Notes

Week 11: Sunday November 3 - Saturday Nov 9 & Week 12: Sunday November 10- Saturday November 16

£ Classwork & Lecture: Review all files posted in Classwork & Samples/Guides for section.

£ Reading: Read Shizuko's Daughter & Critical Reading articles.

ASSIGNMENTS

£ Forum: Post your response to Shizuko’s Daughter forum.1st post due 11/09, 2nd due 11/16.

£ Optional Plan 2: If wanted submit Plan for Paper #2 through Moodle by 11/09). 

£ Paper # 2: Send Paper #2 through Moodle dropbox. Due 11/16. 

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PAPER 2 DESCRIPTION IN THE 2ND BOX. READ THE ASSIGNMENT DESCRIPTION AND THE SAMPLES!!

Plan 2

If you choose to submit a plan for your second paper it should be completed in much the same way as your plan for the first paper (see the assignment sheet and/or notes for Week 6 for a refresher on the format). You'll need to provide me with:

· A thesis statement

· Several main points that will be supported and discussed in your paper.

· One or more specific references for each of the main points. 

Even after you send in your thesis, please do not feel that you are tied to it irrevocably. If you do change your thesis after working with it for a while, it is best to check in with me and send over a revised thesis. I'm more than happy to talk with you as you work through the writing process.  As always, contact me if you are struggling with ideas. Don't forget that the focus for this paper should be The Fault in Our Stars, Godless, or Shizuko's Daughter. 

PAPER 2

Submit Paper 2 as some kind of word doc file and not a google doc. This round of essays gets "normed" for the college to see if it is meeting course outcomes and so I need to be able for all of the papers to be available and uploaded as attachments.

Don't forget about the sample papers for Paper # 2 under the assignment description. Take some time to read these strong samples. They can be so useful as you gear up to writing your own paper.

Electronic Sources:

I know some of you are working with electronic books that you will need to cite for Paper # 2. 

Purdue@OWL has some great examples for how to cite electronic books as well. Here's the link:

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/10/

Review the discussions!

As you think about your next Paper # 2, I would like to encourage you as always to go back and read some of the discussion forums these past few weeks.  Someone else's comments on our recent readings may be just what you need to get your brain working on an idea for your paper. That said, remember that you should not take material from these forums to incorporate into your papers, (not even your own work.) Your papers should contain your own new fresh writing. In a few cases should you want to make use of a few previous lines of your own that may be permissible but check with me on this as forums and papers are separate assignments.

Main Suggestions for Paper # 2 (Based on key grading notes I commonly make on Paper # 1. This is based on various semesters and includes notes on a previous book called Barefoot Heart.) 

1) Think about not just a provocative title but one that is applicable to the book you are analyzing. View your essay as a scholarly source. If someone were looking for critical essays on Barefoot Heart  in a research database would they find your piece? If you had a paper that analyzed how families living in extreme poverty often struggle with giving their children the attention they need due to having to work impossibly long hours to provide for their family, you need a title that that guides readers to that mindset. If that same paper focused on Elva in Barefoot Heart you need your title to set readers up for that focus. Thus if your title was simply "Despair and Determination" while your readers would have an idea of the theme or topic they might not know  your work was about Elva Hart from BH unless they were specifically searching for essays on that book. If however  your title was "Unavoidable Neglect in Struggling Migrant Communities; Taking a Closer Look at Elva's Hart's Story" readers would be able to find your essay easily in a scholarly database.  Also that title clearly sets readers up for the argument you will be making.  Questions immediately arise from that title.--What kind of neglect are we talking about.. children, the community at large? Are those communities really full of parents that unintentionally neglect their children? What is the definition of neglect the author is using? Is the author overgeneralizing here and at worst forcing a stereotype or is the author hitting on an unfortunate consequence of parent/children relationships in dire poverty? Is this specific to migrant communities in particular or just based on a poverty/ income level? The title makes us question various points and it makes us wonder if the author is right and if the argument could be valid. Also this title lets us know that the argument is debatable as there would be a portion of readers coming into the essay feeling skeptical or uncertain from the start based off of how they are reacting to the title alone. (Having a reaction to a title, whether it is positive or negative is a good thing. It signifies you, as a reader/audience member, from the beginning are allowing yourself to have an investment, in the essay, and a curiosity about the outcome.

