The purpose of a writing class is to develop a meaningful thesis, direct or implied, that will generate a compelling essay. Most importantly, a meaningful thesis will have a strong emotional connection between you and the material. In fact, if you don’t have a “fire in your belly” to write the paper, your essay will be nothing more than a limp document, a perfunctory exercise in futility. A successful thesis will also be intellectually challenging and afford a complexity worthy of college-level writing. Thirdly, the successful thesis will be demonstrable, which means it can be supported by examples and illustrations in a recognizable organizational design.
Other Website: http://herculodge.typepad.com/
In a 4-page typed essay, support or refute the argument that your matriculation through college, and the major you have chosen (or not), is inextricably entwined with the class status anxieties analyzed in Paul Fussell’s Class. In other words, argue for or against the idea that fear of falling short of America’s status system—a code system that is much more complicated than income level alone—is a significant driving force in your college studies. What evidence is there, or not, that you are beholden to class status codes? What evidence is there, or not, that you have rejected America’s class status script and have carved your own path, so that you love learning for its own sake? Are you an aspiring bourgeois consumer? Are you an “X person”? Explain. Successful essays will show a clear and accurate reading comprehension of Paul Fussell's Class by integrating the book's major principles into your essay. You must have a Works Cited page referring to Class, and two other sources.
Alternative Option:
In a 4-page essay, defend, refute, or complicate Fussell’s assertion that class is not as mobile as the American Dream purports it to be; rather, social class is more fixed like a caste system. Successful essays will show a clear and accurate reading comprehension of Paul Fussell's Class by integrating the book's major principles into your essay. You must have a Works Cited page referring to Class, and two other sources.
One. Why does the middle class aspire to be more upper-middle class than upper or top-out-of-sight?
Because it’s a “familiar and credible fantasy: its usages, while slightly grander than one’s own, are recognizable and compassable, whereas in the higher classes you might be embarrassed by not knowing how to eat caviar or use a finger bowl or discourse in French.”
We can’t aspire to something we can’t imagine even if as an abstraction we know there’s a higher tier of wealth.
Sometimes people can’t fall in love with someone who’s “too beautiful” for the same reason that this “too beautiful” person represents a sort of alien planet that lacks comfort and familiarity.
Another factor that compels the middle class to aspire to the upper-middle-class is that the UMC dress codes, car acquisitions (Mercedes), and timepiece choices (Rolex) are synonymous with Success.
Wanting to look UMC also compels the middle class to aspire to UMC body types and UMC gestures and body language.
The code for UMC body language is polite superciliousness, arch assuredness, confident mindfulness, and calm self-possession. Additionally, the UMC have “controlled precise movements.” They don’t swing their arms when they walk.
Two. How does one’s zip code or American location define one’s class?
Living in a UMC town compels one to find an elite part of the coast, especially in the North East.
Also an absence of fast food franchises, religious fundamentalist churches, and bowling alleys in one’s town evidences that one lives in an UMC zip code.
UMC people never live in towns where there are churches featuring people “speaking in tongues” or doing “healings” in which the afflicted stand up from their wheelchairs. Such “miracles” happen in lower class zip codes.
Miracle zones are places where there is desperation and a lack of education that compel their inhabitants to seek “miracles” rather than viable ways of achieving self-empowerment.
An UMC person will not see a “holy image” in one’s oatmeal or peanut butter toast and then try to sell such image on eBay.
Another sign of a UMC town is that you won’t be able to find copies of the National Enquirer and similar tabloids in the local markets.
Three. What is Fussell’s collective psychological analysis of the middle class?
He writes, “The middle class is distinguishable more by its earnestness and psychic insecurity than by its middle income.”
We can infer, then, that being middle class is more of a mentality than it is an economic level.
A digression: When we use middle class as a noun, there is no hyphen; however, when we use the term middle class as an adjective, that is to modify a noun, we hyphenate.
Examples
I am a member of the middle class.
She has middle-class aspirations.
Back to Fussell:
Fussell writes the middle class mentality can by characterized by the following:
They are terrified about how people will judge them, so they are very image conscious.
They are “obsessed with doing everything right.”
They are obsessed with table manners and general dining etiquette.
They are obsessed with “offending” others, thus are avid consumers of deodorants, mouthwashes, nose and ear hair clippers, dandruff shampoo, "plush" toilet paper, and pretentious toiletries such as balms, unguents, lotions, and salves, suggesting the use of an old-fashioned apothecary.
They suffer from “status anxieties” and become sycophantic whenever they are in the presence of “important people” with grand titles such as doctor.
Wanting the sycophantism of the middle class, many professionals seek the “doctor” designation, including those who are not physicians. Dentists, professors, chiropractors, and religious divinity commonly use “doctor” to elevate their status in the presence of the middle class.
The middle class suffer from “status panic,” an affliction that comes from the obsession that they are constantly being judged under a watchful eye of some collective middle class.
The middle class loves pretentiousness such as sending invitations with curly cues and rococo designs and writing that screams “Anglophile” aspirations: “In honour [using British spelling] of our daughter we are delighted to request the pleasure of your company for our daughter’s graduation . . .”
Because the middle class is eager to conform to corporate culture, they “grow passive, their humanity diminished as they perceive themselves mere parts of an infinitely larger structure.” They know deep down they are interchangeable parts of a machine.
Because the middle class is treated like an interchangeable slave and knows they are tiny in the big corporate scheme of things, they compensate their inner sense of smallness with grand displays. We read, “the middle class lusts for the illusion of weight and consequence. One sign is their quest for heraldic validation . . .” We see such examples as embossed certificates of excellence, monogrammed bathrobes and towels, slippers, personalized license plates, and other tawdry signs of “personal distinction.”
More than any class, the middle class has the strongest inclination to be snobs. We read, “Worried a lot about their own taste and about whether it’s working for or against them, members of the middle class try to arrest their natural tendency to sink downward by associating themselves, if ever so tenuously, with the imagined possessors of money, power, and taste. ‘Correctness’ and doing the right thing become obsessions, prompting middle-class people to write thank-you notes after the most ordinary dinner parties, give excessively expensive or correct presents, and never allude to any place . . . that lacks known class.”
Longing to be seen as an “elite,” the middle class are fond of memberships to clubs, guilds, associations, and other entities that require “special invitation” and “exclusive membership.” Of course, such longs contribute to their snobbery, the flip side of sycophantism.
Another way to enjoy membership to an exclusive club is to buy high status purchases like Mercedes and Rolex.
The middle class is fond of business clichés like “the bottom line” and “at the end of the day” and “think outside the box.”
Four. What pastime unites men in the United States regardless of their social class?
Sports, games, and competitions of various sorts bring American men together. There is something about a defining manliness in the realm of sports that all men can agree upon. And there is something alluring to men about living vicariously through their sports heroes.
Five. How do economics affect body weight?
The richer we are, the skinnier we tend to be. The poorer we are, the more obese we tend to be. Being poor creates stress, which creates a “fat hormone response.”
Six. Why do proletariats tend to wear clothes with trademarks?
Fussell writes, “By wearing a garment reading SPORTS ILLUSTRATED or GATORADE or LESTER LANIN, the prole associates himself with an enterprise the world judges successful, and thus, for a the moment, he achieves some importance.”
I would argue that the middle class engages in the same kind of “identity branding”:
A Mini Cooper is “hipster.”
An Apple computer is both “hipster” and “creative class.”
A keychain with Porsche or BMW means “player.”
Seven. What are the characteristics of upper class fashion?
They wear expensive clothes, but rarely buy new ones, preferring to wear old high quality clothing.
They avoid being too neat and almost appear to be in a state of “studied casualness.”
Muscular men don’t look good in suits so it’s hard for a muscular man to look high class. A muscular man in a suit looks like a retired athlete, bouncer, cop, military, tough guy, mobster, etc.
Being thin in a good suit is a sign of being high class.
There are many superficial cues that point to high or low class. We have become obsessed with making sure we have the “right cues.”
Is the Dream of Class Mobility a Myth?
Class mobility may be a mythology in America that results from "The More Factor."
One. In a 4-page typed essay, support or refute the argument that your matriculation through college, and the major you have chosen (or not), is inextricably entwined with the class status anxieties analyzed in Paul Fussell’s Class. In other words, argue for or against the idea that fear of falling short of America’s status system—a code system that is much more complicated than income level alone—is a significant driving force in your college studies. What evidence is there, or not, that you are beholden to class status codes? What evidence is there, or not, that you have rejected America’s class status script and have carved your own path, so that you love learning for its own sake? Are you an aspiring bourgeois consumer? Are you an “X person”? Explain. Successful essays will show a clear and accurate reading comprehension of Paul Fussell's Class by integrating the book's major principles into your essay. You must have a Works Cited page referring to Class, and two other sources.
Alternative Option:
Two. In a 4-page essay, defend, refute, or complicate Fussell’s assertion that class is not as mobile as the American Dream purports it to be; rather, social class is more fixed like a caste system. Successful essays will show a clear and accurate reading comprehension of Paul Fussell's Class by integrating the book's major principles into your essay. You must have a Works Cited page referring to Class, and two other sources.
Alternative Option:
Three. Using bell hooks' essay "Learning in the Shadow of Race and Class" (Acting Out Culture, pages 287-295), develop a cause and effect analysis thesis that supports Fussell's contention that ascending the class ladder results in colossal psychological upheaval and speaks to the hyper-competition that defines the American Dream.
Alternative Option:
Four. Develop an analytical thesis about the way class plays in the African American community or another ethnic group. How do race, culture, and history contribute to the unique attitudes minorities attach to the codes of social class?
Introduction: Defining Class
When we talk about class, we're not really talking about earning power as a sign of upward class mobility. Earning power is part of class, but is actually only a small part of it.
Another idea of class in America is the idea of mobility and ascent. When we climb the ladder, we use the term arriviste or upstart to describe someone who has gone from "rags to riches."
Part of the American Dream of upward class mobility is going to college and getting a bachelor's degree. Americans see college as a ticket to moving from a lower class to a higher class. We find, though, that less than 14% community college students transfer to college and get a bachelor's. Therefore, this American Dream is not as "easy pickings" as we'd often like to believe. The American Dream is hardly the low hanging fruit that's free for the taking like it was post World War II through the late 1970s for privileged white people.
Getting to the Heart of Social Class: Perception and Identity
Aside from going up the economic ladder and defining class in sheer numbers, social class is more about identity and the way others perceive us in terms of our rank or status.
So what we are really talking about is a particular type of American class status, the ranking system that exists uniquely in America. How people perceive us in the American ranking system, and how we perceive ourselves, defines our class.
We are dependent on validation and often addicted to flattery, so we rely on status cues or status symbols to receive the validation and flattery we crave.
Material possessions often point to this flattery. For example, a "Platinum" or "Limited" edition car makes us feel special, better, and privileged. And we want others to see this special designation on our car's nameplate.
Social Class and the Shame Factor
Mythology feeds a lot of our ideas about social class. For example, the rich, according to mythology, are rich because of their superior character. They got rich because they were disciplined, hard-working, and willing to sacrifice.
Poor people are poor, the mythology goes, because of bad character such as laziness and bad choices.
In other words, we attribute virtue to the rich and exact shame on those who lack earning power. For example, some schools give "shame sandwiches" to students who are behind in their payments.
To be judged as poor is equivalent to being consigned to the hell of ostracism, shame, and stigmatization. Poverty is not just a monetary state but a psychological state as well.
Class Privilege, Whiteness, and the Uppity Factor
During times of slavery and Jim Crow, the United States was racially segregated. Therefore, for many years the idea of social class was based on "whiteness" or white privilege. Aspiring to "be white," that is molding oneself on stereotypes of "desirable white behaviors," for many decades was a sign of class. This thing we call whiteness has a certain pretentiousness, hauteur, grandiosity, superciliousness, privilege and entitlement in creating this aura of being "uppity" and "bourgie," a truncated version of the word bourgeoisie and pronounced boo-zhee.
To be uppity and pretentious was to study the body language and linguistic codes of white privilege.
To be uppity, a person of white privilege did not only disdain people of different ethnicities and races. The white uppity snob also scorned uneducated white people, who were deemed "peasants" or docile sheep or "trailer trash."
Class Continues to Flourish Even in the Aftermath of Jim Crow
Thankfully, there are huge swaths in America today where racism and Jim Crow are correctly deemed low class, ignorant and morally abominable. However, even in these forward thinking educated areas of America, class status not only persists but flourishes.
