ESSAY 2: The Review

1. ESSAY 2: The Review Continued…

2. Essay 2 - Freewrite • Consider the work you have done so far on Essay 2. • What was the general response from your peer review group on your rough draft? • Do you feel like you got good advice? • What work do you still need to do on Essay 2? • What do you feel are the areas you need to improve? • Are you missing anything you need to add? • Imagine your ideal completed essay. What steps do you still need to take to reach that ideal?

3. General Advice on Essay 2: The Review • Don’t have too much plot summary. Assume that your reader has already seen the movie, watches the tv show, or read the book. They know the basics, but might need a few small reminders about SPECIFIC scenes that illustrate the points you are making. • Make sure that all plot summary or scene descriptions are in YOUR OWN WORDS. Do *not* copy/paste plot summary off of a website. I expect that you have recently and carefully watched/read/listened to the material you are reviewing, and therefore you should be able to describe scenes and plot points yourself. • Any outside source you include should be commentary on the material you are reviewing, not just plot summary.

4. Four Basic Rules for Avoiding Plagiarism • Make sure all word-for-word quotes have quote marks showing where they begin and end. • Make sure to make the difference between your ideas and your sources’ ideas clear when paraphrasing. • Identify where each quote OR paraphrased idea came from in the body of your paper using in-text citations. • Make sure that each source you quote OR paraphrase in your paper is correctly listed on your Works Cited page.

5. So you have an outside source and you know you have to quote it…. • ….but what is the BEST way to quote? It’s not a good idea to simply “drop in” a quote without making it a part of your own sentence. Here is an example: • Original Quote: • “He is already fighting hard to stay alive. Which also means that kind PeetaMellark, the boy who gave me the bread, is fighting hard to kill me.” • Drop-In: • Katniss remains suspicious of Peeta. “The boy who gave me the bread, is fighting hard to kill me” (Collins 60). • Revised: • Katniss remains suspicious of Peeta. When she realizes that he is “already fighting hard to stay alive” she decides that “the boy who gave [her]the bread is [also] fighting hard to kill me” (Collins 60).

6. So you know you have to quote…. • ….but what is the BEST way to quote?It’s not a good idea to simply “drop in” a quote without making it a part of your own sentence. Original Quote from the source: • “He is already fighting hard to stay alive. Which also means that kind PeetaMellark, the boy who gave me the bread, is fighting hard to kill me.” • Drop-In Quote: • Katniss remains suspicious of Peeta. “Which also means that kind PeetaMellark, the boy who gave me the bread, is fighting hard to kill me” (Collins 60). • Integrated Quote: • Katniss remains suspicious of Peeta. When she realizes that he is “already fighting hard to stay alive”, Katniss decides that “the boy who gave me the bread is [also] fighting hard to kill me” (Collins 60).

7. The “Quote Sandwich” • This is a way to integrate quotes into your paper smoothly and avoid drop-in quotes. • The first piece of “bread” • Introduce quote, possibly mention author, connect quote to what you were saying before. • The “Meat” • Your quote, correctly cited with in-text citation. • The second piece of “bread” • Interpretation/explanation of quote (NOT simply rewording the quote), connect quote to what you will say next.

8. Use the Quote Sandwich method to structure paragraphs! By using a detailed quote sandwich, we can write whole paragraphs using only one quote/point

9. An Example Using Quote from a Book and Real Life Sources to Discuss an Issue Katniss thoughts on the very real hunger in District 12 are shocking: “Starvation's not an uncommon fate in District 12 […] you come upon them sitting motionless against a wall or dying in the Meadow, you hear the wails from a house, and the Peacekeepers are called in to retrieve the body. Starvation is never the cause of death officially. It's always the flu, or exposure, or pneumonia. But that fools no one” (p. 28). This passage tells us that the people of District 12 do not receive enough resources to sustain the population and that those in charge turn a blind eye to the cause of so many deaths. Later, the reader learns that the Capitol is full of gluttonous people who waste food that could have easily saved thousands of lives across Panem. The overabundance of food and people's wastefulness are especially clear in Catching Fire, in which it is revealed that citizens of the Capitol drink a liquid that makes them throw up, effectively emptying their bellies, so that they can continue to gorge on delicacies provided at a feast . As Katniss witnesses this spectacle, she thinks, "all I can think of is the emaciated bodies of the children on our kitchen table as my mother prescribes what the parents can't give. More food" (p. 80). The irony of starving children lying on the kitchen table, a place associated with bounty and reserved for meals, is not lost on the reader and adds to the horror of the image while magnifying the wastefulness of the Capitol. Collins revealed in an interview that "the sociopolitical overtones of The Hunger Games were very intentionally created to characterize current and past world events, including the use of hunger as a weapon to control populations" (Blasingame & Collins, 2009, p. 726). Still, hunger as a method of control is not what initially disturbs the adolescent and adult in the United States; it is the blatant waste of food while others starve that makes our stomachs twist. Why does it make us so uncomfortable? Because if we look at patterns of wastefulness in the United States, we are more closely associated with the Capitol, the bad guys, than with the districts. For example, we over-consume food, which contributes to the country's high obesity rate, but waste vast quantities at the same time. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (2012), in 2010 approximately 34 million tons of food were thrown away. These facts force us to question how our standard of living affects others and the environment.

