Week 12 Writing Tool: #39 Write Toward an Ending

This tool talks about the importance of giving the reader the closure that they seek when reading a piece.  This tool highlights specific techniques that can be used when creating an ending for a writing piece which include closing the circle, the tieback, the time fame, the space frame, the payoff, the epilogue, problem and solution, the apt quote, look to the future, and mobilize they reader.

Before: 

….When I was reaching the end of the baking process for the magnificent birthday cake I realized that I had missed the powdered sugar when I was picking up all the ingredients from the store.  I had no desire to go back out to the store, so I started to question whether or not I should go and see if Jim had any. The other night just ended so awkward, I wasn’t sure if it was too soon to try and see him again, but then again maybe I could break the awkward ice by asking to borrow some sugar. Too many thoughts on how that encounter would go were crossing my mind, I couldn’t get myself to go ask. So I never finished that cake, I made cookies instead.

After:

….When I was reaching the end of the baking process for the magnificent birthday cake I realized that I had missed the powdered sugar when I was picking up all the ingredients from the store.  I had no desire to go back out to the store, so I started to question whether or not I should go and see if Jim had any. The other night just ended so awkward, I wasn’t sure if it was too soon to try and see him again, but then again maybe I could break the awkward ice by asking to borrow some sugar. Too many thoughts on how that encounter would go were crossing my mind, but I swallowed my pride and went over to ask. My heart was racing as I knocked on the door. When he finally got to the door I couldn’t get any words out of my mouth, but somehow he was able to understand why I was there. He invited me in, we talked and worked everything out and I walked out of his house with the powdered sugar in hand. I finished that cake for Sara’s birthday and that night Jim sat next to me, hand in hand, while we watched her blow out the candles.

This revision allowed for two techniques to be used that were suggested in this tool. Both the payoff and a problem and solution were used to help conclude this piece. The problem was both that the narrator was in a rough patch with her boyfriend Jim and that she had no powdered sugar to finish her cake. The solution that was created in the conclusion was that she went over Jim’s. By going there they were able to resolve their issues and he had the powdered sugar for her cake. The payoff was created by the solution as well, it paid off for her to swallow her pride and go over to jims because they were able to resolve their issues and she was able to finish the cake. This ending also works because the reader gets the closure of a happy ending where everything comes together instead of in the first ending where the cake goes unfinished and she doesn’t make amends with her boyfriend.

Week 11 Writing Tool: #33 Repeat, repeat, repeat.

“Repeating key words, phrases, and story elements creates a rhythm, a pace, a structure, a wavelength that reinforces the central theme of the work.” (pg 159)

Before: 

My name is Hailey Martin and I am a Junior at CU-Boulder.  I am currently an IPHY major working at becoming a nurse in the future.  I was born and raised in Colorado.  I have a sister named Claire who is four years younger than me and we grew up swimming competitively.  I enjoy the outdoors including hiking, kayaking, running,  biking, etc.  I enjoy warm weather, traveling, food, and reading.

After:

I am a Junior at CU-Boulder

I am an IPHY major

I aspire to become a nurse one day

I am a native Coloradan

I am a sister

I am open to new experiences

I am a foodie

I am Hailey Martin.

Although I did not include all of the information that was provided in my original piece I find that the revised piece is a lot more powerful in providing information about myself.  The break down of each piece of information allows each characteristic to stand out.  I think I followed this tool since I continued the repetition of “I am” throughout the whole revision.  I repeated the “I am” so that the reader continued to know that the “central theme” of the piece was to describe myself and then concluded it by revealing my identity.

Week 10 Writing Tool: #30 Internal Cliffhanger

This tool discusses the internal cliffhanger.  An internal cliffhanger is any dramatic element that comes right before a break in the action.  As a result the audience waits in suspense to find out what happens next.

I came across this image on the web that gives a graph of how to set up a cliffhanger; inciting incident, climax, new inciting incident.  However, I found that this graph is not only helpful in setting up the main climax, but it also helps to highlight the effectiveness of the little events/obstacles that lead up to the main climax.  These little dramatic events are represented through the small humps in the graph with little drop offs in action.  While the main dramatic element (climax-big hump) has the highest peak and the largest drop off where the “true” break in action begins.  

Understanding Rhetoric Issues 4 & 5: Argument and Research

Issue 4: Argument Beyond Pro and Con

Garbacik uses a lot of the key techniques for making arguments that were addressed in this issue.  For instance, Garbacik helped to set the scene by looking into how perspectives have changed on gender and sexuality (past gender roles) as well as how they are changing and what they may change into due to activists. In addition to mentioning these changes, she also discussed certain circumstances that resulted from them (both good and bad) and how those too influenced the next set of changes. Another technique that I noticed Garbacik used was that of a conversational tone.  Throughout her book she asked a lot of questions to engage the reader and then she followed up those questions with support.  In regards to support, Garbacik “zoomed” in on claims and evidence as another technique in her argument.  She used a lot of research from both psychological and biological backgrounds to draw on when she stated her position, which in return made her work seem a lot more reliable and factual.  One final technique that Garbacik used was that of building her argument from the ground up.  She started her book by giving biological as well as historical background to sexuality and gender and then ended it with more opinion/argument based chapters such as issues regarding activism, queer theory, and transgender contexts and concerns.