Americans of all races are obsessed with the codes that make up social class, the hierarchy or ranking system by which we judge our fellow Americans. Knowingly or not, we use a set of codes to ascribe class rank on others and ourselves.
The 6 Class Codes
The six major class codes that rank us in America's hierarchy system are the following:
One. Your zip code:
According to Fussell, the higher the concentration of bowling alleys in a zip code, the lower the class ranking. Another sign of low social ranking is a zip code in which daycare centers are ten feet away from "gentleman's clubs."
Two. Your education rank:
Your education is evidenced by not only your diploma but your body language, speech cadence and inflection, vocabulary, your sphere of travel, and your grasp of irony.
Education is also evidenced by speaking many languages, being well traveled, and showing exceptional talent in the arts such as music, painting, and writing.
Three. Your professional designation:
Terms such as blue-collar ascribe working or lower class. White-collar ascribes upper or middle class. One of the highest classes is the creative class, a term popularized by writer Richard Florida. Creating software and computer apps or being a professor at a prestigious university are examples of the creative class. Working in the arts, media, and design are other examples.
Four. Your tastes in art, music, entertainment, fashion, transportation, and leisure:
Class is more than earning power. It is revealed in our tastes. Are our tastes cultivated, current, and educated, and nuanced? Or are they tacky? Tacky is a word associated with low class. Other similar words to describe low class taste are crass, gauche, gaudy, uncouth, unctuous, vulgar, tawdry, and if you want to show off your education, you can use the Russian word poshlost, which means vulgar banality or something that is produced with huge effort to show off but is grotesque and without imagination or humanity. Some people have used the word poshlost to describe vulgar people who define themselves only by their material possessions. Such people are also called philistines.
Five. Your use of language:
Your vocabulary, cadence, inflection, intonation, lilt, and accent (not necessarily dependent on going to college; you could be autodidactic) are all part of linguistic code you use that determines your social class. Casually using words like interstitial, hauteur, verisimilitude, sycophantic, and synecdoche evidences someone of an educated and therefore higher class.
Six. Your grasp of irony:
Irony is the wry, sly, and sometimes sarcastic orientation of the educated cosmopolitan, the person who is a connoisseur of life's absurdities, contradictions, and ironic reversals. As a connoisseur of irony, the high-class cosmopolitan is not shocked by life's absurdities, but greets them with an expected sly grin.
Connoisseurs of irony are also experts at subtle self-deprecation, which gives the implicit message that they are too intelligent to take vanity and self-aggrandizement seriously even though their constant self-deprecation can often be an earnest attempt at being morally superior to those who don't efface themselves with equal rigor.
Conclusion
Where you live, what degree of education you have, what kind of job you have, how you dress, and entertain yourself, and how you speak all are part of the class code by which our fellow Americans judge and rank us according to the hierarchy system.
Study Questions from Paul Fussell's Class
One. Why is the subject of economic-social class so sensitive for Americans?
We too often lack other ways to define ourselves. Our social class, a mix of income and tastes (personal interests, hobbies, and consumer goods), defines us more than anything.
We define ourselves, consciously or unconsciously, by our money, job, trophies, and other consumer goods that cumulatively create our image of class to others in society.
How others perceive our social class affects how validated or esteemed we are, or not. It is human nature to seek validation, and we find this through social class.
Class Insecurity in a Hyper-Competitive America
In the 1980s, America, it is agreed by all economists, became hyper-competitive. Real wages fell, and both parents had to work, creating "latchkey kids." Money started siphoning to the 1% and today the problem is worse than ever.
The idea of class is made worse in an age where the number-one issue perhaps in politics and cultural life is class warfare between the 1 Percent and the Rest of Us.
The sensitivity is further reinforced by the manner in which class status speaks to America's hyper-competitive nature. Already, preschoolers are trying to get an edge for kindergarten. Elementary school students are cramming for SATs. High school students are already volunteering for outstanding citizen projects to put on their resume.
Many parents micromanage their every child's movement in time to insure maximum productivity toward the goal of competing in the Darwinian marketplace.
Millennials and Hyper-Competition
Millennials may provide a turning point in this hyper-competition. Unable to buy a house or even pay off their student loans, they may be creating new ways to define themselves based on empathy and cooperation. From this point of view, Fussell's book may be in part outdated.
With a shrinking middle class and a war—both explicit and implicit—on the poor, the idea of class has never been more volatile.
Need for Human Belonging and Being a Member of the Club
Our class standing is also sensitive because Americans use class standing as a primary way of judging others and deciding to accept people into "their pack."
Social Class and American Myth of Equality
And yet another problem of discussing class is that the very idea of class clashes with the American mythology that we are all equal in a democracy that gives everyone "an even playing field."
Looking at stagnant wages, unaffordable housing, a shrinking middle class, the health care crisis, the education crisis in the inner cities, mass incarceration of the poor, the cost of higher education, and the shrinking of desirable jobs and we have a very sensitive issue on our hands when it comes to talking about class.
Social Class and Materialism
A very unsophisticated and low-class way of perceiving class is by judging other people based on their material possessions.
Imagine how people judge us in our cars, which are like a reliable ranking system in class-obsessed America. Notice how Mercedes is the apotheosis (ultimate) in perceived success. Notice how Rolex means “you’ve made it to the top, baby.”
Notice the humility required to drive a Corolla as one works in the pizza delivery service.
Imagine the embarrassment some might feel pulling up to the valet at Cheesecake Factory in their Corolla while they notice all the other cars are of a Teutonic origin and smack of unapologetic opulence and luxury.
The Fearful Middle Class
According to Fussell, the class most inclined to get anxious, "testy or irascible" in the presence of a social class discussion is the middle class or the bourgeois. They feel most vulnerable because they are in a class that is most fluid: They can move up or down.
In contrast, the upper class, often fueled by old money, feels secure in their class status and the proletariat or working class “know they can do little to alter their class identity" because we can infer from Fussell that being low class often results in learned helplessness and a sense of futility.
The two class extremes are more fatalistic while the middle class feels they have a choice in the matter.
Further, we read that proletariats or lower classes have contempt for class aspirations. As Fussell writes, “Thus the whole class matter is likely to seem like a joke to them—the upper classes fatuous in their empty aristocratic pretentiousness, the middles loathsome in their anxious gentility. "The hell with the rich and the suburbanites. I'm happy with my low-class station in life."
Two. How do the different classes define class differently?
Proletariats, the working class, define class by how much money you make. Sheer materialism is the basis of their class ranking system. They could care less about your vocabulary, manner of speech, education level, taste in clothes and music. It's all about the money.
The middle class says class is a combination of money, education, job type, and manners. The middle class wants to be part of "polite society."
The upper class says class is a matter of refined tastes, aesthetics, insouciant style, and adhering to the rich’s secret codes of conduct (which Fussell will elaborate on later). But for now let us be content to say a truly rich person would never refer to a limousine as a “limo” or even a limousine. Rather, he would say, “The car is here.”
Three. What forces in the digital age bridge the gap between the classes and made some of Fussell's points outdated?
Anyone can have an opinion posted on a blog.
Anyone can post videos on a YouTube channel.
Anyone can engage in self-promotion with the various social media vehicles.
Anyone can “go viral,” which has become a universal metric in judging our relevance.
People of various economic stratums have top-tier smartphones.
In the digital age, job outsourcing has become so great that politicians and media people rarely use the term “middle class” anymore. Now they speak about “average Americans,” suggesting class divisions have changed to Us and The 1%.
Four. Why is social class as an implicit ranking force so prevalent in America?
Fussell writes that in America “we lack a convenient system of inherited titles, ranks, and honors, and each generation has to define the hierarchies all over again.”
How many hits and likes your social media platforms receive could be today’s defined hierarchy of relevance and social esteem.
We create these hierarchical systems, Fussell points out, because it is in our human nature to seek the esteem and admiration of others.
Further, Fussell observes that hell is being neglected or held in contempt. Being seen as irrelevant, not being validated, these are the punishments for being at the bottom of the ranking system. These are the hells to be avoided at all costs.
In a society that sees itself as democratic, we disappear. And by disappearing, we long to reappear by finding distinction.
Distinction is the tool for ascending the class hierarchy.
But a lot of attempts at distinction come across as misguided, needy, even desperate.
Too many selfies, too many Facebook posts, too much self-promotion, and we look desperate to use others to fill up our empty vessels.
Five. What is the dark side of social class in America?
As we see those laughing and gloating above us in their higher classes, those of us looking upward from our lower position, are afflicted with the curse of envy, the rancor and resentment that comes from perceiving others as enjoying life more than we do. They’ve had more than their fair share, and we’ve been short-changed.
Bitterness and rancor ensue.
This bitterness is intensified when we’ve been told that the American Dream affords us social mobility when in fact social mobility is too often the exception and not the rule.
We now know that economics is the number-one factor in determining one’s body weight. Skinny people are conspicuously rich. The obese are conspicuously lower on the economic rung.
The visible divide reinforces class envy.
Another conspicuous class divide is the legal system. People with money go to rehab for drug crimes while the poor go straight to federal prison, and now degraded to felon status, they lose their privileges as American citizens.
America likes to paint the myth of democracy and a “Classless” America, but we very much indeed tied up in the divisions of economic and social class.
Six. How does Fussell define “class”?
Class is a status system based on money, social prestige, and political power.
The class lines are “rigid” and suggest a caste system, Fussell argues.
There are different ways Fussell would divide the classes: “rich and poor; employer and employed, landlord and tenant, bourgeois and proletariat.”
There are gentlemen and there are cads, he writes.
You are either couth or uncouth (uncivilized, uncultured).
There are homeowners and renters.
Fussell explores the possibility of 3 classes: upper, middle, lower.
However, he resolves that there are in fact 9 in the United States of America:
Top out-of-sight
Upper
Upper middle
Middle
High proletarian
Mid-proletarian
Low proletarian
Destitute
Bottom out-of-sight
These nine address the social differences more than the economic ones.
Seven. For Fussell, being rich is no guarantee of being high class. Explain.
Fussell shows more than implicit contempt for the rich when they engage in the following:
People engage in vulgar displays of self-aggrandizement through their accumulation of things.
People with no self-awareness conform to all the clichés of “having made it.”
People rub your nose into their conspicuous consumption.
People define themselves solely by their material wealth and possessions. Such people are called philistines, a very disparaging term.
People rely on their wealth to define their “greatness” while they allow themselves to become humorless, mediocre, and complacent.
Because of their wealth, some people feel entitled to control and bully others who are “less” than they are.
Such people in Fussell’s view (and I agree) are petty, vulgar, narcissistic, small-souled, low-class philistines.
Eight. Why do we know so little of the top class, the out-of-sight rich?
They are literally out-of-sight. They live in stealth. They don’t want to be seen since their privileges are best maintained without rousing the lower classes.
Because we rarely see them, we are unaware of their codes, language, clothing, travel, and even spending habits. Yes, we can generalize that their spending habits are extravagant, but we don’t know how specifically extravagant they are.
Nine. What do the super rich and the super poor have in common?
Both exist in invisible mode. We don’t see them.
Both receive money without working. The rich get rich from stock dividends, interest, and inheritance. The poor get handouts.
Since neither extreme works for their money, they are both rather unemployable.
Ten. What are the distinguishing characteristics of the middle class?
They are inclined to pay each other compliments as a way of reinforcing middle-class standards, values, and aesthetics.
They are the most insecure of all the classes because they constantly fear they may fail in their middle-class performance and go down the social class elevator.
They are obsessed with manners, modesty, and etiquette so as to be perceived as “classy” and “good role models for the community.” For example, a domestic argument wouldn’t hit high decibels; in contrast, a working-class or proletarian argument can escalate into an ear-piercing maelstrom or ruckus.
They are eager to conform to society’s scripts for what constitutes a “decent family” and “achieving the American Dream.”
This course is designed to strengthen the students’ ability to read with understanding and discernment, to discuss assigned readings intelligently, and to write clearly. Emphasis will be on writing essays in which each paragraph relates to a controlling idea, has an introduction and a conclusion, and contains primary and secondary support. College-level reading material will be assigned to provide the stimulus for class discussion and writing assignments, including a required research paper.
Course Objectives:
Recognize and revise sentence-level grammar and usage errors.
