CLASS 11EWRT 1A

AGENDA

0Surface Revision: Essay #2 0Discussion: QHQ SBB 0In-class writing: SBB

SURFACE REVISION

EDITING YOUR REVISED ESSAY

WordinessA sentence is not concise simply because it is short; a concise sentence contains

only the number of words necessary to achieve its effect or to make its point.

Nonessential Word Categories:• Deadwood• Utility Words• Circumlocution

Deadwood

• Wordy: There were many factors that influenced his decision to become a teacher.

• Concise: Many factors influenced his decision to become a teacher.

Unnecessary phrases that take up space and add nothing to meaning.

Examples

• Wordy: They played a softball game that was exhausting.

• Concise: They played an exhausting softball game.

• Wordy: It is expensive to upgrade computer systems.

• Concise: Upgrading computer systems is expensive.

Some familiar expressions that are Deadwood• I feel• I think• It seems to me• All things considered• Without a doubt• It is important to note• In my opinion• The reason why• In conclusion

Deadwood distracts, annoys the reader and weakens your writing style.

• Hint: omit the filler phrases "it is," "there is," and "there are" at the beginning of sentences; these often delay the sentence's true subject and verb.

Utility Words

Fillers that contribute nothing to a sentence.

Examples of Utility Words to Eliminate or ReplaceVague Nouns • Thing (something,

anything, everything)• Situation• Kind• Type• Aspect• Sort • Area

Adverbs denoting degree

• Basically• Very• Definitely• Quite

Circumlocution

• Problem: Taking a roundabout way to say something (using ten words when five will do) is called Circumlocution.

• Remedy: Instead of using complicated phrases and rambling constructions, use concrete, specific words and phrases and come right to the point.

Omit "which" or "that” when possible.

• Wordy: Because the fluid, which was brown and poisonous, was dumped into the river, the company that was negligent had to shut down.

• Concise: Because the brown, poisonous fluid was dumped into the river, the negligent company had to shut down.

PunctuationUsing commas and semi-colons

Checking the Details

Drag picture to placeholder or click icon to add

Miscellaneous Questions

0 Does the paper follow MLA guidelines?0 Is the page length within assigned limits?0 Is the font type and size within the assigned

guidelines?0 Does the Header or Footer follow the assignment

guidelines?0 Is the professor's name spelled correctly? Palmore0 Is your name spelled correctly?0 Does the paper have a title? Is it a good title? Is the title

in the appropriate location?

Writing Tips0Write about literature in present tense0Avoid using “thing,” “something,” “everything,” and

“anything.”0Avoid writing in second person.0Avoid using contractions. 0Cut Wordy Sentences0Fix run-on sentences0Check for misused words

A Work in an Anthology, Reference, or Collection

0 Works may include an essay in an edited collection or anthology, or a chapter of a book. The basic form is for this sort of citation is as follows:

0 Last name, First name. "Title of Essay." Title of Collection. Ed. Editor's Name(s). City of Publication: Publisher, Year. Page range of entry. Medium of Publication.

0 Example:0 Harris, Muriel. "Talk to Me: Engaging Reluctant Writers." A

Tutor's Guide: Helping Writers One to One. Ed. Ben Rafoth. Portsmouth: Heinemann, 2000. 24-34. Print.

An Article in a Scholarly Journal

0 Always provide issue numbers, when available.0 Author(s). "Title of Article." Title of Journal

Volume. Issue (Year): pages. Medium of publication.0 Example: Bagchi, Alaknanda. "Conflicting

Nationalisms: The Voice of the Subaltern in Mahasweta Devi's Bashai Tudu." Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 15.1 (1996): 41-50. Print.

Last name, First name. "Title of Essay." Title of Collection. Ed. Editor's Name(s). City of Publication: Publisher, Year. Page range of

entry. Medium of Publication.

Langston Hughes“Passing”The Ways of White FolksVintage 1990 1934Pages 51-55

Author(s). "Title of Article." Title of Journal. Volume. Issue (Year): pages. Medium of publication.

Randall Kennedy“Racial Passing”Ohio State Law JournalVolume 62Issue 114520011-28Print

Discussion

QHQStone Butch Blues

“My parents were enraged that life had cheated them. They were furious

that marriage blocked their last opportunity to escape. Then I came along and I was different. Now they

are furious with me.”

“Days after I was born the grandmother knocked on our door again, this time because my cries alarmed her. She found me in the bassinet, unwashed. My mother admitted she was afraid to touch me, except to pin on a diaper or stick a bottle in my mouth” (14).

0 This sentence shows that the narrator has a very tough childhood. In fact, life is never easy to her. After knowing how tough her childhood is, I can feel the bitter in her heart when she decides to pass. I feel powerless when I read this story.

