In the experiences and meetings I have had so far this semester with my WF faculty mentor Professor Frank I think what comes to mind is a level of informal but mutual organization and responsibility. As I have become more well acquainted with Professor Frank through our meetings early on as a freshman and having had a few courses with her, I would say meeting with her as a faculty mentor is not quite as formal as I would have thought if I was a fellow in a course that I had less familiarity with its subject and professor. The advice I would provide, regardless of a fellow’s level of friendliness, is to be on top of your end of the bargain so that when you find time to meet with your usually incredibly busy mentor, there is an emphasis on professionalism between you and the professor. Being honest and upfront with them about where you might be confused or where you would like their input is a constructive way to ensure the meetings are not wasted by a fellow’s disorganization or having to play catch-up. If there is a situation like mine where your WF mentor also happens to be your professor AND your faculty mentor for your major, adding another layer to your relationship where this mutual respect and acknowledgment of a shared role in the student’s academics can be a special situation; I know I have gained even more admiration and understanding of her work as a professor.
Author: eohara (Page 25 of 28)
I have not yet had any tutees come to be about their writing; so far, just about ePortfolio organization. I imagine this will become very helpful as I start to help with the Major Exploration project, where the evidence for that project is drawn from their reading materials.
To the question of student’s relationship between reading and drafting, not from experience but our tutoring guidebook, I take it to be the difference between a solid foundation and knowledge gained from reading provides a much stronger drafting process as the writer doesn’t have to go back and try to understand what they have already read. Instead, they can focus on how best to use that information or organize it to best meet their needs for an assignment, essay, etc. Also mentioned in chapter 8 was the idea of metacognition as necessary for one’s learning process and how that knowledge of self or abilities, the task itself, and then the specific strategies or approaches can significantly help the student’s ability to form those connections between reading and drafting.
In my own experience, I have always started any reading assignment with a pen or pencil and a notebook on hand. In cases where I have specific questions to answer about the reading, I usually read those questions and write them down, then go through the whole piece once, make notes, underline, highlight, etc. and then jump back to the questions. When I don’t have guided questions or prompts, I read by sections and make sure to write summaries in my notebook on the main points, so I don’t continue reading further if I misunderstood something important earlier.
Since I haven’t had any sessions with students about writing, I have not experienced any of the examples from the book. Still, one that I feel could be a factor is since I am in their class and engaging with all the material that my tutees are and have done a lot of their assignments in the past, I will need to be aware of not just telling them what the main point is or how to connect them and try and show them maybe how I interacted with the material but make sure they are the ones to find their own meaning.
I have been thinking about my expectations at the beginning of the semester and how they are playing out now that we are a few weeks into the semester. The biggest thing I have felt shift is how much time I actually spend interacting with the students in the class. I feel like for most of my time, I am looking over their assignments and readings in case they need help and updating my office hours, etc., but I still haven’t met anyone one-on-one. I have changed my expectations slightly to just being a resource when needed and not putting too much pressure on myself to tutor to be doing a good job. I am taking this time where I might not be hands-on with tutoring sessions to try and get a grasp of tools and techniques so that when they do need help, I hopefully will be more comfortable.
I felt that chapter 6 gave me some incredible insights into the logistics of a session but also didn’t shy away from acknowledging that note-taking, listening, and the questions might call for various approaches depending on the different people and situations. The emphasis on being a patient listener and making sure the student feels they can read their whole work before getting into the writing process is something we talked about in class that I can see being great practice for me. I am definitely going to implement a version of the note-taking mentioned in this chapter; keeping the overall points and summary of the work separate from my comments/thoughts will help me slow down and listen before becoming distracted with my ideas on how I can fix this and get caught up in the details before I’ve heard to the whole. Writing down the assignment where I can see it on my notes can also help guide my comments. Acknowledging where the work may stray from the overall expectations of the assignment could be a great way to start a conversation after reading aloud to ensure they understand the assignment’s basic structure. The technique of marking where you, as a listener, feel a paragraph break could help the students understand how to start organizing and fixing their work if I can let them know that reading aloud can draw certain things to your attention that might not jump out when you read silently. Those natural pauses and breaks into new information can substantially aid an assignment’s clarity. I am excited to take part in the mock tutoring session mostly because I haven’t had a writing session yet, so having some practical experience and tools to work with from memory will be great.
