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Workshops
This class requires you to write three short papers at home (plus one in-class essay, but we won’t worry about
that one now). At some point in the semester you will have one of your short papers workshopped by the class.
Additionally, you will facilitate one workshop for a peer.
On the first day of class, I will tell you which of the three papers you will have workshopped. I will also tell you
which workshop you will facilitate.
Here is the process:

Students being workshopped will turn in their papers one week before the workshops. There are two
ways to do this: bring in enough copies for the entire class, or email the paper to me on the date
specified so I can post the paper on our class website.

Workshoppers will distribute their papers to every student if they bring in hard copies. If students to
elect to have their papers posted on the website, the rest of the class will access it there. If there are six
students being workshopped, the class will have six papers to read.

Everyone will read the papers and comment on them. You are expected to comment on content as well
as grammar/mechanics issues in a response paper of at least 250 words. You may email me copies of
your responses, but you need to bring hard copies for the writers. NOTE: you must comment
respectfully and tactfully. You must also give suggestions for improvement. If you are rude or if you
do not provide concrete suggestions, you will not credit for the papers.

During the week of the workshops, we will talk about each paper for 15 minutes. The discussion will be
facilitated by a student in the class. The facilitator is responsible for making sure the discussion lasts 15
minutes (no more, no less) and for making sure that everyone comments on the paper (both with
positive comments and constructive criticism).

Workshoppers will then get the response papers from peers. Workshoppers are expected to go through
the comments they receive and substantially revise their papers according to those comments. If you are
being workshopped and you feel overwhelmed by the amount of comments you receive on your paper, I
am happy to help you sort through them.