0 My goodness, first of all that is just downright heart wrenching. The authors way of illustrating these images is quite defined. This quotation was an example of how her family and society treated her from day one. She was not treated as she deserved, and have the freedom to be who she wanted to be, nor did it seem as though much love was felt; it’s like she accepted the hard fight from the start. She even took this memory nonchalantly.

"Crow, are you a boy or a girl?""Caw, Caw!" (17).

0 The quote shows what horrible treatment the character goes through just because he/she is different. Difference is not coped with well in society so in order for us to digest it, people make fun of it because they feel insecure. We do not realize what we are doing the person who is being treated badly. The character never had the courage to stand up to the people that kept asking him/her the question which I wish he/she did so that he/she would feel more confident about who he/she is.

0 “From childhood’s hour I have not beenAs others were – I have not seenAs others saw – I could not bringMy passions from a common spring.From the same source I have not takenMy sorrow; I could not awakenMy heart to joy at the same tone;And all I lov’d, I lov’d alone.”

0 This spoke to me because I can kinda see why Jess likes this poem. The poem explains the segregation she's felt from “hir” […] parents even when Jess was a child. Jess continues to see other people fit into society when she couldn’t figure out how to fit in herself. I then think ze talks about how other people can’t seem to even feel hir sorrow because ze has no one who understands how ze actually feels. There is no one at this point in time she can connect and relate too. The last line spoke to me the most. “And all I Lov’d, I lov’d alone” I interpret this as a statement where ze wants to find someone to love or someone to care for hir, to feel the warmth of someone's kindness, yet she's all alone.

“I didn’t want to be different. I longed to be everything grownups wanted, so they would love me. I followed all their rules, tried my best to

please. But there was something about me that made them knit their eyebrows and frown. No one ever offered a name for what was wrong with me. That’s what made me afraid it was really bad. I only came to recognize its melody through this constant refrain: ‘Is that a boy or a

girl?’” (Chapter 2, page 13)

0 I think these few lines stood out to me the most in Stone Butch Blues because it identified how much she wanted society to accept her, and for her to just be normal. It makes me realize that we all have a lot more in common than we share with one another. Also, I just think this shows that she can have fear in her, and likely very anxious as well.

There is a lot of hurt behind these words. This is more than just admitting someone was hurting them, this was her accepting what society thought and said about her. This was acceptance of the fact that society perceived her behavior and feelings as “wrong.”This quote just goes to show how much power societal pressures have over us, even our perception of ourselves. It’s striking… and a little scary.

“Whatever the world thought was wrong with me, I finally began to agree they were right” (23)

I felt sentimental as I read this because been different doesn’t make us inferior, it simply means we are distinguishable, and unique.

This stood out to me the most because of what coach says to her. It makes me wonder what he thought happened on the field. Did he know she was raped and not care, or did actually think she was a whore and it was something she wanted? It infuriates me how he doesn’t take any action towards helping her or even finding out what happened.

“I was alone in the field. The coach stood a distance away from me, staring. I wobbled as I tried to stand. There were grass stains on my skirt and blood and slimy stuff running down my legs. ‘Get out of here, you little whore,’ coach Moriarty ordered.”

“Mrs. Noble squeezed my arm as I passed, and when I looked up I saw she had tears in her

eyes”(37)

0 This sentence appealed to me the most because I felt like it was Jess’s first time being acknowledged by somebody. Someone can actually “see” Jess with no criticism of Jess in the teacher’s eyes.

I felt scared for her here because what she was doing was crazy. I have heard many stories about people running away, and it

always does not end well. I am concerned for her, and I wonder what she might do and if she will be all right. What makes the

situation worse is that she does not have an idea of where she is going to go, and women in general have a higher risk of being

raped, so I hope she is careful.

“Whatcha doing?” Rachel asked me again. Her lip trembled.

“Shhh, don’t cry,” I told her. I gave her a hug. “I’m running away from home.”

She shook her head. “You can’t,” she said.I nodded my head. “I gotta try. I’m going crazy here.”

“Strong to my enemies, tender to those I loved and respected. That’s what I wanted to be” (34).

0 I found it interesting how Jess was constantly battling internally. In order to survive hir lifestyle Jess has to somehow be hard and unemotional yet at the same time tender. It is sad to me that Jess can’t simply be who ze is because if Jess did allow herself to be soft-hearted than ze would most likely be ruined emotionally by the negative events that seemed so inevitable. I also found it interesting when Jess was speaking with Jacqueline and Jacqueline expressed that it was somewhat selfish for her to want Al to be tender despite all of the pain Al was forced to deal with constantly.

“Things don’t change back,” [Theresa] sighed, “they just keep changing” (Beginning of chapter 13).

