Fish Cheeks

Fish Cheeks by Amy Tan

I fell in love with the minister's son the winter I turned fourteen. He was not Chinese, but as white as Mary in the manger. For Christmas I prayed for this blond-haired boy, Robert, and a slim new American nose.

     When I found out that my parents had invited the minister's family over for Christmas Eve dinner, I cried. What would Robert think of our shabby Chinese Christmas? What would he think of our noisy Chinese relatives who lacked proper American manners? What terrible disappoint-ment would he feel upon seeing not a roasted turkey and sweet potatoes but Chinese food?

     On Christmas Eve I saw that my mother had outdone herself in creating a strange menu. She was pulling black veins out of the backs of fleshy prawns. The kitchen was littered with appalling mounds of raw food: A slimy rock cod with bulging eyes that pleaded not to be thrown into a pan of hot oil. Tofu, which looked like stacked wedges of rubbery white sponges. A bowl soaking dried fungus back to life. A plate of squid, their backs crisscrossed with knife markings so they resembled bicycle tires.

     And then they arrived – the minister's family and all my relatives in a clamor of doorbells and rumpled Christmas packages. Robert grunted hello, and I pretended he was not worthy of existence.

     Dinner threw me deeper into despair. My relatives licked the ends of their chopsticks and reached across the table, dipping them into the dozen or so plates of food. Robert and his family waited patiently for platters to be passed to them. My relatives murmured with pleasure when my mother brought out the whole steamed fish. Robert grimaced. Then my father poked his chopsticks just below the fish eye and plucked out the soft meat. "Amy, your favorite," he said, offering me the tender fish cheek. I wanted to disappear.

     At the end of the meal my father leaned back and belched loudly, thanking my mother for her fine cooking. "It's a polite Chinese custom to show you are satisfied," explained my father to our astonished guests. Robert was looking down at his plate with a reddened face. The minister managed to muster up a quiet burp. I was stunned into silence for the rest of the night.

After everyone had gone, my mother said to me, "You want to be the same as American girls on the outside." She handed me an early gift. It was a miniskirt in beige tweed. "But inside you must always be Chinese. You must be proud you are different. Your only shame is to have shame."

     And even though I didn't agree with her then, I knew that she understood how much I had suffered during the evening's dinner. It wasn't until many year later – long after I had gotten over my crush on Robert – that I was able to fully appreciate her lesson and the true purpose behind our particular menu. For Christmas Eve that year, she had chosen all my favorite foods.