Read and apply critical-thinking skills to numerous published articles and to college-level, book-length works for the purpose of writing and discussion.
Apply appropriate strategies in the writing process including prewriting, composing, revising, and editing techniques.
Compose multi-paragraph, thesis-driven essays with logical and appropriate supporting ideas, and with unity and coherence.
Demonstrate ability to locate and utilize a variety of academic databases, peer-reviewed journals, and scholarly websites.
Utilize MLA guidelines to format essays, cite sources in the texts of essays, and compile Works Cited lists.
Student Learning Outcomes:
Upon completion of this course, students will:
1. Complete a research-based essay that has been written out of class and undergone revision. It should demonstrate the student’s ability to thoughtfully support a single thesis using analysis and synthesis.
2. Integrate multiple sources, including a book-length work and a variety of academic databases, peer-reviewed journals, and scholarly websites. Citations must be in MLA format and include a Works Cited page.
3. Demonstrate logical paragraph composition and sentence structure. The essay should have correct grammar, spelling, and word use.
Students with Disabilities:
It is the policy of the El Camino Community College District to encourage full inclusion of people with disabilities in all programs and services. Students with disabilities who believe they may need accommodations in this class should contact the campus Special Resource Center (310) 660-3295, as soon as possible. This will ensure that students are able to fully participate.
Academic Honesty and Plagiarism:
El Camino College places a high value on the integrity of its student scholars. When an instructor determines that there is evidence of dishonesty in any academic work (including, but not limited to cheating, plagiarism, or theft of exam materials), disciplinary action appropriate to the misconduct as defined in BP 5500 may be taken. A failing grade on an assignment in which academic dishonesty has occurred and suspension from class are among the disciplinary actions for academic dishonesty (AP 5520). Students with any questions about the Academic Honesty or discipline policies are encouraged to speak with their instructor in advance.
Attendance Policy: Students are expected to attend their classes regularly. Students who miss the first class meeting or who are not in regular attendance during the add period for the class may be dropped by the instructor. Students whose absences from a class exceed 10% of the scheduled class meeting times may be dropped by the instructor. However, students are responsible for dropping a class within the deadlines published in the class schedule. Students who stop attending but do not drop may receive a failing grade.
Student Resources:
Reading Success Center (East Library Basement E-36) Software and tutors are available for vocabulary development & reading comprehension.
Library Media Technology Center - LMTC (East Library Basement) Computers are available for free use. Bring your student ID # & flash drive. There’s a charge for printing.
Writing Center (H122) Computers are available for free use. Free tutoring is available for writing assignments, grammar, and vocabulary. Bring your student ID & flash drive to save work. Printing is NOT available.
Learning Resource Center - LRC (West Wing of the Library, 2nd floor) The LRC Tutorial Program offers free drop-in tutoring. For the tutoring schedule, go to www.elcamino.edu/library/lrc/tutoring .The LRC also offers individualized computer adaptive programs to help build your reading comprehension skills.
Student Health Center (Next to the Pool) The Health Center offers free medical and psychological services as well as free workshops on topics like “test anxiety.” Low cost medical testing is also available.
Special Resource Center – SRC (Southwest Wing of Student Services Building)
The SRC provides free disability services, including interpreters, testing accommodations, counseling, and adaptive computer technology.
Books You Need to Buy for This Class
Book One: Class: A Guide Through the American Status System, by Paul Fussell
Book Two: Acting Out Culture, 3rd edition, edited by James S. Miller
Book Three: Rules for Writers, 8th edition by Diana Hacker
Other Materials You Need: 3 large size blue books for in-class exams
Total Words Written in Semester:8,000
Three In-Class Essays, 500 words, 75 points each, 225 points total
Essay 1 from Acting Out Culture is 1,000 words
Essay 2 from Acting Out Culture is 1,000 words (we’ll discuss options during lectures)
Essay 3 from Acting Out Culture is 1,000 words (we’ll discuss options during lectures)
Essay 4 Class: A Guide Through the American Status System is 1,000 words
Peer Edit Rough Draft for Final is the essay's first 1,000 words (of 1,500)Failure to bring the rough draft to peer edit class day results in 25-point deduction from essay.
Essay 5: Final Argumentative, 1,500-Word Research PaperBased on Chapter 4 “How We Learn” from Acting Out Culture (approx. 5 pages) 150 points
Attendance
Gold Standard: You miss one class or less; you are tardy once or less, and you show up to class prepared to discuss the readings because you are keeping up with the readings. 50 points.
Silver Standard: You miss two classes; you are tardy once or less, and you show up to class and show evidence of keeping up with the readings. 40 points.
Bronze Standard: You miss three classes; you are tardy once or less, and you show up to class and show evidence of keeping up with the readings. 30 points.
Students who miss more than 3 classes and/or consistently show up to class without doing the reading get ZERO attendance points.
Grand Point Total: 825
Late papers reduced a full grade. No late papers accepted a week past due date.
You Must Use turnitin to submit essay and bring hard copy on due date
Each essay must be submitted to www.turnitin.com where it will be checked for illegal copying/plagiarism. I cannot give credit for an essay that is not submitted to this site by the deadline.
The process is very simple; if you need help, detailed instructions are available at http://turnitin.com/en_us/training/student-training/student-quickstart-guide
You will need two pieces of information to use the site:
Class ID and Enrollment Password, which I will give you first week of class
Classroom Decorum: No smart phones can be used in class. If you’re on your smart phone and I catch you, you get a warning the first time. Second time, you must leave the class and lose 25 points. Third time, you must leave the class and lose 50 points. The above also applies to talking and doing homework from other classes.
Essays 1-3 will be based on options discussed in class.
Essay 4 based on Class by Paul Fussell
In a 4-page typed essay, support or refute the argument that your matriculation through college, and the major you have chosen (or not), is inextricably entwined with the class status anxieties analyzed in Paul Fussell’s Class. In other words, argue for or against the idea that fear of falling short of America’s status system—a code system that is much more complicated than income level alone—is a significant driving force in your college studies. What evidence is there, or not, that you are beholden to class status codes? What evidence is there, or not, that you have rejected America’s class status script and have carved your own path, so that you love learning for its own sake? Are you an aspiring bourgeois consumer? Are you an “X person”? Explain. Successful essays will show a clear and accurate reading comprehension of Paul Fussell's Class by integrating the book's major principles into your essay. You must have a Works Cited page referring to Class, and two other sources.
Alternative Option:
In a 4-page essay, defend, refute, or complicate Fussell’s assertion that class is not as mobile as the American Dream purports it to be; rather, social class is more fixed like a caste system. Successful essays will show a clear and accurate reading comprehension of Paul Fussell's Class by integrating the book's major principles into your essay. You must have a Works Cited page referring to Class, and two other sources.
Essay 5, Your Final Research Paper: Chapter 4 “How We Learn” from Acting Out Culture (Choose One Below)
First Option
In a 5-page essay, not including Works Cited page, support, refute, or complicate the argument that the assigned selections from Chapter 4 evidence that American education is more about protecting private business interests, maintaining class bias, and asserting mass control than it is about promoting real empowerment such as critical thinking, independence, and freedom.
Second Option
In a 5-page essay, not including Works Cited page, support, refute, or complicate Alfie Kohn’s argument from “Degrading to De-grading” that the American grading system is a travesty of education that kills learning, compromises teaching, and entails other kinds of abuses.
Your guidelines for your Final Research Paper are as follows:
This research paper should present a thesis that is specific, manageable, provable, and contestable—in other words, the thesis should offer a clear position, stand, or opinion that will be proven with research.
You should analyze and prove your thesis using examples and quotes from a variety of sources.
You need to research and cite from at least five sources. You must use at least 3 different types of sources.
At least one source must be from an ECC library database.
At least one source must be a book, anthology or textbook.
At least one source must be from a credible website, appropriate for academic use.
The paper should not over-rely on one main source for most of the information. Rather, it should use multiple sources and synthesize the information found in them.
This paper will be approximately 5-7 pages in length, not including the Works Cited page, which is also required. This means at least 5 full pages of text. The Works Cited page does NOT count towards length requirement.
You must use MLA format for the document, in-text citations, and Works Cited page.
You must integrate quotations and paraphrases using signal phrases and analysis or commentary.
You must sustain your argument, use transitions effectively, and use correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
Your paper must be logically organized and focused.
1-25 Acting Out Culture selections from 1-25 to 3-21: “Markets and Morals 40-49” and “Our Baby, Her Womb”418-430 ; writing your thesis, fragments
1-27 In-Class Essay of 500 words in bluebook for 75 points.
2-1 “How the Poor Are Made to Pay for Their Poverty” 380-385 and “Why I Make Terrible Decisions” online essay by Linda Tirado; paragraphs and PEEL method, MLA in-text citations, comma splices
2-3 Typed Essay 1 Due. “People Like Us” 62-67; types of thesis; pronoun errors
2-8 “The Great White Way” 68-70; “Flip Side of Internet Fame” 90-92; Top 20 Writing Errors
2-10 “Unspeakable Conversations” 96-112; Methods of Introductions and Conclusions
2-15 Holiday
2-17 “Green Guilt” 25-30; “Understanding Black Patriotism” 52-55; importance of brainstorming, dangling modifiers
2-22 “How Companies Learn Your Secrets” 134-149; signal phrases, PEEL paragraphs, clauses and phrases
2-29 “Wages of Sin” and “Eat Cake, Subtract Self-Esteem” 181-202; essential and nonessential clauses
3-2 “Is Anorexia a Cultural Disease” online essay by Carrie Arnold; “The Repugnant Myth of the Poor’s Unhealthy Eating Habits” online essay by Kali Holloway; “Obesity-Hunger Paradox” 219-222; subordination and coordination
3-7 “The Quagmire of Social Media Friendships” 444-448; “The Flight from Conversation” online essay by Sherry Turkle; mixed sentence structure, appositives
3-9 “The Empathy Deficit”; “Sherry Turkle’s ‘Reclaiming Conversation’” online book review by Jonathan Franzen; 464-469; possessive case
3-21 “The Touch-Screen Generation” 484-499; comma rules
3-23 TypedEssay 3 due; Paul Fussell’s Class 15-23; review grammar errors
3-28 Paul Fussell’s Class 24-75; who and whom
3-30 Paul Fussell’s Class 76-127; subject-verb agreement
4-4 Paul Fussell’s Class 128-188; passive and active verbs
4-6 In-Class Essay 2 for 75 points
4-11 TypedEssay 4 due; Acting Out Culture “From Degrading to De-Grading” 238-249; argumentative thesis and the dialectical method; beginning your research
4-13 Acting Out Culture “Everything You’ve Heard About Failing Schools Is Wrong” 252-270; writing a draft, invention, prewriting, research, planning, and composing; finding database sources
4-18 Acting Out Culture “Against School” 271-279”; evaluating sources; constructing arguments and effective thesis statements
4-20 Acting Out Culture; “Learning in the Shadow of Race and Class” 287-295; annotating, summarizing, and paraphrasing sources; framing the debate in your introduction
4-25 Acting Out Culture; “Blue-Collar Brilliance” 280-286; integrating sources into your research paper; using signal phrases
4-27 Acting Out Culture “Preparing Minds for Markets” 301-314; documenting sources in MLA format; revising
5-2 Acting Out Culture Chapter 6 Review; research paper checklist; Works Cited format; revise thesis statements in class
5-4 In-class writing exam #3 based on Acting Out Culture, Chapter 6
5-9 Peer Edit: Your first 1,000 words of Final Essay Due; evaluating database sources
Parallelism’s importance is most apparent when looking at mapping components in a thesis. We want those components to be written in parallel form whether we’re referring to a list of phrases or clauses.
Faulty Parallelism Example
Marijuana should be legalized because it’s safer than alcohol and many pharmaceutical drugs, its medicinal properties; it’s a fool’s errand to wage a war against it, and keeping it illegal increases criminal activity.
Above we have a mix of clauses and phrases. We should correct it by changing all the mapping components to clauses.
Corrected
Marijuana should be legalized because it’s safer than alcohol and many pharmaceutical drugs; it has medicinal properties; it is too common to waste money in a feeble attempt to eradicate it, and in illegal form it results in too much criminal activity.
We use parallelism in all types of writing.
Faulty
The instructor sometimes indulges in bloviating, pontificating, and likes to self-aggrandize.
We see above two gerunds followed by an infinitive, which is a faulty mix.
