoyed being surrounded by silence. I was in a clear cocoon of aloneness. Totally myself. I didn’t have to be responsible, proper, or smart .I was silly and stupid and I still liked myself,” (39).

 

C. Elva’s siblings were much older than her, so she didn’t have anyone to relate to.

1) “…I was the youngest by seven years…” (58).

2) “My older brothers and sisters had to work mercilessly hard, while I had time to dream and create out of nothing, just because I was the youngest,” (41).

3) “My sisters had only two dresses for school when they were my age. Luis had gone around for years blind for the lack of eyeglasses. I had gotten a silver flute from heaven through my father’s hard work and generous heart. I was luckier than the rest,” (144)

4) “My brothers and sisters became who they were at ‘El Rancho’,” (64). Elva was really young at this point in her brothers and sisters lives, so she didn’t have the same experiences that they did on El Rancho. She became who she was in the Minnesota beet fields.

5) Elva tries to duplicate her siblings hard work in the beet fields when she is in high school, but declares that she is, “…doomed to an easier life,”(186).

6) “Then I was separated by age. My brothers and sisters were all teenagers, one or two years apart. I was like an only child, separated by seven years,” (205).

 

D. In school, Elva was different from the other children because of her outstanding grades.

1) “Mrs. Frances, my third grade teacher, let the class vote on who should get the “Honor Pin” for being the best student. They nominated and voted for me. It was the first time I had been singled out as a good student,” (141).

2) “At the end of the previous school year, at the eighth-grade graduation, I had gotten the “High Point Mexican Girl” award,” (174).

3) “She asked me to separate myself from the class. She asked me to work ahead in the book alone…I was paying the lonely price of succeeding too well…Now I was no longer apart of the class… The loneliness of the new regime devastated me,” (179 and 180).

4) “He told us I was to be valedictorian… The announcement was bittersweet for me. Sweet because it was an affirmation that all my hard work would be recognized. Bitter because it meant that yet again I would be singled out as different. Different from my peer group, different from my siblings, different from my community. I wanted nothing more than to be one of a group. A student among students, a sister among siblings, a Mexican among Mexicans,” (205).

5) “My high school years had been full of paradoxes and contradictions. I wanted to be like everyone else, to fit in, to be liked. I didn’t want to stand out. But circumstances seemed continually to push me into the spotlight,” (207).

 

E. There is clear differences between white students and Mexican students in school.

1) “It seemed there were some activities that were exclusive province of the white kids, things that required special lessons or summer camp,” (189).

2)  “In Pearsall, there wasn’t just one award for having the highest grade. There was ‘High Point Girl,’ ‘High Point Boy,’ ‘High Point Mexican Girl,’ and ‘High Point Mexican Boy,” (174).

3) “There was a lot of excitement in the Mexican community because the valedictorian that year was Dolores Trevino… It was the first time a Mexican woman had been valedictorian,” (151).

4) “For four years, all my classmates had been pure Mexicans at the Westside Elementary School… In fifth grade, we were integrated for the first time… Even then, we divided the playground on our own between the Mexicans and the white kids; no one had to tell us,” (153).

5) “I was a Mexican in south Texas. And that meant I was less than. Less than my white peers, less than the people on the other side of the tracks,” (206).

F. Elva finds were she belongs in college, and when she graduates.

1) “I went to the library every night until midnight, when it closed. Then I walked back to my room alone and happy, pinching myself to be sure it wasn’t a dream. I was fee. No responsibilities except reading and studying, both of which I loved –absolutely loved – to do. This was where I belonged. I was home at last,” (229).

2)  “The voices in my head told me that I had finally arrived,” (229).

3) “Now I was no longer poor. Now I was succeeding in a man’s world. I had proven that a Mexican migrant girl could do it all and have it all,” (233).

4) “I was how much power there is in embracing exactly who you are. For me it is being a Mexican American woman writer. I am no longer alone; I have found my pack,” (236).

 

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Susan ___________________

ENG 271 - Plan #1

 

Overcoming Solidarity - Essay #1 - Plan #1

 

Thesis/Claim: With the help and support of her teachers, community, and her own personal drive, Elva defies the expectations of her family and the prejudicial society around her, proving that education is the only way to improve one's life circumstances.

 

A.  Throughout her childhood education, Elva's teachers created an environment in which Elva could succeed and have a sense of self-worth and purpose, something she lacked in her troubled home life.

