CLASS 11EWRT 1B

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.

Deadwood

0Wordy: There were many factors that influenced his decision to become a teacher.

0Concise: Many factors influenced his decision to become a teacher.

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

Examples

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.

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

0Concise: They played an exhausting softball game.

0Wordy: It is expensive to upgrade computer systems.

0Concise: Upgrading computer systems is expensive.

Some familiar expressions that are Deadwood

0There is/There are0I feel0I think0It seems to me0All things considered0Without a doubt0It is important to note0In my opinion0The reason why0In conclusion

Examples of Utility Words to Eliminate or Replace

Vague Nouns Adverbs denoting degree0Thing (something,

anything, everything)0Situation0Kind0Type0Aspect0Sort 0Area

0Basically0Very0Definitely0Quite

Omit "which" or "that” when possible.

0Wordy: Because the fluid, which was brown and poisonous, was dumped into the river, the company that was negligent had to shut down.

0Concise: 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 Questions0Does the paper follow MLA guidelines?0 Is the page length within assigned limits?0 Is the font type and size within the assigned guidelines?0Does the Header follow the assignment guidelines?0 Is the professor's name spelled correctly? Kim Palmore0 Is your name spelled correctly?0Does the paper have a title? Is it a good title? Is the title in

the appropriate location?0Have you italicized book and movie titles and put stories,

articles, and poems in quotation marks.

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 words0Put commas and periods inside quotation marks

The Works Cited Page

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.

Last name, First name. "Title of Essay." Title of Collection. (Date of original publication if applicable). Ed. Editor’s Name(s). City of Publication: Publisher, Year. Page range of entry. Medium of Publication.

A Work in a Collection or Anthology

Toni Morrison“Recitatif”Source: Confirmation: An Anthology of African American WomenPublisher: MorrowEdition: 1983Editors: Imamu Amiri Baraka & Amina BarakaPlace Published: New YorkPages 243-260Print

Langston Hughes“Passing”The Ways of White FolksNew YorkVintage 1990 1934No Editor in this casePages 51-55Print

Recorded Films or Movies

List films by their title. Include the name of the director, the distributor, and the release year. If relevant, list performer names after the director’s name. Use the abbreviation perf. to head the list. End the entry with the appropriate medium of publication (e.g. DVD, VHS, Laser disc).

Ed Wood. Dir. Tim Burton. Perf. Johnny Depp, Martin Landau, Sarah Jessica Parker, Patricia Arquette. Touchstone, 1994. DVD.

The Human StainDirected by Robert BentonPerformers: Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Ed Harris, and Gary Sinise. Distributor: MiramaxRelease Year: 2003Medium: DVD

An Article in a Scholarly Journal

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

Volume. Issue (Year): pages. Medium of publication.

0Example: 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.

Article in an Online Scholarly Journal That Also Appears in PrintCite articles in online scholarly journals that also appear in print as you would a scholarly journal in print, including the page range of the article. Provide the medium of publication that you used (in this case, Web) and the date of access.

Wheelis, Mark. "Investigating Disease Outbreaks Under a Protocol to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention." Emerging Infectious Diseases 6.6 (2000): 595-600. Web. 8 Feb. 2009.

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

Randall Kennedy“Racial Passing”Ohio State Law JournalVolume 62Issue 114520011-28Web8 Feb. 2013

William Pickens“Racial Segregation”Opportunity: Journal of Negro LifeDecember, 1927364-367Web.8 Feb. 2013

Hughes, Langston.Passing (the poem)Phylon Vol. 11Issue 1(1950)15Web

Article in an Online Scholarly Journal That Also Appears in PrintCite articles in online scholarly journals that also appear in print as you would a scholarly journal in print, including the page range of the article. Provide the medium of publication that you used (in this case, Web) and the date of access.