Corrected
The instructor sometimes indulges in bloviating, pontificating, and self-aggrandizing.
Using parallelism after a colon
Faulty
Kettlebell exercises work on the major muscle groups: thighs, gluteus, back, and make the shoulder muscles bigger.
Corrected
Kettlebell exercises work on the major muscle groups: thighs, gluteus, back, and shoulders.
“Add Cake, Subtract Self-Esteem” by Caroline Knapp
One. Why is starvation an addiction for Caroline Knapp and perhaps for others?
There are two kinds of people in this world, the laid-back and the high-strung.
The latter have what is called generalized anxiety disorder.
Everything we do is a source of anxiety.
A corn nut lodged in the back seat of our car can cause us insomnia.
When we're always anxious, we seek calm and safety. Too often these retreats into calm and safety become addictions.
Knapp retreats from life--the anxieties she faces in her life--and withdraws into a sense of calm. She feels safe, but she is not living. When we retreat from life to alleviate anxiety, we are engaging in over protection, and as such we choose death over life.
I’m thinking of the woman whose husband left her two days before their planned wedding, and she became a ghost of herself in the aftermath. She became bitter and “undateable.” She become a zombie, a hollow husk, a cipher. She is too afraid to feel and to embrace her full humanity.
Knapp escapes from life with her strict food routine. Her rigid routine makes her feel safe from wanton, self-destructive behavior. Of course, she’s blind from the fact that the rigid routine is a form of self-destruction.
Two. What is the “silent protest” of starvation?
Her starvation becomes a “silent protest” against ridiculous feminine ideals that are forced upon women. Starving both aspired to the ideal and “mocks” it. Kate Moss the waif replaces the Marilyn Monroe the voluptuous one.
Therefore, starvation alleviates the discomfort of “inhabiting the female body.” A real female body has curves and appetites. An anorexic female body has vanished. There is no body, there are no appetites, and there is no personality. The person has vanished.
Three. How is starvation about self-rejection and avoiding judgment?
Starvation is an attempt to invert the food obsession as a positive symbol of nurturing and care-taking; in its place, starvation is about self-rejection and “self-inflicted cruelty.”
Starvation becomes a way of avoiding self-recriminations: “I’m such a hog” for having eaten that chocolate cake. I don’t deserve love. I don't even deserve to live.
I should be sent to my room without supper. God, I hate myself. My only hope for feeling good about myself, therefore, is to starve myself.
We can conclude then that starvation has become a Faustian Bargain, a deal with the Devil, in which women trade eating satisfaction so that they can enjoy self-esteem.
Mastering and controlling one’s appetites becomes a way of feeling empowered. This empowerment becomes a form of compensation for feelings of loneliness, self-doubt, and consuming dread and desperation.
Four. How is starvation a feminist issue, according to Caroline Knapp?
Starvation becomes a way of surrendering to the “backlash” against the rise of feminine power. Women have more earning power and are more successful in college than men.
Starvation is an attempt to withdraw from the overwhelming choices that are part of a woman’s new freedom.
Starvation is a reaction to an unnatural hatred of fat.
I would complicate Knapp’s assertion, however. I would say that starvation, also known as anorexia, is a problem about race and social class. Most anorexics are middle to upper class white women.
The Barbie aesthetic is part of being a member of that catty clique in a lot of upper class white social circles.
I concede that some of the above may be true, but I'm reluctant to see feminism and politics as the main driving forces of anorexia. I tend to agree with those who attribute the disease to anxiety and depression as Carrie Arnold, a former sufferer of anorexia, explains in this excerpt from her book Decoding Anorexia.
McMahon’s Summary on “Add Cake, Subtract Self-Esteem” by Caroline Knapp
Whether they are bingeing or purging, irrational eaters are in a most damnable condition--the state of having no self-control and being helpless and fearful in the face of overwhelming appetites. These inflamed irrational passions are so devastating that binge eaters must tiptoe through life fearing that at any moment they will fall into the abyss of their avarice.
Most irrational eaters, especially the women described by Knapp, suffer shame for several reasons, including a sense of anxiety over the disparity of their new freedoms but limited power; their internalized "theme of vigilance and self-restraint" that often backfires and is counterbalanced by compulsive appetites that eradicate all the "gains" rendered from the meticulous adherence to eating rules; the state of hunger that "becomes divorced from the body" and becomes "loaded with alternative meanings" that have to do with unfulfilled emotional longings; and their knowledge that violating the slender female aesthetic will cause them to be held in tacit contempt by both men and women alike.
This sense of shame and self-loathing becomes exacerbated when obesity is looked at through a religious prism which would have us condemn over-eaters as gluttons, sinners indulging their appetites, reprobates putting their desires before God, miscreants violating our space with their grotesque corpulence.
Scapegoated by society for putting an undue strain on medical costs, despised for taking up our space, an unloved for not inciting the kind of desire that we associate with Kate-Moss slenderness, fat people represent the possibility of human failure and rejection that we fear in ourselves. Thus many of us, overreacting to our fears, develop a myriad of eating disorders so chronic that once ensnared in these irrational eating habits, it is nearly impossible for many of us to free ourselves from them and lead relatively normal lives.
Writing Prompt (202)
For Knapp, cultural attitudes about food formed “a low-level thrumming of should and shouldn’ts and can’ts and wants,” or what the author calls a kind of “feminine Muzak" (189). In your view, does this analogy do a good or bad job of capturing the ways we learn to absorb or internalize cultural norms around eating? Write an essay in which you compare these messages and this process of internalization to what Francine Prose (181) has to say in her piece on gluttony. Does Prose seem to share Knapp’s view of where our norms vis-à-vis food typically come from and the ways they come to feel so normal? How or how not?
What is being internalized?
Obsession with unrealistic images of beauty that result in obsession with self-control
Obsessive link between being thin, or not, with one's identity
Obsessive link between being thin, or not, with one's self-worth
Thesis Against Knapp
While Knapp makes some convincing points about unrealistic body images of women causing some women to develop eating disorders, the real cause of women starving themselves doesn't appear to be political or "patriarchal" ("it's a man's world") but more rooted in behaviors analogous to drug addiction evidenced by ___________________, ___________________, _____________________, and _____________________.
Another Writing Option
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that addresses the claim that Francine Prose and Caroline Knapp are criticizing cultural norms about eating that in truth are not normal at all but pathological and that these norms create a toxic eating environment in our culture.
Brainstorm for Prewriting
Both essays address the way we are a culture obsessed with food.
We tend to binge with food and we tend to purge with food.
We are too extreme regardless if we are bingeing or purging.
We have internalized shame in regards to eating.
We have internalized rules in order to conform to a quasi religious order of what makes us “bad” or “good.”
We internalize these eating rules from the food police and in essence create our own food religion and the result of this religion is a form of control.
This form of control is deceptive. Some of us, like Caroline Knapp and others, can be so obsessed with control that we’re controlled by the need to control.
Obsession with control leads to out of control behavior.
Bingeing leads to purging and purging leads to bingeing. Or in other words, self-denial leads to self-indulgence and self-indulgence leads to self-denial. For example, after a Christmas-New Year’s binge, many start the New Year with a New Year’s resolution of denials.
A lot of internalized food rules, it seems, disproportionately affect Anglo middle and upper class people, so that we might say eating disorders are largely a “first world problem” of the privileged class.
However, being fat is a stigma that affects people of all classes, especially in the workplace.
Being fat is being “a monster,” a drain on society, “Los Otros,” the Other. A fat person is demonized as taking up space and costing us billions in sick costs at work and in hospitals.
Dieters use “religious language,” we read in Prose’s essay (183). “That chocolate cake was sinfully delicious.”
Dieters adopt 12 Step programs and embrace a Higher Power to free themselves from their bondage to eating.
Knapp says we must be austere to austere rules to have a skinny body.
Knapp warns that when we mess with our natural hunger, we go a little crazy or more than just a little: “The more you meddle with a hunger, the more taboo and confusing it will become. Feed the body too little and then too much, feed it erratically, launch that maddening cycle of deprivation and overcompensation, and the sensation of physical hunger itself becomes divorced from the body, food loaded with alternative means: symbol of longing, symbol of constraint, form of torture, form of reward, source of anxiety, source of success, measure of self-worth” (193).
Thesis Attempts
Both Prose and Knapp capture the analogy of strict food rules with unhealthy religious compulsion, which is comprised of ____________, ___________, _____________, and _____________.
The paternalistic food police have used political and cultural forces to create a society of dysfunctional eaters evidenced by ___________, ____________, ___________, and ______________.
Is obesity a sin to be condemned for the obese person's alleged moral flaws or is obesity a disease? Or is obesity more complicated than being categorized as a sin or a disease? Explain in a 4-page essay with 3 sources. You may want to refer to "The Wages of Sin" and "The Obesity-Hunger Paradox" in your book.
37% of people in the Bronx have ran short of funds to buy food. This is the highest in the country and double the national average, 18.5%.
When we run out of food money, we are called "food insecure."
Full service supermarkets are in short supply in inner cities.
Money is in short supply.
When you're food insecure, you try to fill your belly more than find optimal nutrition.
Poor people often work 3 or 4 jobs so they don't have time to prepare eating healthy meals. They "eat on the run."
Repeat of the Prompt
Is obesity a sin to be condemned for the obese person's alleged moral flaws or is obesity a disease? Or is obesity more complicated than being categorized as a sin or a disease? Explain in a 4-page essay with 3 sources. You may want to refer to "The Wages of Sin" and "The Obesity-Hunger Paradox" in your book.
Successful Thesis
A good thesis is a complete sentence that defines your argument.
A good thesis addresses your opponents’ views in a concession clause.
A good thesis often has mapping components or mapping statements that outline your body paragraphs. These mapping components are written in correct parallel structure.
A good thesis avoids the obvious and instead struggles to grapple with difficult and complex ideas. As a result, a good thesis feels fresh and insightful to the point that the writer actually WANTS to write the essay. When your thesis feels stale, you don't want to write your essay; rather, you merely SLOG through it like a dreadful chore.
A good thesis embraces complexity and sophistication but is expressed with clarity.
Class Thesis Statement Exercise
Based on our readings this week, get into groups of two and develop a thesis statement for the above prompt about obesity.
You can't write a prepositional phrase followed by a verb.
Wrong
In the essay, "The Great White Way" by Debra J. Dickerson," makes a persuasive case that race is a canard and social fantasy than reality due to social class, enthnicity, and religion.
Correct
The essay "The Great White Way" by Debra J. Dickerson," makes a persuasive case that race is a canard and social fantasy than reality due to sockal class, enthnicity, and religion.
Wrong
According to the essay "Race in America" can be defended in many ways.
Correct
The essay "Race in America" can be defended in many ways.
McMahon Grammar Exercise: Identifying Phrases, Independent Clauses, and Dependent Clauses
An independent clause has a subject, a verb, and is a complete thought:
My elastic waistband makes me feel older than I am.
My encounter with the great white shark compelled me to quit surfing.
Larding my pizza with hundreds of toppings makes me feel like I'm getting my money's worth.
A dependent clause has a subject, a verb, and is an imcomplete thought because it has what is called a subordinate conjunction or connecting word.
Because my elastic waistband makes me feel old
Although my elastic waistband makes feel old
Whenever I eat triple-sausage pesto pizza
Although I have a fondness for deep purple
A phrase, like a dependent clause, is an incomplete sentence, but a phrase has neither a subject or a verb.
In front of the restaurant plaza by the Italian fountains
In order to understand Viktor Frankl's principle of meaning as the antidote to the existential vacuum
In spite of my fondness for deep purple
Identify the group of words in bold type as phrase, independent clause, or dependent clause.
One. Toward the monster’s palace, we see a white marble fountain jettisoning chocolate fudge all over the other giants.
Two. Before going to school, Gerard likes to make sure he’s packed his chocolate chip cookies and bagels.
Three. Because Jack’s love of eating pizza every night cannot be stopped, he finds his cardio workouts to be rather worthless.
Four. Maria finds the Lexus preferable to the BMW because of the Lexus’ lower repair costs.
Five. Greg does not drive at night because he suffers from poor nocturnal eyesight.
Six. Whenever Greg drives past HomeTown Buffet, he is overcome with depression and nausea.
Seven. People who eat at Cinnabon, according to Louis C.K., always look miserable over their poor life decisions.
