This week, we will work through Module Seven. This module will remind us how to avoid plagiarizing, teach us how to summarize and paraphrase, and cite inside of our essay. Knowing when to use direct quotes, develop a paraphrase and summarize is essential to writing a scholarly paper. We will develop our essay when class resumes after spring break.
Reading Assignment (located in physical book or eBook in Achieve):
Ch. 11
Charles Blow’s article “Black Dads Are Doing Best of All”
Writing Assignment:
Questions To Start You Thinking 1 – 6 (at the end of the article)
Achieve Modules (Supporting Details; Summarizing; Working with Sources MLA)
Here’s the information from the eBook
Learning from Other Writers
The writers of the following two essays draw on evidence from sources to support their points. To help you analyze the first reading, look at the notes in the margin, which point out the thesis and some methods for integrating information from sources. As you read these essays, ask yourself the following questions:
What thesis, or main idea, expresses the position supported by the essay? How does the writer try to help readers appreciate the importance of this position?
How does the writer use information from sources to support a thesis? Do you find this information relevant and persuasive?
How does the writer vary the way each source is introduced and the way information is drawn from it?
Article:
Charles M. Blow
Black Dads Are Doing Best of All
image pop up. Press enter to access the pop up
Charles M. Blow (b. 1970) is a columnist for the New York Times, where the following piece appeared. He has served at the Times as graphics editor, graphics director, and design director for news, and he is the author of the memoir Fire Shut Up in My Bones. The sources that Blow refers to have been adapted to illustrate the MLA (Modern Language Association) documentation style.
image pop up. Press enter to access the pop up
The text reads as follows.
Paragraph 1. One of the most persistent statistical bludgeons of people who want to blame Black people for any injustice or inequity they encounter is this: According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (C D C), nearly 72 percent of births to non-Hispanic Black women, the mothers were unmarried.
Paragraph 2. It has always seemed to me that embedded in the open quotes If only Black men would marry the women they have babies with (ellipsis) close quotes rhetoric was a more insidious suggestion: that there is something fundamental, and intrinsic about black men that is flawed, that black fathers are pathologically prone to desertion of their offspring and therefore largely responsible for Black community open quotes dysfunction. close quotes [An annotation pointing at paragraph 1 and 2 reads, Background information including statistics. End of annotation.]
Paragraph 3. There is an astounding amount of mythology loaded into this stereotype, one that echoes a history of efforts to rob black masculinity of honor and fidelity. [An annotation pointing at paragraph 3 reads, thesis presenting position. End of annotation.]
Paragraph 4. Josh Levs points this out in his book, All In, in a chapter titled open quotes How Black Dads Are Doing Best of All (But There’s Still a Crisis). Close quotes. One fact that Levs quickly establishes is that most Black fathers in America live with their children: open quotes There are about 2.5 million Black fathers living with their children and about 1.7 million living apart from them close quotes (149). [An annotation pointing at paragraph 4 reads, Direct quotation. End of annotation.]
image pop up. Press enter to access the pop up
The text reads as follows.
Paragraph 5. Open quotes So then, close quotes you may ask, Open quotes how is it that 72 percent of black children are born to single mothers? How can both be true? close quotes. Good question. [An annotation pointing at paragraph 5 reads, Central question, referring back to introductory statistics. End of annotation.]
Paragraph 6. Here are two things to consider:
Paragraph 7. First, there are a growing number of people who live together but don’t marry. Those mothers are still single, even though the child’s father may be in the home. And, as the Washington Post reported last year:
Paragraph 8. Open quotes The share of unmarried couples who opted to have ‘shotgun cohabitations,’ moving in together after a pregnancy, surpassed ‘shotgun marriages’ for the first time during the last decade, according to a forthcoming paper from the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention close quotes (Yen).
Paragraph 9. Furthermore, a C.D.C. report found that black and Hispanic women are far more likely to experience a pregnancy during the first year of cohabitation than white and Asian women (Copen et al.). [An annotation pointing at paragraph 7, 8, and 9 reads, One response to the central question, supported by evidence. End of annotation.]
Paragraph 10. Second, some of these men have children by more than one woman, but they can only live in one home at a time. This phenomenon means that a father can live with some but not all of his children. Levs calls these men open quotes serial impregnators, close quotes but I think something more than promiscuity and irresponsibility are at play here. [An annotation pointing at paragraph 10 reads, Paraphrase, and another response to the central question. End of annotation.]
Paragraph 11. As Forbes reported on Ferguson, Missouri:
Paragraph 12. Open quotes An important but unreported indicator of Ferguson’s dilemma is that half of young African American men are missing from the community. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, while there are 1,182 African American women between the ages of 25 and 34 living in Ferguson, there are only 577 African American men in this age group. In other words there are more than two young Black women for each young black man in Ferguson close quotes (Ozimek). [An annotation pointing at paragraph 12 reads, Supporting evidence. End of annotation.]
