Justin Lovetro
Professor J. Polish
English 102
October 2, 2017
Once I read white boy, brown boy by Jonathan Mendoza I started to think about what made him feel the way he was feeling. I also saw that tone was choking up durning some parts of the poem when he was performing it life. He was also using all of hand movements and body movements. I feel like he was trying to explain how he feels in society and how he thinks society sees him. He might also think that there is something wrong with him because he sees how others act and tries to fit in but due to his nationality he might feel lost. He isn’t sure on where he belongs and tries to fit in to society the best ways he knows how. He also feels that people shouldn’t judge or identify him just because of his color. He’s trying to explain to people that he can’t choice what he is and that he is biracial.
He feels that no matter what he does people in society are only going to see him as a biracial person and not as a human. He also feels like he isn’t invited to certain things because of his skin color. He feels like his at war with himself because he doesn’t know where he belongs and people are treating him differently then other people. He wishes that he wasn’t biracial that he was only one nationality. He feels that he’s is being split in half because of the society that he is in is making him feel like he doesn’t belong with them. He feels like he apologizes to often for just being himself. He feels like he’s the discolored sheep of his family. He also wants to feel safe to be able to go wherever he wants to go and not be profiled by a police officer.
Just,
This is a promising first go-around! You have a lot of thoughts that you’re listing out here, and I’m eager to see you expand on the things you’re bringing up.
Here’s what I mean by expanding: you make really insightful comments throughout your draft — basically, each sentence contains ideas that could be expanded into a much deeper analysis. For example — and this is only one example — you say “he feels like he’s being split in half” and this is so true, but where do you find evidence of that in the poem? How does he let us know that? You mention his gestures in the beginning — this would be a great time to bring these gestures into play.
In other words, I’m encouraging you to take each sentence and get very, very specific with it. You’re making great statements: show the reader the parts of the poem and the specific parts of his actions/performance that give that interpretation. In addition, I’d love you to think about the narrative arc you’re creating — what journey are you taking your readers on? Are you interested in just reporting on what Mendoza said in his poem, or doing something deeper? What point do you want to make with your readers?
Please let me know if you have questions — I’m excited to see where you’re going with this!
JP