User:Jake.P.Pitts/sandbox

Confirmed Project Idea and Citations to Support Us
As a group we have decided to work on The Song of the Lioness series written by Tamora Pierce. Our goal is to fix up the tone in the plot summary and do some minor copy edits to that as well as go and add the themes of the novels and series as a whole. We will also be looking into the research done on the influences this series/author has had on modern literature. The gender issues she chooses to tackle in the novel and what this means for YA fiction today. We will also do a reception to the series and include any awards it might have won.

Plot Summary:
"Noblewoman Alanna of Trebond, disguised as the boy "Alan", exchanges places with her twin brother Thom, to go to the royal palace in the city of Corus to train for knighthood, while Thom studies magic. Within the four novels Alanna disguised as Alan struggles with gender identity, as well as going through puberty and bullying that she faces throughout all four books of the series. Throughout the four novels Alanna befriends characters of a wide background, George, the king of the thieves; the scholar Sir Myles of Olau; senior students Gareth (Gary) of Naxen, Raoul of Goldenlake, and Prince Jonathan of Conté; Princess Thayet of Sarain; Liam Ironarm, a martial-arts champion; and Buriram (Buri) Tourakom, Thayet's bodyguard. Her principal rivals are classmate Ralon of Malven, and Jonathan's kinsman Duke Roger, who becomes the chief antagonist in the final book. In the second volume, Alanna also acquires the magical cat 'Faithful', who accompanies her thereafter (Faithful is hinted to be an immortal, but his origins remain unknown. By reason of her double identity, small size, inherent magic, and impatience, Alanna is often shown questioning her own character; but resolves these questions in the third book, in which she becomes an honorary member of the 'Bazhir' (a Bedouin-like ethnicity), through gaining unique acceptance because of her gender. In the final volume, she becomes King's Champion to Jonathan and Baroness of the coastal estate Pirate's Swoop."

Reception
The famous book chain retailer Barnes &Noble has marked Pierce’s work as a ‘must read’ series. The retailer considers The Song of the Lioness as another ‘must collect’ work for fans of Tamora Pierce. At the same time, Barnes &Noble marks this series a friendly and nice starting point for those readers who have not had a chance to enjoy the beauty of Pierce’s work. This series has gained great reputation among readers. From a blogger, My Thoughts Literally!, a long term book reviewer, The song of the Lioness is an amazing book of the young adult fantasy genre. The entire series makes a perfect circle that the last book concludes everything in the collection, which makes a complete finish of the story. Pierce's book has been selected Recommended Fantasy List in June 1991, Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults in 2003 and Young Adult Library Services Association by YALSA. Her book has also been nominated south Carolina Children's Book Awards from 1985 to 1986. She has won Bookworm's Prize by ZDF Schüler-Express. /

Author
American author Tamora Pierce published Alanna: The First Adventure, the first book in The Song of the Lioness quartet, in 1969. Tamora Pierce is said to have turned to writing at a young age as a means of escape from a troubled family life. Pierce drew much of her inspiration from other fantasy series such as The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkein. Pierce set out to not only create an epic fantasy adventure, but to populate it with a strong female protagonist. Pierce saw the need for a female protagonist in the significant lacking of such heroes in the fantasy novels she enjoyed as a child, often stating that she wrote what she as a young-adult would have enjoyed. Originally, Pierce had written her acclaimed quartet as a single adult novel but, following editorial advice, rewrote it into the now famous young-adult fantasy series.

Gender:
Pierce expresses the concept that boys and girls are alike. Our education system has a huge impact on boys and girls to modify themselves. Thus we should lead them to be what they want rather than constrain their creativity or put them into stereotypes which has been set by adult society. When it comes to adult society, Pierce points out that women's competence and contribution should be valued and respected. Because of gender inequity, women's contributions are often ignored, which is quite common in our society. She strongly calls for help to build a more fair and balanced society for men and women, boys and girls.

The series covers the life and development Alanna as she disguises herself as a male and has to exist in life as a male. This causes a lot of gender discussion as in the first book it is easy for her to disguise herself as a boy as she is still prepubescent. But in her first year of training to be a knight, Alanna goes through puberty and gets her first period. This causes quite a bit of discourse in Alanna as she struggles to identify herself as a female while living as a boy. While she does come out to a select close few as female sometimes intentionally and other times not, she does still struggle with it, even as they encourage her to explore both sides she has available to her. This theme is one of the reasons the series received such a high feminist regard as it was very open and honest towards the female body and its limitations versus being able to push oneself beyond that.

Bullying
The series as a whole pays attention to the struggles Alanna has due to her small frame, or her magic abilities. The first book she spends half of it being beaten up by a bully and his friends. This theme being played up in the series has been a big part towards the use of these novels in classes as it teaches some of the faults towards bullying and what is wrong with it and why this book is worth teaching.

Citations:
Source 1: Battis, Jes. "Transgendered Magic: The Radical Performance Of The Young Wizard In YA Literature." The Looking Glass, vol 10, no. 1, 2006,.

- This source also has a lot to do with the reception of disguising oneself as a different gender in a book and what that means for the development of female readers who are getting their lessons from these YA novels. Focuses especially on reception.

Source 2: Sahn, Sarah F. "Decolonizing Childhood: Coming Of Age In Tamora Pierce’S Fantastic Empire." Children's Literature, vol 44, no. 1, 2016, pp. 147-171. Johns Hopkins University Press, doi:10.1353/chl.2016.0012.

-This article focuses on the concept of women and magic as well as power and how it is that they manage to come across having had to disguise themselves. It also takes a stance on claiming this novel as a piece of feminist YA fiction and show cases the reception people have had to the reading of the novel and what that can mean for those who will continue to teach from it or read it.