Paragraph 13. In April, the New York Times extended this line of reporting, pointing out that nationally, there are 1.5 million missing Black men. As the paper put it: open quotes Incarceration and early deaths are the overwhelming drivers of the gap. Of the 1.5 million missing Black men from 25 to 54, which demographers call the prime-age years, higher imprisonment rates account for almost 600,000. Almost one in 12 Black men in this age group are behind bars, compared with one in 60 non-Black men in the age group, one in 200 Black women and one in 500 non-Black women close quotes (Wolfers et al.). For context, there are about 8 million African American men in that age group overall. [An annotation pointing at paragraph 13 reads, Additional statistical support. End of annotation.]
Paragraph 14. Mass incarceration has disproportionately ensnared young Black men, sucking hundreds of thousands of marriage-age men out of the community.
Paragraph 15. Another thing to consider is something that the Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates has pointed out: open quotes The drop in the birthrate for unmarried Black women is mirrored by an even steeper drop among married Black women. Indeed, whereas at one point married Black women were having more kids (ellipsis).
image pop up. Press enter to access the pop up
The text reads as follows.
(Ellipsis) than married white women, they are now having less. close quotes This means that births to unmarried black women are disproportionately represented in the statistics.
Paragraph 16. Now to the mythology of the black male dereliction as dads: While it is true that Black parents are less likely to marry before a child is born, it is not true that Black fathers suffer a pathology of neglect. In fact, a C D C report found that Black fathers were the most involved with their children daily, on a number of measures, of any other group of fathers, and in many cases, that was among fathers who didn’t live with their children, as well as those who did (Jones and Mosher). [An annotation pointing at paragraphs 15 and 16 reads, Additional responses to the central question, followed by evidence. End of annotation.]
Paragraph 17. There is no doubt that the 72 percent statistic is real and may even be worrisome, but it represents more than choice. It exists in a social context, one at odds with the corrosive mythology about Black fathers. [An annotation pointing at paragraph 17 reads, Conclusion reinforcing the author’s position. End of annotation.]
Works Cited
Each source cited in Blow’s essay listed alphabetically by author, with full publication information
First line of entry placed at left margin, with subsequent lines indented ½ inch
Coates, Ta-Nehisi. “Understanding Out-of-Wedlock Births in Black America.” The Atlantic, 21 June 2013, theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/06/understanding-out-of-wedlock-births-in-black-america/277084/.
Copen, Casey E., et al. “First Premarital Cohabitation in the United States: 2006–2010 National Survey of Family Growth.” National Health Statistics Reports, no. 64, National Center for Health Statistics, 4 Apr. 2013, cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr064.pdf.
Jones, Jo, and William D. Mosher. “Fathers’ Involvement with Their Children: United States, 2006–2010.” National Health Statistics Reports, no. 71, National Center for Health Statistics, 20 Dec. 2013, cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr071.pdf.
Levs, Josh. All In: How Our Work-First Culture Fails Dads, Families, and Businesses—And How We Can Fix It Together. HarperCollins, 2015.
Ozimek, Adam. “Half of Ferguson’s Young African American Men Are Missing.” Forbes, 18 Mar. 2015, forbes.com/sites/modeledbehavior/2015/03/18/half-of-fergusons-young-african-american-men-are-missing/#273f5c58119b.
United States, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “About Natality, 2007–2014.” CDC Wonder, 9 Feb. 2016, wonder.cdc.gov/natality-current.html.
Wolfers, Justin, et al. “1.5 Million Missing Black Men.” The New York Times, 20 Apr. 2015, nyti.ms/1P5Gpa7.
Yen, Hope. “More Couples Who Become Parents Are Living Together But Not Marrying, Data Show.” The Washington Post, 7 Jan. 2014, washingtonpost.com/politics/more-couples-who-become-parents-are-living-together-but-not-marrying-data-show/2014/01/07/2b639a8677d5-11e3-b1c5-739e63e9c9a7_story.html.
Questions to Start You Thinking
Meaning
According to Blow, what are the prevailing stereotypes about black fathers? What position does he take about these stereotypes?
What major points does Blow make to counter prevailing views about black fathers?
How are demographic changes that pertain to women — in particular, birthrates among married black women — contributing to the “statistical bludgeons” Blow describes in his first paragraph?
Writing Strategies
What types of evidence does Blow use to support his position? How convincing is this evidence to you?
Blow alternates between stating some source information in his own words and quoting some directly. What are the advantages and disadvantages of these two approaches?
How would you describe Blow’s tone, the quality of his writing that reveals his attitude toward his topic and his readers? What specific words, phrases, or sentences contribute to his tone? Does the tone seem appropriate for his purpose and audience? Why, or why not?