Eight. After eating at Cinnabon and HomeTown Buffet, Gary has to eat a bottle of antacids.
Nine. Towards the end of the date, Gary decided to ask Maria if she’d care for another visit to HomeTown Buffet.
Ten. Whenever Maria is in the presence of a gluttonous gentleman, she withdraws into her shell.
Eleven. Greg watched Maria recoil into her shell while biting her nails.
Twelve. Greg watched Maria recoil into her private universe while she bit her nails.
Thirteen. Eating at all-you-can-eat buffets will expand the circumference of your waistline.
Fourteen. Larding your essay with grammatical errors will result in a low grade.
Fifteen. My favorite pastime is larding my essay with grammatical errors.
Sixteen. Larding my body with chocolate chunk peanut butter cookies followed by several gallons of milk, I wondered if I should skip dinner that evening.
Seventeen. After contemplating the benefits of going on a variation of the Paleo diet, I decided I was at peace being a fat man with a strong resemblance to the Pillsbury Dough Boy.
Eighteen. In the 1970s few people would consider eating bugs as their main source of protein although today world-wide food shortages have compelled a far greater percentage of the human race to entertain this unpleasant possibility.
Nineteen. Because of increased shortages in worldwide animal protein, more and more people are looking to crickets, grasshoppers, and grubs as possible complete protein amino acid alternatives.
Twenty. The percentage of people getting married in recent years has significantly declined as an economic malaise has deflated confidence in the viability of sustaining a long-term marriage.
Twenty-one. Before you decide to marry someone, consider two things: your temperament and your economic prospects.
Twenty-two. To understand the pitfalls of getting married prematurely is to embark on the road to greater wisdom.
Twenty-three. To know me is to love me.
Twenty-four. To languish in the malignant juices of self-pity after breaking up with your girlfriend is to fall down the rabbit hole of moral dissolution and narcissism.
Twenty-five. Having considered the inevitable disappointment of being rich, I decided not to rob a bank.
Twenty-six. Watching TV on a sticky vinyl sofa all day, I noticed I was developing bedsores.
Twenty-seven. While I watched TV for twenty consecutive hours, I began to wonder if life was passing me by.
Twenty-eight. Under the bridge where a swarm of mosquitos gathered, the giant belched.
All Your Essay Options for Third Typed Essay Due 10-21-15
One. In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, support, refute, or complicate Kristof's argument in "Prudence Or Cruelty?" that in spite of the food stamp abuses cited by opponents of the food stamp program, providing food stamps for the poor is moral and economic imperative over the long term. Be sure to have a counterargument and rebuttal section at the end of your essay.
Two. In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, support, refute, or complicate the notion that eating meat is morally defensible in the context of evolution and biology and that ethical objections to meat eating are not born of eating meat but the abuses that result in the factory farming of animals. Be sure to have a counterargument-refutation section.
Three. Addressing Francine Prose's "The Wages of Sin," write a 4-page essay with 3 sources that supports, refutes, or complicates the notion that overeating is not an illness but a moral flaw and a vice.
Four. In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that addresses the claim that Francine Prose and Caroline Knapp are criticizing cultural norms about eating that in truth are not normal at all but pathological and that these norms create a toxic eating environment in our culture.
Five. Both McMillan and Kristof (172) use their examinations of public attitudes toward food as a platform to argue for specific changes in our official food policy. In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that explains how these recommendations compare. Can you imagine Kristof citing points McMillan raises here as evidence or support for the argument he makes about food stamps? If so, how specifically?
Six. Both Dolnick and Francine Prose address the mythical narrative of obesity and overeating by deconstructing the myth. In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that analyzes how Dolnick and Prose deconstruct the myth of fatness.
Seven. Write a personal essay in which you either support or refute Kohn’s argument about grading, using anecdotes from your experience as a student. Do you view grading in a negative or positive light? Why or why not? Make sure to structure your argument by addressing Kohn’s multiple points directly.
Break Down the Prompt into Its Parts
Convert the questions in the assignment into sentences.
Follow instructions
I agree (disagree) with Kohn because . . .
Eight. Kohn writes about the need to move a school “from a grade orientation to a learning orientation” (pp. 239, 243). What do you think he means? How, according to Kohn, does grading make it harder to focus on learning? Write an essay in which you discuss the characteristics of these two orientations. Do you think it’s possible to have an educational system that emphasizes both?
Break Down the Assignment into Your Own Words
We're asked in the prompt to explain, perhaps in one sentence, what Kohn means when he says we must move from a grade to a learning orientation. Clearly, a grading orientation for Kohn excludes learning. We have to explain why Kohn believes this and then explain whether or not we agree with him.
Nine. This essay asks you to think about the relationship between blue- and white-collar work. Write an essay in which you compare the particular rules, scripts, roles, and norms that teach us how to think about each of these two categories. How is each type of work typically defined? What tasks, skills, or abilities are we told each conventionally involves? And, perhaps most important, how are we taught to value these types of work differently? In your view, are these value distinctions fair? Accurate? How or how not?
Explanation Part in Your Intro
Write an essay in which you compare the particular rules, scripts, roles, and norms that teach us how to think about each of these two categories. How is each type of work typically defined? What tasks, skills, or abilities are we told each conventionally involves? And, perhaps most important, how are we taught to value these types of work differently?
Argument Part in Your Thesis
In your view, are these value distinctions fair? Accurate? How or how not?
Ten. According to Rizga, the primary factor responsible for designating a school as "failing" is our current reliance upon standardized tests. Write an essay in which you evaluate the validity or usefulness of using standardized tests to rank the performance of schools. Do such tests offer a fair, accurate, or helpful measure of a school's performance or not? How? If you were charged with revamping the system for evaluating school performance, what kind of standardized test (if any) would you utilize? Why?
Sample Thesis:
We need to get rid of standardized tests and replace them with a variety of assignments that measure Student Learning Outcomes because ______________, ___________, _____________, and ____________________.
While I concede that standardized testing has made some educational improvements in terms of bridging the gap between performing and non-performing schools, the current practice of standardized testing must be eliminated because _____________, _____________, ______________, and __________________.
Although standardized tests are imperfect and still need fine-tuning, they are a necessary tool for improving public school education evidenced by _____________, _____________, ____________, and _______________.
Eleven. At the heart of the problems around contemporary schooling, argues Gatto, is its compulsory nature. Think back on your experiences in school. How much of what typically defined your role was compulsory? What are some of the scripts (for how to act, talk, even think) that were required? Write an essay that argues in favor of or against the validity of implementing these particular requirements. What educational goals did they seem designed to accomplish, and were they worth it?
Twelve. From very different perspectives, Kozol and Mike Rose invite readers to take a closer look at the way cultural stereotypes about different jobs can influence how we define legitimate or valid intelligence. Write an essay in which you identify and assess how these writers’ respective commentaries compare. How does each understand the connection between work and learning? What sort of conclusions or critique does each offer? And which do you find more convincing or compelling? Why?
Key words and passages
Identify and assess how these writers’ respective commentaries compare.
How does each understand the connection between work and learning?
What sort of conclusions or critique does each offer? And which do you find more convincing or compelling? Why?
Sample Responses
Support of the Authors
Rose, Gatto and Kozol are allies in the battle against economic class warfare, which perpetuates the divisions between the lower and upper classes evidenced by _____________, ________________, ________________, and __________________.
Refutation of the Authors
Rose and Kozol are shrill liberals whose attempts to bridge the gap between the poorer working classes and the more affluent classes prove misguided when we consider that Rose is guilty of glorifying blue-collar work and making it attractive to those who should aspire to greater career goals; Kozol is guilty of dismissing vocational training in low-income schools that are giving students options that they otherwise would not have; both are guilty of intrusive and unrealistic social engineering and economic redistribution.
Thirteen. Race and class, hooks argues, are the unspoken norms that structure everyday college life, the invisible scripts that set the boundaries around what different types of students are encouraged or allowed to expect from school. Write an essay in which you analyze how hooks makes this argument. How does she present her own experience as a student as an example? What unspoken (or spoken) scripts about schooling, education, race, or class does hooks expose in her writing?
Breaking down the assignment:
What are the “unspoken norms” or “invisible scripts” of race and class that pervade college life?
The unspoken belief system, if you will, is that people of white privilege, evidenced by their high-earning power and emulation of an upper class code, enjoy a world of entitlement. On the other hand, it’s also scripted that people of the lower classes are loathsome and only deserving of contempt and society’s spoiled leftovers, not the fresh fruit enjoyed by the rich.
Write an essay in which you show how Hooks makes the argument that invisible scripts set boundaries for students.
Hooks shows that professors teach their students how to enjoy the upper-class club, to deny their lower-class family roots because those roots are contemptuous and shameful.
Hooks further explains how college education is not just a specialization in a certain field; it’s an indoctrination into the superiority of the educated, privileged class and how working class and more modest backgrounds are not even worthy of consideration; therefore, these modest backgrounds should be shunned; in other words, we should become dead to our poor past.
Hooks argues becoming dead to our past is immoral because we become indoctrinated into the worldview of the privileged vs. the non-privileged, the haves vs. the have-nots and such an indoctrination in Hook’s view is immoral and antithetical to the true humanitarian teachings that should be part of college life.
Hooks shows how students of modest means who don’t aspire to be uppity are disregarded and dismissed as invisible.
You need to drink the privileged class Kool-Aid if you want to succeed in college and in the work world, Hooks is arguing.
Sample Essay Response That Agrees with Bell Hooks
College should be a place that champions the humanitarian spirit, embracing the struggle of those who suffer under the weight of the elites, the privileged class. However, as Bell Hooks convincingly argues, college perpetuates class and sometimes racial elitism, tacitly scorning the working-class while adulating the privileged elites evidenced by the professor’s indoctrination of the students to act and be privileged, the pressures to disown one’s working-class family and community, and the rich students’ contempt for the poorer students.
Sample Essay Response That Disagrees with Bell Hooks
While I sympathize with Bell Hooks and would defend her against anyone, teacher, student, or otherwise, who would discriminate against her on the basis of her race or economic class, I find that her condemnation of the elitism she identifies at college to be misguided. The role of the college should be to teach students to lift themselves up from their lower class and into a more privileged class. That’s the point of going to college, to go from a lower station to a higher station in life. Secondly, having these ambitions doesn’t make us anti-humanitarian or contemptuous of the lower classes. We simply want to work toward a place of more privilege. That’s normal human nature that addresses the Darwinian, often brutal realities we face in this world. Bell Hooks has the luxury as someone who makes hundreds of thousand of dollars a year to decry the privileged class, but she needs to face the fact that she belongs to that privileged class and she worked hard to get there. Finally, Bell Hooks does a disservice if she doesn’t tell students from the working class the hard truth about succeeding at college, which is that to be successful we must disavow ourselves of our tribalistic past, even if it means separating ourselves from our working-class parents and community, even if our abandoning that family and community, as Bell Hooks herself did, gives us shame and guilt, because that separation is essential for becoming reborn as an empowered member of the privileged class who is now in a position to help our family in ways we never were before.
Response That Refutes the Above
The refutation of Bell Hooks under the claim that we must sell our souls to the devil in order to be successful is a grotesque absurdity misinformed by the blind ambition of class privilege, a convenient worship of Darwinian self-centeredness, and a failure to acknowledge that we can enjoy the joining the privileged ranks without disavowing our past identity, family, and community.
Response to the Above Refutation
I never claimed we should sell our soul to the devil and engage in Darwinian self-centeredness. My argument, contrary to the one misconstrued above, is that to embrace the new life of college, its ideas, its knowledge, its new identity, and yes the privileges that come with higher learning, we must go through the excruciating process of dying to our old self, the very self that was raised in our working-class homes and communities and that this process of dying and being reborn again is the very process that Bell Hooks admits to going through in order to become the success she is today.
Fourteen. In a 1,000-word essay with a minimum of 3 sources, support, defend, or complicate the notion that Hooks, Kozol, Rose, and Gatto make a convincing case that education is class biased in a way that is harmful to the working class and reinforces class inequality. You might consult Dana Goldstein's YouTube presentation.
In paragraphs 1 and 2 we read that people can be treated like dumbed-down troglodytes who are so helpless to fend themselves it is necessary for the government to be a Big Nanny that cares for the infantile, incontinent appetites of the people by imposing stringent laws and regulations.
In dystopian nightmare Nanny State, nurses would knock on your door at 2 AM and demand 200 push-ups or else your health insurance would be doubled.
