Sabrina Shao's 8th Blog Post

In the last class we had, the one before break, I remember having a really good discussion about how Coates is extremely careful when he writes his book. I think it is so interesting how strategic Coates is when he writes. Every word was carefully thought out and placed in the sentence. The scene where he talks about how he thought the woman was pulling rank against him and his child because of their blackness was one of the more interesting scenes to analyze. He is very careful saying that he thought or he believed that the woman was pulling rank. He never states that she actually did. He makes it very clear that this story is being told from his perspective and that he is a very biased author. We will never know if the woman was actually pulling rank because there is no unbiased onlooker. There will always be the possibility that the woman was not actually pulling rank and that she was just very rude and in a hurry. Coates’ past experiences could have made him paranoid and on edge and make him think that everyone might be out to get him. He has stated multiple times in the book that he is in fact quite suspicious of everyone, constantly having to look over his shoulder despite not actually being in any real danger (like in France). I do, however, think that the man was being a little racist since he did not defend the child after the child was shoved out of the way but he did defend the woman. The man’s words about being able to get Coates arrested was, what I believe to be, the man pulling rank. Yes, he may be defending the woman because the woman seemed defenseless against Coates who was yelling at her, however, he did not think that a child, even more defenseless than the woman herself, was in danger when the woman shoved him out of the way.

The last EMK that I went to was with a class that I was familiar with. I had already worked with the girl the time before and was familiar with the topic that she was writing about. The good news was that the girl was extremely motivated to get her paper done because she was so ready to complete her paper and never look at it again. During the entire session, she was very focused and she had some good ideas. The only problem was that she had a lot of trouble finding the right words. I would try to help her by asking her a question and she would respond by describing her ideas without saying the actual theme. I’m not sure if that makes any sense. It is kind of hard to describe. For most of the session, she would describe her observations and I would have to put it into words that could actually be written on the paper. For example, she would say that in the short stories she read, both the authors were homosexual and the protagonists in their short stories were called bad words by their close loved ones because of their sexuality. She would then look to me to translate her observations into words that she could put in her paper. In this example, I would say that both the authors’ short stories were inspired by their similar life experiences, thus, the protagonists in both stories were also harassed by their loved ones due to their homosexuality. I can’t tell if this girl is using me or not. I do enjoy working with her but I can’t decide if I am guiding her while she is writing her paper or actually writing the paper for her. She has many good ideas but she is having some trouble expressing it which is where she would turn to me to write it for her. I’m not gonna lie, I am not really opposed to this system cause we get the work done so much faster, however, I want this to also benefit her and I don’t want to be forcing my writing style on her. Maybe she is using this as a way to learn how to write and eventually, she will start writing like me or maybe she is just using this to get her paper over and done with. I don’t really know but she seems like a really nice girl and I hope that my help did in fact help her in her writing.