Writing Workshop 3

1. Writing Workshop 3 ETHN 100 Week 10 Session 1

2. Last Time • Analyzed the documentary, “Chicano! Quest for a Homeland,” for key terms and evidence.

3. Today • Prepare for WA3 by reflecting on WA2. • Warm-Up: Discuss the thesis and evidence you brought to class. How do you intend to alter your thesis from WA2 to include dimensions of the African American experience? What advantages and/or challenges do you face?

4. WA2 Most students fell between B and C.

5. Thoughts on Academic Writing

6. Academic Writing: Writing to Learn and Discover • It takes time to develop solid ideas. • Most students are familiar with writing to learn, or rather, writing to show that you have learned. • Fewer are familiar with writing to discover. Writing is a critical means for refining initial thoughts into statements that are our own, that illuminate. • Academic writing is never done because there is always more that can be learned about a subject. However, it is important to get things as far along as you can and turn in polished work.

7. The Irony of Teaching Academic Writing in Ethnic Studies Courses • Modes of explanation and argumentation occur within cultural realms. The academic paper is a cultural form – it carries within it assumptions about what knowledge is, how it is formed, and how it is most effectively conveyed. • I like to think I take a “using the master’s tools to free the slave” approach. That is, I present students with more traditional strategies, but I do this as a way to encourage critical thinking about subjects that often ignored, omitted, or overlooked.

9. Writing Assignment 2: Observations and Feedback

10. Observations of Students’ Thinking in WA2 • Most students talked about representation and land. All of the crosscutting themes were represented. • Solid grasp of course materials. • Many relied heavily on stereotypes of Native Americans – nature, peaceful, non-violent. • Some did a lot of prep work to write the paper.

11. Feedback: Ideas • The majority of students provided thesis statements that led to summary rather than argument. • This is a sign that your thesis statement is too broad and needs to be focused.

12. Feedback: Style • Titles are too broad. They should reflect your argument. • Avoid using course jargon such as crosscutting themes. • Watch ambiguous terms such as “they,” “we,” and “our.” • Several papers were clearly written to me, your professor, as the audience. This isn’t a personal communication between you and me. It’s for a wider academic audience. • Be careful of “and then” storytelling. This is usually a sign that you aren’t making an argument. • Be specific about time. Give years, eras, or periods. • Avoid: “as time passed,” “over many years,” “over the span of time,” and “throughout history.”

13. Feedback: Mechanics • Long paragraphs. • Further = degree / Farther = distance. • Revisit how to list references and cite in text. • Several “lazy citers”: citing at the end of the paragraph, citing the same source and page over and over again.

14. Thesis Statements • In the last Writing Workshop, I gave these examples (Labor and Intra-Ethnic Dynamics): • Simple: Evolving labor conditions led to conflict among Native Americans. • Elaborated: Evolving labor conditions due to European American hunger for resources developed cultural conflict within Native American communities.

15. Students’ Thesis Statements • Native Americans struggled to survive European domination. • In this paper, I explore the Native American experience from the crosscutting themes intra-ethnic groups and labor. • The system of European and European American paternalism that evolved from “discovery” to colonization and expansion was motivated by an unchecked hunger for resources—land, materials, and labor—and justified by ethnocentric misrepresenations of Native Americans.

17. Preparing for Writing Assignment 3

18. Writing Assignment 2 • Develop an initial thesis about ethnic struggle and conflict that incorporates two or more crosscutting themes about the experience and racial formation of one group. • Due Wed, 3/20

20. Writing Assignment 3 • Develop a thesis that explores the relationship between two or more crosscutting themes from our course (i.e. labor and movement, representation and discrimination, intra-ethnic groups and community, etc.) and their significance to the collective experience of Native Americans and African Americans. • Due Wed, 4/22 (Sections 03) and 4/23 (Sections 08 and 09)

23. Writing Assignment 4 and Final • Develop a thesis that addresses the following questions: What trends or patterns with regards to ethnic struggle and conflict have you observed among the four groups we studied this semester? What lessons can be learned from ethnic group experiences in the United States that can help to address issues in other nations and regions?

25. Evaluation of WA3 • In WA1, I evaluated Style and Mechanics. • In WA2, we add Ideas. • In WA3, we add Organization & Coherence and Support

26. Organization and Coherence: An “A” Paper Uses logical structure appropriate to the paper’s subject, purpose, audience, thesis, and disciplinary field. Sophisticated transitional sentences often develop one idea from the previous one or identify their logical relations. It guides the reader through the chain of reasoning or progression of ideas.

27. Organization and Coherence: Some Tips • Most students do a decent job making an argument in their Introduction and Conclusion. The middle paragraphs usually offer a lot of summary. • Consider a brief “mapping statement” after your thesis. “To substantiate this position, I will…” or “The paragraphs that follow illustrate this claim by…” • Refer back and edit this statement while writing your paper to make sure you are doing what you set out to do. • Every paragraph should have a topic sentence that relates to the thesis and guides the reader to the next idea in your argument.

28. Support: An “A” Paper Uses evidence appropriately and effectively, providing sufficient evidence and explanation to convince.

29. Support: Some Tips • Most students do not discuss their evidence enough. The building blocks of academic papers are: • Claims – Independent ideas • Subordinate ideas: • Evidence • Explanation • Examples • Elaboration • When you revise your work, ask yourself what is needed to make things clearer for your reader.

31. Next Time • Lecture on power and resistance and historical background on Mexican Americans/Chicana/os. • Bring RN on Lukes. Check website for a reading to be posted tonight.