Feedback on a very early draft of your portfolio reflection

Choose a partner, if possible someone you’ve worked with on peer editing one of your essays this semester (if not, that’s okay too). Take about 20 minutes to read their draft reflection and answer the following questions on their draft (questions 1-3) and on your own draft or in your notebook (question 4):

1. What was the most interesting and/or surprising part of this draft reflection? 
2. What did you want to hear more about?
3. List between one and three questions you were left with after reading this draft reflection.
4. Did reading this make you think of anything you want to add to your own reflection? If so, make a note of it in your notebook or on your own draft reflection. 

Choose-one-of-two-essays discussion questions

For the Gelareh Asayesh essay:

1. Asayesh describes the veil she wears to the wake of a family friend as “this curtain of cloth that gives with one hand, takes away with the other.” How would you sum up the things she feels wearing hijab “takes away” from her (and/or women in general), and the things it “gives” her (and/or women in general)? Does each side of this divide seem equally compelling or powerful, given her essay?

2. Discuss whether the ambivalence Asayesh expresses toward wearing hijab is something you related to while reading this essay, and (if so) which aspect(s) of your life made it relatable for you.

For the Barack Obama essay:

1. What surprised you the most about this essay?

2. Obama says “everywhere I go across the country, and around the world, I see people pushing back against dated assumptions about gender roles.” This essay was published about sixteen months ago. Do you think that generalization is more or less true than it was then? How? Or is it both more true and less true? How?

For both essays:

3. Can you imagine writing an essay for publication sometime in the future? The two essays you chose from today are from Vogue and The New York Times, respectively. Can you envision a context where you might publish a personal essay in a similar publication? If not, is there any context where you see yourself writing an essay that an audience larger than a classroom would read? Why and/or why not? Discuss.

Reading for Tuesday, and a poll

Read one of the following essays for class tomorrow, and answer the questions below the essay in your notebook:

“Shrouded in Contradiction” by Gelareh Asayesh

• What new information or perspectives about the Islamic practice of women wearing hijab did this essay give you? 
• Do you relate to the ambivalence Asayesh expresses toward wearing hijab? What in your life makes this relatable for you?
• Consider this as a piece of writing. What is strong about it? Is there anything you would suggest to make it stronger?

“This is What a Feminist Looks Like” by Barack Obama

• What did you expect from this essay, based on the title and author? In what ways did the essay fulfill your expectations, and in what ways did it surprise you?
• Did Obama's definition of and examples of feminism widen or challenge your definition of "feminism"? If so, how? If not, reflect on why your ideas and his might be so in accord.
• Consider this as a piece of writing. What is strong about it? Is there anything you would suggest to make it stronger?

And please take this poll to decide which of the essays below we'll read for class next week:

David Foster Wallace, “Consider the Lobster”

Alyssa Morgan, "Saving a Piece of a FamilyPortrait"

Alex Tizon, "My Family’s Slave"

Dina Nayeri, "My Father, In Four Visits Over ThirtyYears"

Abbey Fenbert, “I Was a Seventh-Grade Book Censor"

Alan Burdick, “The Secret Life of Time”

Kathryn Schulz, “When Things Go Missing”

Rafiq Ebrahim, "Strangers on an 18-Hour Train"

Sarah Vowell audio & thoughts on word choice

If you're interested in listening to the whole audio version of Sarah Vowell's Trail of Tears story, you can find it here at the This American Life website.


And––to follow up on our discussions about short words and zombie nouns––a few choice words regarding word choice:

“Compensation and remuneration say nothing that pay does not say better. Gift is more to the point than donation. Room will beat accommodation every time, as try will defeat endeavor. On the other hand, interface, parameter, viable, finalize and prioritize are typical of the voguish words that mask, rather than reveal, what it is we want to say.”–– Alden S. Wood

“Intermingling Saxon words with Latin ones gives language variety, texture, euphony, and vitality. The best writers match substance with form. They use language precisely, evocatively, even daringly. So we shouldn’t assume that Hemingwayan spartanism is the only desirable mode, unless we’re ready to indict T.S. Eliot, H.L. Mencken, Vladimir Nabokov, John Updike, Edmund Wilson, and many another masterly writer*”––Bryan Garner

(*including plenty of well-known women writers such as Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, Toni Morrison, and Rebecca Solnit)