Unit V Discussion Board

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11From Introductions to ConclusionsDrafting an Essay

In this chapter, we describe strategies for crafting introductions that set up your argument. We then describe the characteristics of well-formulated paragraphs that will help you build your argument. Finally, we provide you with some strategies for writing conclusions that reinforce what is new about your argument, what is at stake, and what readers should do with the knowledge you convey

DRAFTING INTRODUCTIONS

The introduction is where you set up your argument. It’s where you identify a widely held assumption, challenge that assumption, and state your thesis. Writers use a number of strategies to set up their arguments. In this section we look at five of them:

· Moving from a general topic to a specific thesis (inverted-triangle introduction)

· Introducing the topic with a story (narrative introduction)

· Beginning with a question (interrogative introduction)

· Capturing readers’ attention with something unexpected (paradoxical introduction)

· Identifying a gap in knowledge (minding-the-gap introduction)

Remember that an introduction need not be limited to a single paragraph. It may take several paragraphs to effectively set up your argument.

Keep in mind that you have to make these strategies your own. That is, we can suggest models, but you must make them work for your own argument. You must imagine your readers and what will engage them. What tone do you want to take? Playful? Serious? Formal? Urgent? The attitude you want to convey will depend on your purpose, your argument, and the needs of your audience.

◼ The Inverted-Triangle Introduction

An inverted-triangle introduction, like an upside-down triangle, is broad at the top and pointed at the base. It begins with a general statement of the topic and then narrows its focus, ending with the point of the paragraph (and the triangle), the writer’s thesis. We can see this strategy at work in the following introduction from a student’s essay. The student writer (1) begins with a broad description of the problem she will address, (2) then focuses on a set of widely held but troublesome assumptions, and (3) finally, presents her thesis in response to what she sees as a pervasive problem.

A page with annotations.

The paragraph reads, “In today’s world, many believe that education’s sole purpose is to communicate information for students to store and draw on as necessary. By storing this information, students hope to perform well on tests. Good test scores assure good grades. Good grades eventually lead to acceptances into good colleges, which ultimately guarantee good jobs. Many teachers and students, convinced that education exists as a tool to secure good jobs, rely on the banking system. In her essay “Teaching to Transgress,” bell hooks defines the banking system as an “approach to learning that is rooted in the notion that all students need to do is consume information fed to them by a professor and be able to memorize and store it” (185). Through the banking system, students focus solely on facts, missing the important themes and life lessons available in classes and school materials. The banking system misdirects the fundamental goals of education. Education’s true purpose is to prepare students for the real world by allowing them access to pertinent life knowledge available in their studies. Education should then entice students to apply this pertinent life knowledge to daily life struggles through praxis. In addition to her definition of the banking system, hooks offers the idea of praxis from the work of Paulo Freire. When incorporated into education, praxis, or “action and reflection upon the world in order to change it” (185), offers an advantageous educational tool that enhances the true purpose of education and overcomes the banking system.”

The annotation marking the sentences, “In today’s world, many believe that education’s sole purpose is to communicate information for students to store and draw on as necessary. By storing this information, students hope to perform well on tests. Good test scores assure good grades. Good grades eventually lead to acceptances into good colleges, which ultimately guarantee good jobs” reads, “The student begins with a general set of assumptions about education that she believes people readily accept.”

The annotation marking the sentences, “In her essay “Teaching to Transgress,” bell hooks defines the banking system as an “approach to learning that is rooted in the notion that all students need to do is consume information fed to them by a professor and be able to memorize and store it” (185)”

The annotation marking the sentences, “The banking system misdirects the fundamental goals of education. Education’s true purpose is to prepare students for the real world by allowing them access to pertinent life knowledge available in their studies. Education should then entice students to apply this pertinent life knowledge to daily life struggles through praxis. In addition to her definition of the banking system, hooks offers the idea of praxis from the work of Paulo Freire. When incorporated into education, praxis, or “action and reflection upon the world in order to change it” (185), offers an advantageous educational…” reads, “The student then points to the banking system as the problem. This sets up her thesis about the “true purpose” of education.”

The strategy of writing an introduction as an inverted triangle entails first identifying an idea, an argument, or a concept that people appear to accept as true; next, pointing out the problems with that idea, argument, or concept; and then, in a few sentences, setting out a thesis — how those problems can be resolved.

◼ The Narrative Introduction

Opening with a short narrative, or story, is a strategy many writers use successfully to draw readers into a topic. A narrative introduction relates a sequence of events and can be especially effective if you think you need to coax indifferent or reluctant readers into taking an interest in the topic. Of course, a narrative introduction delays the declaration of your argument, so it’s wise to choose a short story that clearly connects to your argument, and get to the thesis as quickly as possible (within a few paragraphs) before your readers start wondering “What’s the point of this story?”

Notice how the student writer uses a narrative introduction to her argument in her essay titled “Throwing a Punch at Gender Roles: How Women’s Boxing Empowers Women.”

A page with annotations.

The first paragraph reads, “Glancing at my watch, I ran into the gym, noting to myself that being late to the first day of boxing practice was not the right way to make a good first impression. I flew down the stairs into the basement, to the room the boxers have lovingly dubbed “The Pit.” What greeted me when I got there was more than I could ever have imagined. Picture a room filled with boxing gloves of all sizes covering an entire wall, a mirror covering another, a boxing ring in a corner, and an awesome collection of framed newspaper and magazine articles chronicling the boxers whose pictures were hanging on every wall. Now picture that room with seventy-plus girls on the floor doing push-ups, sweat dripping down their faces. I was immediately struck by the discipline this sport would take from me, but I had no idea I would take so much more from it.”

The annotation for this sentence reads, “The student’s entire first paragraph is a narrative that takes us into the world of women’s boxing and foreshadows her thesis.”

The second paragraph reads, “The university offers the only nonmilitary-based college-level women’s boxing program in America, and it also offers women the chance to push their physical limits in a regulated environment. Yet the program is plagued with disappointments. I have experienced for myself the stereotypes female boxers face and have dealt with the harsh reality that boxing is still widely recognized as only a men’s sport. This paper will show that the women’s boxing program at Notre Dame serves as a much-needed outlet for females to come face-to-face with”

The annotation for this paragraph reads, “With her narrative as a backdrop, the student identifies a problem, using the transition word “yet” to mark her challenge to the conditions she observes in the university’s women’s boxing program.”

The annotation for this sentence reads, “The student’s entire first paragraph is a narrative that takes us into the world of women’s boxing and foreshadows her thesis.”

A paragraph with an annotation is shown.

The paragraph reads, “…aspects of themselves they would not typically get a chance to explore. It will also examine how viewing this sport as a positive opportunity for women at ND indicates that there is growing hope that very soon more activities similar to women’s boxing may be better received by society in general. I will accomplish these goals by analyzing scholarly journals, old Observer [the school newspaper] articles, and survey questions answered by the captains of the 20-- women’s boxing team of ND.”

The annotation for this sentence reads, “The writer then states her thesis (what her paper “will show”): Despite the problems of stereotyping, women’s boxing offers women significant opportunities for growth.”

The student writer uses a visually descriptive narrative to introduce us to the world of women’s college boxing; then, in the second paragraph, she steers us toward the purpose of the paper and the methods she will use to develop her argument about what women’s boxing offers to young women and to the changing world of sports.

◼ The Interrogative Introduction

An interrogative introduction invites readers into the conversation of your essay by asking one or more questions, which the essay goes on to answer. You want to think of a question that will pique your readers’ interest, enticing them to read on to discover how your insights shed light on the issue. Notice the question Daphne Spain, a professor of urban and environmental planning, uses to open her essay “Spatial Segregation and Gender Stratification in the Workplace.”