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

Discussion

QHQStone Butch Blues

“I didn’t want to be different. I longed to be everything grownups wanted, so they would love me.” ch.2 p.13

0This stood out to me because I think that people should be able to be whoever they want and not have to worry about being judged and everyone’s opinion. There is no map to how a kid should act, everyone is different. Parents are suppose to not worry about what you enjoy doing, or your preferences, they are just suppose to love you unconditionally. Kids should not have to change or try their hardest to please and impress there parents or family, it should just happen, with whatever they choose to be doing. Everyone has the right to be whoever they want, no one should scare them into taking that away. Everyone is unique in there own ways.

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

0The 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.

“Just when it seemed like it couldn’t get worse I noticed my breasts were growing. Menstruation didn’t bother me. Unless I bled all over myself it was a private thing between me and my body. But breast! Boys hung out of car windows and yelled vulgar things at me.[....]I liked my body before puberty. Somehow I thought it would never change, not like this!” (23)

0 These lines stood out because it reminded of myself the way she was feeling at that moment. Its like something I experience the feeling of being uncomfortable with my own body. I was barely entering high school. I remember that physical education was required to be taken for two years. I was totally different back then than what i am now. I was super shy not very social-able. Back then I also hated that I had too. The thought of my own body changing before my eyes. Especially when in class we had to run, jump I felt so uncomfortable . Every boy staring and even men as well. I would try to cover myself with large sweaters or shirts. But I knew that there was nothing that I could do. As of today I can’t really change anything and i still hate the fact that i keep getting compliments about their size or how big they are.

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.

“Part of the nightmare was that it all seemed so matter of fact. I couldn’t make it stop, I couldn’t escape it, and so i

pretended it wasn’t happening,” (Feinberg 41).

0The quote stood out to me because the significance of this quote is part of the quote itself. The nightmares are seemingly matters of fact. The best part of this is that it can be applied to more situations than just rape. It shows how being bullied can lower a person’s self esteem to the point where they don’t feel like they can stop the act, that they are physically incapable of saving themselves. It’s the reason they keep silent about their abuses and abusers.

These lines from the novel truly repulsed me and disgusted me because of how graphically Feinberg described the scene. To give some context, Jess, the butch lesbian had just been gang raped by six boys from the high school football team she attends. She had also been beaten by them while they viciously assaulted her verbally. When the coach saw what was happening and blew his whistle, one would expect that he had come to Jess’s aide. However, not only did he not help her whatsoever, he even goes on to do the exact same as the boys who raped her and call her a derogatory term. I found this to be horrifying and totally inappropriate even considering that it was around the 1960’s. When part of the school staff does not even defend a student who was raped and beaten but goes on to call her names, there is something wrong with the system. To hire a person who is prejudice and discriminatory defeats the purpose of going to school because school should be a place of neutrality where a student can feel safe. Overall, this part of the novel seemed wrong and immoral no matter how you spin it because there is absolutely no reason for someone to have to endure such an injustice.

“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” (41).

“When you do something out of conviction, my dear, it should be because you believe it’s the right thing to do. If you look for approval

from everyone, you’ll never be able to act.” (45)

0 In this situation, Jess asked her teacher if what she had done ( sitting with her black friend in the cafeteria when blacks and whites sat separately) was wrong. Her teacher explained to her that she should stand up for what she believes in, even if everyone doesn’t agree with her beliefs. Jess won’t be able to get everyone’s approval because we’re all entitled to our own beliefs and opinions. If Jess wants to make a difference, she just has to fight for her beliefs, despite what others think because that is how she will be able to make a difference in the world.

I like this quote a lot only because it really relate to what I am going through at this moment in my life. I was looking for approval from my in-laws and I was so unhappy. My mother in-law is overbearing. Nothing I do is correct to her and I try to seek for her approval but it never happens for two years. I finally got to a point of depression. Then I realize that I was unconsciously passing. I am only going to focus on the important things in my life and the one that I can control. The moment that I decided not to seek my in-laws approval I felt free. It’s a challenge but I am making progress.

