If I were asked to guest lecture in the next section of this course, I would cover constructing a thesis using a They Say/ I Say Structure. I would teach this because I think it is vital for all writing. The biggest concept I learned in this class is that writing should be a conversation. One enters a conversation through their writing. In this way one can engage the audience, capturing their attention as if you were talking to them. A thesis constructed using a They say/ I say structure not only talks about common opinions on the subject matter, but it also responds to it, explaining why it is important that the reader read your paper.

To begin teaching this skill I would begin by explain the “they say” aspect in a thesis. I would explain that you must start with stating what others are saying, or summarizing. I would teach that the art of summarizing is stating the other person main points to either agree with them or rebuttal them. Here, I would teach that you can even include a quote of what “they say” and then further comment on it. I would further explain the second part of the thesis, the “I say” part. There are 3 ways you can respond: yes, no, or okay, but. From this one must include a “so what” factor, distinguishing what you are saying from what they are saying.  With these two aspects to a thesis one can engage the audience through writing as if they were entering a conversation.

Outcome 3: Writing as a Process

There are many steps to writing any paper, specifically a research paper. In writing my research paper I learned that writing is a process of research, drafting, revision, editing, and reflection. The first step of my procedure was to come up with a topic and a novel, I chose the sublimation of women in Frankenstein. Then, I came up with a research question and answered it with a temporary thesis. After this I wrote a proposal of what it is that I wanted to write about, including a “so what factor” or why it was important to me. From this, I researched and evaluated sources to come up with an annotated bibliography. Then, we peer reviewed the proposals and bibliographies in class. From this I learned to make my paper more detailed, explaining further in depth what it was that I was talking about. I also learned that I should include some nuance in my argument to make it more complex. From this, I came up with an outline for my paper. We peer reviewed thee outlines in class. From the peer reviewing I learned that I needed a stronger “so what” statement. I needed to relate my paper to modern day society today or mention how my paper was similar and different to what has been said in the past concerning my topic. After the outline it was time to write the first draft. In class I learned that there are different ways one can structure their essays, but that it was best to include a counter argument. I had never really incorporated a counter argument into my paper, because previously I have written persuasive essay. I met my teacher at the coffee shop to help me organize my paper and include a counter argument and she taught me that a counter argument adds complexity to an argument and lets the reader know that you have considered all sides to your argument. My teacher helped me realize that my counter argument should be places after my introduction paper so I could then rebuttal it with my argument for the rest of the paper. After my first draft we did reverse outlining in class. Here, we read each others papers and came up with main ideas for each paragraphs. This helped me realize that some paragraphs were out of order. After changing some paragraphs around I finally improved the organization of my paper. From here I will go on to write about our final meetings leading up to the final paper.

In an introduction you try to provide the necessary information to let the reader know what your passage is about. You also try to hook the reader’s attention. In a conclusion you try to sum up what you have said and come up with a possible solution to your thesis, or even relate the thesis to something more broad or as some may call it “a so what statement.”

I chose to analyze a newspaper article found in the NY times, written by Anahad O’connor and titled “University Returns $1 Million Grant to Coca-Cola.” In this article, both the introduction and conclusion are effective. The introduction captures the reader’s attention and makes you want to keep reading. The conclusion is also effective in summing up what the article is about and gives the reader the reason why this article was written.

I am further examining the introduction of this article. The introduction contains the 5 W’s: who, what, when, where, why. Who: The University of Colorado School of Medicine; what: “it was returning a $1 million gift from Coca-Cola”; when: “announced Friday”; where: Colorado; why: “after it was revealed that the money had been used to establish an advocacy group that played down the link between soft drinks and obesity.” This article’s introduction is informative, concise and interesting. It hooked my attention, hence why I kept reading the rest of the article. I will incorporate this into my writing by being more descriptive of what it is that I am writing about, while being concise and to the point.