A paragraph with an annotation is shown.

The paragraph reads, “To what extent do women and men who work in different occupations also work in different space? Baran and Teegarden propose that occupational segregation in the insurance industry is “tantamount to spatial segregation by gender” since managers are overwhelmingly male and clerical staff are predominantly female. This essay examines the spatial conditions of women’s work and men’s work and proposes that working women and men come into daily contact with one another very infrequently. Further, women’s jobs can be classified as “open floor,” but men’s jobs are more likely to be “closed door.” That is, women work in a more public environment with less control of their space than men. This lack of spatial control both reflects and contributes to women’s lower occupational status by limiting opportunities for the transfer of knowledge from men to women.”

The annotation for the sentences, “To what extent do women and men who work in different occupations also work in different space? Baran and Tee garden propose that occupational segregation in the insurance industry is “tantamount to spatial segregation by gender” since managers are overwhelmingly male and clerical staff are predominantly female” reads, “Spain sets up her argument by asking a question and then tentatively answering it with a reference to a published study.”

The annotation for the sentences, “In the third sentence, she states her thesis – that men and women have very little contact in the workplace” reads, “That is, women work in a more public environment with less control of their space than men. This lack of spatial control both reflects and contributes to women’s lower occupational status by limiting opportunities for the transfer of knowledge from men to women.”

By the end of this introductory paragraph, Spain has explained some of the terms she will use in her essay (open floor and closed door) and has offered in her final sentence a clear statement of her thesis.

In “Harry Potter and the Technology of Magic,” literature scholar Elizabeth Teare begins by contextualizing the Harry Potter publishing phenomenon. Then she raises a question about what fueled this success story.

A paragraph with annotations is shown.

The paragraph reads, “The July/August 2001 issue of Book lists J. K. Rowling as one of the ten most influential people in publishing. She shares space on this list with John Grisham and Oprah Winfrey, along with less famous but equally powerful insiders in the book industry. What these industry leaders have in common is an almost magical power to make books succeed in the marketplace, and this magic, in addition to that performed with wands, Rowling’s novels appear to practice. Opening weekend sales charted like those of a blockbuster movie (not to mention the blockbuster movie itself), the reconstruction of the venerable New York Times bestseller lists, the creation of a new nation’s worth of web sites in the territory of cyberspace, and of course the legendary inspiration of tens of millions of child readers – the Harry Potter books have transformed both the technologies of reading and the way we understand those technologies. What is it that makes these books – about a lonely boy whose first act on learning he is a wizard is to go shopping for a wand – not only an international phenomenon among children and parents and teachers but also a topic of compelling interest to literary, social, and cultural critics? I will argue that the stories the books tell, as well as the stories we’re telling about them, enact both our fantasies and our fears of children’s literature and publishing in the context of twenty-first-century commercial and technological culture.”

The annotation for the sentences, “The July/August 2001 issue of Book lists J. K. Rowling as one of the ten most influential people in publishing. She shares space on this list with John Grisham and Oprah Winfrey, along with less famous but equally powerful insiders in the book industry. What these industry leaders have in common is an almost magical power to make books succeed in the marketplace, and this magic, in addition to that performed with wands, Rowling’s novels appear to practice. Opening weekend sales charted like those of a blockbuster movie (not to mention the blockbuster movie itself), the reconstruction of the venerable New York Times bestseller lists, the creation of a new nation’s worth of web sites in the territory of cyberspace, and of course the legendary inspiration of tens of millions of child readers – the Harry Potter books have transformed both the technologies of reading and the way we understand those technologies” reads, “In her first four sentences, Teare describes something she is curious about and she hopes readers will be curious about – the growing popularity of the Harry Potter books.”

The annotation for the sentence, “What is it that makes these books – about a lonely boy whose first act on learning he is a wizard is to go shopping for a wand – not only an international phenomenon among children and parents and teachers but also a topic of compelling interest to literary, social, and cultural critics?” reads, “In the fifth sentence, Teare asks the question she will try to answer in the rest of the essay.”

The annotation for the sentence, “I will argue that the stories the books tell, as well as the stories we’re telling about them, enact both our fantasies and our fears of children’s literature and publishing in the context of twenty-first-century commercial and technological culture” reads, “Finally, in the last sentence, Teare offers a partial answer to her question – her thesis.”

In the final two sentences of the introduction, Teare raises her question about the root of this “international phenomenon” and then offers her thesis. By the end of the opening paragraph, then, the reader knows exactly what question is driving Teare’s essay and the answer she proposes to explain throughout the essay.

◼ The Paradoxical Introduction

A paradoxical introduction appeals to readers’ curiosity by pointing out an aspect of the topic that runs counter to their expectations. Just as an interrogative introduction draws readers in by asking a question, a paradoxical introduction draws readers in by saying, in effect, “Here’s something completely surprising and unlikely about this issue, but my essay will go on to show you how it is true.” In this passage from “ ‘Holding Back’: Negotiating a Glass Ceiling on Women’s Muscular Strength,” sociologist Shari L. Dworkin points to a paradox in our commonsense understanding of bodies as the product of biology, not culture.

A paragraph with annotations is shown.

The paragraph reads, “Current work in gender studies points to how “when examined closely, much of what we take for granted about gender and its causes and effects either does not hold up, or can be explained differently.” These arguments become especially contentious when confronting nature/ culture debates on gendered bodies. After all, “common sense” frequently tells us that flesh and blood bodies are about biology. However, bodies are also shaped and constrained through cumulative social practices, structures of opportunity, wider cultural meanings, and more. Paradoxically, then, when we think that we are “really seeing” naturally sexed bodies, perhaps we are seeing the effect of internalizing gender ideologies – carrying out social practices – and this constructs our vision of “sexed” bodies.”

The annotation for the sentence, “Current work in gender studies points to how “when examined closely, much of what we take for granted about gender and its causes and effects either does not hold up, or can be explained differently”” reads, “In the first sentence, Dworkin quotes from a study to identify the thinking that she is going to challenge.”

The annotation for the sentence, “However, bodies are also shaped and constrained through cumulative social practices, structures of opportunity, wider cultural meanings, and more” reads, “Notice how Dworkin signals her own position “However” relative to commonly held assumptions.”

The annotation for the sentence, “Paradoxically, then, when we think that we are “really seeing” naturally sexed bodies, perhaps we are seeing the effect of internalizing gender ideologies – carrying out social practices – and this constructs our vision of “sexed” bodies” reads, “Dworkin ends by stating her thesis, noting a paradox that will surprise readers.”

Dworkin’s strategy in the first three sentences is to describe common practice, the understanding that bodies are biological. Then, in the sentences beginning “However” and “Paradoxically,” she advances the surprising idea that our bodies — not just the clothes we wear, for example — carry cultural gender markers. Her essay then goes on to examine women’s weight lifting and the complex motives driving many women to create a body that is perceived as muscular but not masculine.

◼ The Minding-the-Gap Introduction

This type of introduction takes its name from the British train system, the voice on the loudspeaker that intones “Mind the gap!” at every stop, to call riders’ attention to the gap between the train car and the platform. In a minding-the-gap introduction, a writer calls readers’ attention to a gap in the research on an issue and then uses the rest of the essay to fill in the “gap.” A minding-the-gap introduction says, in effect, “Wait a minute. There’s something missing from this conversation, and my research and ideas will fill in this gap.”

For example, in the introductory paragraphs to their book Men’s Lives, Michael S. Kimmel and Michael A. Messner explain how the book is different from other books that discuss men’s lives, and how it serves a different purpose.

Two paragraphs with annotations are shown.