            1. Elva's freshman English teacher, Mr. Derderian, broke the straightforward writing style of teachers before him by introducing creative writing.

        2. "Writing the fairy tale felt like eating candy. I felt a sweet excitement when I turned it in the next day...It had come from a place in my soul that was joyful and free and that rarely found expression in my Pearsall life" (176).

            3. The loneliness that Elva deals with throughout her childhood takes on a new form in being the best in class, as Elva notes "What I loved was clearly being the best - not in anyone's opinion, but in fact. I had finally found a place where I could not only be equal to the gringos, but clearly better" (180).

    

 B.  Elva's community both helped and hindered her personal growth as a student, demonstrating that Elva's unusual brightness was lost on the migrant community and that making a life in Pearsall was not an option.

            1. At the end of her fourth grade year, local Mexican teenager Dolores Trevino became the first Mexican woman to receive the honor of valedictorian. At this point, Elva becomes determined not only to finish high school, but also to move on to college, like Dolores.

            2. "None of my brothers and sisters had gone to college; they had all started earning their own way immediately. I knew I was no better" (151).

            3. "My parents expected no more of me than to be a local Mexican girl who married a local Mexican guy and become a mamacita, a comadre, a tia, and finally, and abuelita. If I stayed in town and made tortillas every day...it would be fine with them" (207).

 

 

C.  Elva realizes at a young age that as a result of solidarity, only she can make her circumstances better by putting in hard work on her own.

            1. "My experiences had shown me that I didn't have to be the person that growing up in Pearsall circumscribed me to be. I had choices" (206).

            2. "On graduation night I delivered the valedictory speech, entitled 'He Conquers who Conquers Himself'...it has remained the theme of my life nevertheless" (207).

            3. School becomes Elva's outlet as the one place where she can feel utilized; at home or in the fields, Apa would call her a "muchacha inutil." As a result of this insult, Elva becomes determined to do her best in school and focus all of her energy on academia.

 

 

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Crystal Larrison

Plan 1

 

Thesis: Adversity in life is not a disadvantage but a privilege in disguise.

Major Point: Adversity is an essential part of becoming whole person for without it a person never gains the strength needed to overcome life’s everyday hurdles.

“He Conquers who Conquers Himself.” –Elva Trevino Hart

“When life is too easy for us, we must beware or we may not be ready to meet the blows which sooner or later come to everyone, rich or poor.” –Eleanor Roosevelt

I plan to lead after my introduction with the counter argument. Adversity is not always a good thing. Using the example of Monster Kody Scott’s story, I plan to summarize more in this paragraph about Kody’s life in general. That he was involved in gangs, served hard time and led a life generally considered a failure by societal standards, and this shows us that adversity does not always prove to be a good thing. It’s a rather long quote so I don’t know for sure if I will use it or summarize but I like the quote in the preface for this, “I have pushed people violently out of this existence and have fathered three children. I have felt completely free and have sat in solitary confinement in San Quentin state prison. Today, I languish at the bottom of one of the strictest maximum-security state prisons in this country” (xiii).

In Barefoot heart, we hear about many of Elva’s hardships in life as well. I’d like to give examples of hardships in Elva’s life as well to show some of the things she went through. I plan to talk a bit about her life when they went to Minnesota to work the fields and the conditions they faced there. I wanted to bring up the house they stayed in “It was all one room … here there was no icebox, no bathroom, no chairs for us kids, nothing. Beds, a stove, and a kitchen table were all [my father] thought necessary for living” (9). I want to talk about how hard they had to work “In Minnesota, everyday was the same. There were no Sundays, no holidays, no days off. Every day, sunup to sundown, was the same. Work all day, eat what you can, crash for the night. Do it again the next day” (59).

 I want to show that she faced adversity as well but was able to overcome it and find success in life. Elva also experienced many of the hardships that Kody faced, they both faced poverty and cultural adversity, but Elva succeeds where Kody fails and manages to build a successful life. I’d like to provide a quote about Elva’s success here, “I had all the trappings of success. I was driving a Mercedes, flying all over the country on business, and vacationing in the Caribbean” (231). I want to start to bring in the idea that adversity doesn’t always result in failure but can also result in success.

