Here is an excerpt from JC's paper. What are its strengths? How could he improve it?
"Xenophobia was a prominent feature in the colonization of Australia. Some of the first settlers to Australia were European convicts, who, while exiled, did still have a semblance of what society was 'supposed' to look like. The natives of Australia followed no such code that they knew of. When attacks on the settlers then began to happen, tensions could only heighten. These convicts were as mentioned before from Europe and were used to clothes and buildings and civility, traits which none of the natives possessed. As Carolly Erickson writes in The Girl from Botany Bay, 'All of the arts of civilized life, as the Europeans understood civilization were beyond the Ioras' ken. To Mary who knew nothing of Rousseau or of the idea of the noble savage, the Ioras must have seemed, as they did to Tench, 'hideous' and 'frightening.'" Along with the fact that the Ioras did things like self scar their skin, not build houses, and roam nomadically, the Europeans must have truly been out of their element. To make matters worse, the indigenous people made sport of setting wild dingos on the settlers, stealing fish, setting fires and even killing settlers in horrific ways. These elements couple together create the right atmosphere for xenophobia to be an extremely strong presence in the Australia settlers' minds."
Jason has a pretty good argument here with a decent amount of support. I like his introduction, mentioning the semblance of civility that convicts have in order to show the contrast between normal Europeans, European convicts, and the natives of Australia. I would have liked a little bit better of an explanation of the characters he was talking about-assuming someone had not read the pieces he was referencing. There was also a spot when he said "as mentioned before" which sounded a little too much like heh was talking rather than writing a formal paper. Besides that and the explanation of his evidence though, it was a very strong piece.
ReplyDeleteJason did a solid job here. He supported and developed his points pretty well and did a strong job of portraying the differences between the Ioras and the European convicts settling Australia. I think this argument could have been empowered if he emphasized how even European convicts, the lowest people by status in Europe, had a more defined society than the Ioras and he expanded upon that further.
ReplyDeleteJason has solid writing in this passage, he connected all the aspects of the passages spoken of and this gave great credibility to his writing and his argument. The largest flaw to me was the robotic quality of his writing. Some sentences were very short and not very thorough. This made his writing choppy and difficult to read.
ReplyDeleteJasons opening was strong. His historical evidence is important because it informs the reader of crucial information that will help support the argument. His argument for xenophobia improves when he compares the two opposite cultures, for it shows the cultural differences which cause xenophobia. his quotes were very useful for the argument of xenophobia.
ReplyDeleteJason did a good job in his opening. a example of something he did good was he supported and connected all of his aspects. His quotes were also good. His sentence structure wasn't very thorough
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