For Alan

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Week 2 Guidance

GUIDANCE Week 2 Generating Ideas, Drafting, and Writing the Narrative _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Weekly Learning Outcomes By week’s end you will be able to: 1) Generate ideas for writing topics; 2) Construct an effective narrative essay, demonstrating critical thinking skills; and 3) Employ tools for improving academic writing _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Calendar   _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ This Week’s Essential Learning “There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there’s only narrative.” --E.L. Doctorow The focus of this week’s activity is pre-writing strategies and the narrative essay.  You will learn several strategies and techniques for generating and narrowing down ideas for essays, and you will be exposed to a mode of discourse that is typical in essays – the narrative (or “storytelling”) mode.  It is important that you complete your readings and quiz early in the week, so that you can apply your knowledge of pre-writing and the narrative in your discussions and the Narrative Essay Draft. Assignment Due Date Format Grading Percent Generating Ideas for Writing Day 3 Discussion 3 Elements of Narration Day 3 Discussion 3 Week Two Quiz Day 4 Quiz 3 Narrative Essay Draft Day 7 Assignment 10 Hello Everyone. Welcome to Week 2 of  ENG 121: English Composition Let’s quickly look back at last week: We learned that writing is not always easy and that people are not born writers; it takes much practice and revising to have a finished product one can be proud of. In conjunction with this, there are different learning styles that contribute to how we are formed as writers. Let us not forget the importance of SQ3R and how we can employ this type of studying into all our classes. Finally, you learned the different prewriting methods. This week we will be covering essay structure and the steps of the writing process for writing a personal narrative essay. The discussion posts focus on getting started writing. The first obstacle to overcome when beginning an essay is procrastination, enabling you to think about the topic and how you will generate ideas for it, which, by now, you should have developed in last week's discussions. You will be reading from our text, Essentials of College Writing: Chapter 5 and 6, which cover what you will address in Discussion 1 and 2--structure and development of your essay and personal writing. The readings continue with these topics and those that logically follow-- how to structure your essay and the remaining steps you will take to complete it.   This week you'll first review the ways you can create a topic and generate ideas for your narrative essay, which is due at the end of the week. Your choice of topics include: Describe a person, place, or object that has special meaning in your life. Describe a particular moment or occurrence in your life that had special meaning to you. After you have selected and understand your topic, you will develop a thesis statement. Be able to define what a thesis statement is and how to write one. Recall that the thesis is placed in the Introduction of your essay, along with some background information. I also recommend that you include a hook at the beginning of the introduction to get your readers interested in your topic. A hook can be a famous person's quote, an ancedote, a series of questions, or a surprising fact (that you've researched and know to be accurate) In the remainder of the chapter the text explains the structure of the essay you are going to write--introduction, body and conclusion. Pay close attention to the section Narrative Writing Patterns because it is that section you will be using to identify the elements of narration in this week's discussions. Remember to Survey the section carefully as the elements of narration are named in the subheadings an bold print of the section. After you've surveyed continue to apply the SQ3R method to your reading. Next, Discussion Post Expectations:   I encourage you to participate early and often in the discussion. Your posts will be evaluated by the following: You must create one initial post (due Day 3) and at least two responses (due Day 7), for a minimum of three posts for this discussion. Posts beyond the minimum are highly encouraged. Last minute Monday postings are not recommended because other students and myself won't be able to respond to them after that day. The recommended length is 150 - 200 words for each of the three postings. Explicit references to the text are recommended, as well as any other course materials and your personal experiences. If you copy text from a website or the textbook, please indicate it by placing quotation marks around it and state the source as follows after the final quotation mark: for a book (author, page #) for a website (URL). Skim over other student and instructor posts  before submitting your own. Write a meaningful and interesting post. Include concepts in the class that are new to you or that you have had to relearn. Your posts will be assessed by relevance to the topic, clarity of understanding of the readings and correct grammar/spelling. I recommend you type your post in Microsoft Word first, then spell-checking it in that program. After you're finished with the spell-check, reread your paper one more time then submit it.  Postings submitted after the due date will not be counted.  