You might get tickets for "exposed cellulite violations" at the beach.
In reality, we are not so dumb as we are surrounded by a consumer culture committed to stimulating our appetites, and we find ourselves maladapted to all the calories we consume.
We are not so dumb as we are vulnerable. For example, watching food on TV triggers our appetites.
Chemists work on flavors and textures that stimulate our appetites. Their research is secret. Journalists are not allowed in the lab.
However, consumer culture, which stimulates our appetites, also markets the perfectly sculpted body and wants to sell us products that will get us that body as well.
Thus consumer culture gives us mixed messages, screws up our head, and then shames us for being overweight.
Two. What does it mean to be paternalistic?
We are speaking of when someone takes on a parental role in a derogatory sense in that the “parent” is assuming control over others. This word often has a negative meaning, for it often suggests someone being presumptuous enough to be an authority over another. “You are fat and you need me to help you become a healthy, productive member of society.”
This is the same mentality of treating citizens like dumb children that we see John Taylor Gatto's essay "Against School."
Three. There’s a lot of talk about the so-called obesity burden in which tax payers have to absorb half the medical costs incurred by obesity-related ailments. Is that fair?
Answers will vary.
Four. What is the Fat Tax dilemma?
If taxing fat people and putting a “fat tax” on “fatty” items were to be effective, people would live longer and old age increase would put a NEW tax burden on tax payer.
Smokers and obese people lose about ten years of their lives.
Five. What curbs fat more, a heavy stigma or the Nanny State?
Prose suggests that a stigma, a sense of shame, is more powerful than any government regulations. The fear of being an outcast is greater than financial punishments.
Six. What is gluttony?
Gluttony is the sin of overeating as a form of self-indulgence. Most Americans overeat; therefore, most of us are gluttons. If all or most of us are gluttons, perhaps there is less stigma to being a glutton.
Or more realistically, there are different levels of the glutton.
A Stage 1 Glutton is 20 pounds overweight. He gets a pass.
A Stage 2 Glutton is 40 pounds overweight. He is about to lose his pass.
A Stage 3 Glutton is 50 or more pounds overweight. He lives in Shame Hell, either alone or with other Stage 3 Gluttons.
When we speak of gluttony, we make fat a moral issue: Gluttony shows a disrespect for the body and an excessive pandering to one’s ego.
Seven. How do we see latent hostility against obese people?
We claim to be compassionate towards the obese but in reality we are not when obesity inconveniences us. Airplane seats, for example, are a source of strife because the obese are taking more than their share of space.
Perhaps most significant is fat discrimination in the workplace. Employers know the cost of obesity at work.
Eight. Is obesity as simple as saying it’s a moral issue or a sin?
Perhaps that’s an oversimplification: Attributing complex problem to simple cause: to blame obesity on sin or indulgence or ego is absurd. Obesity may be partly these things, but they don’t tell the whole story.
The 15 Causes of Obesity:
There is an abundance of convenient, cheap, calorie-rich food everywhere we go.
We move less than we did generations ago. Do we chase the animals we eat? No.
Mindless eating; not even knowing the quantity of what we consume every day, much of it done while talking, watching TV, or surfing the Internet, all forms of Mindless Eating. See book of same title by Brian Wansink.
Poverty; there is a relationship between poverty and obesity. This is due to a lack of education combined with reliance on cheap fast food.
Parents. Children eat what their parents eat. If the parents eat a “fat lifestyle,” so will their children.
Friends. We eat and look similar to our friends. We often call this “social eating.”
Eating processed foods instead of real foods and not knowing the difference. Please see In Defense of Eating: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan. In short, only shop at the far left and right of supermarkets; avoid the middle; or shop at the Farmer’s Market.
Super-sized portions are marketed as a “good deal.” See the film Super Size Me and read the book Fast Food Nation by Erich Schlosser
Boredom; stay at home with nothing to do and you’ll overeat
Emotional eating; eating to feel “love” or “self-esteem” or because you feel lonely.
Lack of sleep. The more tired you are, the more you feed your blood sugar to compensate.
Education; knowing how to enjoy good healthy food should be very practical but too few people know how to prepare food for themselves that they both crave and that is good for them.
Learned helplessness: You convince yourself that you are too ignorant to make your own food and become dependent on fast food and junk.
Dieting; it leads to weight gain, splurging, neuroses, and messes up the metabolism, which rebels and goes on “shut down.”
Fast food is marketed to children in an aggressive way; see Fast Food Nation.
Writing Prompt from Page 187
One of the hallmarks of our contemporary culture, according to Prose, is that overeating is no longer viewed as a vice or sin but as an illness. Do you agree? What are some of the ways this change in thinking is communicated in popular culture or in the media? Write an essay in which you argue for or against gluttony as a moral issue.
Or put it this way:
Addressing Francine Prose's "The Wages of Sin," write a 4-page essay with 3 sources that supports, refutes, or complicates the notion that overeating is not an illness but a moral flaw and a vice.
Sample Thesis Statements (all of these are pretty good and take note they contradict each other as they go back and forth):
One: It’s morally wrong to be fat, for even though many are obese because of biological and environmental reasons, the majority of people submit to their fatness because of major character flaws, including __________________________, _______________________, ________________________, and ____________________.
Two: To condemn fat people as immoral is an outrageous oversimplification that ignores the many complex causes behind obesity. These so-called “character flaws” are really a reaction to deeper factors, which include ________________________, _______________________, _______________________, and ____________________________.
Three: To justify obesity as a “complex issue” is to enable fat people to go on with their immoral lives. In other words, justifying fatness is as immoral as fatness itself.
Four: To condemn defenders of the obese by calling these defenders enablers evidences a gross blindness to the deeper root causes of obesity, which these morally unrighteous prigs are determined to ignore. These causes include _______________________, ___________________________, _________________________, and _________________________.
Five: Calling me a “prig” for my stance against fat people does not change the fact that the obese population would be well served to embrace my moral prescription, which will not only alleviate their obesity but make them better, happier, responsible citizens. Thus, I am doing fat people a service, sir, while you, taking the role as paternalistic sympathizer, are actually helping to perpetuate their obese, moribund, morally bankrupt condition. Let us therefore proceed with my salubrious prescription, which entails ________________________, _______________________, __________________________, and ___________________________.
Sample Responseto Francine Prose's Essay
Pulpit thumpers decry that religion is dead in America and that a revival must sweep the nation soon lest we suffer the fiery annihilation of Sodom and Gomorra. These doomsday prophets are wrong. Religion is alive and well. As Francine Prose renders in her acute and trenchant essay “The Wages of Sin,” the Supercilious Fat Police and their calorie-counting acolytes who look upon fat people as a breed of bloated sinners have co-opted religious language and metaphor to divide society into two sides: The reedy svelte souls bound for heaven and the repugnant obese souls bound for hell. To reinforce this polarization, the Fat Police, and even self-loathing fat people themselves, assert big government micromanagement of “fat behavior,” so that there are fat taxes imposed on lovers of movie popcorn, colossal burritos, super-sized buckets of ice cream and soda, and other foods that pose a threat to one’s salvation. The Fat Police and their disciples have also proselytized the gospel that moral depravity and “immoral self-indulgence” are at the root of obesity, so that it is clear that fat people are not helpless victims of the environment or genetic hard-wiring but the result of their own damnable sloth, gluttony, and avarice.
Another category that insures fat people suffer the stamp of stigmatization is society’s collective resentment that corpulent fleshy souls are guilty of hogging or usurping other people’s personal space. What kind of wickedness allows the fat person to assert his gargantuan belly into our area when he squeezes next to us on a train, a bus, or an airplane? His rude and selfish sin is so malignant that he and his obese brothers and sisters should pay for not one but two airline or bus tickets to accommodate their elephantine rumps.
Finally, if fat people can be saved at all, they must resort to a Higher Power: Their countless tons of unwanted flab can only be shed if they throw themselves upon the Alter of God’s Mercy and embrace a variety of spiritual rehabilitations—Twelve Step Programs, revivalist gospel tracts, and other motivational tools rooted in the language of God, the devil, sin, and divine providence. If the obese refuse to access the divine tools that are set before them, surely they deserve to be thrown into the fiery hell that awaits these gluttonous, recalcitrant sinners.
How to Set Up a Counterargument in Your Rebuttal Section (The Templates)
Some of my critics will dismiss my claim that . . . but they are in error when we look closely at . . .
Some readers will 0bject to my argument that . . . However, their disagreement is misguided when we consider that . . .
Some opponents will be hostile to my claim that . . . However, their hostility is unfounded when we examine . . .
Thesis with Concession
While Author X is guilty of several weaknesses as described by her opponents, her argument holds up to close examination in the areas of _________________, ______________, _____________, and ______________.
Even though author X shows weakness in her argument, such as __________ and ____________, she is nevertheless convincing because . . .
While author X makes many compelling points, her overall argument collapses under the weight of __________, ___________, ___________, and ______________.
“Add Cake, Subtract Self-Esteem” by Caroline Knapp
One. Why is starvation an addiction for Caroline Knapp and perhaps for others?
There are two kinds of people in this world, the laid-back and the high-strung.
The latter have what is called generalized anxiety disorder.
Everything we do is a source of anxiety.
A corn nut lodged in the back seat of our car can cause us insomnia.
When we're always anxious, we seek calm and safety. Too often these retreats into calm and safety become addictions.
Knapp retreats from life--the anxieties she faces in her life--and withdraws into a sense of calm. She feels safe, but she is not living. When we retreat from life to alleviate anxiety, we are engaging in over protection, and as such we choose death over life.
I’m thinking of the woman whose husband left her two days before their planned wedding, and she became a ghost of herself in the aftermath. She became bitter and “undateable.” She become a zombie, a hollow husk, a cipher. She is too afraid to feel and to embrace her full humanity.
Knapp escapes from life with her strict food routine. Her rigid routine makes her feel safe from wanton, self-destructive behavior. Of course, she’s blind from the fact that the rigid routine is a form of self-destruction.
Two. What is the “silent protest” of starvation?
Her starvation becomes a “silent protest” against ridiculous feminine ideals that are forced upon women. Starving both aspired to the ideal and “mocks” it. Kate Moss the waif replaces the Marilyn Monroe the voluptuous one.
Therefore, starvation alleviates the discomfort of “inhabiting the female body.” A real female body has curves and appetites. An anorexic female body has vanished. There is no body, there are no appetites, and there is no personality. The person has vanished.
Three. How is starvation about self-rejection and avoiding judgment?
Starvation is an attempt to invert the food obsession as a positive symbol of nurturing and care-taking; in its place, starvation is about self-rejection and “self-inflicted cruelty.”
Starvation becomes a way of avoiding self-recriminations: “I’m such a hog” for having eaten that chocolate cake. I don’t deserve love. I don't even deserve to live.
I should be sent to my room without supper. God, I hate myself. My only hope for feeling good about myself, therefore, is to starve myself.
We can conclude then that starvation has become a Faustian Bargain, a deal with the Devil, in which women trade eating satisfaction so that they can enjoy self-esteem.
Mastering and controlling one’s appetites becomes a way of feeling empowered. This empowerment becomes a form of compensation for feelings of loneliness, self-doubt, and consuming dread and desperation.
Four. How is starvation a feminist issue, according to Caroline Knapp?
Starvation becomes a way of surrendering to the “backlash” against the rise of feminine power. Women have more earning power and are more successful in college than men.
Starvation is an attempt to withdraw from the overwhelming choices that are part of a woman’s new freedom.
Starvation is a reaction to an unnatural hatred of fat.
I would complicate Knapp’s assertion, however. I would say that starvation, also known as anorexia, is a problem about race and social class. Most anorexics are middle to upper class white women.
The Barbie aesthetic is part of being a member of that catty clique in a lot of upper class white social circles.
I concede that some of the above may be true, but I'm reluctant to see feminism and politics as the main driving forces of anorexia. I tend to agree with those who attribute the disease to anxiety and depression as Carrie Arnold, a former sufferer of anorexia, explains in this excerpt from her book Decoding Anorexia.
McMahon’s Summary on “Add Cake, Subtract Self-Esteem” by Caroline Knapp
Whether they are bingeing or purging, irrational eaters are in a most damnable condition--the state of having no self-control and being helpless and fearful in the face of overwhelming appetites. These inflamed irrational passions are so devastating that binge eaters must tiptoe through life fearing that at any moment they will fall into the abyss of their avarice.