2) Be sure to have an explicit debatable thesis in your opening that clearly sets readers up for your paper. I've talked with a lot of you about what makes a statement debatable. In short though it is a statement that is not a summary sentence. If we were to say that Elva Hart struggled throughout her childhood with a family that often ignored her and she later became a successful professional adult that is not debatable, that is a quick recap of Hart's autobiography. 

If we were to say that Elva Hart grew up in a challenging environment where she constantly sought attention from her parents and a life free from financial concerns and this ongoing constant desire to remove herself from this environment led her to become a driven professionally successful woman that is becoming more of a thesis. But it is still not quite there yet because it is still mostly summary as it is currently constructed. We have to highlight the cause and effect in the thesis. In the latter revised claim we are not just discussing Elva's journey, we are saying it was because of a few specific factors that Elva was so determined to shape a different future for herself. With that thesis we still have to be specific about what made Elva unique and why was success more possible for her than it may have been for many other migrant children like Elva. We must address what specific advantages Elva had that paved her way? 

          Was it ultimately because she had mentors who appeared at the right time and place? 

          Was it that her father, while harsh at times, also had great moments of kindness and faith in her? 

          Was it because as the youngest sibling Elva grew up in a more stable home and had advantages her siblings did not? 

          Was it because Elva was naturally smart and academically-minded?

          Was it because as the youngest often ignored sibling Elva had to learn to work independently and be self-sufficient? 

          Was it a combination of all of the above? 

There are so many ways you can go with that thesis, but whatever thesis you have, you must be clear about your argument from the beginning thesis that will be present in either the introductory paragraph or immediately following paragraph.

3) In all of your body paragraphs make sure that you are making explicit connections back to that thesis along with your textual support and research. Textual support is great but your own voice and ideas should push the thesis forward.

4) Think about how you are transitioning from paragraph to paragraph. Be wary of sounding as though you are moving chronologically through the paper based off of events in the books. Move instead from key point to key point.

5) Use outside research as needed and as additional support and just additional support. These sources should not take over your argument.

6) In your concluding paragraph(s) really take your thesis further. While you are wrapping your argument up look at the larger implications of your thesis. Don't merely state what you have said before but expand on your early points with important final thoughts that leave us thinking as readers!

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Sharing Literature with Adolescents

Many of the recent academic texts focusing on the study of literature recommend an approach that uses discussion (not lecturing) but also incorporates drama, visual representation or mapping, as well as a variety of written responses. In this way, students are involved with the literature and interact with it.  For Project/Paper #3, you will find that your choices there are "creative" ones.

The idea of responding creatively to literature arises out of current literary philosophy. Some of you who had taken Children's Literature may be already familiar with Louise Rosenblatt who introduced the theory of Reader-Response or Transactional Analysis. Rosenblatt talks about reading literature as an interaction between reader and text where each reader brings something unique to the reading experience. Because of this interaction, each reader interprets the literature in a unique way. This does not mean that all interpretations are valid. Interpretations must still be supported by textual evidence, but sometimes a reader may discover a relationship or an idea that even the author did not intend. By giving students the opportunity to become involved creatively in responding to the text, we are giving them the ability to derive their own meaning from the experience.

One excellent resource for this is How Porcupines Make Love III: Readers, Texts, Cultures in the Response-Based Literature Classroom (Alan Purves, et. al). Here is an excerpt:

[I]f we close off what adolescents can say and write in response to literature with too much "telling" and too little "doing" on their part, and through too much narrow questioning not so much about the literature itself but how we analyze it, we rarely, if ever, discover the richness and perceptiveness of their literary understanding. We simply make them inarticulate and dependent on others to interpret for them. (20)

Purves' book has all kinds of interesting and creative ideas for responding to literature, so if you are looking at a career as a junior high or high school teacher, consider purchasing it. Another good choice is Adolescent Literature as a Complement to the Classics (Kaywell). This latter choice has several different editions which pair adolescent literature with the classics.

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