After reading this student’s essay, I felt there were some great strengths within the writing; good factual sourcing to back up claims, few but meaningful personal anecdotes, and a thesis statement that connected with the arguments laid out in the rest of the paper. The overall position this student takes, which I think is the statement of “I believe going all in on a strictly Soylent diet is not the way to live our best lives, but rather moderately implicating uses for uses such as saving money…”(2), was mentioned at the very end of the first paragraph, perhaps better utilized nearer to the beginning so the reader can get on board with what direction the piece will be heading. An area where this essay could use more thinking and revision would be some transitional phrases going into the following paragraphs. For instance, one statement at the beginning of the fourth paragraph might fit and flow better at the end of the third. A few sentences/ideas could be condensed in some areas to make the sentence structure seem less choppy in a few places, such as, “This is the idea that hooks many.”(2) could become incorporated into a bigger thought and become more meaningful in context. A couple too many “however” to start a sentence, but that is a quick fix near the end of revision. I would also try to avoid saying “in conclusion” as the opener to a concluding paragraph. I could offer ways to think about how you want to get your final points across and open with those. Many great points were made throughout the piece, and they felt cohesive to their main point. I liked the examples from personal experience and academic sources to give a good mix, but I would like to see a rubric or assignment sheet to find out if it should have more sources and maybe not be personal, etc.
After reading the two chapters from the Peer Tutoring Guide, I thought a lot about my methods and what sort of checklist I go through in my head and through many of the strategies they mention. My addition to the strategy of planning and drafting is that I always start with two separate documents; one is a hard copy piece of paper where I scribble down thoughts and ideas in a paragraph format to figure out what it is I want to say for a specific part of my general assignment. The other is an online document where I have the broader categories of my particular project. For me, it is tough to take the specific assignment wording, say from an essay rubric or any writing rubric, and immediately know what is meaningful to me. Instead, I take my broader themes and write what I have gained through preliminary research or prior knowledge from the course ( such as notes, annotations, etc.) and sort through those first. Doing that gives me a more concise grasp on my end of the work, so I can take from my hard copy what jumps out.
Another strategy I didn’t see mentioned in this book but is something I implement for almost every writing assignment I do, is a hand-written copy first. The act of pen to paper lets my thoughts flow incredibly better than typing – and I know this isn’t true for everyone, so I will be mindful in tutoring sessions to mention it. I take that copy and write it up on a document. This allows me to notice where my ideas or research are lacking, how the transitions feel and gives me a new perspective on what I just wrote. For research, I do a combo of hand-written and typed or even taking direct quotes (sourcing right then as well) and writing immediately how I could use it, even if it’s just speculative.
I found these strategies helpful when writing longer, more in-depth academic assignments. If there isn’t a significant research component to my assignments and I am relying primarily on course materials already acquired, it is easier for me to jump right into my planning/drafting process by just re-reading my notes and other materials. My Human Traditions course with Prof. DefWolf, Women in the Ancient world, was where I really utilized all my strategies. It was a long Term paper where I had chosen the topic, done zillions of pages of notes, and organization was key. Having my research notes organized by topics and themes I had already decided on was amazingly beneficial. Then, when it came to drafting and planning, I had a clear foundation.
Feeling overwhelmed by all the information I want to get across in a specific manner is a challenge and feeling I get with most assignments. Not only is it a worry of time – although I am much better at time management when it comes to writing than even last year, it is also a worry of not missing out on a critical point/idea/theme. A big chunk of my writing process is taken up by preliminary organization to lessen that sense of “AH! I am swamped with information!”
What I hope to take with me into my tutoring sessions is the concept of not editing for the sake of the assignment or fixing for the sake of the assignment but to make sure that every question or discussion is aimed to try and help the writer understand how to go about reading, analyzing, and critiquing their own writing. It’s a new way of thinking for me as someone who is usually the worrier – but I want to ensure that I don’t imply that the only goal of our session is to get an A on this specific assignment. I hope it will be a way to work toward their methods and strategies for writing and to be confident that they all have the ability.