“ ‘Do you know what it takes to change the world Jess?’ I shook my head. ‘You have to figure out what you really

believe in and then find other people who feel the same way. The only thing you have to do alone is to decide what’s

important to you.’”46

0This quote stood out to me because it was very well told. It was an advice that any student can take with them, and it was from a great teacher. I can see it gave Jess a little courage to believe in herself and to find out what she really wanted in her life. It encouraged her to go out and find people of her kind, and together they can make a difference.

“Karla looked concerned. ‘Are you sure?’ I nodded, feeling the last brick of the wall go up inside of me that might never

come down again” (47).

0This quote stood out to me because everyone had experiences the down side of life and when unhappy events occur we protect ourselves by building a wall. I had built walls against other people that I cannot take it down no matter how hard I try to forgive and forget I cannot. Especially after Jesse is rape by the football players, six of seven guys, at her school. She had really no one to talk to and the only one that is willing to listen is a Karla and she is African American [which poses a different problem for Jesse].

“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).

0This 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 who are to protect and server, able to treat someone like this? A giant violation of rights and body.

“That’s when I knew sex was very powerful” (70)

0This quote meant a lot to me because not only does Jess realize how sex can be powerful in a good way but also in a bad way. The amount of times that her and her friends have had to endure being raped over and over again, and finding a way to survive each time .Sex can so easily be abused, and as Jess becomes more and more clear about how being who she is can be so dangerous. It is sad how many times the policemen have abuse her and her friends and I can’t even image being in her position and realizing these facts at such a young age.

“Either eat me or eat my shit, bulldagger. It’s up to you.”

0Of all the strife we read Jess had endured since being a mere child, this particular scene in the book I couldn’t get past. To be beaten to near death, and then treated the way she was, made me sick. Rarely have I ever had such a reaction to a novel, it stood out to me, even brought me to tears. Having to take as much grief as Jess did on a daily basis it made me burn with hatred for these cops that went specifically out of their way to terrorize butches and femmes, as if they were the criminals for their sexual orientation. To be put in a position like that and survive, as broken as she was for a long time, gave me great respect for jess as the novel went on. Relentlessly she was hurt, and relentlessly she fought.

” ‘You know’, Duffy added, ‘I don’t think I really realized how hard it is for you. I know what jerks the guys at work can be sometimes.’ he leaned up against the sink

and folded his arms. ‘ But when i went to the hospital with you, I saw how they treated you, how they talked about you,’ he rubbed his face. When he looked back at me, I saw tears in his eyes. ‘I felt so helpless, you know? I kept yelling at them

that you were a human being, that you mattered, and it was like they weren’t even listening to me. I couldn’t do anything to help you and I couldn’t make them take

care of you the way I wanted, you know?’I nodded. I did know. And now I knew that Duffy did too.” (93)

0 I really liked this quote because it sums up the sad majority of human nature; we’re so unused to the unknown that we’d reject and humiliate our own kind if they were “different”. it shows how little agency and power we hold against a made up mind. This quote depicts a certain kind of irony, that an “evil” communist could see the humanity within Jess and the other butches, yet others had rejected it. It was just so sad. Yet, it shows that someone DID recognize the pain and dehumanizing taunts of this world; it arises a kind of hope that there will be others who would come to understand the persecution of LGBTQ people.

“ I drifted in and out of consciousness. I remember Theresa propping me up against a brick wall in the precinct parking lot and assessing the

damage with her eyes. she chewed her lower lip and fingered the bloody places on my shirt. ‘I'll never get these stains out.’ ‘Indirect messages cut

through my fog much more clearly than direct ones.’” (136)

I believe that what Theresa and Jess understood clearly is the damage of that night inside them is something they are not going to forget for the rest of their lives. the small cuts and the blood is going to be cured in a week or two but that night left Jess a big scare inside that is never going to be cured. I like these lines because deep inside us we can not explain everything or talk about everything we have been through sometimes, but still we can have our beloved make us feel better by showing us that they understand us and how we feel without reminding us of what hurts us and without opening our ugly scars.

