Notice that the writer includes a topic sentence with a focused, central idea. She explains each of her points with specific supporting evidence from the essays. Her sentences are grammatical and are organized in a logical, easy to follow sequence with transitions within and between paragraphs. She uses quotes wisely and sparingly to compliment her voice. She provides a series of concluding sentences which unify/reinforce her main points. She never plagiarizes the wording found in the texts she is writing about; the language she uses is her own (her vocabulary is college level), supported with quotes. She also follows directions by providing the required fifteen sentences.Study carefully the ways in which her response is well written; this is the kind of writing you are aiming to achieve.
Listserv Posting for Credit Assignment #2
George Orwell and James Baldwin intimately knew how aweful it felt to be an object of hatred. Both men find themselves in a hostile environment where others look upon them with contempt and disdain. Orwell sums up his situation in the first two paragraphs (pp. 597-598) when he describes the treatment he is subjected to from the Burmese. He explains that on the soccer field he is repeatedly "tripped up" by a Burmese player--an illegal action which the Burmese referee purposefully ignores and the Burmese crowd applauds. Even the Buddhest priests show their disdain for Orwell by their "jeers". Their reactions to him make Orwell realize that his position as a representative of British imperialism makes him the target of such enmity, and he begins to wrestle with the dual anger he feels toward the "evil-spirited beasts who tried to make [his] job impossible" and the empire he represents.
Likewise, Baldwin also encounters cruelty from those who regard him as less than human. Orwell's experience on the soccer field is mirrored by Baldwin's experience at eating establishments in New Jersey. On pages 339-340, Baldwin explains how he snapped one day in Trenton when a white waitress robotically repeated the phrase Baldwin had heard a thousand times before: "We don't serve Negroes here." Baldwin gives vent to his rage, as Orwell had wanted to do with the Buddhist priests (Orwell tells us it would have been a pleasure to pierce the stomachs of those priests with a bayonet). Fortunately, the white waitress ducked when Baldwin threw the glass pitcher at her, and he was able, after a terrifying struggle with the white patrons of the restaurant, to flee the scene and make it back to his room safely.
Baldwin also feels the animosity of others when he is fired from his factory job three times because of acting as if he deserved equal treatment to his white co-workers. Baldwin is taught a repeated lesson (just like the one Orwell learned from being tripped up numerous times on the soccor field)--black men will never be accepted as equals in white society. In the end, both men realize that changing the hate-filled perceptions of others is impossible, so they must instead change their own internal landscape of how they view themselves. Orwell decides to leave Burma and denounce imperialism as a cruel system which enslaves everyone; Baldwin decides that he must fight racial injustice without giving in to rage or violent retribution.
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