Toni Morrison Bell Hooks And James Baldwin

In her article “I Stand Here Writing”, Nancy Sommers examines the writing process and formulating ideas for writing in a more empirical manner. She states that before she found her creative zeal/ niche her writing was often undisciplined, unmethodical, and sloppy. Sommers reveals that in college she was less known for her writing and more for her long hair and misapplication of phrases. She found her true inspiration while writing her Senior Thesis on Emerson’s “Eloquence.” Throughout the entire essay, Sommers provides the reader with advice about writing. A key point that she mentions is, “If I could teach my students about writing it would be to see themselves as sources, as places from which ideas originate, to see themselves as Emerson’s transparent eyeball, all that they have read and experienced-the-dictionaries of their lives circulating through them.”

James Baldwin and Ta-Nehisi Coates are both passionate writers writing to their family members about racism going on the United States. James Baldwin’s Fire Next Time is a letter to his nephew about how bad America is during that time period, how being black affects his life, and how the white people do not understand their wrong doing. Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me is a letter to his son about racial injustices in America, how the white people are not aware that they are doing wrong, and his personal dream. These two letters are similar in the message that they are trying to give to their relatives. However the letters are different because of their tones. Baldwin’s letter is sincere and calm while Ta-Nehisi Coates’s letter is more upfront and aggressive. I personally agree with Baldwin about how America can change for the better and in the right way. Baldwin’s and Coates’s letters are similar in the message they are trying to convey to their family members, different in their tones, and I agree with some of Baldwin’s statements.

In Dan Berrett’s article, “Students Come to College Thinking They’ve Mastered Writing,” the idea of freshman thinking they are or must be a refined writer is discussed. Students may think this way coming into college, but their teachers do not. While students might feel satisfied and think that they are prepared with their writing skills, professors found that these students did not necessarily meet the expected level (Berrett 1). Many students reported that they would normally write around 25 hours every week. They said that most of those hours of writing was for more formal purposes like passages to make changes in society (Berrett 1). It was found that one reason the new students might feel this way is that their assumptions about writing differed greatly from those of faculty members and their expectations. One big thing that students will not get for a while, is that good writing is not just listed as a bunch of steps one is to follow that automatically make one’s writing good. Good writing requires one to be in different mental states; it requires the understanding of how to write for different audiences and different reasons (Berrett 2). Berrett includes in the article that writing is not just universal and that in order to do very well, writers must use different forms of writing specifically for their purpose (2). It seems as though students think that, before they even take a class, they are supposed to know everything about writing; in reality, they are supposed to learn new skills and enhance others (Berrett 2). Berrett says that many believe the schools these students previously attended with their test focus might cause these feelings about writing (2). Berrett ends his article by saying that students these days do not think that informal writing actually counts as writing, and that students should practice writing for informal purposes because it can help them (2). Even if they feel like it, students are not fully prepared to write in all contexts when they arrive at college.

Christopher from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon and Holden from J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye

In the 2011 article “Helping Students Meet the Challenges of Academic Writing”, educators Linda Fernsten and Mary Reda offer innovative self-reflective writing exercises that post-secondary instructors can employ to help students improve writer self-image and academic writing. The authors’ rationale for reflective and practical writing strategies were developed from direct classroom experience, and are based on four (4) assumptions. Their claim that self-reflective writing can aid student writers in overcoming conflict (due to dominant culture, upbringing, former writing experiences, gender, and other marginalizing factors) to improve writer self-identity is plausible. However, their argument that cross-curriculum academic writing can be improved through self-directed, self-reflective writing requires further investigation.

Throughout the readings assigned in the fall semester of 2017, certain themes appear prevalently from one piece of literature to the next. One such recurring theme is that of invalidation, more specifically how various forms and levels of such leads to some measure of destruction of an individual, or even as grandiose as an entire civilization. Two examples of this theme, consistent across multiple readings, are: the short story “Harrison Bergeron” written by Kurt Vonnegut, and the poem “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelly. “Harrison Bergeron’s” satirical portrayal of a futuristic [false] utopia in which all citizens are not created equal, but forced into “equality” through the implementation of various imposed handicaps; tells of a world in which all citizens (except those who are in charge of allocating the degree of retardation from achievement of full potential that each individual receives) are assigned a device to limit their physical or intellectual abilities. The character of Harrison Bergeron displays his forbearance, publicly liberates himself from bondage, along with a handful of talented performers, and proceeds to defy the status quo briefly before being put down by an elite member of society. “Ozymandias" is written as a recount of a tale told from a third party, about a civilization lost to time and forgotten by many in the “present” in which the poem takes place. The imagery imposed is that of a toppled

Another Country and Go Tell it on the Mountain are two of James Baldwin's most analyzed novels. Some see both novels as great additions to American literature, while others criticize Baldwin's unique writing style used in both works.