Intellectual Elaboration: This week we cover writing an essay that is written one step at a time, using six steps of the writing process, which are explained below. Before writing an essay, you have to understand that  it requires that you structure it so that it is easily understood by the people reading it. The structure is detailed below. In addition each paragraph is vital to make the essay understandable. After you've developed a thesis statement (the topic and controlling idea of the essay that is one sentence long), you go on to writing a few paragraphs that make up the body of the essay and finish off with a conclusion. Each paragraph of the body of an essay contains a topic sentence, which describes what the paragraph is about, and three or four supporting details. Each detail must relate in some way to the topic sentence of the paragraph, and, in turn, each topic sentence of the paragraphs in the body of the essay must relate to the thesis statement. Readings In order to follow the proper writing steps, review the prewriting activities we covered last week. Make sure you write an outline and use that outline when you are writing your rough draft. There is an example of an outline in Chapter 4. Your success in writing the essay is conditional upon your retention of the readings. In other words, when you read the required materials, your grade will be better. When I write a book or an article professionally, I usually have to pick a topic and sell it to an editor. Once it's accepted to be published, I begin my writing with making a list while researching the topic about which I am writing on the Internet. Next, I rearrange the list so that it consists of topics and subtopics (I choose a broader concept for a topic and then put a subtopic that is relevant under it.) After that, I rearrange the list into either chronological or spatial order. Sometimes I use order of importance. After the list is complete, I write an outline for it, then a rough draft from the outline. All of this is completed two or three days before the due date. After a good night's rest, I revise and edit my writing. I always use a spelling and grammar checker both before and after revising/editing. All of the above is spelled out in detail in the readings; however, my approach isn't exactly what is in the book. Once you read the book, you can modify what you've read so it's relevant to your topic and the way you organize yourself. The Writing Process for a Narrative Essay Last week's readings and assignments emphasize that writing is not a one-step process of typing your thoughts into a document and submitting it to the instructor. This one-step method is not for professional or college writing because it's likely to contain errors and, at the very worst, be unreadable. The one-step writing process is fine for casual writing--writing text messages and emails. To be sure submitting this kind of work might earn you passing grades, but is unlikely to do much more. Every writer can fall into the trap of the one-step writing process. Our text states the following about this trap: "In fact, many students who try to “wing it” spend more time thinking about the assignment, procrastinating, making false starts, or anxiously wondering if they are doing the assignment correctly than they would spend if they went step by step through the process" (Connell & Sole, 2013). Knowing the assignment and what is expected of you is the first step in figuring out what your topic will be. Pay close attention to the assignment instructions, making a list of what you are to do. When you have selected your topic from the choices given above, you now want to make sure that it is narrow enough to write a clear and structured paper. This information was covered last week. You can review it in Chapter 4 of Essentials for College Writing. Being able to narrow the topic is very important. Let us look at an example of how to properly do this. Let’s use the topic of an event in your life for an example. A topic that is too broad would be “My Recalcitrant Family" because you are including more than one person, meaning you haven't pinpointing one person. Wow! That would be a very long and probably boring paper. Possible narrowed topics: My Recalcitrant Family > My Recalcitrant Teen> My Recalcitrant Teen's Constant Unreliability. You see how we went from very broad to specific, or narrowed? Narrowing your topic is also important in developing your focus, or the main reason for choosing your topic. After you have chosen your topic and developed your focus, now it is time to look at the structure of your paper. Please read chapter three carefully for detailed descriptions of each essay component. Papers usually follow this basic set-up: Introduction – begins the discussion and sets the stage for the rest of the paper. Capture the reader’s attention with a “hook” and then reveal the purpose of the paper. Present the thesis statement and the plan of organization for the rest of the paper. Body Paragraphs – this is the main part of your paper. Each body paragraph needs to relate back to the thesis and support it in some way, meaning each main idea you present in your thesis becomes a body paragraph. These main ideas should be discussed in the same order that you set them up in your thesis. Conclusion – brings closure to the paper by providing a signal to the reader that the paper is ending; reinforces the thesis statement and summarizes the main points; ends with a strong final sentence. The Thesis The thesis statement of your paper is your focused topic that is turned into one single statement that makes some sort of assertion based on the type of paper you are writing (argument, persuasive, etc). Do not confuse the topic with the thesis. The topic is the subject of the paper, the thesis is the assertion you make about that subject. It expresses one main idea, names the topic and your assertion about it, and summarizes the main points you will make in your paper. These main points are the evidence and support for your thesis. After you have written a solid thesis and developed your body paragraphs, you should review your paper for the Five C’s of Academic Writing. The Five C’s are: ·       Complete – make sure your paper is complete by verifying that your paragraphs only have one main idea that supports the thesis ·       Coherent – your writing should flow smoothly. Use transitions between thoughts and paragraphs. ·       Clear – the wording you use should be clear and not vague. Use