The first paragraph reads, “This is a book about men. But, unlike other books about men, which line countless library shelves, this is a book about men as men. It is a book in which men’s experiences are not taken for granted as we explore the “real” and significant accomplishments of men, but a book in which those experiences are treated as significant and important in themselves.”

The annotation for this sentence reads, “The authors begin with an assumption and then challenge it. A transition word “but” signals the challenge.”

The second paragraph reads, “But what does it mean to examine men “as men”? Most courses in a college curriculum are about men, aren’t they? But these courses routinely deal with men only in their public roles, so we come to know and understand men as scientists, politicians, military figures, writers, and philosophers. Rarely, if ever, are men understood through the prism of gender.”

The annotation for this paragraph, “The authors follow with a question that provokes readers’ interest and points to the gap they summarize in the last sentence”

The annotation for this sentence reads, “The authors begin with an assumption and then challenge it. A transition word “but” signals the challenge.”

The annotation for this paragraph, “The authors follow with a question that provokes readers’ interest and points to the gap they summarize in the last sentence”

Kimmel and Messner use these opening paragraphs to highlight both what they find problematic about the existing literature on men and to introduce readers to their own approach.

Steps to Drafting Introductions: Five Strategies

1. Use an inverted triangle. Begin with a broad situation, concept, or idea, and narrow the focus to your thesis.

2. Begin with a narrative. Capture readers’ imagination and interest with a story that sets the stage for your argument.

3. Ask a question that you will answer. Provoke readers’ interest with a question, and then use your thesis to answer the question.

4. Present a paradox. Begin with an assumption that readers accept as true, and formulate a thesis that not only challenges that assumption but may very well seem paradoxical.

5. Mind the gap. Identify what readers know and then what they don’t know (or what you believe they need to know).

A Practice Sequence: Drafting an Introduction

1. Write or rewrite your introduction (which, as you’ve seen, may involve more than one paragraph), using one of the five drafting strategies discussed in this chapter. Then share your introduction with one of your peers and ask the following questions:

· To what extent did the strategy compel you to want to read further?

· To what extent is my thesis clear?

· How effectively do I draw a distinction between what I believe others assume to be true and my own approach?

· Is there another way that I might have made my introduction more compelling?

After listening to the responses, try a second strategy and then ask your peer which introduction is more effective.

2. If you do not have your own introduction to work on, revise the introduction below from a student’s essay, combining two of the five drafting strategies we’ve discussed in this chapter.

News correspondent Pauline Frederick once commented, “When a man gets up to speak people listen then look. When a woman gets up, people look; then, if they like what they see, they listen.” Ironically, the harsh reality of this statement is given life by the ongoing controversy over America’s most recognizable and sometimes notorious toy, Barbie. Celebrating her fortieth birthday this year, Barbie has become this nation’s most beleaguered soldier (a woman no less) of idolatry who has been to the front lines and back more times than the average “Joe.” This doll, a piece of plastic, a toy, incurs both criticism and praise spanning both ends of the ideological spectrum. Barbie’s curvaceous and basically unrealistic body piques the ire of both liberals and conservatives, each contending that Barbie stands for the distinct view of the other. One hundred and eighty degrees south, others praise Barbie’s (curves and all) ability to unlock youthful imagination and potential. M. G. Lord explains Barbie best: “To study Barbie, one sometimes has to hold seemingly contradictory ideas in one’s head at the same time. . . . The doll functions like a Rorschach test: people project wildly dissimilar and often opposing meanings on it. . . . And her meaning, like her face, has not been static over time.” In spite of the extreme polarity, a sole unconscious consensus manifests itself about Barbie. Barbie is “the icon” of womanhood and the twentieth century. She is the American dream. Barbie is “us.” The question is always the same: What message does Barbie send? Barbie is a toy. She is what we see.

DEVELOPING PARAGRAPHS

In your introduction, you set forth your thesis. Then, in subsequent paragraphs, you have to develop your argument. Remember our metaphor: If your thesis, or main claim, is the skewer that runs through each paragraph in your essay, then these paragraphs are the “meat” of your argument. The paragraphs that follow your introduction carry the burden of evidence in your argument. After all, a claim cannot stand on its own without supporting evidence. Generally speaking, each paragraph should include a topic sentence that brings the main idea of the paragraph into focus, be unified around the main idea of the topic sentence, and adequately develop the idea. At the same time, a paragraph does not stand on its own; as part of your overall argument, it can refer to what you’ve said earlier, gesture toward where you are heading, and connect to the larger conversation to which you are contributing.

We now ask you to read an excerpt from “Reinventing ‘America’: Call for a New National Identity,” by Elizabeth Martínez, and answer some questions about how you think the author develops her argument, paragraph by paragraph. Then we discuss her work in the context of the three key elements of paragraphs: topic sentences, unity, and adequate development. As you read, pay attention to how, sentence by sentence, Martínez develops her paragraphs. We also ask that you consider how she makes her argument provocative, impassioned, and urgent for her audience.

ELIZABETH MARTÍNEZ

From Reinventing “America”: Call for a New National Identity

Elizabeth Martínez is a Chicana activist who since 1960 has worked in and documented different movements for change, including the civil rights, women’s, and Chicano movements. She is the author of six books and numerous articles. Her best-known work is 500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures (1991), which became the basis of a two-part video she scripted and codirected. Her latest book is De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century (1998). In “Reinventing ‘America,’ ” Martínez argues that Americans’ willingness to accept a “myth” as “the basis for [the] nation’s self-defined identity” has brought the country to a crisis.

For some fifteen years, starting in 1940, 85 percent of all U.S. elementary schools used the Dick and Jane series to teach children how to read. The series starred Dick, Jane, their white middle-class parents, their dog Spot, and their life together in a home with a white picket fence.

“Look, Jane, look! See Spot run!” chirped the two kids. It was a house full of glorious family values, where Mom cooked while Daddy went to work in a suit and mowed the lawn on weekends. The Dick and Jane books also taught that you should do your job and help others. All this affirmed an equation of middle-class whiteness with virtue.

In the mid-1990s, museums, libraries, and eighty Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) stations across the country had exhibits and programs commemorating the series. At one museum, an attendant commented, “When you hear someone crying, you know they are looking at the Dick and Jane books.” It seems nostalgia runs rampant among many Euro-Americans: a nostalgia for the days of unchallenged White Supremacy — both moral and material — when life was “simple.”

We’ve seen that nostalgia before in the nation’s history. But today it signifies a problem reaching a new intensity. It suggests a national identity crisis that promises to bring in its wake an unprecedented nervous breakdown for the dominant society’s psyche.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in California, which has long been on the cutting edge of the nation’s present and future reality. Warning sirens have sounded repeatedly in the 1990s, such as the fierce battle over new history textbooks for public schools, Proposition 187’s ugly denial of human rights to immigrants, the 1996 assault on affirmative action that culminated in Proposition 209, and the 1997 move to abolish bilingual education. Attempts to copycat these reactionary measures have been seen in other states.

The attack on affirmative action isn’t really about affirmative action. Essentially it is another tactic in today’s war on the gains of the 1960s, a tactic rooted in Anglo resentment and fear. A major source of that fear: the fact that California will almost surely have a majority of people of color in twenty to thirty years at most, with the nation as a whole not far behind.

Check out the February 3, 1992, issue of Sports Illustrated with its double-spread ad for Time magazine. The ad showed hundreds of newborn babies in their hospital cribs, all of them Black or brown except for a rare white face here and there. The headline says, “Hey, whitey! It’s your turn at the back of the bus!” The ad then tells you, read Time magazine to keep up with today’s hot issues. That manipulative image could have been published today; its implication of shifting power appears to be the recurrent nightmare of too many potential Anglo allies.