10. Another Example of Using a Quote from a Book and a Real Life Source to Make a Point Introduce quote from literature Book Quote w/in-text citation Analysis of quote Introduction of outside source Outside source quote w/in-text citation Analysis of quote and connection to thesis and main point The poverty that faces District 12 is vividly described in the novel. The narrator, Katniss, describes how the people are so hopeless and defeated that they have “hunched shoulders and swollen knuckles” and they have even “stopped trying to scrub the coal dust out of their broken nails [or] the lines of their sunken faces” (4). In this sentence, Suzanne Collins describes the conditions of poverty and hopelessness, using words like ‘sunken’ and ‘hunched.’ All throughout the chapters that describe District 12 the language portrays a broken down people who have no hope because of their overwhelming poverty and hunger.Many readers may think that such poverty cannot exist in real life, or if it does it is only in other far-away countries. However, research into the poorest areas of America tells a different story. There are many communities and neighborhoods that are just as poor, oppressed, and downtrodden as District 12. In fact, there are many neighborhoods in the United States where the average salary per household is shockingly “below minimum wage” and even “two or three full time workers in a single household may not be enough to pay for basic necessities like rent, food, and medical care” (Scheckner). It is clear that although American Society may not be as obviously oppressive as the Capitol in The Hunger Games, there are still some very serious problems with our economic system when a hard-working family cannot even afford the basics without relying on credit cards, government aid, or working like a slave at more than one job.

11. Example Disagreement Introduces article, summarizes point to be discussed, gives credit to author using in-text citation. Responds to article with your own opinion Voice indicating phrase, identifying that these aren’t my ideas. Further explanation of why the writer disagrees. • In the article “Why the Odds are Still Stacked against women in Hollywood,” the author interviews several women who believe that women are partially to blame for the gender imbalance in Hollywood, citing women’s tendency not to self-promote and to seek approval in a way that hurts their careers (Masters). However, by focusing on what women are doing wrong, the article overlooks the deeper problemof a business that seems to deny equal opportunity to women no matter what they do. If a woman acts boldly, “like a man,” in order to be successful, she risks getting a reputation as bossy and hard to work with, thereby missing out on opportunities. But if we are to believethe women Masters interviews, if a woman acts feminine and accommodating, she loses big opportunities to those who are willing to be more pushy. This is a choice with no right answer, no matter how a women chooses to present herself. Women in the entertainment industry should have opportunities based on merit alone, and now socially enforced ideas about “how women (should) behave”.

12. Example Agreement Introduces article, quotes point to be discussed, gives credit to author using in-text citation. Agreement + backing up their points Further explanation of why I agree, adding something to the conversation. • Deryl Hannah argues that representations of gay and lesbian people of color are important because to portray the LBGT community and its allies as entirely white would “inaccurately promote a world in which it would appear that LGBT people of color do not exist, or that acceptance of LGBT people is exclusive to white populations” (Hannah). I agree with Hannah that inaccurate portrayals of the diversity within the gay and lesbian community are troubling, a point that needs emphasizing because many people still believe that minority communities are backward and intolerant when it comes to their own LBGT members. To portray white communities as “enlightened” and accepting and minority communities as oblivious at best and bigoted at worst perpetuates old, ugly racial stereotypes.

13. Example Agree and Disagree at Once Introduces article, quotes point to be discussed, gives credit to author using in-text citation. Agree and Disagree, using “Although ” or “however” Further explanation of the point on which I disagree. • In the article “Tyler Perry’s Money Machine,” Eugene Robinson argues that even though Tyler Perry has been called formulaic, he is successful because he is one of a very small number of film makers who is making films that portray African Americans as “people relating to other people” (347). Although I agree with Robinson up to a point, and I certainly see the importance of films in which minority characters are fully rounded, not stereotypes, I cannot accept his overriding assumption that African-American viewers are “settling” for Perry’s films only because there is nothing better that portrays them positively. In this time of dwindling ticket sales and increasing ticket prices, Perry’s overwhelmingly black audience must be getting something more out of his movies than positive representation and cliché humor, as Robinson suggests.

14. Tips for effectively presenting evidence: • Respect your audience's intelligence. Don't try to manipulate them or twist the evidence to support your claim. • Consider the authority of your sources. Where did the information you are presenting as persuasive come from? Why does this person/organization have the authority to speak on this issue? • Establish your own credibility as an author by presenting your research in a thoughtful, respectful way.

15. Check Your Thesis! • Thesis for Essay 2: The Review should follow this basic format: • [The book/movie/tv show you are reviewing] + [How it deals with, connects to, or influences] + [a specific social issue] • Example from textbook: • “Between the Lines provides powerful insights into the complex lives of undocumented immigrants and those they leave behind.” • Because this is academic writing in a college-level composition course, your thesis should be easy-to-find—usually located somewhere at the end of your introduction paragraph. • You can continually rewrite your thesis until you turn in your essay.

16. Group Work: Questions and Concerns • Get in groups of 4. • As a group, brainstorm questions and concerns you have in the following three areas: • Essay Content: What are you still uncertain about? Would you like to see more examples of anything specific? What are you concerns? • Format: Do you have questions about the required format? Do you have any questions that the format example (available on the blog) does not answer? • Grammar: What grammar/punctuation/proofreading concerns do you have? Please make your list as specific as possible. What specific grammar/punctuation concerns would you like me to address? • I will collect these at the end of class. I will look over them this weekend and build a lesson plan that attempts to cover all or most of the most commonconcerns.

17. For Next Time: • ONCE AGAIN, bring a revised copy of your essay to work on in class. • We will be working with the questions on page 254-255, as well as going on some of the major essay/grammar/format concerns your group came up with.