CHL137 Essay Assignment

1. CHL137 Essay Assignment Prewriting Part III: Organization

2. Last time we discussed • Developing a thesis • Finding direct quotations to use as evidence • Weaving quotations into your writing • Correctly citing quotations within your writing

3. Today we’ll focus on • Audience awareness (clarity, tone, rhetorical strategies) • Organization (paragraphing, transitions, logical pattern of organization) Note: these, plus “Correctness,” are the rest of the qualities I will evaluate when I grade the essays (we discussed the others last time).

4. Organizing Don’t just start typing an essay without a plan! • Develop a focused, arguable thesis • Gather evidence (quotes & examples) • Make a plan (put material in an order that best supports your thesis).

5. Practice: • We’ve already discussed developing a thesis, gathering evidence, and citing sources. • Now, at this next point in the process: you’ve already developed a thesis and have searched through materials to gather evidence . . .

6. Working Thesis: • Some critics argue that Harry Potter is stereotypically masculine. Harry, however, is not a stereotype because he is a complex, multi-faceted character who embodies both masculine and feminine traits.

7. 2. Gather Evidence • Quotes from scholars who claim Harry is stereotypically masculine 2. Examples from the novel that demonstrate my thesis that he is a complex, multi-faceted character.

8. Source: Elizabeth Heilman • “In the Harry Potter books, boys are stereotypically portrayed, with the strong, adventurous, independent type of male serving as a heroic masculinity, whereas the weak, unsuccessful male is mocked and sometimes despised” (231).

9. Source: Terri Doughty • “The Harry Potter books do not problematize masculinity; this is, perhaps, one reason for their appeal for boy readers. Rowling follows an older narrative tradition, in which the boy-hero comes to maturity supported by a cast of ‘fathers’ who are there when he needs them, but who also let him make his own way when he needs to do that” (253).

10. Notes: • They do have a point. The books follow the monomyth, Harry is good at sports, doesn’t spend a lot of time reading, and often engages in violent, action-packed adventures. • The best rhetorical strategy then would be not to try to prove them completely wrong. I should instead acknowledge that, yes, he does have these traits, but that they are balanced out by others. . .

11. Evidence to support my thesis: • Harry learns empathy (in HPGF he feels badly about never asking about Neville’s family) • “Harry shook his head, wondering, as he did so, how he could have failed to ask Neville this, in almost four years of knowing him. . . . Harry sat there, horror-struck. He had never known . . . never, in four years, bothered to find out . . . “ (602-3).

12. Other examples of empathy: • In HPOP Harry is deeply troubled by the cruelty of his male role models and learns to develop empathy for Snape, a character he has, until then, despised and feared. Harry, who learns as the series progresses that he has much in common with the younger Voldemort (Tom Riddle), even learns to feel empathy for his enemy.

13. Example of sensitivity • The Dementors affect Harry more deeply than they affect any of the other children, both male and female. For example, in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, both Harry and Ron’s little sister, Ginny, are distraught when a Dementor boards the Hogwarts train. Ginny is “shaking like mad,” but Harry is the only student on the train who faints. “Harry didn’t understand. He felt weak and shivery, as though he were recovering from a bout of flu; he also felt the beginnings of shame” (86).

14. Lupin as role model for Harry: • Professor Lupin, who is not stereotypically masculine and is in many ways an outsider, becomes a mentor to Harry and helps Harry to understand the despair he feels when Dementors are near. He tells Harry, “you have nothing to be ashamed of” (187), that it is okay for boys to feel and express emotions.

15. Relationships, not individual • Although Harry feels alone much of the time, Rowling does not seem to advocate the idea of the lone hero (a masculine stereotype). While Harry must face Voldemort alone, he is only able to defeat him because Harry, Ron, and Neville destroy the last horcruxes and because a whole community (Dumbledore’s Army, the Order of the Phoenix, and others) fights together.

16. More notes on relationships • Unlike many male heroes (see Hourihan) Harry is able to develop and maintain a very close friendship with a girl (Herminone), who he values as an equal. Note: quotes from both Hourihan and Rowling needed here . . . • Etc. (you can probably come up with even more examples . . . But you get the idea . . . )

17. What not to do: If you just sit down at your computer without a clear plan or without having gathered any evidence, the result is likely to be “warm-up writing” . . .

18. Warm-up writing: • There have always been issues involved with works of literature. There are many issues involved with HP, probably because the books are so popular in today’s society. People discuss things like religion, race, genre, mythology and folklore when talking about the HP books. They also discuss gender as an issue . . . YAWN!

19. 3. Make a Plan • Figure out what it is you want to say and then allow your thesis and the evidence you’ve gathered to shape the organization of your essay. • In other words, know what you plan to say and the order in which you plan to say it before you start to write.

20. Plan: Since my thesis is in two parts, • Some critics argue that Harry Potter is stereotypically masculine. • Harry, however, is not a stereotype because he is a complex, multi-faceted character who embodies both masculine and feminine traits. I can structure the essay with 2 parts:

21. Plan: Introduction: Evidence that some critics argue that Harry Potter is stereotypically masculine. Body and Conclusion: Evidence showing that Harry, however, is not a stereotype because he is a complex, multi-faceted character who embodies both masculine and feminine traits.

22. The Intro might be something like: • In her essay, “Blue Wizards and Pink Witches,” Elizabeth Heilman argues that the HP novels are filled with gender stereotypes: “In the Harry Potter books, boys are stereotypically portrayed, with the strong, adventurous, independent type of male serving as a heroic masculinity, whereas the weak, unsuccessful male is mocked and sometimes despised” (231). Other critics agree. Terri Doughty writes that . . . etc. . . . which leads into my thesis statement.

23. Body of paper • The rest of the paper should prove my point (I shouldn’t spend too much time giving attention to the other side of the argument, but should offer evidence to support my point). • If I categorize my quotes, I can build paragraphs structured around various topics: empathy, relationships with others (maybe one on girls and one on community vs. individual), and a paragraph on sensitivity . . .

24. As you organize, consider: • What order of information would work best to prove your thesis? • Do some points deserve more attention, more detailed analysis than others? • What order makes more sense? Do some ideas naturally transition into others? Remember -- this is not a 5-paragraph theme and you don’t need to have one point per paragraph! Instead, let your examples dictate how many points and how many paragraphs.

25. Conclusion • Think of your conclusion as a place to “Draw conclusions.” • Do not simply repeat your thesis and evidence. • This is the place to tie it all together: So What? Why does your thesis matter? Why is it important? What conclusions can be drawn from you argument?

26. So what? • Who cares if Harry is stereotypically masculine or not? • He’s not a real person, just a fictional character. Why does Rowling’s portrayal of gender in a work of fiction matter? • Are there larger considerations to think about? Why are there so many debates about Rowling’s portrayals of gender in the books? Why is this a topic people seem to feel strongly about?

27. Next class: HP3 as adolescent literature • Monday, April 14: Writing Workshop Drafts due. • Wednesday, April 16: Essays due. • April 16 and 21: HP3 Film & adaptation • April 25: Final exam 11 a.m.