In regards to my own work, I found the lay out of who to use evidence and how to organize an argument to be extremely helpful.  When it comes to applying evidence to my work, I find that a lot of times I simply  throw in some sources to make my work seem more credible.  This issue gives an efficient layout of how to better apply sources to your position: state what happened, how it happened, who was affected, and why its a problem. As for the organizational component it is important that when you are making your point you do so by introducing, analyzing, applying, and then concluding it so that your point in clear to the reader.

Issue 5: Research: More than Detective Work 

In addition to the break down of how to use evidence in an argument that was mentioned in Issue 4, I found the summarizing, paraphrase, and quotation section of this Issue to be of additional help in how to use sources.  The summarizing section sets up a background from the source, paraphrasing addresses the argument, and quotes highlights specific words and phrases that the author of the source uses.  As I mentioned above, when I write papers a lot of times I don’t spend the necessary amount of time analyzing the sources I am using, and therefore they are not applied to their fullest potential, making my points a little weak.  The information that was provided in both of these issues regarding the use of sources and evidence will not only apply to the papers I will have in my college career, but they will also apply to the profession that I aspire to have.  By being a nurse I will have a duty to be educated on new practices and theories of my work in order to best educate my patients.  In order to pass on credible information I will need to do valid investigations into the sources that I gather my evidence from, so that my patients will trust what I tell them.

8: Transgender Contexts and Concerns

Summary:

Throughout this chapter the foundations for people’s perceptions on transgender are looked into, which leads into how it became identified as a gender identity disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).   During this exploration we are able to learn about a true definition to the term as well as different contexts that it is used in and the concerns that go with it including, suicide rates, sexual/physical assault, discrimination, and other related violence. This section also highlights the fact that the term has received a negative connotation through its constant degradation in the media.

Response:

Just like the previous chapter looked into the definition of queer, this chapter looks into what transgender is and the concerns that are associated with it.  The concerns/mistreatments that are addressed in this chapter come from a root cause of binary model thinking.   As mentioned in my previous response, the majority of the population are close minded to the fact that there can be other gender/sexuality identities aside from the binary model.  People are comfortable with their way of thinking and they like to feel that what they know and are comfortable with is what’s considered “normal”.  As a result from this belief they are led to think that anything that strays aways from this “norm” is not right/abnormal and therefore they fear it.  On the other hand there are people who like to break down these boundaries and explore their true identities (queer, transgender, etc).  This conflict in ways of thinking then leads to social problems regarding equality in all aspects of life.  I found the statistics mentioned in this chapter regarding the hardships that transgender people face in society from sexual assault to high suicide rates (transgenders are 26 times more likely than anyone else in society to commit suicide) to be particularly shocking.  Just because someone identifies themselves differently than you, should not mean that they are any lesser of a person.

When reading about the social justice issues pertaining to transgender people, I was curious as to what factors contribute into deciding whether or not a transgender should be allowed to have a sex reassignment surgery?

I didn’t find any if the pictorials in this chapter to be useful.   However, I did think it was good formatting to have some of the statistics in bolded boxes.  The boxes allowed for the information to appear urgent and stick out to the reader.

7: Queer Theory

Summary:

In this chapter Garbacik explores the  different definitions of what it means to be “queer” over time and the history that helped establish the term. This section also talks about the differences between LGBT and queer: LGBT is used as a broad term that encompasses some but not all types of genders and in some perspectives places labels/identities on people.  Whereas the term queer tries to avoid these labels/identities and tries to focus on the fact that gender meanings can change based on the situation.

Response:

By looking into what exactly queer means, Garbacik allows the reader to see the issue with the binary model of gender/sexuality that so many people are familiar with.  Personally, before reading this section whenever I heard the term queer I associated it with people who were gay/lesbian, but never knew the extent of its definition.  People in society who refer to the binary model tend to be unfamiliar with the term queer (like myself) and what it is comprised of, causing them to be uncomfortable with anything that is outside of their binary mode of thinking.  I found Butler’s view on gender to be particularly insightful, “gender is the repeated stylization of the body, as set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being.”  In this quote she addresses a lot of key components, “repeated acts” and “natural sort of being” that I feel really help to describe the way in which gender is formed.  Our views on gender are shaped through patterns that we see and begin to accept, all of which form naturally and by the choice of the individual. As I mentioned above, this chapter really helped to clarify the term queer for me as I had almost no understanding of what it meant before reading about it.  By defining this term a lot of past information that I have read or heard about sexuality and gender all seemed to come together for me and click, which made this section easy and enjoyable to read.This section didn’t include as many visuals as previous ones did but yet I still found myself skipping over them.  The visuals used have proven to be of little help in creating a better understanding of the text, so at this point I chose to ignore them.

