Beginnings, Fall 2007
Assignment for Seminar Preparation Paper #5
Due: Friday, Oct. 12
Read: Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks: Introduction, Chapters 1, 3, 8, and 9
Reading Directions (these apply to all seminar readings)
Plan on reading this chapter twice. As you read, underline, highlight, note in the margin, or index
in a reading journal or on blank pages at end of the book passages, specific terms, sentences or
paragraphs that strike you as important, interesting, confusing or simply those you want to share
with others in the seminar.
Make a list of new words, names, phrases that you looked up in a dictionary. A good reader will
have a dictionary available and look up several words in each section of reading. With this
challenging reading, you may need to look up many words.
You should identify major concepts the author uses and how she labels and defines them. Think
about why the author wrote this book, and what major questions or problems she is trying to
address. Get to know the whole book – front and back cover, table of contents, index.
For seminar, be ready to point to specific passages and explain in your own words what they
mean and why they are important.
Seminar Preparation paper due Friday Oct. 12
1. Make a list of words you needed to look up in a dictionary and be ready to explain them
to your seminar (from the whole reading).
2. For each chapter you read, identify one important central theme or idea you find in the
chapter. What is a central question or problem or idea that hooks is interested in? State
this central idea or question or purpose in a sentence or two.
Example: Hooks believes that teachers must be committed to their own growth in
order to truly serve their students.
3. Choose one chapter to work with in more depth by completing the following steps. This
is an opportunity to work with the P-I-E structure that you’ll be using on essay #1.
4. Find 3 passages in the chapter that reflect the central idea you identified in step 2.
5. For each of the three passages, do the following:

Introduce your idea with a Point that states why the passage matters or something
important about it – what it adds to that main idea. Example:
Hooks says that a teacher should embody wholeness, rather than intellect only.

Introducing the quotation with a signal phrase* of your own, copy the passage using
MLA style citation. This is your Illustration – your citation of the text. Example:
Hooks writes, “…Thich Nhat Hanh always speaks of the teacher as a healer…Thich Nhat
Hanh offered a way of thinking about pedagogy which emphasized wholeness, a union of
mind, body, and spirit. His focus on a holistic approach to learning and spiritual practice
enabled me to overcome years of socialization…” (14).

Then Explain how this particular passage relates to or supports your theme statement.
Why does this passage seem especially significant to you? How does it relate to the
central idea you identified? What about it “jumps out” at you? Include your questions
about the passage or the larger idea. It’s fine to write “I’m not sure if…” Or “Could this
mean …” Example:
Hooks uses the Buddhist teacher Hanh as an example of a holistic educator. It’s
interesting that she uses a spiritual teacher here – it shows that she believes that
education isn’t only something that happens in the brain or mind, but it reflects other
parts of the person as well. She quotes Hanh’s use of the word “healer,” which implies
that she believes that teachers have a responsibility not only to educate but to heal their
students, and even themselves. When she says “socialization,” she could mean
throughout her whole life, or she might mean especially during her own college
education.
6. Repeat this process for the other two passages.
7. Your seminar paper should include the following:
 List of words you needed to look up.
 Theme statements for each chapter.
 Selected chapter: PIE paragraph 1, PIE paragraph 2, and PIE paragraph 3.
8. Follow the format guidelines in the syllabus.
Your finished PIE paragraph will look something like this:
Hooks says that a teacher should embody wholeness, rather than intellect only. Hooks
writes, “…Thich Nhat Hanh always speaks of the teacher as a healer…Thich Nhat Hanh offered
a way of thinking about pedagogy which emphasized wholeness, a union of mind, body, and
spirit. His focus on a holistic approach to learning and spiritual practice enabled me to overcome
years of socialization…” (14). Hooks uses the Buddhist teacher Hanh as an example of a holistic
educator. It’s interesting that she uses a spiritual teacher here – it shows that she believes that
education isn’t only something that happens in the brain or mind, but it reflects other parts of the
person as well. She quotes Hanh’s use of the word “healer,” which implies that she believes that
teachers have a responsibility not only to educate but to heal their students, and even themselves.
When she says “socialization,” she could mean throughout her whole life, or she might mean
especially during her own college education.
*A signal phrase is an introductory phrase that sets up a quote to follow. For example:
Hooks writes…
It’s important to hooks that… The author points out…
NOTE: Bell hooks does not capitalize her name. If her name appears in the middle of a
sentence, do not capitalize it. This chapter shows how much hooks cares about…
If you open a sentence with her name, capitalize it as you would the first word of any sentence.
Hooks believes that feminist classrooms should be different from…