I 've always liked writing. Even before I knew how to write I would make up stories and pretend to write them down. Each year in high school I 've written a multitude of essays on varying topics. I have selected three of these writings from each of my years in high school to examine as part of this rhetorical analysis of my writing history. As I 've grown older, my writing style has changed and I 've learned more about the world and developed my own personal writing voice more and more.

In James Baldwin’s essay “Letter to My Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of Emancipation” in The Fire Next Time, Baldwin advises his black, adolescent nephew living in the 1960’s during the African-American Civil Rights Movement on what living a free life means based on Baldwin’s own experience as an adult. As an existential thinker, Baldwin attributes a person’s identity to the collection of accomplishments and failures in his or her entire lifetime, as opposed to accepting a person as determinately good or bad. In order to be truly free of oppression, according to Baldwin, African Americans must seek to be authentic by not conceding to the expectations and restrictions of racist white Americans. A person’s authenticity lies in

Bell Hooks was born in Kentucky on September 25, 1952. She went to all black schools until she was in high school, and after the shift to an integrated school she felt that black students were seen as not “really belonging” she says this experience “taught [her] the difference between education as the practice of freedom and education that merely strives to reinforce dominance.”(teaching to transgress 4). After high school she received her bachelor’s degree from stanford university and her master’s degree from UC Santa Cruz. She experienced racial and sexual discrimination throughout her life, and when she was in college, Bell Hooks was exposed to the women’s liberation movement; a feminist movement from the 1970’s that fought for issues that affected women. This movement gave her an outlet to express her ideas about feminism. Bell Hooks fought for women’s rights through literature and created a more inclusive feminist movement by exploring how race and class factor into women’s oppression.

James Baldwin was a man who wrote an exceptional amount of essays. He enticed audiences differing in race, sexuality, ethnic background, government preference and so much more. Each piece is a circulation of emotions and a teeter-totter on where he balances personal experiences and worldly events to the way you feel. Not only did he have the ability to catch readers’ attention through writing, but he also appeared on television a few times.

“Ultimately the product that any writer has to sell is not the subject being written about, but who he or she is” (Zinsser 5). James Baldwin did exactly that when he published his memoir, Notes of A Native Son. Through a collection of ten essays about his real life experiences, Baldwin was successful and effective in opening the reader’s eyes to the racial oppression that is reality for many across America. Baldwin presents his experiences and details in such a manner that does not lose its purpose or the reader’s attention. Much of the suggestions William Zinsser wrote about in On Writing Well is detectable in Baldwin’s writing, even though it might not be word for word. Regardless, Baldwin is able to successfully and effectively keep readers

When It comes to being a writer, there are pieces you need in order to be one. Such as the passion to be a writer, purpose, prose, etc. Looking at myself, I don't have any of those, but I definitely grew through Writing 115. Writing 115 taught me alot and enhanced my writing to levels I thought I would never get to. My writing grew each and every day, from essay 1 to the final essay. My only goal for this class was to try and get better at something I do not like, which is writing. I know I am not a writer but I am still bettering myself each and every day to be so. So when I am asked “Am I A Writer”, I respond with “no”, but I am trying to better my writing skills. By the end of college my goal is to become a fluent writer.

When I published my first novel in 2000, I was a thirty-three year old woman who had made the decision to become a writer at the age of nine. At the age of nine, I had heard the name: James Baldwin but had no conception of his magnitude, of his impact on the world. I had not read his work and so did not and could not know that ultimately and eventually my entire writing career would be the manifestation of his very profound observation.

Who am I writing for?” is a question that Zinsser answers for all authors with the response , “It’s a fundamental question, and it has a fundamental answer: You are writing for yourself” (24). Zinsser gives his readers this advice because he believes that if a writer worries about the audience, then the writer’s own personality and style will get lost. Baldwin, on the other hand, takes the opposite approach and makes it clear to the readers that he wrote with a purpose to educate the world about the dangers of racial oppression, which is effective in his case. In his autobiographical notes, Baldwin states that “I consider that I have many responsibilities, but none greater than this: to last, as Hemingway says, and get my work done. I want