Most irrational eaters, especially the women described by Knapp, suffer shame for several reasons, including a sense of anxiety over the disparity of their new freedoms but limited power; their internalized "theme of vigilance and self-restraint" that often backfires and is counterbalanced by compulsive appetites that eradicate all the "gains" rendered from the meticulous adherence to eating rules; the state of hunger that "becomes divorced from the body" and becomes "loaded with alternative meanings" that have to do with unfulfilled emotional longings; and their knowledge that violating the slender female aesthetic will cause them to be held in tacit contempt by both men and women alike.
This sense of shame and self-loathing becomes exacerbated when obesity is looked at through a religious prism which would have us condemn over-eaters as gluttons, sinners indulging their appetites, reprobates putting their desires before God, miscreants violating our space with their grotesque corpulence.
Scapegoated by society for putting an undue strain on medical costs, despised for taking up our space, an unloved for not inciting the kind of desire that we associate with Kate-Moss slenderness, fat people represent the possibility of human failure and rejection that we fear in ourselves. Thus many of us, overreacting to our fears, develop a myriad of eating disorders so chronic that once ensnared in these irrational eating habits, it is nearly impossible for many of us to free ourselves from them and lead relatively normal lives.
Writing Prompt (202)
For Knapp, cultural attitudes about food formed “a low-level thrumming of should and shouldn’ts and can’ts and wants,” or what the author calls a kind of “feminine Muzak" (189). In your view, does this analogy do a good or bad job of capturing the ways we learn to absorb or internalize cultural norms around eating? Write an essay in which you compare these messages and this process of internalization to what Francine Prose (181) has to say in her piece on gluttony. Does Prose seem to share Knapp’s view of where our norms vis-à-vis food typically come from and the ways they come to feel so normal? How or how not?
What is being internalized?
Obsession with unrealistic images of beauty that result in obsession with self-control
Obsessive link between being thin, or not, with one's identity
Obsessive link between being thin, or not, with one's self-worth
Thesis Against Knapp
While Knapp makes some convincing points about unrealistic body images of women causing some women to develop eating disorders, the real cause of women starving themselves doesn't appear to be political or "patriarchal" ("it's a man's world") but more rooted in behaviors analogous to drug addiction evidenced by ___________________, ___________________, _____________________, and _____________________.
Another Writing Option
In a 5-page essay with 5 sources, develop a thesis that addresses the claim that Francine Prose and Caroline Knapp are criticizing cultural norms about eating that in truth are not normal at all but pathological and that these norms create a toxic eating environment in our culture.
Brainstorm for Prewriting
Both essays address the way we are a culture obsessed with food.
We tend to binge with food and we tend to purge with food.
We are two extreme regardless if we are bingeing or purging.
We have internalized shame in regards to eating.
We have internalized rules in order to conform to a quasi religious order of what makes us “bad” or “good.”
We internalize these eating rules from the food police and in essence create our own food religion and the result of this religion is a form of control.
This form of control is deceptive. Some of us, like Caroline Knapp and others, can be so obsessed with control that we’re controlled by the need to control.
Obsession with control leads to out of control behavior.
Bingeing leads to purging and purging leads to bingeing. Or in other words, self-denial leads to self-indulgence and self-indulgence leads to self-denial. For example, after a Christmas-New Year’s binge, many start the New Year with a New Year’s resolution of denials.
A lot of internalized food rules, it seems, disproportionately affect Anglo middle and upper class people, so that we might say eating disorders are largely a “first world problem” of the privileged class.
However, being fat is a stigma that affects people of all classes, especially in the workplace.
Being fat is being “a monster,” a drain on society, “Los Otros,” the Other. A fat person is demonized as taking up space and costing us billions in sick costs at work and in hospitals.
Dieters use “religious language,” we read in Prose’s essay (183). “That chocolate cake was sinfully delicious.”
Dieters adopt 12 Step programs and embrace a Higher Power to free themselves from their bondage to eating.
Knapp says we must be austere to austere rules to have a skinny body.
Knapp warns that when we mess with our natural hunger, we go a little crazy or more than just a little: “The more you meddle with a hunger, the more taboo and confusing it will become. Feed the body too little and then too much, feed it erratically, launch that maddening cycle of deprivation and overcompensation, and the sensation of physical hunger itself becomes divorced from the body, food loaded with alternative means: symbol of longing, symbol of constraint, form of torture, form of reward, source of anxiety, source of success, measure of self-worth” (193).
Thesis Attempts
Both Prose and Knapp capture the analogy of strict food rules with unhealthy religious compulsion, which is comprised of ____________, ___________, _____________, and _____________.
The paternalistic food police have used political and cultural forces to create a society of dysfunctional eaters evidenced by ___________, ____________, ___________, and ______________.
McMahon Grammar Lesson: Review Parallelism
Parallelism’s importance is most apparent when looking at mapping components in a thesis. We want those components to be written in parallel form whether we’re referring to a list of phrases or clauses.
Faulty Parallelism Example
Marijuana should be legalized because it’s safer than alcohol and many pharmaceutical drugs, its medicinal properties; it’s a fool’s errand to wage a war against it, and keeping it illegal increases criminal activity.
Above we have a mix of clauses and phrases. We should correct it by changing all the mapping components to clauses.
Corrected
Marijuana should be legalized because it’s safer than alcohol and many pharmaceutical drugs; it has medicinal properties; it is too common to waste money in a feeble attempt to eradicate it, and in illegal form it results in too much criminal activity.
We use parallelism in all types of writing.
Faulty
The instructor sometimes indulges in bloviating, pontificating, and likes to self-aggrandize.
We see above two gerunds followed by an infinitive, which is a faulty mix.
Corrected
The instructor sometimes indulges in bloviating, pontificating, and self-aggrandizing.
Using parallelism after a colon
Faulty
Kettlebell exercises work on the major muscle groups: thighs, gluteus, back, and make the shoulder muscles bigger.
Corrected
Kettlebell exercises work on the major muscle groups: thighs, gluteus, back, and shoulders.
Grammar Exercise: Parallelism
Correct the faulty parallelism by rewriting the sentences below.
One. Parenting toddlers is difficult for many reasons, not the least of which is that toddlers contradict everything you ask them to do; they have giant mood swings, and all-night tantrums.
Two. You should avoid all-you-can-eat buffets: They encourage gluttony; they feature fatty, over-salted foods and high sugar content. (they lard their food with high sugar content)
Three. I prefer kettlebell training at home than the gym because of the increased privacy, the absence of loud “gym” music, and I’m able to concentrate more.
Four. To write a successful research paper you must adhere to the exact MLA format, employ a variety of paragraph transitions, and writing an intellectually rigorous thesis. (write, not writing)
Five. The difficulty of adhering to the MLA format is that the rules are frequently being updated, the sheer abundance of rules you have to follow, and to integrate your research into your essay.
The difficulty of adhering to the MLA format is that you have to constantly stay updated on the changing rules, you have to memorize the sheer abundance of citation rules, and you have to learn to integrate research sources into your writing.
Six. You should avoid watching “reality shows” on TV because they encourage a depraved form of voyeurism; they distract you from your own problems, and their brain-dumbing effects.
Seven. I’m still fat even though I’ve tried the low-carb diet, the Paleo diet, the Rock-in-the-Mouth diet, and fasting every other day.
Eight. To write a successful thesis, you must have a compelling topic, a sophisticated take on that topic, and developing a thesis that elevates the reader’s consciousness to a higher level.
Nine. Getting enough sleep, exercising daily, and the importance of a positive attitude are essential for academic success.
Ten. My children never react to my calm commands or when I beg them to do things.
One. We read that “Asking whether eating meat is ‘ethical’ is like asking whether having sex is ethical. Biological imperatives do not pander to such arbitrary distinctions.” Is the comparison between the eating drive for meat and the sex drive a valid one?
One could argue that the author has made a faulty comparison: One can have responsible sex and do no harm to any sentient creature; however, the man who indulges his meat cravings may be harming an animal unnecessarily. A vegetarian may argue that that man could fulfill his dietary needs quite well, even in a superior fashion, by eating a vegetarian diet.
However, there is another argument that says the author’s argument is valid. Yes, sex is an instinctive imperative for most people and so is eating meat because eating meat is optimum nutrition while vegetarianism is compromised nutrition. Furthermore, certain societies such as Eskimo society don’t have vegetarian options. Whales and seals are the order of the day. Eating meat, some further argue, is part of the Darwinian food chain, and as Louis C.K. says, “Thank God we humans are not on the food chain.”
Two. Why does the author claim that he is being more ethical eating one of his farm-raised cows than he would be if he were eating a Big Mac?
Unrestrained consumption in mass-produced meat factories in which consumers are separated from the slaughter process is blind, gluttonous, and cruel. These consumers no longer know “the intimate realities and consequences of eating meat.” Moreover, we have “commercially outsourced the twinge of guilt, the pang of discomfort, the heart-race of witnessing a death to just a handful among us.”
Schwennesen gives his cattle a good life before their slaughter.
Three. Why does the author claim that the controversy over the ethics of eating meat is “clearly a privilege born of abundance”?
He’s arguing that when we eat meat out of necessity, we make no such ethical inquiries over the act of eating meat. But when we live in abundance with many eating choices, our ethics change to meet that abundance.
Another example is “purity eating,” also called Orthorexia in which the afflicted became obsessed, to their detriment, with eating “pure” foods. Most sufferers of Orthorexia are from the upper economic stratum.
Essay Writing Prompt from Page 180
Here is how Schwennesen resolves the moral questions posed by raising and slaughtering animals for a living: “I’ve saved the lives of calves and butchered their mothers in the same afternoon. I thank each for the age-old sacrifice of prey to predator and I swear they understand. I neither rejoice in the blood nor shy from it. This is life. This is ethics” (178). Write a [4-page] essay in which you describe and evaluate the model of “ethics” Schwennesen presents here. Does the relationship he sketches between humans and animals (“predator and prey”) seem like a moral one? In your view, is he able to reconcile the contradiction between “saving” animals on the one hand and “butchering” them on the other? If not, what are the flaws or gaps in his argument?
Or you can look at the essay assignment choice this way:
In a 4-page essay, support, refute, or complicate the notion that eating meat is morally defensible in the context of evolution and biology and that ethical objections to meat eating are not born of eating meat but the abuses that result in the factory farming of animals. Be sure to have a counterargument-refutation section.
Breaking Down the Prompt
The author writes that he cares for the animals he eventually kills and gives appreciation in the life he gives them for the life they give him in return.
Schwennesen’s ethics is to have reverence for the life he takes. He takes the animals’ life because they are, in his view, the inevitable part of the food chain. Eating meat is a survival imperative, not an ethical issue. The ethical issue is how we approach meat eating: as reverent eaters who kill our own prey or mindless consumers disconnected from the killing process and leaving mass killing to others.
The key questions comes near the end of the prompt: “In your view, is he able to reconcile the contradiction between “saving” animals on the one hand and “butchering” them on the other? If not, what are the flaws or gaps in his argument?”
Your job when confronted with these questions is to turn them into a thesis with a declarative sentence. A declarative sentence is a sentence that declares or states your argument or assertion.
Sample Thesis That Agrees with the Author
Paul Schwennesen saving the lives of his livestock on one hand and butchering them for eating on the other is not a moral contradiction at all. Rather, it embraces the moral imperative we must adopt as being privileged Apex Predators. This moral imperative is evidenced in Schwennesen’s small-scale butchery in that he affords his animals dignity before their inevitable slaughter, unlike the barbarism animals face in mass slaughterhouses; it embraces our biological imperative to eat meat; and it avoids the sentimentality that the economically privileged indulge in as they lecture the rest of us about the supposed immorality of eating meat.
Sample Thesis That Disagrees with the Author
Paul Schwennesen attempts to reconcile the contradiction of his kindness to his livestock on the one hand and his butchering of them on the other. His attempt at reconciling this contradiction fails miserably. First, his claim that we have a biological imperative to eat meat fails in the face of nutrition and modern food distribution, which affords us healthier vegetarian alternatives. Second, just because his form of killing is kinder than the horrors we see in the mass slaughterhouses doesn’t make it ethical. It simply is less immoral but immoral nonetheless. Third, his ability to save a calf and kill its mother the same day doesn’t speak to his moral superiority. Rather, it speaks to the moral numbing he has suffered as the result of his sustained killing of animals.
