Step 1: Go through your paper and circle every verb. The verb is the keystone to the sentence. Each sentence should have only one verb. If there are multiple verbs, you can break this sentence into smaller sentences. What action is the verb conveying? Who is doing this action? Be sure the verb is active.
Step 2: Ask yourself how? I have added many comments in your papers asking how. If you are making a claim about the space, how do you know that this is happening? You may want to make a list or answer these questions on scratch paper.
Step 3: Identifying three or four ways in which gender norms shape or are shaped by the space. The space may include the architecture, the layout of furniture, signs on the wall, music playing, the movement of people (who is working there, who is in charge, who is imagined to be using the space? – this one will be especially difficult to parse from making claims on the people in the space).
Step 4: Write a single verb sentence describing each of the ways you have identified above.
Step 5: Underneath that single word sentence, list two to three pieces of evidence.
Step 6: You will now write full paragraphs for each of the ways you have identified. Use the single verb sentence as the topic sentence. The topic sentence will be followed by sentences explicating the evidence. Be specific and concrete. Ask yourself, how? Then answer that!
Step 7: Now you can write a concluding paragraph. This paragraph will not simply summarize your argument but willsynthesize. How do all the small arguments you have made above work together to shape gender norms?
Step 8: Now you can write the introduction. What information will help bring your reader into your argument. You can situate the reader in the space. But you WILL NOT make broad claims about: space, place, gender, sexuality, etc. etc.
Step 9: Go back through and circle (or, if you do not want to print) highlight every verb. You will be permitted two sentences per paragraph that have more than one verb. Outside of that, each sentence should only have one verb. Is this an active verb? Is it clear who or what is doing the action? Does the verb actually describe the action that you mean?
Step 10: Read the paper out loud to a friend. I mean this. Not out loud in your head. Out loud to a friend. Does each sentence flow from one to the next to create a cohesive narrative?
Paper must have an argument:You opening paragraph will situate your argument. What does the reader need to know in order to understand your argument? In the example of an elevator, you might begin.
Many people ride an elevator every day. Elevators are a common way to move bodies through buildings. In this was, elevators are largely public spaces. And, yet, the enclosement of the elevator makes it such that people have to naviagate a shared space in which bodies may be in quite intimate proximity. Gender and sexual norms are shaped in elevtor spaces by how people use and move their bodies in relationship to each other. Specifically, gender norms are enforced in the ways that people create distance between their bodies depending on how much or how little space is available in the elevator.
Paper must use active voice and put statements in positive form(seeThe Elements of Style): This is why you will circle your verbs. A simple google search will turn up a list of active verbs. USE ACTIVE VERBS. Do not use a thesaurus solely to avoid repetition. Find new ways to say what you mean if you are repeating the same verbs. Make sure each verb adequately conveys what you mean.
Paper must have evidence to support that argument:Find the verbs in which you are making a claim. Then ask yourself, how?
Assignment Tips:
The assignment is asking you to think about how physical spaces both shape and are shaped by the social interactions that occur within them. In your writing, you will make an argument. Your essay should be organized conceptually to service to the main claim of your argument.
How does the organization of space you chose help to challenge gender and/or enforce sexual norms? What set of assumptions are at work in the space?
A successful essay will:
- make an argument and support that argument with evidence.
- be conceptually organized. You are not simply reporting on the space. You are theorizing the space. You are making an argument about the space.
- Offer evidence for your argument. Do not just tell the reader what is happening, show! Explain how your observations support your argument.