Here I plan to bring in an outside source to begin to point to reasons why adversity benefitted Elva but not Kody. The article titled Whatever Does Not Kill Us: Cumulative Lifetime Adversity, Vulnerability, and Resilience by Mark D. Seery and E. Allison Holman and Roxane Cohen Silver. One quote I want to use is the definition the paper provides for resilience “Resilience has been defined as successful adaptation or the absence of a pathological outcome following exposure to stressful or potentially traumatic life events of life circumstances.” I will expand with my interpretation of what that means and then point out how I feel it developed better in Elva’s life than in Kody’s by using the following quote “Resilience involves having psychological and social resources that help people tolerate adversity.” And “Under the proper conditions, experiencing life adversity may foster subsequent resilience.”

At this point I’d like to ring in my own notions of the reasons for Kody’s lack of success in overcoming his hardships in life. I think his lack of success comes from his lack of “psychological and social resources.” (as stated above) I think the reason Kody is unsuccessful lies in Moslow’s Heirarchy of needs, which I think helps explain how exactly he was lacking in psychological and social resources. I will explain the concept a little and point to the fact that he was missing two valuable components needed in life, safety and social needs. Possible quotes to use here from Monster include “I had, while in primary school, been victimized by cats during their ascent to “king of the school.” My milk money was taken. My lips were busted two or three times. … I choose never to be a victim again …There was no grey area, no middle ground. You banged or held strong association with the gang, or else you were a victim, period” (100). Another quote that shows that his needs for safety were not met is on page 111 when Kody emphasizes “… that’s what we all were, children. Children gone wild in a concrete jungle of poverty and rage. Armed and dangerous, prowling the concrete jungle in search of ourselves, we were children who had grown up quickly in a city that cared too little about it’s young.” As far as Maslow’s theory goes I want to explain the order in which needs need to be met and how meeting those needs lead to higher levels of personal betterment and in the end self actualization.  Kody was forced to seek outside help to meet his needs for safety and love and belonging through the gang because he lacked safety in a neighborhood where the local authorities have clearly failed to provide it and he lacked love and belonging because of his father and step father who clearly failed to provide him with that need. He met both those needs by joining a gang.

I’d like to go into more depth at this point about how and why adversity can be seen a blessing in disguise. Using specific quotes from the paper I mentioned before-Whatever Does not Kill Us. In the paper it is “argued that exposure to stressors has a positive toughening effect.” And that “Toughness leaves individuals more likely to appraise situations positively, more emotionally stable, and better able to cope psychologically and physiologically with difficult stressors and minor challenges, relative to untoughened individuals. Once toughness develops, it can permeate across domains.” This quote goes back to supporting my thesis. Another possible quote is “Evidence also suggests that exposure to moderate levels of adversity can predict better mental health and well-being than exposure to either a high level of adversity or to no adversity at all.” The last quote helps to lead into my next paragraph, that no adversity also provides negative results.

I’d like to lead into the next point with another quote from this paper “Sheltering provides no opportunity to develop toughness and mastery and is unlikely to persist indefinitely, so when stressors are eventually encountered, individuals are likely to be ill equipped to deal with them.” Another idea for a quote from this paper to lead in is the idea that no adversity is harmful is “[For] people with a history of no adversity, distress they experience may be difficult to explain, justify, or find meaning in, given the absence of negative life events. This lack of compelling reason for their distress may prove even more distressing, relative to people who have experienced some adversity.” I want to bring this up to point out another article in “The Problem with Rich Kids” in Psychology Today by Suniya S. Luthar. Luthar brings to attention “significant problems are occurring at the other end of the socio economic spectrum.” This helps point out the problems with no adversity in life. The article examines how those faced with no adversity “show serious levels of maladjustment as teens … the affluent teens turned out to fare significantly more poorly than their counterparts of low socioeconomic status on all indications of substance abuse, including hard drugs. But substance use is not the only errant behavior among the children of privilege. Crime is also widely assumed to be a problem of youth in poverty, but I have found comparable levels of wrongdoing among well-off suburban students and inner-city youth. The children of wealth have serious internalizing problems as well. … they display high levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms, self-injurious behavior such as cutting and burning, and rule breaking behaviors.” I will summarize that much more but my quotes to prove my point are in there I just need to figure out which parts to include and which to summarize. I want to point out that living without adversity has its disadvantages as well.

In concluding my paper I want to reflect on how adversity does show benefits when encountered in moderate amounts, and complete lack of adversity is, in fact, a negative thing. I want to lighten it up and perhaps say something about how we as parents can maybe relax just a little if we aren’t always capable of proving every luxury of life to our children and perhaps even brining up a few examples of some famous people we can relate to who have faced adversity and managed to succeed, perhaps not in spite of adversity but because of it. (Not positive on quotes here yet, looking into articles relating to Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, Edgar Allen Poe?)

