Fences Quoting Exercise Complete PDF

Preview

Summary

Assignment...

Description

Campbell 1 Exercise on Paraphrasing, Quoting, Citing, and Documenting Fences Once again, essay 3 is the most important essay in this section of ENGL 1102 because it’s the essay I use to satisfy VSU’s assessment program. The essay must be at least 1200 words (I ask you to produce five pages not counting the works cited list), must cite at least six sources (which in our case includes one of the two plays), must determine in large part a student’s course grade (that’s why it’s worth 42 points of 100), and must be tested for plagiarism (see the syllabus). So take care as we work on essay 3. To preview what’s to come, the instructor will suggest one secondary source for each play, leaving class members to find on their own four acceptable secondary sources in order to reach the six required sources (one primary, five secondary). Members will be guided through exercises to the finding of these four sources. This exercise is on one of the plays you can choose to write about for essay 3, August Wilson’s Fences. 1. We are using a print source for Fences (plays are italicized), so the format is relatively simple: Last name of author, first name. Title of Source Play. Name of publisher, year of publication. Based on this model, create the correct works cited entry for the play: Wilson, August. Fences. Plume, 2016. 2. Troy is embittered for two very broad reasons: (a) his father’s cruelty (Wilson 50-52) and (b) baseball’s color line (institutionalized racist segregation), which prevented Troy from entering the major leagues during his prime playing years in the 1930s and forced him to play in the Negro Leagues (Wilson 9). Write two topic sentences on these two broad reasons for Troy’s bitterness. And then add to each topic sentence a few sentences that paraphrase (and maybe quote a little) how and why Troy became bitter because of each reason. Cite author and pages. a. Troy holds a grudge against his father. In Troy’s opinion, he does not think his father ever made his family a priority and never “cared nothing about no kids” (Wilson 50). Troy’s father beat him at a young age and never showed any love towards him (Wilson 52). Because of this, Troy holds onto a lot of anger and is often aggressive towards his own family. However, Troy acknowledges that his father “felt a responsibility towards [his kids]” because he did not walk out on them (Wilson 51). b. Troy is also bitter about the fact that he could not play in the major leagues. Bono knows that Troy is one of the best baseball players, behind “Babe Ruth and Josh Gib” (Wilson 9). While Tory had all the skills plus some, he was not able to play in the major leagues because of the color of his skin. Troy knows that he could have played for the major leagues if he was white (Wilson 9). In my opinion, Troy is ashamed that he couldn’t play for the major leagues and is holding on to a grudge against society.

Campbell 2

3. Troy believes that he would have been better off financially if he had been able to play in the major leagues during his prime (you can make up your own mind as to whether Troy would have been signed by a major league baseball team after spending fifteen years in prison even if there had been no color line). So he’s very bitter about his lack of resources and is especially ashamed or angered by the fact that he had to use his brother Gabe’s insurance for Gabe’s injury during World War II to pay for his house. Create a good lead-in of a complete sentence or two on this bitterness ending with a colon before this quote: “If my brother didn’t have that metal plate in his head . . . I wouldn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of” (Wilson 28). Because Troy is black, he was unable to play for the major leagues. Therefore, Troy was unable to make the salary of a major leagues player and was unable to buy a house with his own money. Troy knows that without the insurance money from Gabe’s injury, he would not have been able to buy a house: “If my brother didn’t have that metal plate in his head… I wouldn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of” (Wilson 28).

4. It’s important to understand perspectives in literature: what a character says isn’t necessarily the truth, but may just represent his/her perspective on the matter at hand. Cory, for example, has a perspective on his father’s not allowing him to pursue his dreams of playing college football. Make a point about Cory’s perspective before you introduce the following with the speech act verb claims plus comma: “You ain’t never done nothing but hold me back. Afraid I was gonna be better than you” (Wilson 86). Cory holds resentment towards his father Troy, just as Troy did his own father. Cory does not think that his father ever did anything for him and claims, “You ain’t never done nothing but hold me back. Afraid I was gonna be better than you” (Wilson 86).

5. Troy uses baseball metaphors to explain his marriage to Rose and his affair with Alberta (Wilson 69-70). (He also uses them, of course, to think of his entire life as an at bat against death and to count down his displeasure with Cory.) Make a point in a couple/three/four sentences about Troy’s use of baseball metaphors and quote “bunted” (Wilson 69) and “steal second” (Wilson 70) by running them into your prose with no punctuation. Troy sees his baseball career as a metaphor for his life. Troy “bunted” society when he turned his life around after prison (Wilson 69). Troy got “a halfway decent job”, had a family, and did everything in his power to stay away from jail in order to avoid striking out (Wilson 70). In addition, Troy tries to relate his real life to baseball in order to justify his actions. He does this when he compares his affair to wanting to “steal second” (Wilson 70). Troy compares Rose to “first base” and says he was tired of being there for so long (Wilson 70). On the other hand, Rose is clearly disappointed with his explanation and says, “We ain’t talking about no baseball” (Wilson 70).

Campbell 3

6. Because of the life he led, Troy views life as a struggle, an at bat in which a batter looks at death as “a fastball on the outside corner” (Wilson 10)—with two strikes against him (Wilson 69). In addition, he doesn’t want to take a called strike (a strike called by the umpire when a batter lets a good ball pass by). This is obviously a perspective on life that causes him a great deal of stress. Make the point that Troy’s perspective on life may have led to his death, paraphrase how he died (Wilson 95-96), and quote “If you going down . . . you going down swinging” (Wilson 69) by leading into it with a colon. In my opinion, Troy never got to enjoy his life because he was too busy thinking about what could have been. He was also too focused on trying to change his life instead of enjoying the one he already had. Troy was always “looking for the curve-ball on the inside corner” without getting a “call strike” (Wilson 69). Troy was never grateful for the life he lived and was constantly trying to change what could never be changed. This most likely caused Troy to carry resentment and stress, which ultimately led to him dropping dead while playing baseball (Wilson 95-96). You can argue that Troy could have had a better life, but Troy lived his life the way he wanted to live it: he lived his life according to baseball. Troy went after every “curve-ball”, even if it meant loosing: “If you going down… you going down swinging” (Wilson 69)....