0 This line caught my attention the moment I read it. Nothing in life is constant. This is something that’s hard to grasp as a child, but as you grow older these words begin to resonate with you. You’re never the same person you were back when you were a child. You’re growing and changing as you constantly interact with the environment around you. This concept also applies to the people you meet and the friends you make over the years; they come and go. Oftentimes good, lifelong buddies stick around, but the relationship you had when you were both thirteen isn’t the same relationship you have when you’re twenty-one. Sometimes friends turn into acquaintances and even in some extreme cases they become your worst enemy. Likewise, the aspect of change is true for social norms in our society. Things like homosexuality are starting to become a bit more accepted. That’s certainly not to say that there is no longer discrimination—there’s still plenty of that—but in the story that Feinberg has painted for us, we can look and see that things are different now.

“When I came into the bar in drag, kind of hunched over they told me, ‘Be proud of what you are,’ and then they adjusted my tie sort of like you

did” (Feinberg 7).

0 Although these few lines were presented in the very beginning of the novel, I believe that it stood out the most because, so far, reading the story it teaches the reader that being of a different sexual orientation may have its disadvantages, but it is who you are and it should not matter what other people think of you. Also, I believe that this quote stood out to me because I have a cousin who is lesbian and although our family members think it is “not normal” to be gay, her cousins including me have always told her to be proud of who you are because the person you are is what God created; He made no mistakes, whatsoever. Lastly, this quote can teach others to be proud of the person they are as whole because each person is different in his or her way. In other words, each person is unique and he or she should be proud of that.

“For the first time I might have found my people. I just didn’t know how to penetrate

this society.”

0 This showed me how out of place she was and how she kept digging to find a place to fit in, but when she did she didn’t know how to interact with them, she just seemed socially damaged.

“Al wanted me to hit the woman, to defend my honor. I couldn’t think of any woman in the room I would want to hit,

except maybe myself. I had no honor to defend.” (51)

0 This stood out to me because it expresses the helpless feeling of being a special class in the society which is not easily accepted. The sentence “I had no honor to defend” shows how self-abased ze was. […] She deserved a better treatment.

“You think you’re a guy huh? you think you can take it like a guy? We’ll see. what’s these? her said. He yanked up her shirt and pulled her binder down around her waist. HE grabbed her breasts so hard she gasped” (56).

0 This quote caught me off guard and adds to the list of actions described in this book I would call inhumane. How could officers of the law, people whoa re to protect and server, able to treat someone like this? A giant violation of rights and body.

“I felt woozy with fear. It reminded me of when my parents had me committed, or the cops opened my cell door. So many people in the

world had so much power to control and hurt me. I shrugged as though it wasn’t important to me”(Feinberg 93).

0 This quote at this point in the story showed me that she was harboring so many demons from her past. Her “stone” attitude comes from so many terrible situations. The way Jess just shrugs it off as if it doesn’t matter also shows her attitude. I figured she would be upset or furious but instead she acted as though she didn’t care. The anxieties of those situations from her past still haunt her and it shows how many times she has been violated. I figured she would have been more upset by this point in the story with her experience but she still just lets it happen.

“ Guess the street makes us old before our time, huh, kid?’ (118)

0 This is hurtful to read. It made me angry! What is life without been a kid first? it made me sad that they had to grow up before their time just because society fails to realize their differences. And instead of encouraging who they wanted to become, rather they made life a living mess for them. pathetic!

“Baby, I’m sorry they hurt you. But more than anything, I’m sorry you got no place to go with it” (122).

0 so often people are being abused, picked on, and even oppressed. But what makes them more vulnerable is the lack of guardianship and counsel. They are left to handle the situation by themselves, which makes them more susceptible. And they are not comfortable enough to talk about their feelings and it doesn’t get any better than way.

This quote stuck out to me because I feel as though everyone can relate to it. We all do something in life which makes us wish wish that we hadn’t done it. I’m sure everyone knows at least one moment in their life where they messed up, and would do anything possible to go back and change it. If life wasn’t so hard, we wouldn’t make mistakes, and everything would be perfect. However, through every mistake, even the really bad ones, we learn and grow. So, even though we all wish we could go back and change things in our lives, it is those experiences which make us who we really are. This quote served as a reminder that everyone makes mistakes, and it’s what we do with those mistakes which make us who we are.

“I went to the window and looked out over the mounds of snow, wishing I could do everything in my life once as practice and then go back and do it again.” (102)

I like this quote. We like believing that if we had a choice to do our lives over and make all the “right” choices life would be better. But aren’t the mistakes we make what make our stronger and teach us and make us who we are?

In-Class Writing

0 Choose a moment when Jess intentionally passes. How does this experience change who ze is? How do you know?

0 Choose one when ze unintentionally passes. Does this affect hir in the same way? How do you know?

HOMEWORK0Edit Essay #2 (Bring Revised and Edited Drafts)0Reading: Stone Butch Blues (196-260) 0Post #16: Post your in-class writing (intentional

and unintentional passing. 0Post #17: Jess interacts with medical personnel in

various ways throughout the novel. Explore an experience Jess has with a medical professional. Does her gender identity influence the treatment she receives or doesn’t receive? Include a quotation.

0Studying: Terms