 

 

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Cheleana ______________

Plan # 1

 

THESIS: In order to survive his poverty stricken and violent community, segregated by race and repressed by the government, Kody joins the brutal Crips on desperate terms.

 

MAJOR POINT #1 ***individual vs society & individual vs family***

-Segregated into specific parts of the city, Kody grows up very poor in his community. In comparison to other parts of the city where rich white neighborhoods exist, Kody lives in a black community where families struggle to put food on the table because more jobs are offered to white folks.

-Kody faces abandonment at a very young age when he learns that his father is non-existent. He is instead raised by his step father who treats Kody and his siblings unequally because Kody is the result of an affair and not his actual child by blood.

-From the sense of feeling unsafe and alone, erupts Kody’s urge to enter the gang world. Because he is aware of being potentially attacked by others in order for everyone to attain food, transportation and shelter he is pressured to join a group of promised protection.

 

-Young people turn to gangs out of protection. They can’t even count on their own government for protection. Not only do they want to feel accepted with people who understand them, they also have to protect themselves, because their government lacks the decency to do their job!  

 

QUOTES:

"when the police and other government agencies don't seem to care about what is going on in our communities, then those of us who live in them must take responsibility for their protection and maintenance” (379).

“The actual impact was on my return back past the bodies of the first fallen, my first real look at bodies torn to shreds. It did little to me then, because it was all about survival” (13).

 “when gang members stop their wars and find that there is no longer a need for their sets to exist, banging will cease. But until then, all attempts by law enforcement to seriously curtail its forward motion will be in vain” (78).

“the deputies were outright racist dogs who always wanted a confrontation with us” (139).

“They beat him bad. Blood was everywhere. The more they beat him the more frantic they became, every one of them Americans, with the exception of one negro. It blew my mind to hear the American deputies calling Levi “dirty nigger” and “nappy-headed motherfucker” while the Negro deputy help him for cohorts. Even Levi looked to the Negro for some sort of explanation to this contradiction” (139).

 

MAJOR POINT #2 ***Obsession with reputation, and having a title***

-Gangs give adolescence a sense of purpose when they live among an oppressed community. They feel shut out by the rest of society and are able rebel against this rejection through gangs, which in turn, gives them a sense of pride and power.

-Kody earns the name, “Monster” when he brutally beats a man so badly that the man is deformed. He is prideful of this violent title because he earns looks of respect and fear from others. This enlarges his hunger for fame and acknowledgment.

-Kody struggles with rejection from both his family and society resulting in a rejection Kody develops in feeling any remorse for the people kills and steals from.

 

QUOTES:

“I have never, ever felt as secure as I did then in the presence of these cats who were growing fonder of me, it seemed” (4)

“Which robbery, I wondered? Shit, we had done so many robberies that I was at loss to figure out which one we were wanted for” (195).

“When I went back amongst my troops I saw pride, love, and admiration in their faces. The spell was broken. I felt like a world champion, a liberator, but didn’t allow myself to get big-headed or pompous” (155).

“such killing is profoundly satisfying. Anger and hatred are fulfilled in destruction insofar as such emotions know satiety. The more lives the soldier succeeds in accounting for, the prouder he is likely to feel” (136). ***comparison between war/soldiers and gang members***

 

(In regards to going to prison) “The glory came not in going but in coming back. To come back showed a willingness to stay down. It fostered an image of the set as legitimate, and each individual who could go and come back brought something new—walk, talk, look, way of writing—to add to the culture of the ‘hood” (164).

MAJOR POINT #3: ***Repression and Oppression***

-If all of the well-off jobs weren’t strictly given out on biased terms to white folk, then the black community wouldn’t be as poverty stricken.

-Because Blacks were forced to be separate from whites in all aspects such as bathroom, dining, neighborhoods, etc…blacks then felt subject to complete rejection and isolation.

-Because of Black rejection in general, complete and utter violence erupted as a symbol of rebellious power.

 

QUOTES:

 -"Repression is funny. It can breed resistance, though it doesn't mean that resistance will be political, positive, or revolutionary” (330).

 

-Although recent times have gotten slightly better, the "130-year-old experiment of multiculturalism” has failed still, similar to numerous times before (381).