academic language. ·       Concise – write to the point and avoid being wordy. ·       Correct – check to see if your paper is correctly punctuated, uses proper grammar, sentence structure, and APA structure. When we start to write a paper, it is important to know the different stages of the Writing Process. Stage One: the Plan Ask yourself what the assignment requires. Does it ask you to provide your personal opinions, ideas, or experiences (as in a personal paper), analyze an issue, or take a stand on an issue? Stage Two: Generate Ideas Generating ideas can happen in many forms. You can make a list by simply putting your ideas down on paper. You can create an outline, either scratch or formal. A scratch outline is a rough list of ideas in the order you intend to write them in your paper. A formal outline is created in the same way as a scratch, yet formal outlines are more structured. Refer to your text for an example of a formal outline. You can also create a mind map, or bubble map, of your ideas. For more visual learners this is an excellent way to see your paper and the strengths and weaknesses therein. Stage Three: Creating a First Draft When you are writing your first draft, do not be concerned about spelling, grammar, or punctuation. You will go back and fix any errors once you are done with your draft. The key is to just keep writing. Exhaust all your ideas and thoughts, utilizing any of your outlines, or bubble maps, that you constructed during the generating ideas stage. Stage Four: Revise When revising your paper, ask yourself these questions: Is my paper complete? Is my paper focused? Is my paper well-structured and well-organized?  Is my paper coherent? Look back at your thesis and your plan of organization. Every paragraph should relate back your thesis. Stage Five: Edit Edit your paper for clarity and conciseness, spelling, grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, and language choice. At this stage it is sometimes helpful for someone else to read your paper to help with editing. Oftentimes we overlook our own errors, so having a fresh set of eyes to help us is beneficial. Stage Six: Proofread and Check Format Check to make sure your paper is in proper APA format. As we discussed, being adept in writing requires planning, a process that can be divided into six steps. Students frequently will have to go back to these steps if they have rushed through writing, using a one-step process. According to our text, these steps, once again, are:  1. Plan 2. Generate Ideas 3. Create a First Draft 4. Revise 5. Edit 6. Proofread and Check Format In the paragraphs that follow, I'll explain to you my thoughts about each of the steps with the use of technology. When you are thinking about them, consider if you would do it in a similar way or change the approach to better suit your needs. Planning is a brainstorming session where you chart or list all you want to cover in a writing assignment. In this step you record everything about your topic that comes to mind, even if an idea seems disconnected. By recording all the thoughts you have associated with a topic you'll ensure that you have plenty to write about, and you can always delete ideas that don't fit into your draft after you do your research. Generating ideas is a continuation of the planning process. It requires you to put your ideas in a sequence that your readers (and you) can comprehend easily. Often, this is achieved by writing an outline. The sequence often depends upon the type of essay you are writing. Often times it is chronological (in order of time). Drafting an essay is the process of  writing the essay for the first time.  It usually involves taking the items you've charted/listed/outlined and arranging them into a coherent piece of writing in which your topic flows smoothly with a beginning, a middle and an end. Revising an essay is what I like to call the "cutting and pasting" part. Decades ago this it was tedious to move paragraphs, sentences and words around because most people used a typewriter. All of this had to be done with a paper and pen with a sometimes unreadable piece of paper with stray marks such as arrows and crossed out sentences. The marks were supposed to be legible so that you or someone else could type them up as stated in this government manual: "Instructions and marks should be legible, intelligible, and close to the change desired. Avoid marginal notes that dogleg around the page and "skyrockets" that zoom a change from text to a distant part of the page" (Proofreading, p. 266). Editing requires that you make grammar and spelling corrections. Be cautious here. To be sure, you can use a spelling and grammar check, but that shouldn't be the only proofreading step. You also have to reread your paper, one, even two times, to find mistakes the word processor may have missed. When you reread your paper it's called proofreading. "Proofreading means examining your text carefully to find and correct typographical errors and mistakes in grammar, style and spelling" (How to Proofread, 2012) adding transitional words and phrases (will be discussed later) so that your paper is easy to follow. When you write your rough draft you are expected to do some editing and a spell-check. You will be graded on how well you have addressed this preliminary editing process. Finally, when you make a schedule for your writing, I recommend that you a lot at least an hour a day to complete an assignment. It's next to impossible to complete  the six steps on the last night before an assignment. Additional Resources (web links, videos, and articles): Read Types of Essays and Student Samples to get a better idea of what college writing requires.  References: Sole, K. (2010). Essentials of College Writing. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education. How to Proofread (2012). Retrieved from http://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/Proofreading.html

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