Euro-American anxiety often focuses on the sense of a vanishing national identity. Behind the attacks on immigrants, affirmative action, and multiculturalism, behind the demand for “English Only” laws and the rejection of bilingual education, lies the question: with all these new people, languages, and cultures, what will it mean to be an American? If that question once seemed, to many people, to have an obvious, universally applicable answer, today new definitions must be found. But too often Americans, with supposed scholars in the lead, refuse to face that need and instead nurse a nostalgia for some bygone clarity. They remain trapped in denial.

An array of such ostriches, heads in the sand, began flapping their feathers noisily with the publication of Allan Bloom’s 1987 best-selling book, The Closing of the American Mind. Bloom bemoaned the decline of our “common values” as a society, meaning the decline of Euro-American cultural centricity (shall we just call it cultural imperialism?). Since then we have seen constant sniping at “diversity” goals across the land. The assault has often focused on how U.S. history is taught. And with reason, for this country’s identity rests on a particular narrative about the historical origins of the United States as a nation.

The Great White Origin Myth

Every society has an origin narrative that explains that society to itself and the world with a set of stories and symbols. The origin myth, as scholar-activist Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz has termed it, defines how a society understands its place in the world and its history. The myth provides the basis for a nation’s self-defined identity. Most origin narratives can be called myths because they usually present only the most flattering view of a nation’s history; they are not distinguished by honesty.

Ours begins with Columbus “discovering” a hemisphere where some 80 million people already lived but didn’t really count (in what became the United States, they were just buffalo-chasing “savages” with no grasp of real estate values and therefore doomed to perish). It continues with the brave Pilgrims, a revolution by independence-loving colonists against a decadent English aristocracy, and the birth of an energetic young republic that promised democracy and equality (that is, to white male landowners). In the 1840s, the new nation expanded its size by almost one-third, thanks to a victory over that backward land of little brown people called Mexico. Such has been the basic account of how the nation called the United States of America came into being as presently configured.

The myth’s omissions are grotesque. It ignores three major pillars of our nationhood: genocide, enslavement, and imperialist expansion (such nasty words, who wants to hear them? — but that’s the problem). The massive extermination of indigenous peoples provided our land base; the enslavement of African labor made our economic growth possible; and the seizure of half of Mexico by war (or threat of renewed war) extended this nation’s boundaries north to the Pacific and south to the Rio Grande. Such are the foundation stones of the United States, within an economic system that made this country the first in world history to be born capitalist. . . .

Racism as Linchpin of the U.S. National Identity

A crucial embellishment of the origin myth and key element of the national identity has been the myth of the frontier, analyzed in Richard Slotkin’s Gunfighter Nation, the last volume of a fascinating trilogy. He describes Theodore Roosevelt’s belief that the West was won thanks to American arms, “the means by which progress and nationality will be achieved.” That success, Roosevelt continued, “depends on the heroism of men who impose on the course of events the latent virtues of their ‘race.’ ” Roosevelt saw conflict on the frontier producing a series of virile “fighters and breeders” who would eventually generate a new leadership class. Militarism thus went hand in hand with the racialization of history’s protagonists. . . .

The frontier myth embodied the nineteenth-century concept of Manifest Destiny, a doctrine that served to justify expansionist violence by means of intrinsic racial superiority. Manifest Destiny was Yankee conquest as the inevitable result of a confrontation between enterprise and progress (white) versus passivity and backwardness (Indian, Mexican). “Manifest” meant “God-given,” and the whole doctrine is profoundly rooted in religious conviction going back to the earliest colonial times. In his short, powerful book Manifest Destiny: American Expansion and the Empire of Right, Professor Anders Stephanson tells how the Puritans reinvented the Jewish notion of chosenness and applied it to this hemisphere so that territorial expansion became God’s will. . . .

Manifest Destiny Dies Hard

The concept of Manifest Destiny, with its assertion of racial superiority sustained by military power, has defined U.S. identity for 150 years. . . .

Today’s origin myth and the resulting concept of national identity make for an intellectual prison where it is dangerous to ask big questions about this society’s superiority. When otherwise decent people are trapped in such a powerful desire not to feel guilty, self-deception becomes unavoidable. To cease our present falsification of collective memory should, and could, open the doors of that prison. When together we cease equating whiteness with Americanness, a new day can dawn. As David Roediger, the social historian, has said, “[Whiteness] is the empty and therefore terrifying attempt to build an identity on what one isn’t, and on whom one can hold back.”

Redefining the U.S. origin narrative, and with it this country’s national identity, could prove liberating for our collective psyche. It does not mean Euro-Americans should wallow individually in guilt. It does mean accepting collective responsibility to deal with the implications of our real origin. A few apologies, for example, might be a step in the right direction. In 1997, the idea was floated in Congress to apologize for slavery; it encountered opposition from all sides. But to reject the notion because corrective action, not an apology, is needed misses the point. Having defined itself as the all-time best country in the world, the United States fiercely denies the need to make a serious official apology for anything. . . . To press for any serious, official apology does imply a new origin narrative, a new self-image, an ideological sea-change.

Accepting the implications of a different narrative could also shed light on today’s struggles. In the affirmative-action struggle, for example, opponents have said that that policy is no longer needed because racism ended with the Civil Rights Movement. But if we look at slavery as a fundamental pillar of this nation, going back centuries, it becomes obvious that racism could not have been ended by thirty years of mild reforms. If we see how the myth of the frontier idealized the white male adventurer as the central hero of national history, with the woman as sunbonneted helpmate, then we might better understand the dehumanized ways in which women have continued to be treated. A more truthful origin narrative could also help break down divisions among peoples of color by revealing common experiences and histories of cooperation.

Reading as a Writer

1. To what extent does the narrative Martínez begins with make you want to read further?

2. How does she connect this narrative to the rest of her argument?

3. How does she use repetition to create unity in her essay?

4. What assumptions does Martínez challenge?

5. How does she use questions to engage her readers?

◼ Use Topic Sentences to Focus Your Paragraphs

The topic sentence states the main point of a paragraph. It should

· provide a partial answer to the question motivating the writer.

· act as an extension of the writer’s thesis and the question motivating the writer’s argument.

· serve as a guidepost, telling readers what the paragraph is about.

· help create unity and coherence both within the paragraph and within the essay.

Elizabeth Martínez begins by describing how elementary schools in the 1940s and 1950s used the Dick and Jane series not only to teach reading but also to foster a particular set of values — values that she believes do not serve all children enrolled in America’s schools. In paragraph 4, she states her thesis, explaining that nostalgia in the United States has created “a national identity crisis that promises to bring in its wake an unprecedented nervous breakdown for the dominant society’s psyche.” This is a point that builds on an observation she makes in paragraph 3: “It seems nostalgia runs rampant among many Euro-Americans: a nostalgia for the days of unchallenged White Supremacy — both moral and material — when life was ‘simple.’ ” Martínez often returns to this notion of nostalgia for a past that seems “simple” to explain what she sees as an impending crisis.

Consider the first sentence of paragraph 5 as a topic sentence. With Martínez’s key points in mind, notice how she uses the sentence to make her thesis more specific. Notice too, how she ties in the crisis and breakdown she alludes to in paragraph 4. Essentially, Martínez tells her readers that they can see these problems at play in California, an indicator of “the nation’s present and future reality.”

Nowhere is this more apparent than in California, which has long been on the cutting edge of the nation’s present and future reality. Warning sirens have sounded repeatedly in the 1990s, such as the fierce battle over new history textbooks for public schools, Proposition 187’s ugly denial of human rights to immigrants, the 1996 assault on affirmative action that culminated in Proposition 209, and the 1997 move to abolish bilingual education. Attempts to copycat these reactionary measures have been seen in other states.