Source 3: Devereaux, Elizabeth. "CHILDREN's BOOKS; Woman Warrior." Nytimes.Com, 2003, http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/16/books/children-s-books-woman-warrior.html.

-This source focuses on the aspect of the female characters that are in Tamora Pierce's novels and what aspects of the female protagonist aids in the development of character in the female readers. It also focuses on the tensions that are prominent in the novels such as gods interactions with man. This book also has a bit to do with the reception of the books.

Source 4: Schmidt, Pauline Skowron, et al. “Carpe Librum: Seize the (YA) Book: Tough Talk: Books about Bullying.” The English Journal, vol. 103, no. 5, 2014, pp. 83–85. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24484253.

-This source looks at books that take a stance on bullying and express the severity of it as well making clear that it is wrong and that people being bullied should seek help from those around them. The bullying is a big theme in the first book of the series and so the author Schmidt discusses how to best use this book for the teaching of it with a focus on bullying.

Source 5: Rosenberg, Alyssa. "Tamaro Pierce on 'Twilight,' Girl Heros, and Fantasy Birth Control", The Atlantic,Jun 3. 2011, https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/06/tamora-pierce-on-twilight-girl-heroes-and-fantasy-birth-control/239861/

Source 6: Pierce,Tamaro. "Alanna: The First Advanture". Atheneum Books, Sep 1983.

Tamaro thinks that in a men-centered society, men are used to ignore the competence of women. Women's contribution should be respected and valued. Gender equity is important in school education.

1. Gender equity.

2. Social attitude.

3. Stereotype on woman.

Source 7: Ohikuare, Judith. "Why Tamora Pierce Doesn't Shy Away From Sex In YA Lit", Refinery29, Feb 8. 2018, https://www.refinery29.com/tamora-pierce-interview?bucketed=true&bucketing_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

Boys are told and taught to act differently from girls. People are how they act and speak no matter what gender. There are good and intolerable people in both men and women

1. Boys and girls are similar

2. Evaluate people from behaviors RX782FA (talk)

Source 8: Kunzel, Bonnie, and Susan Fichtelberg. Tamora Pierce. Greenwood Press, 2007.

This source is a guide which provides a breakdown of the themes and influences that are at play in this series. On top of giving basic biographical information on the author, it also features an in depth interview.

·The Author, Tamora Pierce, wrote strong female protagonists in The Song of the Lioness quartet because she wanted to fill a major lacking in the fantasy genre. ·Series highlights the importance of breaking unfair traditions.

Source 9: Writer, Guest. “Lessons in Rereading: Tamora Pierce's 'Song of the Lioness'.” Literally, Darling, 1 Aug. 2013, www.literallydarling.com/blog/2013/08/01/lessons-in-rereading-tamora-pierce/.

Pierce's writing has a timeless quality considering it was written in 1983 yet remains relevant today. In many ways it's interpretation of gender roles was groundbreaking.

Source 10: Pierce, Tamora. " Writer Books for Teens". http://www.tamora-pierce.net/about/honors-and-awards/#lioness

·Series is a major proponent of reproductive rights. ·Spearheaded the idea of feminism in a the fantasy genre. Jake.P.Pitts (talk) 09:31, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Group Article Ideas
My suggestions are: This one needs plenty of work and I have actually found other resources about the series before thanks to a previous assignment.

-The_Song_of_the_Lioness by Tamora Pierce this piece according to the talk page needs more references and second hand sources as the article almost entirely consists of plot summary and some of it isn't entirely correct. It also could use a discussion on themes and influences that the book is seen having on modern literature as well as the gender issues that it tackles.

-A Very Fine Line written by Julie Johnston: This book actually has no article currently and isn't even listed under the authors page so I think to create it we would need to cover, Summary, Characters, Themes, As well as any outside influence it might have had.

-Ender's Game (series) According to the talk page this article needs just some basic up keep it is categorized as a start article in both novels and science fiction and so more detail on the science fiction aspects would be a really good idea to add to it. I also think this article could use some of the research and theories it has created since the creation of the book and it's series as this was considered a ground breaking Science fiction book and there has been a lot of research done on it.

-Anna Karenina according to the talk page and the header on the article this one needs more work on creating a more neutral toned summary of all the key points. It also seems to lack a lot of scholarship which shouldn't be hard to find thanks to the fact that it is a classic novel that has been looked at continuously for the social commentary that it creates.

I think the two best articles to pursue would be The Song of the Lioness one as it would mostly be researching and just adding some plot parts which we don't all have to have read to be able to do this successfully. This one would be a matter of going in first and fixing up the issues with the plot summary as well as the lack of thematic dialogue in the article and then followed by compiling the research and seeing what was the response to the series.

The second article that would be good to pursue would be the Ender's Game series page which falls in almost the same needs as The Song of the Lioness series, but focusing more on the world of Science fiction and the interaction this book had with that genre as well as including research from published sources.

We didn't pick A Very Fine Line because while there is a lot of freedom thanks to it not already having an article it would also be hard to for sure pick it without knowing if there is enough research done on the novel to be sure that the article would work out correctly the way we need. As for Anna Karenina we didn't pick that one mostly out of interest as well as the fact that we aren't sure there is enough that needs to be done to reach the assignment requirements.

-Leilah

Absalom, Absalom
1. I would want to find more information regarding the novel's context due to the lacking introduction as well as a more accurate plot summary. 2. To obtain this information I would look into literary journals and scholarly articles regarding the themes found in Absalom, Absalom! 3. I would suggest moving the "influence and significance" section to before the plot summary, as well as reducing the length of the plot summary.


 * Hey guys, I have added more sources. One of which is a "student guide" to the series which we have access to via the library.**Jake.P.Pitts (talk) 15:33, 20 April 2018 (UTC)