Quote: “The concept of intersectionality has everything to do with the interdisciplinary ethos of contemporary feminist theory…As we will see in the chapters to come, contemporary feminists pay particular attention to parallel, reinforcing, and crisscrossing routes of intersectionality across gender, sexual orientation, disability, ability, class, race, postcolonialism, and environmentalism” (Parker 187).
Comment: This quote stuck out to me as, throughout our class discussions, we have talked about how different modes of literary criticism can apply to various texts and even more than one type of critique can be utilized on the same piece. From a feminist perspective, there is value in the multifaceted nature of women and how we interact with different parts of ourselves – there isn’t one right way to be a feminist or a woman; there are layers and connections to such a wide variety of life. This quote aligns with all how in literature, there might be the same type of variety that instead of pinning down one lens of critique or one right way to grasp the concept, there is a multitude of possibilities. I felt the same idea was applied in the poem “The Hill We Climb” by Amanda Gorman. We all have different ideals about what it means to be American or what democracy entails, but we can no longer define it through one historical lens and avoid the glaring subjectivity that comes from people having so much more than one characteristic to represent us.
Question: I might wonder how some of our more traditional literary critics might feel about intersectionality and contemporary feminism. For instance, structuralists think the author and the background context shouldn’t apply to the written work or new criticism where we shouldn’t try to get into the author’s head. Is there a way when taking the methods highlighted in feminist theory where those types of inquiries can interfere with the piece?
Annotated Bibliography
Bekler, Ecevit. “A Foucauldian and Feminist Reading of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.” Gaziantep University Journal of Social Sciences, vol. 22, no. 2, Apr. 2022, pp. 728–38. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.une.idm.oclc.org/10.21547/jss.988733.
In this article, Beckler takes two forms of critical approach, feminist and Foucauldian, to highlight how Anne Brontë’s novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall represents a criticism and rejection of the Victorian era’s patriarchal society that diminished the power available to women. Beckler’s utilization of prominent French Philosopher Michel Foucault’s views on the localized mechanisms of repression and power structures aligns with this criticism toward Brontë’s approach to female subordination in society. From various feminist voices, such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Virginia Woolf, Kate Millett, etc., Beckler takes on the traditional literary aspect of women depicted from a male perspective versus how Anne Brontë’s piece orients the agency of her main character, Helen Huntington. By taking these two interesting forms of analysis, Beckler can take The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and identify areas where Helen’s actions, such as leaving an abusive relationship and taking custody of her child, represent a protest against those traditional gender roles and a rejection of the degradation and lack of power imposed upon her. This is incredibly significant to Beckler as it can further extrapolate to emphasize how a woman could redefine her feminine identity while still portraying rationality, intelligence, and responsibility.
Drewery, A. J. “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: A Woman’s Place?” Bronte Studies, vol. 38, no. 4, Dec. 2013, pp. 339–47. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.une.idm.oclc.org/10.1179/1474893213Z.00000000080.
In Drewer’s critique, the main problem identified is the complexities of the ideals of male and female education, but also in the analysis of the mistakes made by a female lead as she figures out the limitations of her marriage. Subsequently, the effects of traditional Victorian society and the law emerge as a conflict to how a woman could even endeavor to be independent and maintain levels of morality in line with the times. Drewery’s approach of analysis for this piece looks to evidence from the primary text, Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and applies feminist theory to decipher the many examples of a larger message toward the discriminatory structures within the era, such as family and social life as well as legal rights. Reframing the mistakes of the main character Helen Huntington creates an avenue for examining her educational limitations and the strict confines she feels trapped by to be still moral. This develops a new perspective toward what agency and power she does have, and to Drewery, it makes Brontë’s devotion to truthful realities and representation even more impactful as it reconsiders where a woman’s place in society could be.