The final sentence of paragraph 5 sets up the remainder of the essay.

As readers, we expect each subsequent paragraph to respond in some way to the issue Martínez has raised. She meets that expectation by formulating a topic sentence that appears at the beginning of the paragraph. The topic sentence is what helps create unity and coherence in the essay.

◼ Create Unity in Your Paragraphs

Each paragraph in an essay should focus on the subject suggested by the topic sentence. If a paragraph begins with one focus or major point of discussion, it should not end with another. Several strategies can contribute to the unity of each paragraph.

Use details that follow logically from your topic sentence and maintain a single focus — a focus that is clearly an extension of your thesis.

For example, in paragraph 5, Martínez’s topic sentence (“Nowhere is this more apparent than in California, which has long been on the cutting edge of the nation’s present and future reality”) helps to create unity because it refers back to her thesis (this refers to the “national identity crisis” mentioned in paragraph 4) and limits the focus of what she includes in the paragraph to “the fierce battle over new history textbooks” and recent pieces of legislation in California that follow directly from and support the claim of the topic sentence.

Repeat key words to guide your readers.

A second strategy for creating unity is to repeat (or use synonyms for) key words within a given paragraph. You can see this at work in paragraph 12 (notice the words we’ve underscored), where Martínez explains that America’s origin narrative omits significant details:

Specifically, Martínez tells us that the origin narrative ignores “three major pillars of our nationhood: genocide, enslavement, and imperialist expansion.” She then substitutes extermination for “genocide,” repeats enslavement, and substitutes seizure for “imperialist expansion.” By connecting words in a paragraph, as Martínez does here, you help readers understand that the details you provide are all relevant to the point you want to make.

Use transition words to link ideas from different sentences.

A third strategy for creating unity within paragraphs is to establish a clear relationship among different ideas by using transition words or phrases. Transition words or phrases signal to your readers the direction your ideas are taking. Table 11.1 lists common transition words and phrases grouped by function — that is, for adding a new idea, presenting a contrasting idea, or drawing a conclusion about an idea.

TABLE 11.1Common Transition Words and Phrases
ADDING AN IDEA	PRESENTING A CONTRASTING IDEA	DRAWING A LOGICAL CONCLUSION
also, and, further, moreover, in addition to, in support of, similarly	although, alternatively, as an alternative, but, by way of contrast, despite, even though, however, in contrast to, nevertheless, nonetheless, rather than, yet	as a result, because of, consequently, finally, in sum, in the end, subsequently, therefore, thus

Martínez uses transition words and phrases throughout the excerpt here. In several places, she uses the word but to make a contrast — to draw a distinction between an idea that many people accept as true and an alternative idea that she wants to pursue. Notice in paragraph 17 how she signals the importance of an official apology for slavery — and by implication genocide and the seizure of land from Mexico:

. . . A few apologies, for example, might be a step in the right direction. In 1997, the idea was floated in Congress to apologize for slavery; it encountered opposition from all sides. But to reject the notion because corrective action, not an apology, is needed misses the point. Having defined itself as the all-time best country in the world, the United States fiercely denies the need to make a serious official apology for anything. . . . To press for any serious, official apology does imply a new origin narrative, a new self-image, an ideological sea-change.

Similarly, in the last paragraph, Martínez counters the argument that affirmative action is not necessary because racism no longer exists:

. . . In the affirmative-action struggle, for example, opponents have said that that policy is no longer needed because racism ended with the Civil Rights Movement. But if we look at slavery as a fundamental pillar of this nation, going back centuries, it becomes obvious that racism could not have been ended by thirty years of mild reforms. . . .

There are a number of ways to rephrase what Martínez is saying in paragraph 18. We could substitute however for “but.” Or we could combine the two sentences into one to point to the relationship between the two competing ideas: Although some people oppose affirmative action, believing that racism no longer exists, I would argue that racism remains a fundamental pillar of this nation. Or we could pull together Martínez’s different points to draw a logical conclusion using a transition word like therefore. Martínez observes that our country is in crisis as a result of increased immigration. Therefore, we need to reassess our conceptions of national identity to account for the diversity that increased immigration has created. We can substitute any of the transition words in Table 11.1 for drawing a logical conclusion.

The list of transition words and phrases in Table 11.1 is hardly exhaustive, but it gives you a sense of the ways to connect ideas so that readers understand how your ideas are related. Are they similar ideas? Do they build on or support one another? Are you challenging accepted ideas? Or are you drawing a logical connection from a number of different ideas?

◼ Use Critical Strategies to Develop Your Paragraphs

To develop a paragraph, you can use a range of strategies, depending on what you want to accomplish and what you believe your readers will find persuasive. Among these strategies are using examples and illustrations; citing data (facts, statistics, evidence, details); analyzing texts; telling a story or an anecdote; defining terms; making comparisons; and examining causes and evaluating consequences.

Use examples and illustrations.

Examples make abstract ideas concrete through illustration. Using examples is probably the most common way to develop a piece of writing. Of course, Martínez’s essay is full of examples. In fact, she begins with an example of a series of books — the Dick and Jane books — to show how a generation of schoolchildren were exposed to white middle-class values. She also uses examples in paragraph 5, where she lists several pieces of legislation (Propositions 187 and 209) to develop the claim in her topic sentence.

Cite data.

Data are factual pieces of information. They function in an essay as the bases of propositions. In the first few paragraphs of the excerpt, Martínez cites statistics (“85 percent of all U.S. elementary schools used the Dick and Jane series to teach children how to read”) and facts (“In the mid-1990s, museums, libraries, and eighty Public Broadcasting Service . . . stations across the country had exhibits and programs commemorating the series”) to back up her claim about the popularity of the Dick and Jane series and the nostalgia the books evoke.

Analyze texts.

Analysis is the process of breaking something down into its elements to understand how they work together. When you analyze a text, you point out parts of the text that have particular significance to your argument and explain what they mean. By texts, we mean both verbal and visual texts. In paragraph 7, Martínez analyzes a visual text, an advertisement that appeared in Sports Illustrated, to reveal “its implication of shifting power” — a demographic power shift from Anglos to people of color.

Provide narratives or anecdotes.

Put simply, a narrative is an account of something that happened. More technically, a narrative relates a sequence of events that are connected in time; and an anecdote is a short narrative that recounts a particular incident. An anecdote, like an example, can bring an abstraction into focus. Consider Martínez’s third paragraph, where the anecdote about the museum attendant brings her point about racially charged nostalgia among white Americans into memorable focus: The tears of the museum-goers indicate just how profound their nostalgia is.

By contrast, a longer narrative, in setting out its sequence of events, often opens up possibilities for analysis. Why did these events occur? Why did they occur in this sequence? What might they lead to? What are the implications? What is missing?

In paragraph 11, for example, Martínez relates several key events in the origin myth of America. Then, in the next paragraph, she explains what is omitted from the myth, or narrative, and builds her argument about the implications and consequences of those omissions.

Define terms.

A definition is an explanation of what something is and, by implication, what it is not. The simplest kind of definition is a synonym, but for the purpose of developing your argument, a one-word definition is rarely enough.

When you define your terms, you are setting forth meanings that you want your readers to agree on, so that you can continue to build your argument on the foundation of that agreement. You may have to stipulate that your definition is part of a larger whole to develop your argument. For example: “Nostalgia is a bittersweet longing for things of the past; but for the purposes of my essay, I focus on white middle-class nostalgia, which combines a longing for a past that never existed with a hostile anxiety about the present.”