Daniela Lopez
Research Paper Outline Rough Draft

(PS. sorry its so long. I got a bit carried away)

Shelly’s Effort to Subvert the Patriarchal Hierarchy in Frankenstein

1. Introduction (includes thesis)
   1. This research analyzes Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, written in 1831 and published by the small London publishing house. This research draws upon primary and secondary sources, including peer-reviewed journal articles, dissertations and book reviews. Previous research focuses on Shelly’s undermining of women through the representation of female characters such as Caroline, Justine, Elizabeth and Safie. This papers further investigates Shelly’s criticism of the limited role of women in nineteenth century England in effort to subvert the patriarchal hierarchy in regards to family structure. (THESIS NEED TO INCOOPERATE THREE THINGS BELOW).
      • Social construction of gender that values men over women (public vs domestic sphere)
      • Female characters portrayed as submissive
      • Men’s action on women? (how do I say that better)
      • Subverting hierarchy by creating awarenes
      • Also, show how Shelly uses the failure of men in Frankenstein to encourage the use of the feminine voice in the actual world
        • “their virtual exclusion of female characters and perspectives purposefully enacts in the novel’s form the misogyny that dooms the male characters to failure.” (Davis) The idea that the exclusion of women is what led men to failure in the novel can be used to argue that Shelly uses the failure of men in Frankenstein to encourage the use of the feminine voice in the actual world.

1. Background information on women in the 19^th century? ß is this necessary?
   1. Use Hughes, Kathryn. “Gender Roles in the 19th Century.”
   2. Emphasizes the sharp definition between the roles of women and men at this point in history
   3. Marriage, sexuality, education, and rights and attitudes toward gender

• Social construction of gender that values men over women (public vs domestic sphere)
  1. Society founded on rigid division of sex-roles: the man inhabits the public sphere; the woman is relegated to the private or domestic sphere (mellor)
     • The men work outside the home
       • Alphonse Frankenstein = public servants
       • Victor = scientist
       • Clerval and his father = merchants
       • Walton = explorer
     • Women confined to home
       • Elizabeth cannot travel with victor (meller)à “regretted that she had not the same opportunities of enlarging her experience and cultivating her understanding” (Shelly ??)
       • Caroline Beaufort Frankenstein=housewives
       • Elizabeth=child care provider
       • Margaret =nurse

1. Masculine work segregated from domestic sphere (Mellor)
   • Victor Frankenstein cannot do scientific research and think lovingly of Elizabeth and his family at the same time

1. Female Characters portrayed as submissive
   1. demeaning characterization of females
      • Objectified, used, abused, and easily discarded
      • “serve a very specific function and impact a man’s life” (Haddad)
   2. Women are not completely passive victims. Instead, they stand in an in-between position in society, with only partial rights. (hodges proves this… go to annotated biblio) à should I include this? How can I integrate this?

1. Caroline
   • dies unnecessarily because she cannot restrain herself from taking care of Elizabeth, even thought she knows she is contagiousàIncarnates patriarchal ideal of female devotion and self sacrifice (mellor)
   • devoted to her father (nurses him until he dies) + marries his best friend
2. Justine
   • Given no justice. Inactive passive in her trial “speech and actions demonstrate passivity” (Haddad)
   • “But I have no power of explaining it…I am only left to conjecture concerning the probabilities by which it might have been placed in my pocket” (shelly 66??)
   • As a young girl, Justine loses one of her parents and is mistreated by the surviving one, in this case her mother. The emotional and financial poverty of her situation moves the Frankenstein’s to adopt her, and Justine’s gratitude and the combined tutoring of Caroline and Elizabeth make her into yet another adoring and gentle female (davis 13)
   • Monster frames Justine bc of hatred for women (davis 5)
     • “all that she could give me,”à language showing his belief that women should satisfy him (shelly…)

1. Safie
   • Safie may share Shelley and Wollstonecraft’s values, but she is still in the hands of a tyrannical father, the Turk who offers her hand to Felix to repay him for his working to free the man from his unjust imprisonment. At first, Felix is “too delicate to accept this offer” (123), but he looks forward to marrying her anyway, and he remains with them “in expectation of the event” (124). Once again, a woman is offered to a man as a reward without her being consulted; and once again, a genuinely caring man falls into behavior that discounts the will of a woman (davis 15)
2. Elizabeth (davis 12) (p36ish)
   • Caroline regards her as “a pretty present for my Victor,” to which Victor replies, ” I . . . looked upon Elizabeth as mine — mine to protect, love, and cherish” (36-37). Elizabeth therefore becomes a corn- modified form of reward for Caroline’s charity and for Victor’s possession.
   • When Elizabeth is killed by the monster “Elizabeth has become another inert victim in this game of insanity and male-centered mayhem. She has been demeaned and reduced to a simple tool of revenge, along with the other female characters appearing in Frankenstein.” (Haddad)
3. Margaret
   • “She is useful to us as an audience because without her, there is no reason for Walton to relay his story. Yet, we never meet this character nor do we know if she really exists, if she ever reads the story and gets the letters, or if she has anything to say about it. She is the most distant and passive female character in the novel and also the most necessary to the novel as a whole.” (Haddad)

