Seminar Preparation Assignment
Week Three
Women in the Global Context
Due: Friday, October 12, 2007
Read: Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches, and Bases, Prefaces, Chapters 1-3 and “Whom Do You Take
Seriously?” by Enloe in the Course Reader
Read Actively: When you start to read a new book, begin by looking at the whole book closely. Look at
the cover and think about what ideas the image conveys. Read the prefaces to the book carefully. Note
where the end notes are located (in the back of the book) so you can easily access them as you read. Look
through the index and note the subject headings. Is there a bibliography? Then, as always when you read,
highlight or underline key passages that help you to understand what this writer’s main ideas or key points
are. Can you discern her thesis or purpose for writing the book in these first chapters? Make sure to mark
passages that indicate this and think about how chapters 2 and 3 help to support or develop that purpose or
thesis. Also you will want to highlight and make note of new words and concepts that you need to look up
or want to ask about in class.
Also as you read, you will want to think about the questions in the syllabus. Make notes in the margins
or in your reading notebook when you find a passage that helps to answer or discuss a question.
\Written Assignment:
1. Think about a key theme or important point that Enloe makes in these first three chapters of her book.
Write this central idea in a sentence or two at the top of your paper.
2. Go back through the chapters and also the article by Enloe in the Course Reader and choose four key
passages you think reflect or support that idea. Write these word for word, making sure to place
quotation marks around them and to cite them properly putting the author’s last name and page
number in parentheses directly after each quote like this: (Enloe 44).
3. Directly after each of the passages that you have quoted, write in your words what you think the
author is saying in the passage. You will want to paraphrase the whole passage and translate the
author’s words into your own. In other words, paraphrase the passage and try to explain the meaning
that you find to be important in it. Your paraphrase should be double-spaced and should be at least as
long as the passage you have quoted. You don’t want to summarize or condense the passage, but
rather unpack it so that you say what it means in your words.
4. Then three or four sentences explain how the passage you have quoted supports or reflects the central
idea or main point you are focused on. In other words, explain in some detail how that quote is
related to the important point or theme you wrote at the top of your page.
5. Finally, choose three of the questions in the syllabus for Week Three, and briefly answer each. You
can do this in your own words OR you can quote a passage from one of the articles that helps you to
answer the question and briefly state what in the passage helps to answer the question for you. Again
make sure to use quotation marks and to cite the author’s last name and page number in parentheses
after the quotation.
6. You might also come up with your own questions as you read and make a list of these to bring to
class. Where are there passages you don’t understand? What do you want to know more about?