Joshi, Priti. “Masculinity and Gossip in Anne Bronte’s Tenant.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, vol. 49, no. 4, Sept. 2009, p. 907. EBSCOhost, https://search-ebscohost-com.une.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsglr&AN=edsglr.A213607498&site=eds-live&scope=site
In this article, Priti Joshi recognizes the issue of gossip and unpleasant truths as a mechanism within Anne Brontë’s novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall as a source of negative criticism of her work. Examining the extent of differentiation between Brontë’s novel and Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women – Joshi uncovered a distortion in the meaning of Brontë’s use of gossip and theories of femininity. Taking this approach, Joshi compares these works and calls attention to the assumptions made about Brontë’s alignment with Wollstonecraft’s denouncement of inconsequential gossip or chat as a setback to more critical feminist inquiries. This reformation takes shape as Joshi points to the fact that Brontë actually had a much more in-depth view of gender politics and femininity which examined the idea of idle chat as a source of power in what a masculine scope suggested it was not. Analysing Brontë’s piece in this manner allows for stereotyped assumptions to be given a new platform and perspective to the agency women had achieved while embedded in deeply patriarchal definitions of knowledge and truths.
Ross, Shawna. “Disconsolate Tenants of the Metabolic Rift: An Anthropocene Feminist View of Farming in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.” Victorians: A Journal of Culture and Literature, no. 138, Dec. 2020, p. COV13. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.une.idm.oclc.org/10.1353/vct.2020.0019
This article by Shawna Ross identifies a point of focus toward Anne Brontë’s piece, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, belonging to an ecofeminist perspective. To approach this topic, Ross draws support from Marxist’s take on ecology that brings in this aspect of the metabolic rift – referring to the division created between humans and their environment under capitalistic endeavors. Connecting this to Brontë’s novel, Ross takes a feminist recount of the Anthropocene, land management, and rural locations, as well as the emphasis on the state of women’s vulnerabilities during the Victorian period. From these methodologies, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall presents an opportunity for a feminine perspective on essential inquiries into ecological effects and a critique of the British Agricultural revolution. Scenarios within the novel that are imperative frames of reference include the encounters between tenants and the land, the conceptualization of what human interactions with the land produce, and Helen’s diary to reflect on past experiences to understand the present. Ross’s choice of examining the novel in this way provided insightful information that ecofeminists may align with when discovering the variety of narratives, storytelling, and representation that shape the ecological world.
Shaw, Marion. “Anne Brontë: A Quiet Feminist.” Bronte Studies, vol. 38, no. 4, Dec. 2013, pp. 330-338–338. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.une.idm.oclc.org/10.1179/1474893213Z.00000000088.
Shaw’s piece of secondary criticism toward Anne Brontë’s literary works finds an issue with the remembrance of her work as opposed to those of her sisters. Going further with this problem, Shaw defines that some characteristics and accounts of Anne lead to assumptions that she was simple-minded, passive, and reserved. Through this article, Shaw instead wants to identify how Anne was courageous and practical in her literary pursuits and could subtly provide thoughtful examples of feminist literature. Another point addressed in the overall critique by Shaw is the effects of Anne’s moral and religious sentiments, which perhaps explain the separation of her work by contemporary feminists again from her sisters. The fact that her novels had more moral and familial affairs as topics should not negate the vastly insightful examples of how she questioned the ideas of womanliness and manliness and, more broadly, how gender roles are perceived in family life. The approaches in this article take the novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Agnes Grey as primary sources to base the critique. By looking at Anne’s work in this light, it becomes essential to distinguish how though her subject matter was highly personal, touching on the impacts of these gender relations on children, and morally just with many religious sentiments, it still became a way to advocate for the moral and social rights of women. From Shaw’s critique, the significance lies in how Anne’s underlying and somewhat “quiet” display of feminist rhetoric is equally as radical and thought-provoking as her sisters, and framing her work as such should be well known.
Looking at the opening scene of Rear Window, I found it to be incredibly in line with Mulvey’s claims from her discussion of “Feminism and Visual Pleasure”, especially regarding the “masculine spectator, the subject, and what we might call a feminine spectated, the object”(Parker 173). In the film, the male main character, played by actor James Stewart, is viewing the world around him through the literal frame of his window, but taking it one step further in line with what Mulvey might suggest, also the frame of a male heterosexual gaze. The objects of his gaze are his neighbors, but primarily in this opening scene, the young ballerina. Connecting to Mulvey’s discussion of the female as the spectator’s object, we are viewing the woman in, again, a very framed setting, her apartment window. I felt this might play into her claim to the “abusive version of masculine heterosexuality” as she has no agency in the view of the audience except for how Stewart is gazing at her; she is doing things we cannot hear, there is no dialogue that we can witness besides what is showed to us by Stewart.