1. Victor’s / Men’s action on women
   1. Victor hypothesizes the action of female monster (davis 5)
      • “she might become ten thousand times more malignant than her mate, and delight, for its own sake, in murder and wretchedness She also might turn with disgust from him to the superior beauty of man; she might quit him, and he be again alone, exasperated by the fresh provocation of being deserted by one of his own species.” (shelly 166ish
   2. Victor feels the threat of female reproductive powers, which his earlier experiments had sought to subvert. The possibility that his female monster might reproduce moves Victor to destroy her: (Davis 5)
      • “one of the first results of those sympathies for which the daemon thirsted would be children, and a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth, who might make the very existence of the species of man a condition precarious and full of terror. Had I a right, for my own benefit, to inflict this curse upon everlasting generations?” (shelly
   3. Victor desires the company of a man (Shelly 4)
      • “I desire company of a man” àWomen are not meant for the public sphere
   4. Victor equates sexuality and death, but also confuses his fiancé with his mother, showing a dangerous tendency to consolidate the women he knows into one loathsome form. Such are the psychological consequences to him of his efforts to subvert maternal reproductive power. (Davis 6)
      • Find when he has dream of Elizabeth turning into dead mom

1. Other stuff I can put (probably will take out but extra research)
   1. Each of these three digressions dramatizes the compounding of women’s problems by inherited ideas of courtship and women’s roles (davis 13)
   2. They stress the inter- generational transmission of ideas that render women mute and powerless and that subtly corrupt even the best intentioned of the men (davis 13)
   3. women in the interior triptych and the men in the exterior one are also literary legacies (davis 13)
   4. Shelley subverts the exclusivity of the masculine voice, revealing it to be monstrously destructive of men, women, families, and children (davis 16)
   5. systematic exclusion of women’s voices as the three men narrate their tales

• Conclusion
  1. Talk about 3 things in thesis
  2. Shelly uses the failure of men in Frankenstein to encourage the use of the feminine voice in the actual world
  3. Shelly subverting hierarchy by creating awareness

In blog post #1 I quote a primary source, SSTLS. This quote relates to my text because it shows the authors portrayal of the stereotype that Koreans are racist and the quote directly quotes Eunice’s father saying a racist remark. In the post it says “Chung Won Park mentions that Eunice’s father thinks Eunice ‘is probably with black man,’ giving black people a negative connotation.” I have integrated my quotation well into my writing but I think I could have introduced it and explained it better. Another way I could introduce the quote is “Eunice’s father himself remarks that Eunice ‘is probably with black man,’ portraying the stereotype that all Koreans are racist.” This way I have a better introduction. I also have a better explanation because of the quotation sandwich format.

In blog post #6 I quote a Jessica Hales “Constructing Connectedness: Gender, Sexuality and Race in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein,” a secondary source. In my post I state “Hale argues that Robert Walton has a homosocial longing. She backs up this thought with a direct quote from the novel written by Walton, ‘I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine’. Hale analyzes this line and concludes that Walton uses the language of erotic desire to express a longing for a male companion, rather than the longing for a woman.” I have integrated my quotation well into my writing using the quotation sandwich. I have both introduced it well and explained what it meant. This quote relates to my text because it analyzes one of Hale’s arguments in her paper, Robert Walton’s homosocial longing in Frankenstein. Another way of stating this quote could have been “The essence of Hale’s argument is the homosocial longing of Robert Walton. She backs up this thought with a direct quote from the novel written by Walton, ‘I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine’. In other words, Hale believes that Walton uses the language of erotic desire to express a longing for a male companion, rather than the longing for a woman.”

I would like to write about the sublimation of women in Marry Shelly’s Frankenstein. I find it particularly interesting how the portrayal of women passive parallels the role of women in the 19^th century (the time when the novel was written). I would like to further explore Shelly’s possible criticism of this weak role played by women and the dysfunctions of the domestic hierarchy in regards to family structure.

I found a peer reviewed journal by James Davis titled Frankenstein and the Subversion of the Masculine Voice. This article investigates the sublimation of women in the novel. It expands on the concept of misogyny, “their virtual exclusion of female characters and perspectives purposefully enacts in the novel’s form the misogyny that dooms the male characters to failure.” This idea that the exclusion of women is what led men to failure in the novel can be used in my paper to portray Marry Shelly’s criticism of the role of women in the 19^th century. She can be using this failure of men in the book to encourage the use of the feminine voice in the actual world.