In paragraph 10, Martínez defines the term origin narrative — a myth that explains “how a society understands its place in the world and its history . . . the basis for a nation’s self-defined identity.” The “Great White Origin Myth” is an important concept in her developing argument about a national crisis of identity.

Make comparisons.

Technically, a comparison shows the similarities between two or more things, and a contrast shows the differences. In practice, however, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to develop a comparison that does not make use of contrast. Therefore, we use the term comparison to describe the strategy of comparing and contrasting.

Doubtless you have written paragraphs or even whole essays that take as a starting point a version of this sentence: “X and Y are similar in some respects and different in others.” This neutral formulation is seldom helpful when you are developing an argument. Usually, in making your comparison — in setting forth the points of similarity and difference — you have to take an evaluative or argumentative stance.

Note the comparison in this passage:

Although there are similarities between the current nostalgias for Dick and Jane books and for rhythm and blues music of the same era — in both cases, the object of nostalgia can move people to tears — the nostalgias spring from emotional responses that are quite different and even contradictory. I will argue that the Dick and Jane books evoke a longing for a past that is colored by a fear of the present, a longing for a time when white middle-class values were dominant and unquestioned. By contrast, the nostalgia for R&B music may indicate a yearning for a past when multicultural musicians provided white folks with a sweaty release on the dance floor from those very same white-bread values of the time.

The writer does more than list similarities and differences; she offers an analysis of what they mean and is prepared to argue for her interpretation.

Certainly Elizabeth Martínez takes an evaluative stance when she compares versions of American history in paragraphs 11 and 12. In paragraph 11, she angrily relates the sanitized story of American history, setting up a contrast in paragraph 12 with the story that does not appear in history textbooks, a story of “genocide, enslavement, and imperialist expansion.” Her evaluative stance comes through clearly: She finds the first version repugnant and harmful, its omissions “grotesque.”

Examine causes and evaluate consequences.

In any academic discipline, questions of cause and consequence are central. Whether you are analyzing the latest election results in a political science course, reading about the causes of the Vietnam War in a history course, or speculating about the long-term consequences of climate change in a science course, questions of why things happened, happen, or will happen are inescapable.

Examining causes and consequences usually involves identifying a phenomenon and asking questions about it until you gather enough information to begin analyzing the relationships among its parts and deciding which are most significant. You can then begin to set forth your own analysis of what happened and why.

Of course, this kind of analysis is rarely straightforward, and any phenomenon worthy of academic study is bound to generate a variety of conversations about its causes and consequences. In your own thinking and research, avoid jumping to conclusions and continue to sift evidence until plausible connections present themselves. Be prepared to revise your thinking — perhaps several times — in light of new evidence.

In your writing, you also want to avoid oversimplifying. A claim like this — “The answer to curbing unemployment in the United States is to restrict immigration” — does not take into account corporate outsourcing of jobs overseas or the many other possible causes of unemployment. At the very least, you may need to explain the basis and specifics of your analysis and qualify your claim: “Recent studies of patterns of immigration and unemployment in the United States suggest that unrestricted immigration is a major factor in the loss of blue-collar job opportunities in the Southwest.” Certainly this sentence is less forceful and provocative than the other one, but it does suggest that you have done significant and focused research and respect the complexity of the issue.

Throughout her essay, Martínez analyzes causes and consequences. In paragraph 8, for example, she speculates that the cause of “attacks on immigrants, affirmative action, and multiculturalism” is “Euro-American anxiety,” “the sense of a vanishing national identity.” In paragraph 13, she concludes that a consequence of Theodore Roosevelt’s beliefs about race and war was a “militarism [that] went hand in hand with the racialization of history’s protagonists.” In paragraph 16, the topic sentence itself is a statement about causes and consequences: “Today’s origin myth and the resulting concept of national identity make for an intellectual prison where it is dangerous to ask big questions about this society’s superiority.”

Having shown where and how Martínez uses critical strategies to develop her paragraphs, we must hasten to add that these critical strategies usually work in combination. Although you can easily develop an entire paragraph (or even an entire essay) using comparison, it is almost impossible to do so without relying on one or more of the other strategies. What if you need to tell an anecdote about the two authors you are comparing? What if you have to cite data about different rates of economic growth to clarify the main claim of your comparison? What if you are comparing different causes and consequences?

Our point is that the strategies described here are methods for exploring your issue in writing. How you make use of them, individually or in combination, depends on which can help you best communicate your argument to your readers.

steps to developing paragraphs

1. Use topic sentences to focus your paragraphs. Remember that a topic sentence partially answers the question motivating you to write; acts as an extension of your thesis; indicates to your readers what the paragraph is about; and helps create unity both within the paragraph and within the essay.

2. Create unity in your paragraphs. The details in your paragraph should follow logically from your topic sentence and maintain a single focus, one tied clearly to your thesis. Repetition and transition words also help create unity in paragraphs.

3. Use critical strategies to develop your paragraphs. Use examples and illustrations; cite data; analyze texts; tell stories or anecdotes; define terms; make comparisons; and examine causes and evaluate consequences.

a practice sequence: working with paragraphs

We would like you to work in pairs on paragraphing. The objective of this exercise is to gauge the effectiveness of your topic sentences and the degree to which your paragraphs are unified and fully developed.

Make a copy of your essay and cut it up into paragraphs. Shuffle the paragraphs to be sure they are no longer in the original order, and then exchange cut-up drafts with your partner. The challenge is to put your partner’s essay back together again. When you both have finished, compare your reorderings with the original drafts. Were you able to reproduce the original organization exactly? If not, do the variations make sense? If one or the other of you had trouble putting the essay back together, talk about the adequacy of your topic sentences, ways to revise topic sentences in keeping with the details in a given paragraph, and strategies for making paragraphs more unified and coherent.

DRAFTING CONCLUSIONS

In writing a conclusion to your essay, you are making a final appeal to your audience. You want to convince readers that what you have written is a relevant, meaningful interpretation of a shared issue. You also want to remind them that your argument is reasonable. Rather than summarize all of the points you’ve made in the essay — assume your readers have carefully read what you’ve written — pull together the key components of your argument in the service of answering the question “So what?” Establish why your argument is important: What will happen if things stay the same? What will happen if things change? How effective your conclusion is depends on whether or not readers feel that you have adequately addressed “So what?” — that you have made clear what is significant and of value.

In building on the specific details of your argument, you can also place what you have written in a broader context. (What are the sociological implications of your argument? How far-reaching are they? Are there political implications? Economic implications?) Finally, explain again how your ideas contribute something new to the conversation by building on, extending, or even challenging what others have argued.

In her concluding paragraph, Elizabeth Martínez brings together her main points, puts her essay in a broader context, indicates what’s new in her argument, and answers the question “So what?”:

Let’s examine this concluding paragraph:

1. Although Martínez refers back to important events and ideas she has discussed, she does not merely summarize. Instead, she suggests the implications of those important events and ideas in her first sentence (the topic sentence), which crystallizes the main point of her essay: Americans need a different origin narrative.

2. Then she puts those implications in the broader context of contemporary racial and gender issues.

3. She signals what’s new in her argument with the word if (if we look at slavery in a new way; if we look at the frontier myth in a new way).

4. Finally, her answers to why this issue matters culminate in the last sentence. This last sentence connects and extends the claim of her topic sentence, by asserting that a “more truthful origin narrative” could help heal divisions among peoples of color who have been misrepresented by the old origin myth. Clearly, she believes the implications of her argument matter: A new national identity has the potential to heal a country in crisis, a country on the verge of a “nervous breakdown” (para. 4).