A week after the workshops, the final draft of the paper is due for everyone. Even though not everyone
is being workshopped, everyone will turn the paper in on the due date.
Everyone benefits from workshops. Students being workshopped will have at least 25 people helping them to
improve their papers (that’s a lot of help!). Students who read workshop drafts not only get to see other
students’ writing style and approach to the paper topic, but they also get to work on their proofreading/revising
skills.
The comments you write on workshop drafts count for 1/5 of your paper’s overall grade. This can really help
you or really hurt you. If you write very helpful, ample comments on workshop drafts, you can boost your
paper’s grade. If you don’t write helpful, ample comments, you paper grade can go down (you can lose up to
two letter grades).
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Mock Workshop Paper Prompt
Choose a story you’ve come to know inside and out—it can be a fairy tale or any other story you are very
familiar with. Develop a claim about a specific version of your story in which you address representations of
gender, sexuality, morals, violence, nationality, or culture (if you’d like to address another issue, please see me).
How does your version handle the issue or issues you chose to focus on? What overall effect do they have on
the story and how does your version consequently compare to other versions? For this paper you will have to
consult at least two outside sources (in addition to your story).
The Modern Cinderella
The old Cinderella fairytale is a favorite of little girls. It provokes their imagination to think of the
impossible. They imagine castles, princes, beautiful princess gowns and imagine some day it will come true.
When will it come true? The message is clear. It will come true the day they wear those beautiful gowns, and
physically look like Cinderella. From this early stage of their lives these girls begin to be feminine. Gracie, the
Cinderella figure in the film is the complete opposite of a feminine women. She is faced with an obstacle
between her and her prince. It’s like a hard, concrete wall filled with lipstick, blush, mascara, and fancy
perfume. She needs to cross this wall of “femininity” before she gets her prince. This we see in the modern
Cinderella film titled Miss Congeniality. Femininity is the value of a woman.
The definition of femininity according to the Oxford English dictionary is “having qualities traditionally
associated with women, especially delicacy and prettiness.” A feminine girl is commonly viewed as pretty,
graceful and does not order a steak and beer on a date but instead orders a salad and water. Why are salad and
water associated with women and steak and beer associated with men? Lettuce is good to eat for a healthy body.
However, when it is all that a woman eats it is not because it tastes good, unless she’s a rabbit. Women do this
rabbit diet in order to maintain their slim bodies in other words maintain their femininity.
Femininity is promoted since birth. Little babies are commonly differentiated by the color of their
clothes. And this tradition begins and lasts their whole lifetimes. Since birth they are introduced to either
wearing pink dresses or blue pants. In essence a baby would be assumed to be a girl because of her femininity if
she were wearing a pink dress. Young children sometimes know the difference between themselves and another
child of the opposite sex by the type of clothes they are wearing. If a little boy sees another child wearing a
polka dot dress he will know it is a girl. The problem with this is that this becomes a greater problem later on in
the life of this innocent baby when she becomes a woman.
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This baby in pink grows up to be a beautiful teenager. It is hard enough to be a teenager and she still
needs to live up to the feminine expectations. A girl in highschool will be more worried about what she will
wear to impress a cute guy than what she needs to do to pass her class. She will probably want the figure of a
model in a magazine and all the fashions advertised in it. And if she cannot acquire these things she could lose
her self value because she could think she is not beautiful enough to find her prince. This is a direct result of her
seeing all the femininity needed to find ones prince.
Gracie is portrayed as not being feminine since the beginning of the film. When she was a little girl she
rushed over to save a little boy from being beat-up by some bullies. She talks bad to one of the bullies and he
responds that if she were not a girl he would beat her face off. She responds back by saying that if he were not a
girl she would beat his face off. He then asks her if she just called him a girl, and she says she did because he
called her one. We see in this scene that Gracie is totally against the ideals of femininity since she was a little
girl.
As I mentioned before, Gracie is not a feminine woman. She never wears dresses, skirts, feminine
colors, high heeled shoes, make-up or anything that may be considered feminine. All of these things makes a
girl attractive to a man which is how they first notice a women. There is a scene were she is eating a steak and
a beer in a fancy restaurant, and she is criticized by a man for not being a lady. This man is supposed to teach
her how to be a lady. One other thing she needs to learn is how to walk in a feminine way. Another aspect of her
is her job. Gracie is an FBI agent which could be one of the least feminine jobs around. This is a problem that
we see in society. Having a job that is typically a man’s job makes a women less attractive. Being an FBI agent
requires one to be able to protect one self by physical means. In other words, a girl needs to be able to put up a
fight with all kinds of criminals including men. Women are not regularly seen beating-up a man and winning. So
because Gracie is like this, she is not noticed by her prince. Gracie’s prince is her partner, who would rather
spend his time chasing other more pretty women. . Her prince does not notice her until she is feminized.
Pursuing a man’s career is not feminine; however, neither is cleaning all day in your knees, which is
what we see in Disney’s version of Cinderella. Is the broom not attractive? First the broom belongs in the hands
of a woman and so does the house, the children, and the man. A woman cannot have one in order to find the
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prince but when she finds it she has to use it and be pretty all the time and have time for children, work, and
school, this is too much.
Gracie needs to enter a beauty pageant in order to find a criminal. She can only get into it by completely
changing her appearance. Which so obviously means that she will only be beautiful enough to be in a beauty
pageant if she feminized. So she finally gets a beauty make over. They hire a mountain full of beauty
professionals. It looked like an army ready to fight the war against the ugly. All of these alterations like the
waxing, the haircut, and clothes change costs a lot of money that some women cannot afford.
Women are “artificially stunted for ornamental purposes.” (Piercy, Marge ) Beauty as it is defined
today is so easily obtained by money. Have you ever seen how beautiful a fairytale princess is? In the time of
castles there were no women with perfect eyebrows, or skin. If the producers chose to do a fairytale with castles
and knights they should also get the idea of beauty right for the time period. All of this costs money. Money can
do so many things from whitening teeth to having a liposuction. Women are “artificially stunted for ornamental
purposes.” (Piercy, Marge )
It is ironic that some hair-dye, make-up, and pretty clothes can influence the decision of who you
choose to share your life with. It may sound exaggerated, but a man would obviously choose to date a more
feminine girl than a less feminine one. When he finds her personality to be boring he will have lost the
opportunity with someone else all because of the make-up and pretty clothes. That is the power of beauty. It is
powerful enough to capture a mans heart, at least for a while in some cases.
Fairytales make lives of little girls happier. However they can have other meanings in their future lives.
It is ironic that many people agree with this but would not be able to give up any of these things. I do not think it
is necessary to not use make-up or anything like it because it makes women feel better about themselves. I do
think that the importance of it should be downgraded by the opposite sex. But, it is not, so therefore the next
time you go shopping for shoes make sure you get the right ones or you may not get the right husband.