The author of this article references a critics claim in the first paragraph of his journal entry. He uses the critics claim to further support his thesis stating in his works cited that “Several studies have been particularly useful in establishing feminist critical.”

http://www.tandfonline.com.proxy.library.emory.edu/doi/pdf/10.1080/00497878.1992.9978946

Jessica Hale’s “Constructing Connectedness: Gender, Sexuality and Race in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein,” examines how the forces of globalization, imperialism and New World slavery have an impact on gender, sexuality and race in Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein. Hale says that the destructive scientific pursuits of Victor Frankenstein show the problems of a world dominated by men. Hale further continues to support her thesis by showing examples of homosocial relationships in Frankenstein. She also explains how Freud’s “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” tie into the novel by using the correlation of body of the monster, sexuality and death. Lastly, Hale talks about how the issues of gender and sexuality portrayed in the novel have a deeper meaning than that pursued by the psychoanalytic theory. Although Frankenstein can be viewed as a portrayal of the nineteenth century society, Hale argues that Frankenstein is “undeniably a critique of Romanticism, colonialism and imperialism as potentially destructive even deadly, paradigms.”

One example of close reading of a passage from Frankenstein is on page 13 of the criticism, where Hale explores the homosocial relationships in the novel. Hale argues that Robert Walton has a homosocial longing. She backs up this thought with a direct quote from the novel written by Walton, “I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine” (4). Hale analyzes this line and concludes that Walton uses the language of erotic desire to express a longing for a male companion, rather than the longing for a woman.

One secondary source used in the criticism is from Schoene-Harwood’s journal entry “Writing Men: Literary Masculinities from Frankenstein to the New Man.” She uses a direct quote from his article to further support her thoughts that Frankenstein portrays Homosocial Relationships. By using a quote from this article she gives more validity to what she is saying.

At first glance I did not know what the psychoanalytic theory was. After looking it up on google I learned that it is a method of investigating personality disorders. It also contains the idea that the things that happen during childhood contribute to the way people function as adults. I learned that these theories can be applied to analyzing literature because they can be used to explore textual meaning in the context of the representation of culture in the present day society of the author.

The popular source I chose is a newsletter on readwrite.com. The article is titled “How Technology Changes Our Relationships” and relates to Super Sad True Love Story because it explores the impact of technology on human relationships. The newsletters argument that society has become obsessed with technology, devaluing face to face relationships and causing a sense of isolation is supported by SSTLS’s portrayal of the change in character when around technology.

The newsletter claims that technology is a glorious tool that that we spend too much time on, either shopping or talking to other people. All this time spent on the internet makes us isolated and when with each other the use of technology makes “people want to be with each other, but also else where.” This impact of technology on human relationships is shown on page 99 of the novel when Eunice arrives to New York for the first time to visit Lenny and Lenny remarks that instead of being solely with him she is “absorbed by her aparat.” The theme of isolation caused by technology is further reinforced in Eunice’s letter to Grill-Bitch on page 144. In the letter Eunice tells Grill-Bitch that things are going very well with Lenny, “but a lot of the times I feel like I’m alone. Like I have nothing to say to him.” At this point in the novel Eunice is living with Lenny, so even though they have a lot of face to face interaction Eunice feels as if she is alone.

In conclusion, the novel and the newsletter agree that technology impacts our personal relationships with others.

http://readwrite.com/2012/03/05/how_technology_changes_our_relationships

Super Sad True Love Story’s most prevalent theme of dystopia revolves around the lack of privacy that comes along with society’s rare manner of using technology to communicate. On page 141, Lenny’s mother mentions to Lenny that Ms. Vida, his neighbor, heard him appear on the stream “101 People We Need to Feel Sorry for.” Lenny, of course, is embarrassed and had previously asked his parents not to look or listen to streams or data about him. The availability and constant broadcasting  character’s every day lives is what I consider disturbing and what characterizes the novels society as dystopic. There is no sense of privacy what so ever.

The image I chose is a person checking their Facebook. This represents the scene on page 141 because people are checking technology to gain insight on what is happening with other peoples lives. The only difference between Facebook and SSTLS’s streams and data is that posting is optional. In the novel, there is pretty much nothing you can do about having your life and opinions constantly broadcasted, invading the privacy of all individuals.