Martínez also does something else in the last sentence of the concluding paragraph: She looks to the future, suggesting what the future implications of her argument could be. Looking to the future is one of five strategies for shaping a conclusion. The others we discuss are echoing the introduction, challenging the reader, posing questions, and concluding with a quotation. Each of these strategies appeals to readers in different ways; therefore, we suggest you try them all out in writing your own conclusions. Also, remember that some of these strategies can be combined. For example, you can write a conclusion that challenges readers, poses a question, looks to the future, and ends with a quotation.

◼ Echo the Introduction

Echoing the introduction in your conclusion helps readers come full circle. It helps them see how you have developed your idea from beginning to end. In the following example, the student writer begins with a voice speaking from behind an Islamic veil, revealing the ways that Western culture misunderstands the symbolic value of wearing the veil. The writer repeats this visual image in her conclusion, quoting from the Koran: “Speak to them from behind a curtain.”

A paragraph with an annotation is shown.

The paragraph reads, “Introduction: A voice from behind the shrouds of an Islamic veil exclaims: “I often wonder whether people see me as a radical, fundamentalist Muslim terrorist packing an AK-47 assault rifle inside my jean jacket. Or maybe they see me as the poster girl for oppressed womanhood everywhere.” In American culture where shameless public exposure, particularly of females, epitomizes ultimate freedom, the head-to-toe covering of a Muslim woman seems inherently oppressive. Driven by an autonomous national attitude, the inhabitants of the “land of the free” are quick to equate the veil with indisputable persecution. Yet Muslim women reveal the enslaving hijab as a symbolic display of the Islamic ideals – honor, modesty, and stability. Because of an unfair American assessment, the aura of hijab mystery cannot”

The annotation for this paragraph reads, “Notice that the author begins with “a voice from behind the shrouds of an Islamic veil” and then echoes this quotation in her conclusion: “Speak to them from behind a curtain.”

A page with annotations.

The first paragraph reads, “be removed until the customs and ethics of Muslim culture are genuinely explored. It is this form of enigmatic seclusion that forms the feminist controversy between Western liberals, who perceive the veil as an inhibiting factor against free will, and Islamic disciples, who conceptualize the veil as a sacred symbol of utmost morality.”

The second paragraph reads, “Conclusion: For those who improperly judge an alien religion, the veil becomes a symbol of oppression and devastation, instead of a representation of pride and piety. Despite Western images, the hijab is a daily revitalization and reminder of the Islamic societal and religious ideals, thereby upholding the conduct and attitudes of the Muslim community. Americans share these ideals yet fail to recognize them in the context of a different culture. By sincerely exploring the custom of Islamic veiling, one will realize the vital role the hijab plays in shaping Muslim culture by sheltering women, and consequently society, from the perils that erupt from indecency. The principles implored in the Koran of modesty, honor, and stability construct a unifying and moral view of the Islamic Middle Eastern society when properly investigated. As it was transcribed from Allah, “Speak to them from behind a curtain.

This is purer for your hearts and their hearts.”

The annotation for this “The principles implored in the Koran of modesty, honor, and stability construct a unifying and moral view of the Islamic Middle Eastern society when properly investigated. As it was transcribed from Allah, “Speak to them from behind a curtain. This is purer for your hearts and their hearts” reads, “Notice how the conclusion echoes the introduction in its reference to a voice speaking from behind a curtain.”

This is purer for your hearts and their hearts.”

◼ Challenge the Reader

By issuing a challenge to your readers, you create a sense of urgency, provoking them to act to change the status quo. In this example, the student writer explains the unacceptable consequences of preventing young women from educating themselves about AIDS and the spread of a disease that has already reached epidemic proportions.

A paragraph with annotations is shown.

The paragraph reads, “The changes in AIDS education that I am suggesting are necessary and relatively simple to make. Although the current curriculum in high school health classes is helpful and informative, it simply does not pertain to young women as much as it should. AIDS is killing women at an alarming rate, and many people do not realize this. According to Daniel DeNoon, AIDS is one of the six leading causes of death among women aged 18 to 45, and women “bear the brunt of the worldwide AIDS epidemic.” For this reason, DeNoon argues, women are one of the most important new populations that are contracting HIV at a high rate. I challenge young women to be more well-informed about AIDS and their link to the disease; otherwise, many new cases may develop. As the epidemic continues to spread, women need to realize that”

The annotation for the sentences, “The changes in AIDS education that I am suggesting are necessary and relatively simple to make. Although the current curriculum in high school health classes is helpful and informative, it simply does not pertain to young women as much as it should. AIDS is killing women at an alarming rate, and many people do not realize this. According to Daniel DeNoon, AIDS is one of the six leading causes of death among women aged 18 to 45, and women “bear the brunt of the worldwide AIDS epidemic” reads, “Here the author cites a final piece of research to emphasize the extent of the problem.”

The annotation for the sentences, “For this reason, DeNoon argues, women are one of the most important new populations that are contracting HIV at a high rate. I challenge young women to be more well-informed about AIDS and their link to the disease; otherwise, many new cases may develop. As the epidemic continues to spread, women need to realize that…” reads, “Here she begins her explicit challenge to readers about what they have to do to protect themselves or their students from infection.”

◼ Look to the Future

Looking to the future is particularly relevant when you are asking readers to take action. To move readers to action, you must establish the persistence of a problem and the consequences of letting a situation continue unchanged. In the concluding paragraph below, the student author points out a number of things that teachers need to do to involve parents in their children’s education. She identifies a range of options before identifying what she believes is perhaps the most important action teachers can take.

A paragraph with annotations is shown.

The paragraph reads, “First and foremost, teachers must recognize the ways in which some parents are positively contributing to their children’s academic endeavors. Teachers must recognize nontraditional methods of participation as legitimate and work toward supporting parents in these tasks. For instance, teachers might send home suggestions for local after-school tutoring programs. Teachers must also try to make urban parents feel welcome and respected in their school. Teachers might call parents to ask their opinion about a certain difficulty their child is having, or invite them to talk about something of interest to them. One parent, for instance, spoke highly of the previous superintendent who had let him use his work as a film producer to help with a show for students during homeroom. If teachers can develop innovative ways to utilize parents’ talents and interests rather than just inviting them to be passively involved in an already in- place curriculum, more parents might respond. Perhaps, most importantly, if teachers want parents to be involved in students’ educations, they must make the parents feel as though their opinions and concerns have real weight. When parents such as those interviewed for this study voice concerns and questions over their child’s progress, it is imperative that teachers acknowledge and answer them.”

The annotation for the sentences, “First and foremost, teachers must recognize the ways in which some parents are positively contributing to their children’s academic endeavors. Teachers must recognize nontraditional methods of participation as legitimate and work toward supporting parents in these tasks. For instance, teachers might send home suggestions for local after-school tutoring programs. Teachers must also try to make urban parents feel welcome and respected in their school. Teachers might call parents to ask their opinion about a certain difficulty their child is having, or invite them to talk about something of interest to them” reads, “The second through fifth sentences present an array of options.”

The annotation for the sentences, “Perhaps, most importantly, if teachers want parents to be involved in students’ educations, they must make the parents feel as though their opinions and concerns have real weight. When parents such as those interviewed for this study voice concerns and questions over their child’s progress, it is imperative that teachers acknowledge and answer them” reads, “In the last two sentences, the writer looks to the future with her recommendations.”

◼ Pose Questions

Posing questions stimulates readers to think about the implications of your argument and to apply what you argue to other situations. This is the case in the following paragraph, in which the student writer focuses on immigration and then shifts readers’ attention to racism and the possibility of hate crimes. It’s useful to extrapolate from your argument, to raise questions that test whether what you write can be applied to different situations. These questions can help readers understand what is at issue.

