Submit: Adapt and Write Essay

Our assignment this week will be to follow the instructions in the blue box on page 345, titled, Your Paper.

Remember, we are writing the rest of the essay based on the elements we have already been given to work with, which are:

a thesis statement
a blueprint outline
the first body paragraph already written

This means that you will be writing the:

Introduction
the second and third body paragraphs
Conclusion
Works Cited Page

Remember: the second and third body paragraphs that you write must be modeled on the first body paragraph already written and provided for you on p. 343. As you write the second and third body paragraphs, use the ESSAY BLUEPRINT for them found on p. 344.

Please contact me with any questions:)

The same guidelines still apply:

Guidelines:

Minimum Length: 750-1000 words (approximately 3-4 pages)

Format: MLA; See examples in Week 1

Please follow the template below and remember to include the following, based on our previous assignments:

– An introduction with a motivator, thesis, and blueprint (with three supporting points) based on chs. 2 and 7

– Substantive body paragraphs with effective topic sentences and supporting points in each paragraph, based on chs. 3 and 4

– A conclusion with a restatement of your thesis and a clincher, based on ch. 8

YOUR PAPER Now it’s your turn. Take the plan presented in this chapter, adapt it if you wish, and write the rest of the essay. Remember to compose a good motivator to go with your thesis and simple blueprint; there are many possibilities, such as a story or a startling statistic to catch your reader’s attention. Remember to identify Tannen and Gray by their full names in your introduction along with the titles of the readings to which you are responding. Also, don’t forget to conclude your essay with a well-constructed paragraph. Furthermore, you will need to construct a Works Cited page for your essay. Your instructor or a writing center tutor can help you with this, or, to see an example, look ahead to Chapter 22. In addition, MLA documentation guide- lines are given in the research appendix.

ESSAY BLUEPRINT Thesis and Simple Blueprint: Men and women often misunderstand each other because they approach conversation differently, they exhibit different listening styles, and they have different expectations from communication. First Topic Sentence: First, men and women have difficulty communicating because they approach conversation differently. • Girls’bondsbasedontalking;boys’bondsbasedonsharedinterests;thiscar- ries over into adulthood (Tannen 330) • Womenthinkoutloudtodiscoverwhattheythink;menthinkthingsover silently before speaking (Gray 340) • Womentendtodealwithmen’ssilencesbytryingtogetthemtotalk;this often backfires (Gray 342) • Conversationissoimportanttowomenthattheyaremuchmorelikelythan men to list “lack of communication” as reason for divorce (Tannen 329) Second Topic Sentence: Furthermore, men and women often misunderstand each other because they exhibit different listening styles. • Differentbodylanguage:womenlookeachotherintheeyesandsitfacing each other (Tannen 331); men sit side by side; 10th grade boys example (Tannen 331) • Womenmakelistenernoisewhilemenaresilent;misunderstandingscausedby this (Tannen 332); (Gray 341) • Womenoftenfinisheachother’ssentences;menseethisasinterrupting (Tannen 332) • Womennurtureeachotherbyaskingquestionsastheylisten;thisisirritating to a man who wants to silently process his feelings; women think men often react to their conversation in an unsupportive manner (Gray 341) Third Topic Sentence: Finally, since men and women have differing expectations from conversation, misunderstandings are bound to occur. • Menviewconversationasawaytoconveyinformation;womenseeitasaway to share feelings (Gray 335) • Women take “poetic license,” but men take women literally, so they may come across as unsupportive (Gray 335) • Men want status from conversation; women want support (Tannen 333) • Men often talk more at work to demonstrate knowledge, so they feel free to be silent when they get home; women talk less at work for fear of hurting some- one, so they expect conversation when they get home (Tannen 333)

Of course, there are several possibilities for a simple blueprint, but this will work well. Remember to include page numbers in your plan to help you locate support when you begin writing. Because you will draw from two different sources, you must differentiate between the two. With two sources you simply state the author’s last name and the page number on which the material you bor- row is located; therefore, you will document with these parenthetical citations: (Tannen 329) and (Gray 334). On page 344 is a sample plan for an essay response to the prompt given earlier. Here is an example of a first body paragraph based on the previous blueprint. One reason men and women have difficulty communicating is because they approach conversation differently. For example, Tannen discusses research that shows how males and females view conversa- tion differently from childhood: little girls form relationships based on talking, often cementing these relationships with shared secrets, whereas boys choose their friends on the basis of shared interests (Tannen 330). These differences carry over into adulthood, where “for women, as for girls, intimacy is the fabric of relationships, and talk is the thread from which it is woven” (Tannen 330). In contrast, men “don’t assume talk is the cement that binds a relationship,” and “they don’t miss it when it isn’t there” (Tannen 330). Therefore, the different value that men and women place on conversation can cause misunderstandings. In fact, Gray points out that conversation is so important to women that women assume it is equally important to men. Women, Gray points out, have a tendency to “think out loud”; it is this process of talking that helps them to discover what they think (Gray 340). In contrast, a man often withdraws to think; he usually will not speak about something until he has had time to process it silently in his mind (Gray 340). Gray points out that this is the point where problems often crop up; if a man is silent, a woman thinks something is wrong, and she will often try to get him to “open up” to her. Gray states that women struggle with leaving men alone when they are silent because “[i]t just doesn’t seem loving to abandon her favorite Martian when he is upset” (Gray 341). However, Gray is quick to note that when women push men to talk, it is likely to be “counterproduc- tive” (Gray 342). Therefore, given the importance women attach to conversation, it is not surprising that many more women than men are likely to give “lack of communication as the reason for their divorces” (Tannen 329).