Similarly, in the opening scene of Psycho, the usage of the window brings in elements of an invasion of privacy and some gaze we cannot yet identify. To point to the visual perspectives of this scene that align with Mulvey, I found the first shot of the two characters very telling and connected to the abusive heterosexual gaze. When we see the male character standing and moving beside the bed where the female lead is stationary, her sole purpose in this scene is to be observed. Additionally, throughout the scene, he moves back and forth from the window to around the room while Leigh stays stationary as their discussions occur. I did find that perhaps this scene could be elaborated on by later assertions of Mulvey that highlight the increasingly critical nature of watching these films and how “actresses who characters often look at men as the men look at them”(Parker 183) can be viewed not in an inherently masculine nature but as an equal agent in the gazing.
QCQ on video “Visual Pleasure at 40” from Mulvey
Quote: …found that I was detached from the screen, detached from the story and that blissful sense of loss of self into the world if the cinema, and suddenly became a woman looking at films which I’d loved and now began to irritate me”(Mulvey 15:21)
Comment: This passage from the video “Visual Pleasure at 40,” where Mulvey re-examines her early work, really stuck out to me as I think of my own experiences with films I used to like, and then suddenly, one day, I would think of all these questions and complaints about the female characters I hadn’t before. I think this ties into the latter part of Parker’s discussion of Mulvey when it stated how “…popular film may not be pervasively demeaning to women as it used to be, it is hardly a paragon of feminist equality”(183); as more voices and critical approaches are applied to film, we can get out of this passive acceptance of whatever gaze or focalization curs and insert our views and judgments. I also felt this connected with a later quote from the video where Mulvey explained that there was a shift from woman’s spectacle being naturalized into popular culture to the patriarchal psyche that is the very construction of that spectacle.
Question: After hearing how Mulvey explained the many phases her work went through, such as the political catalyst of the women’s rights movement to then the academic context and how she feels it resembles a historical document, I wonder if she feels that films themselves can be perceived through a historical lens that identifies a specific period; bringing in her point that Hollywood did have its own specificity around the female objectiveness and the way that gaze was modified and absorbed (19:00ish). I also wonder how we can connect newer methodologies like the Bechdel test to her theories. Would it seem like the culture itself is still steeped in this patriarchal lens, and they insert certain criteria to appease growing complaints and keep critics quiet? It would be interesting to pick out contemporary examples where women direct films and stars leading women and compare the effects of gazing.
Quote: “…she never had married, and yet, judging from the mask-like indifference of her face, she had gone through twenty times more of passion and experience than those whose loves are trumpeted forth for all the world to hear. Under the stress of thinking about Isabella, her room became more shadowy and symbolic; the corners seemed darker, the legs of chairs and tables more spindly and hieroglyphic”(Woolf 216-217).
Comment: From an early feminist interpretation of Woolf’s story “The Lady in the Looking-Glass: A Reflection,” we could look to an example like this and point out all the characteristics of Isabella, our primary focal point, and discuss how she is either a good or bad role model. Taking a more comprehensive look at later modes of feminist critique, we could go beyond those limiting factors and address what is being said about gender that is not explicitly coming directly from her actions or being. I would put a great deal of emphasis on recognizing how the writing identifies a cultural feeling toward unmarried women as being somewhat negative or irregular and then changes the narrative to place a new perspective. The elements of this quotation that can relate to Isabella’s objects or possessions also can indicate how specific descriptors or observations can connect to that of the descriptions and analysis of women; by her furniture suddenly seeming “darker,” “shadowy,” or “spindly,” perhaps one could take that as a change in how society views a woman when her path veers from that culturally normalized, well-established path.
Question: I wonder if Woolf’s narrator sympathizes with Isabella and maybe recognizes some of that shared understanding from a woman’s perspective of always being looked at and judged out of context with the humanness of experience …but then I asked how and why I assumed the narrator was a woman? Does that in and of itself hold any weight as we look at this piece of literature from a feminist critique?