A paragraph with annotations is shown.

The paragraph reads, “Also, my research may apply to a broader spectrum of sociological topics. There has been recent discussion about the increasing trend of immigration. Much of this discussion has involved the distribution of resources to immigrants. Should immigrants have equal access to certain economic and educational resources in America? The decision is split. But it will be interesting to see how this debate will play out. If immigrants are granted more resources, will certain Americans mobilize against the distribution of these resources? Will we see another rise in racist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan in order to prevent immigrants from obtaining more resources? My research can also be used to understand global conflict or war. In general, groups mobilize when their established resources are threatened by an external force. Moreover, groups use framing processes to justify their collective action to others.”

The annotation for the sentence, “Should immigrants have equal access to certain economic and educational resources in America?”

The annotation for the sentence, “If immigrants are granted more resources, will certain Americans mobilize against the distribution of these resources?” reads, “Other speculative questions follow from possible responses to the writer’s first question.”

The annotation for the sentence, “Should immigrants have equal access to certain economic and educational resources in America?”

◼ Conclude with a Quotation

A quotation can strengthen your argument, indicating that others in positions of power and authority support your stance. A quotation also can add poignancy to your argument, as it does in the following excerpt, in which the quotation amplifies the idea that people use Barbie to advance their own interests.

A paragraph with annotations is shown.

The paragraph reads, “what we perceive. Juel Best concludes his discourse on Barbie with these words: “Toys do not embody violence or sexism or occult meanings. People must assign toys their meanings.” Barbie is whoever we make her out to be. Barbie grabs hold of our imaginations and lets us go wild.”

The annotation for this paragraph reads, “The writer quotes an authority to amplify the idea that individually and collectively, we project significance on toys.”

Steps to Drafting Conclusions: Five Strategies

1. Pull together the main claims of your essay. Don’t simply repeat points you make in the paper. Instead, show readers how the points you make fit together.

2. Answer the question “So what?” Show your readers why your stand on the issue is significant.

3. Place your argument in a larger context. Discuss the specifics of your argument, but also indicate its broader implications.

4. Show readers what is new. As you synthesize the key points of your argument, explain how what you argue builds on, extends, or challenges the thinking of others.

5. Decide on the best strategy for writing your conclusion. Will you echo the introduction? Challenge the reader? Look to the future? Pose questions? Conclude with a quotation? Choose the best strategy or strategies to appeal to your readers.

A Practice Sequence: Drafting a Conclusion

1. Write your conclusion, using one of the strategies described in this section. Then share your conclusion with a classmate. Ask this person to address the following questions:

· Did I pull together the key points of the argument?

· Did I answer “So what?” adequately?

· Are the implications I want readers to draw from the essay clear?

After listening to the responses, try a second strategy, and then ask your classmate which conclusion is more effective.

2. If you do not have a conclusion of your own, analyze each example conclusion above to see how well each appears to (1) pull together the main claim of the essay, (2) answer “So what?” (3) place the argument in a larger context, and (4) show readers what is new.

ANALYZING STRATEGIES FOR WRITING: FROM INTRODUCTIONS TO CONCLUSIONS

Now that you have studied the various strategies for writing introductions, developing your ideas in subsequent paragraphs, and drafting conclusions, read Barbara Ehrenreich’s essay, “Cultural Baggage,” and analyze the strategies she uses for developing her argument about diversity. It may help to refer to the practice sequences for drafting introductions (p. 320) and conclusions (p. 339), as well as Steps to Developing Paragraphs (p. 333). Ideally, you should work with your classmates, in groups of three or four, assigning one person to record your ideas and share with the whole class.

Alternatively, you could put the essays by Ehrenreich and Elizabeth Martínez “in conversation” with one another. How do Martínez and Ehrenreich define the issues around diversity? What is at stake for them in the arguments they develop? What things need to change? How would you compare the way each uses stories and personal anecdotes to develop her ideas? Would you say that either writer is a more effective “conversationalist” or more successful in fulfilling her purpose?

BARBARA EHRENREICH

Cultural Baggage

Barbara Ehrenreich is a social critic, activist, and political essayist. Her book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (2001) describes her attempt to live on low-wage jobs; it became a national best seller in the United States. Her book, Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream (2005), explores the shadowy world of the white-collar unemployed. Recent books of cultural analysis by Ehrenreich include Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America and This Land Is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation (both published in 2009). Ehrenreich has also written for Mother Jones, The Atlantic, Ms., The New Republic, In These Times, Salon.com, and other publications. “Cultural Baggage” was originally published in the New York Times Magazine in 1992. Her most recent book is Living with a Wild God, a memoir that she published in 2014.

An acquaintance was telling me about the joys of rediscovering her ethnic and religious heritage. “I know exactly what my ancestors were doing 2,000 years ago,” she said, eyes gleaming with enthusiasm, “and I can do the same things now.” Then she leaned forward and inquired politely, “And what is your ethnic background, if I may ask?”

“None,” I said, that being the first word in line to get out of my mouth. Well, not “none,” I backtracked. Scottish, English, Irish — that was something, I supposed. Too much Irish to qualify as a WASP; too much of the hated English to warrant a “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” button; plus there are a number of dead ends in the family tree due to adoptions, missing records, failing memories, and the like. I was blushing by this time. Did “none” mean I was rejecting my heritage out of Anglo-Celtic self-hate? Or was I revealing a hidden ethnic chauvinism in which the Britannically derived serve as a kind of neutral standard compared with the ethnic “others”?

Throughout the 1960s and 70s, I watched one group after another — African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans — stand up and proudly reclaim their roots while I just sank back ever deeper into my seat. All this excitement over ethnicity stemmed, I uneasily sensed, from a past in which their ancestors had been trampled upon by my ancestors, or at least by people who looked very much like them. In addition, it had begun to seem almost un-American not to have some sort of hyphen at hand, linking one to more venerable times and locales.

But the truth is, I was raised with none. We’d eaten ethnic foods in my childhood home, but these were all borrowed, like the pasties, or Cornish meat pies, my father had picked up from his fellow miners in Butte, Montana. If my mother had one rule, it was militant ecumenism in all manners of food and experience. “Try new things,” she would say, meaning anything from sweetbreads to clams, with an emphasis on the “new.”

As a child, I briefly nourished a craving for tradition and roots. I immersed myself in the works of Sir Walter Scott. I pretended to believe that the bagpipe was a musical instrument. I was fascinated to learn from a grandmother that we were descended from certain Highland clans and longed for a pleated skirt in one of their distinctive tartans.

But in Ivanhoe, it was the dark-eyed “Jewess” Rebecca I identified with, not the flaxen-haired bimbo Rowena. As for clans: Why not call them “tribes,” those bands of half-clad peasants and warriors whose idea of cuisine was stuffed sheep gut washed down with whiskey? And then there was the sting of Disraeli’s remark — which I came across in my early teens — to the effect that his ancestors had been leading orderly, literate lives when my ancestors were still rampaging through the Highlands daubing themselves with blue paint.

Motherhood put the screws on me, ethnicity-wise. I had hoped that by marrying a man of Eastern European Jewish ancestry I would acquire for my descendants the ethnic genes that my own forebears so sadly lacked. At one point, I even subjected the children to a seder of my own design, including a little talk about the flight from Egypt and its relevance to modern social issues. But the kids insisted on buttering their matzos and snickering through my talk. “Give me a break, Mom,” the older one said. “You don’t even believe in God.”

After the tiny pagans had been put to bed, I sat down to brood over Elijah’s wine. What had I