Final Essay for WGS 100 000A: I call this essay, “Walk the Talk” but you’ll give your essay a title of your own making
Objective: For students to use the learning you’ve done this semester to solve a problem; to apply what you have learned in WGS 100 to a real or imagined (but totally realistic), puzzling life situation about which you have been asked to advise friend, family member, or co-worker who respects that you have gained a lot of knowledge about women, gender and sexuality this semester.
Requirement: For this formal assignment, you’ll write TWO extended letters to a friend or family member. In each one, you’ll discuss one specific topic from the list below, explaining the advice you’re offering about women, gender and/or sexuality and providing detailed textual support to develop your ideas. The support will come from pertinent readings and videos within our course syllabus and also from a library research you’ll do about the TWO different topics you select.
The two letters are to be modeled after the 3rd and 4th suggestions in Chimamanda Adichie’s book, Dear Ijeawle: Or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions. As a reminder, you can find Adichie’s suggestions from her book under LINKS to TEXTS.
Prompt: A friend or family member has turned to you to ask for advice about two topics related to living a life that supports gender equality. What specific, gender or sexuality-related suggestions would you make to this friend, family member or co-worker? Envision in your mind a real person that you know as you write these two, separate letters. Address that person directly in the greeting of the letter you have written to them.
For each of the TWO suggestions, you’ll write about a different topic, selected from among those listed below.
TOPICS:
* Raising a child to be non-sexist (in the advice you offer, picture that your friend is the parent of a fairly young child, boy or girl or non-binary, or a teenager of any gender or gender identification)
* Negotiating fair arrangements with a domestic partner for doing home chores and assuming childcare
* Buying gifts for friends and family that are not gender-“stereotypical” and how to react to gifts that are extremely gender stereotypical
* Giving compliments to family and friends that are not gender-“stereotypical”
* Deciding to pursue a career in which the dominant gender of those within the field isn’t the one you identify with
* Asserting one’s rights to gender-fair treatment at work–perhaps there’s been a specific incident of bias that your friend or family member faced and would like your advice about how to handle
* Helping girls and young women to resist the objectification of women’s bodies in social media and learning not to fall prey to insecurities that girls often feel about their bodies, teaching them to appreciate their wonderfully different, capable bodies
* Teaching girls to not succumb to social pressure to dress in clothing that is uncomfortable but considered sexy; and/or–teaching boys and girls to choose clothing that they like, rather than what is “prescribed” for their birth-assigned gender
* Helping boys and men to resist harmful mandates about what it means to be a “real man”
* Promoting equality, equity and fairness for LGBTQ people: among friends, family, co-workers
* Making a plan to study and learn more about diverse women’s history and LGBTQ history
* Rejecting social media that is sexist, misogynist, homophobic, racist
* Joking: what’s funny and what is not and what to do if you hear a sexist or racist or homophobic joke
* Discussing who does what preparing for and during family gatherings in terms of gender stereotyping
* Introducing the concept and reality of intersectionality to a teenager
Write each of the two “suggestions” as an essay. That means you’ll write an introduction, body paragraphs with topic sentences and a conclusion.
1) You will look in the library (under OneSource) to find one scholarly article that relates to each of the topics you select. Choose a “readable” one of no more than 15 pages–an article that is not super complex so that you can relay its contents confidently. You’ll summarize and give your opinion of the library resource within each letter of advice you write, critically analyzing the content, that is, weighing what the author says against your own, informed point of view on the same topic.
As you give advice to your reader in each of the two “suggestions”, emphasize how the author’s point of view in the researched, outside source relates to or contrasts with your own suggestion to this friend or family member. You must properly quote from the scholarly source at least once, followed by a relevant statement that explains its connection to or contrast with the advice you are offering. Be sure to provide proper MLA format for in-text citation and be prepared to enter this text correctly in a Works Cited page at the end of your essay that consists of the two suggestions.
2) Within each “suggestion”, you’ll also include discussion of a relevant class text and/or video studied this semester. You should choose an assigned text that supports or helps you elaborate the advice that you’re giving to your reader (friend or family member or co-worker–a real person!). Quote at least once from the assigned text and/or video using proper quotation marks and citation. Take time to explain thoroughly separately the quote(s) you choose. Emphasize the text’s overall connection to the advice you are giving your friend or family member as pertains to this particular “suggestion”.
Notice that Adichie begins with each suggestion with a general paragraph that discusses the topic and then she moves into the other paragraphs to give specific advice for her friend, Ijeawle, about the topic. Imitate this format by beginning with a similarly-focused introduction.
Importantly: Express your advice to this friend in your own voice, meaning that you will use a personal tone and your unique way of self-expressing. This essay is, in some ways, a personal essay though you are also summarizing and analyzing texts. While you’ll use standard English and correct paragraphing, express the suggestions in a “friendly” tone.
Your individual writing voice will be recognizable to me after having read your essays and DISCUSSION BOARD posts this semester–DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT PLAGIARIZING (see COURSE POLICIES for academic consequences). At this point in the semester, suspected plagiarism will be reported to the Academic Integrity Committee, your submission will fail without discussion, and you are likely to incur failure in the course.
Organize your essay this way: Pay attention to these instructions!
* You’ll start each letter with a paragraph of introduction to the topic. End this paragraph with a thesis that expresses what you will be saying most of all in the essay that follows about this topic.
* Every subsequent paragraph, the body of the essay, will start with a topic sentence that announces what you will be writing about in the paragraph. Then, by way of examples, explanations and specific reference to texts (readings and/or videos), you will fully develop in the paragraph that follows that one idea. What you develop should be a substantive, meaningful discussion and the development will include at least one quotation from the text that is relevant and fully explained.
To repeat for emphasis: Within each suggestion, in addition to discussion of a relevant class text, you’ll include reference to and discussion of an article you’ve found on the topic through library research, including a quotations from that source. Always choose texts, whether from class assignments or a library search, that help you explain or elaborate on the specific advice that you’re giving in that suggestion.
Remember that your friend or family member hasn’t taken this course and may not have heard about the authors or Ted Talk presenters you reference or their work or terms, such as intersectionality. Introduce the authors or presenters and new terms before you quote from their work.
To be most effective in giving advice, you should weave into the paragraphs of advice your own relevant experiences and observations about that topic that come from “real life” (as Adichie does–use her “suggestions” as your model).
Provide correct and proper in-text parenthetical MLA citation after referring to and quoting from the assigned and the library texts that you have chosen. Parenthetical citation always follows quotations.
Include a works cited list done correctly!!! See RESOURCES for WRITING where there are multiple sites that can help you learn how to comile a works cited lists (MLA style), whereby you can meet this requirement. Points will be deducted for incomplete or incorrect citations. At this late point in the semester, you should know how and be prepared to learn how to do this correctly!!!!
Each suggestion will be about 2-4 double spaced pages. That gives you an idea of how many well-developed paragraphs should be included in each letter. See the student sample I’ve posted under ASSIGNMENTS.
Reminder about proofreading:
Your essay must be edited and proofread so that it reflects your command of standard American English. Essays with multiple, serious and basic grammar and usage errors that impede comprehension or flow will not earn passing grades.
A partial publish, consisting of one suggestion, fully written, is due by Mon. Nov. 18 to ASSIGNMENTS. My feedback must be used to guide you in revising. Revised essays are due Nov. 27.
Attached below is a list of gender and sexuality-related sources from a WGS library guide that can be helpful to you in searching for articles that relate to the two topics you will chose for this assignment.