Week 9 Writing Tool: #28 Juxtaposition

By using juxtapositions you are putting ideas/images that contrast each other next to each other.  This can be done in written text and through visuals like seen below.  By providing two examples that contrast each other the reader/viewer notices differences between the two and or minor details much more easily.  From these observations the reader is then able to gain a better understanding of the examples or maybe even form new ideas/thoughts regarding them that they may not have been able to do when the examples were by themselves.

6: Gay and Lesbian Activism

Summary:

This chapter begins by looking into the history of concerns and interest that people have had on homosexuality and how these opinions have changed as scientific thought on them have changed.  These transitions in perspective on sexuality have allowed for the formation of homosexual activists to arise.  Garbacik uses this chapter to look into how members of the LGBTQ community have helped to shape society throughout history.  Garbacik also addresses the issue that although these members have done so much for our community they are not always treated fairly by their heterosexual counterparts (hate crimes) nor given the attention/recognition that they deserve.

Response:

This chapter really helped to show the transition in thought regarding sexuality, which was seen through how people react to LGBTQ rights now compared to the time when the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” idea was around.  The changes in perspective that were described allowed the reader to form ideas about where homophobia could come from such as the fact that homosexuality at times was seen as a disorder.  After reading this chapter as well as the previous ones I have started to draw the conclusion that the reason for people having had such strong feelings against homosexuality in the past is due to the fact that it doesn’t allow for reproduction.  I am not sure if that is what Garbacik is trying to get at, but it is a reoccurring theme that  I have noticed and I find it very interesting. This observation then led me to ask, maybe the reason people are becoming more accepting of homosexuality is due to the progression in technology? There are now ways for people to be homosexual and still have children (in vitro fertilization).  The visuals in this section helped to provide specific examples of ideas and events that were being described, which helped me gain a better idea of what Garbacik was trying to prove/argue.

5: Sexual Orientation

Summary:

Garbacik explores the origin of sexuality in this chapter and how, like gender, it is shaped by gender roles but does not always fall into concrete categories. Throughout history people’s views on sexuality have been seen to fall into two categories; essentialists; who believe that sexual orientation is determined at birth (biological) and is not influenced by experience, and then there are constructionists; who believe that sexual orientation does not fall into one category (people can be gay, straight, bisexual, etc) and does not remain in a fixed state over time.  Garbacik uses these viewpoints to address the fact that bisexual, homosexual, and asexual orientations are terms that have been thought about and addressed for quite some time.  She also addresses the idea that society puts homosexual and heterosexual orientations on opposite ends of a spectrum where all the other orientations lay somewhere in between.  This spectrum can be upsetting for some people as they see that the other orientations are forgotten about, and in some cases (asexual orientation) not even addressed.

Response:

This chapter helped to explain another way in which people can become homophobic or form different beliefs on what sexuality should be like.  These beliefs root from either thinking that your sexual orientation comes from genetics or that it is something that can change and is shaped throughout life’s experiences.  I found it interesting that that some people believe that the rise of capitalism allowed people to think of sexual intercourse and cohabitation as a way of creating meaning and happiness in life instead of just for procreation and survival.  This break away from cultural “norm” allowed people to reject the traditional family norm and embrace who they really were and how they really felt.  I also found the whole study that McFadden and Pasanen did on the inner ears of lesbian women to be very interesting. I wonder if the finding of a homosexual woman’s reaction to a sound being the same as heterosexual man could be carried over to other stimuli or maybe even behavior? In this chapter I found that the visuals helped break up the long text and make the chapter easier to read, but didn’t find them to necessarily aid in my understanding of the concepts addressed.

4: Modern Construction of Gender Roles

Summary:

This chapter looks into the impact that parenting, early social interaction, and the work force has on identities for all genders.  Garbacik explores this through the gender coding that is seen at young ages; the toys that children are given, how the parents interact with children of different genders, how female children address their emotions, and the type of schooling they receive.   As well as discrimination that is seen later on in life from employers and co-workers. The main way that children identify their “correct” path and continue to follow it is through seeking approval by following the suggestions around them.    Garbacik uses findings from psychological research as well as statistics to help support the claims she makes about the unequal treatment of males and females throughout life.

Response:

This chapter helped to identify how children learn what is “approved” by society in terms of gender identity (from their parenting and early social interactions), leading them to form their own stereotypical opinions on the topic.  These opinions can then transition into can into feelings of homophobia or sexism later on life and are reinforced through the workforce in which they participate in.  I found it interesting that even though modern parents try and break free form implementing the gender stereotypes on their children that they still “channel and craft their children’s gender performances, especially for boys.” I am curious as to why it’s men’s gender identities that we try and protect so much in society instead of women’s, where does this root from?  This was further explored when Garbacik talked about how it can be advantageous for female’s to possess “male” qualities, but not for males that posses “female” qualities.  I also found it interesting that children demonstrate stereotypical gendered preferences in their interests prior to two years old, it’s crazy how much children absorb at such a young age from even the smallest cues that the parents give off without even having to know their sex. I didn’t really find any of the visuals in this chapter to be particularly useful in aiding in my understanding except for the venn diagram used on page 86, that chart helped to layout the disparity that is seen between men and women in the industry in a clear concise way.