These lines stood out to me the most since i have never experienced a beating like this. And the beating was caused just because she was a lesbian is shocking. What homosexual men and women went through before people were more accepting is terrible. I am glad that people have wised up to this and now this is punishable under hate crime laws.

“I shrugged. ‘I’m twenty-one today and I feel old’” (140).

0This quote stood out to me beyond all others because of some preconceptions I had. I had assumed more time had passed between her talks of high school and this birthday party. When she moved onto talking about her fights in the union and all the time spent in the bar, I assumed she had skipped forward in her life story a bit and was in her mid-twenties. Being twenty-two myself, the fact that she had undergone all of those beatings and overall stresses of her life before reaching twenty-one puts the earlier part of the story in perspective for me.

“My voice cracked like a teenage boys and then dropped a bit deeper as I read. The hormones were beginning to work.

Kim stared at me. Her face was still and sad. “I’m never going to see you again am i?” She asked.”(page 169)

0These lines stood out to me because it showed me the intelligence of innocence showed through Kim’s understanding of the situation. Even though Kim is still a child she is able to avoid many societal constructs as her innocence is still firmly planted in her. She senses that jess is changing and knows that she will rarely see her from then on. This is also the point where Jess knows there is no turning back and that she does not know where she is heading in life. It was a very powerful passage to read that began the passing of jess.

“At first everything was fun. The world stopped feeling like a gauntlet I had to run through. But very quickly I discovered that

passing didn’t mean just slipping below the surface, it meant being buried alive. I was still me on the inside, trapped in there with all

my wounds and fears. But I was no longer me on the outside” (173).

0This quotation basically summarizes what passing does to a person, as it may shield you on the outside, but everything on a personal level is kept inside of you. Jess feels safe when she passes as a man because now, she is seen to be less vulnerable in public and can be treated equally as a man without having people question her gender. Jess realizes that she is no longer her butch self on the outside, but passing allows her to still be who she is on the inside.

“In a world with any justice I would have poured out my life story to him. I would have given him back in kind the trust he’d shown to me. But I was afraid and so I betrayed him”

(Feinberg 185).

0 This quotation stood out to me because I felt Jess’s vulnerability when Ben had poured out his story to her. By telling his story, Ben trusted Jess to break out of her shell as well and relate to his past experiences. I felt that Jess was not ready to open up about herself in front of people, due to the traumatic experiences she faced. She was fearful of being exposed and wanted to protect herself from becoming distressed and in danger. Jess was hesitant to trust Ben because men had mistreated her throughout her whole life. Thus, Jess lied to Ben in order to prevent herself from becoming hurt.

“You don’t fuck like some other guys, either.” I rolled over on my stomach protectively. She massaged my shoulders. “I mean, you take your time,

you know. It’s like you got a brain in your dick instead of a dick for a brain, you know?” (193)

0After reading how Annie felt about “fags,” these lines caught my attention even more. I began to wonder what might have happened if something went wrong during sex that would have revealed Jesse’s secret. How would Annie have reacted? Would she feel disgusted, angry, or betrayed perhaps? If Jesse made Annie feel so good, why would she feel any of the above due to the fact that she is not a “real” man. Perhaps Jesse is whom Annie and Kathy need in their lives rather than a “real” man.

In-Class Writing

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

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

HOMEWORK0 Edit Essay #2: Submit your essay electronically before our next class

by emailing a copy saved in MS word to palmorekim@fhda.edu

0 Reading: Stone Butch Blues (196-End). 0 Post #16: Pass0 Post #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? Or explore a moment when Jess passes. How does this experience change who ze is? How do you know? Include a quotation with your discussion.

0 Studying: Terms