Work with your classmates to draft a summary of “The Women’s Movement in Bangladesh” and to frame and introduce quotations.

Identify secondary source quotations that will help you to contextualize your analysis of “The Starfruit Tree” as a feminist text.

1. Three quotations from Nazneen’s “The Women’s Movement in Bangladesh,” including citations in MLA format.
2. Three quotations Literary Theory: Feminist criticism

Work with your classmates to develop and polish your summary of “The Starfruit Tree” and identify additional evidence.

How does the discussion with your classmates about evidence from the story give you insight into meaning?

1. Draft a summary of “The Starfruit Tree” and begin identifying evidence. Don’t forget to cite the author using MLA format.
2. Freewrite: What do you think makes the story a feminist text?

Objective

Produce a revised formal draft of your first essay for an audience of your peers. To produce your formal draft, you will extensively revise and develop your zero draft using ideas from class and suggestions provided in my feedback on your Zero Draft.

Objective

Produce a rough first or “zero” draft of your first essay. This will help you find raw material (i.e. potential evidence and rough ideas) that can be refined and further developed when you revise. You’ll use response exercises to develop two analysis paragraphs and to draft a working thesis.

Talk Out Your Ideas

The writing in your Zero Draft should be very rough and messy. You should explore potential paths of inquiry without necessarily knowing whether or not they will lead to fruitful conclusions. The point of this part is to continue to think your ideas through, to explore your thoughts on paper. Do not “go back” to fix spelling or grammar errors, or to revise or change ideas; keep going forward! Allow your messy, nascent thoughts (and questions) to unfold and develop on the page. In other words, talk out your ideas.

If you have a non-English first language, incorporate words and phrases from your first language as much as you want.

Pose questions of the evidence from the poem and begin identifying literary terms.

Freewrite on evidence from the poem you chose for analysis. Make sure to cite the author in MLA format.

This semester we will be looking closely at how poetry, literature, and drama can be tools to challenge oppression. In order to engage in conversation this semester, we’re going to begin with a reflection on the purpose of poetry.

In class we read the brief essay entitled “Poetry Is Not a Luxury” by poet laureate Audre Lorde, which provides us with a theoretical framework for reading and understanding poetry.

With her discussion in mind, answer the following questions with thoughtful responses. Don’t worry about having the “right answer.” We’re just “birthing ideas.” You don’t need to read “A Woman Speaks.”

1. What do you think the purpose of poetry is?
2. How do you feel about poetry? I didn’t become a fan of poetry until I read protest poetry. We’ll talk more about what I mean by that, but I thought that poetry was indeed a luxury, something that was for privileged people who have the luxury of time. Protest poetry changed my mind because I saw that it had a purpose to challenge oppression.
3. What do you think Lorde means when she says that poetry is not a luxury? How do you think poetry helps us to tap into “hidden sources of our power”?
4. What did you think of her statement that poetry creates “lasting action”? What type of action do you think poetry can create?

Introduce Yourself

In order to build a writing community, let’s get to know each other a bit.

1. What is your major and why did you choose it? If you’re not sure yet, what are you leaning toward and why?
2. Where are you from? What languages do you speak?
3. What’s your favorite poem and/or novel—in any language—and why?
4. What else do you want the class to know about you?