McMahon Grammar Exercise: Identifying Phrases, Independent Clauses, and Dependent Clauses
An independent clause has a subject, a verb, and is a complete thought:
My elastic waistband makes me feel older than I am.
My encounter with the great white shark compelled me to quit surfing.
Larding my pizza with hundreds of toppings makes me feel like I'm getting my money's worth.
A dependent clause has a subject, a verb, and is an imcomplete thought because it has what is called a subordinate conjunction or connecting word.
Because my elastic waistband makes me feel old
Although my elastic waistband makes feel old
Whenever I eat triple-sausage pesto pizza
Although I have a fondness for deep purple
A phrase, like a dependent clause, is an incomplete sentence, but a phrase has neither a subject or a verb.
In front of the restaurant plaza by the Italian fountains
In order to understand Viktor Frankl's principle of meaning as the antidote to the existential vacuum
In spite of my fondness for deep purple
Identify the group of words in bold type as phrase, independent clause, or dependent clause.
One. Toward the monster’s palace, we see a white marble fountain jettisoning chocolate fudge all over the other giants.
Two. Before going to school, Gerard likes to make sure he’s packed his chocolate chip cookies and bagels.
Three. Because Jack’s love of eating pizza every night cannot be stopped, he finds his cardio workouts to be rather worthless.
Four. Maria finds the Lexus preferable to the BMW because of the Lexus’ lower repair costs.
Five. Greg does not drive at night because he suffers from poor nocturnal eyesight.
Six. Whenever Greg drives past HomeTown Buffet, he is overcome with depression and nausea.
Seven. People who eat at Cinnabon, according to Louis C.K., always look miserable over their poor life decisions.
Eight. After eating at Cinnabon and HomeTown Buffet, Gary has to eat a bottle of antacids.
Nine. Towards the end of the date, Gary decided to ask Maria if she’d care for another visit to HomeTown Buffet.
Ten. Whenever Maria is in the presence of a gluttonous gentleman, she withdraws into her shell.
Eleven. Greg watched Maria recoil into her shell while biting her nails.
Twelve. Greg watched Maria recoil into her private universe while she bit her nails.
Thirteen. Eating at all-you-can-eat buffets will expand the circumference of your waistline.
Fourteen. Larding your essay with grammatical errors will result in a low grade.
Fifteen. My favorite pastime is larding my essay with grammatical errors.
Sixteen. Larding my body with chocolate chunk peanut butter cookies followed by several gallons of milk, I wondered if I should skip dinner that evening.
Seventeen. After contemplating the benefits of going on a variation of the Paleo diet, I decided I was at peace being a fat man with a strong resemblance to the Pillsbury Dough Boy.
Eighteen. In the 1970s few people would consider eating bugs as their main source of protein although today world-wide food shortages have compelled a far greater percentage of the human race to entertain this unpleasant possibility.
Nineteen. Because of increased shortages in worldwide animal protein, more and more people are looking to crickets, grasshoppers, and grubs as possible complete protein amino acid alternatives.
Twenty. The percentage of people getting married in recent years has significantly declined as an economic malaise has deflated confidence in the viability of sustaining a long-term marriage.
Twenty-one. Before you decide to marry someone, consider two things: your temperament and your economic prospects.
Twenty-two. To understand the pitfalls of getting married prematurely is to embark on the road to greater wisdom.
Twenty-three. To know me is to love me.
Twenty-four. To languish in the malignant juices of self-pity after breaking up with your girlfriend is to fall down the rabbit hole of moral dissolution and narcissism.
Twenty-five. Having considered the inevitable disappointment of being rich, I decided not to rob a bank.
Twenty-six. Watching TV on a sticky vinyl sofa all day, I noticed I was developing bedsores.
Twenty-seven. While I watched TV for twenty consecutive hours, I began to wonder if life was passing me by.
Twenty-eight. Under the bridge where a swarm of mosquitos gathered, the giant belched.
Thesis That Defends Vegetarianism by Refuting the Comparison Meat-Eaters Make Between Humans and Animals
Some argue that we must kill animals for food because killing animals is part of nature. Animals kill animals. And that’s what we do. Tim, a reader from my blog, argues that vegans base their ideals on a false utopia. He writes:
I agree that man should be humane in all things, including the manner in which he kills his food. But let me add one little remark that the anti meat-eaters seldom appreciate.
Have you ever gone camping? What do the woods sound like at - say - 2 or 3 AM? To exaggerate a little, they sound like a slaughterhouse. Animals kill and eat other animals. They don't fuss over HOW the killing is done or how MUCH killing is done; they just do it. And it can be pretty horrible. Nature is savage; period.
So, don't forget, vegans, that nature itself is not a serene pacifistic green little utopia, whereas man is an abominable meat-lusting monster. Nature is often brutal and ugly.
In agreement with Tim, is another reader, Angelo. He writes:
I had a crayfish a few years ago---and he would eat "feeder" goldfish thrown in the tank. The "feeders" are sold for a dime each. The crayfish would ambush the goldfish, grab the fish and puncture its gill. Then, with the goldfish struggling, the crayfish would scrape the goldfish's scales off, before beginning to eat. The fish was still alive as the crayfish would chomp down on the tail, body parts, etc. Admittedly on a smaller scale--- that's still worse than electrocuting a cow.
But another reader, Shorty, believes comparing nature’s brutality with the brutality animals are subjected to in the slaughterhouses is a false one. He writes:
Nature is indeed savage, but animals seldom kill but for hunger. The animals that get eaten in the wild don't know what it's like to be confined in a pen, wallowing in their own waste - only to die fat and tender. Livestock warehousing, and mass killing will never be vindicated. It will always be a symbol of greed, arrogance, and a barometer of the human condition. Eating meat is OK if you hunt for it in an ethical manner. Otherwise, vegetarianism is the holy grail for me.
Animals are obligate carnivores; humans are not entirely; animals eat out of necessity; too many humans eat out of gluttony; animals eat to survive; people kill animals for profit; animals don’t slaughter animals on the mass scale that humans do. Therefore, the comparison between nature’s brutality and man’s brutality is a faulty one and as such it constitutes a logical fallacy.
Another Faulty Comparison: Animals Don’t Cause Waste and Pollution the Way Humans Do
1. We read in Jeffrey Masson's The Face on Your Plate that pig waste ruins lakes and rivers.
2. Cattle feedlots contaminate water over 1,900 times the state’s maximum standard for E. coli in surface waters (Masson).
3. Raising pigs and cattle (animals don’t raise animals to eat) creates 80 million metric tons of waste nitrogen annually (Masson).
4. Animal waste is 130 times greater than human waste annually in America (Masson).
5. Animal waste results in E. coli, Salmonella, and other diarrheal diseases (Masson).
6. Rain forests are being destroyed to grow soy, but the majority of the soy is used to feed livestock (Masson).
7. According to the Smithsonian Institution, every minute land the size of seven football fields is currently being bulldozed to create room for farmed animals and the crops need to feed them (Masson).
8. Livestock accounts for 18% of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions in carbon dioxide, more than the entire transportation sector of the whole world, including cars, ships, airplanes, and trains (Masson).
Another Faulty Comparison: Humans Subject Animals to Horrors on a Mass Scale That Can’t be Compared to Predator and Prey
1. Humans separate calves from their mothers at birth so mother can give milk for human consumption
2. Cows are transported in boxcars where they panic.
3. Chickens like to sunbathe but are doomed to a life of cramped darkness.
4. Ducks crave water but are doomed to a life of arid dryness.
5. Hens have their beaks cut off with a hot blade and live their lives in pain from the nerve damage.
6. Birds raised in pens and kicked so they scatter and are shot at close-range (like Dick Cheney did when he shot someone) requires no skill and suggests a certain amount of sadism. There’s even a business where you can use computer graphics to kill your prey.
7. Cows are forced to feed on corn, which is cheaper than grass but can’t be digested properly so the cows suffer indigestion and a bacteria count that leads to food-born disease.
8. One million calves are used for veal every year. They are removed from their mothers and holed up in a small crate, about two-feet wide, with no straw or bedding. They cannot stretch. Mortality rate is 20%. That is their life before being slaughtered.
9. Pigs tails are cut off with no anesthesia so they don’t bite each other’s tails off during confinement.
10. Confined, often the pigs go crazy, biting the bars or their own tails, or shaking their heads constantly.
11. Confined, pigs have elevated levels of cortisol (stress hormone).
12. Too often, pigs, cows, chickens, and other livestock are still alive on the conveyer belt as pieces of their body are taken apart. They die slowly, piece by piece, and in essence are tortured. The slaughterhouses won’t let you see what is happening.
The Abuse of Language
1. Organic is associated with elitist, rich, out-of-touch. Organic may be that in part, but that’s an over simplification.
2. Veal is French for calf but we don’t want to admit to eating calf.
3. Pork is French for pig but we say we eat “pork,” not “pig.”
4. Words like “meat,” “bacon,” and “burger” hide the association with the animal origin.
5. Downer, an animal that collapses from ill health or is crippled. By law, this animal is not supposed to be slaughtered, but these downers are slaughtered all the time.
6. Factory farm is euphemism for slaughterhouse
7. Fresh food: According to USDA “fresh” chicken can be frozen and for any length of time. What?
8. Processing: euphemism for slaughter and butchery
9. Radical, anyone who doesn’t agree with you or challenges your beliefs or challenges your capacity for denial.
10. Sportsman, a euphemism for someone who sadistically hunts and tortures animals.
Example of a Thesis That Refutes Factory Farming by a Meat-Eating Omnivore
Let's be clear. I am a failed vegetarian, a man for whom the vegetarian diet left me weak and so hungry that I overate carbs until I gained lots of weight to the point that I was saddled by corpulence. So let's put this on the table: I eat animal protein. Having confessed my carnivorous ways, let me say here that I am morally revolted by factory farming and that I am prepared to refute with all my heart and soul the major arguments that factory farm apologists use to defend the abominations that ensue in 99% of the slaughterhouses.
The central weakness of the farm factory apologists is their specious claim that we are entitled to brutalize animals since brutality is the norm in nature. Comparing farm factory slaughter with animal-on-animal slaughter is an egregious comparison wrought with many fallacies. First, animals kill for hunger while farm factories kill for profit. Second, the scale of brutality in the farm factory far surpasses that which occurs in nature. Third, the amount of waste farm factories impose on the environment cannot be compared to the almost nonexistent waste that occurs in the animal world. Fourth, farm factory butcheries spread disease like E.coli on a mass scale whereas in Nature such spread of contagion does not occur. Revealing this faulty comparison for the outlandish fraud that it is, what are meat eaters like me to do? Surely, the answer lies in trying to eat meat that comes from non-farm factory sources, such as meat labeled "organic" and "sustainable."
Refuting the Vegetarian Diet
While I concede that there is way too much mindless cruelty in the factory farming of animals, we must not obfuscate the truth, namely, that the vegetarian diet does not provide optimum nutrition. The omnivore diet, which includes meat eating, is defensible from an evolutionary, biological, and nutritional point of view.
If after reading the book, you are not convinced that you should “convert” to vegetarianism or veganism, you may want to defend an omnivore diet. To write a defense of the omnivore diet (which includes meat eating), one would have to concede that the current system of factory farming needs reform and that the system is changed. Also one would concede that people eat too much meat but that the solution is not the elimination of meat eating but the reduction of it. One will cut down from the national average of meat consumption (200 pounds) to approximately one-third of that (70 pounds). One would concede that that 70 pounds of meat would be as organic and sustainable as much as possible even at the higher costs. This section would take about a page.
Nutrition
To argue for meat eating, you would have to argue that the vegan diet is not optimum nutrition and may even be dangerous, especially for pregnant woman and newborns. You might look to Nina Planck in her New York Times article or her book Real Food. Or you might look to Lierre Keith’s book The Vegetarian Myth or her book excerpt from her website.
Other Sources That Challenge the Vegan/Vegetarian Diet
1. Replacing animal protein with soy can be dangerous and soy doesn't digest in terms of elevated estrogen as well as animal protein.
2. You can't get B12 without animal protein. Supplements are inferior to real food.
3. You get inferior amino acids from plant protein even when you mix them to create "complete proteins" like combining rice and beans or peanut butter and wheat.
4. You get more concentrated nutrition with cooked meat than raw plants.