Miller, 1 Sarah Miller Professor Kristen Johnson CHID 230 2 April 2019 The Myth of Disability as Isolating in Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands Jay Timothy Dolmage discusses the common disability myths that condition our understanding of disability in his work Disability Rhetoric. He argues that these myths create the perception that disabled people are “others”, through the portrayal of them as lesser, surplus, or improper (Dolmage, 31). One of the myths that Dolmage examines is disability as isolating or individualizing, which is perpetrated through narratives of disabled people living in isolation, rarely having romantic relationships or friendships, and often being left alone at the end (Dolmage, 43). This myth can be seen in the film Edward Scissorhands, directed by Tim Burton. Edward is a human being created by an inventor, yet the inventor’s death before his completion leaves him with scissor blades for hands. Edward lives in a gothic mansion atop a hill, completely in isolation until local Avon saleswoman Peg Boggs visits. She is initially frightened by his appearance, yet decides to take him home with her upon the realization that he is harmless. Edward’s disability causes his transition into society to be largely unsuccessful, as he is objectified and used by other people for their benefit, and at the end of the film he is forced to return to living in isolation after their perception of him turns to one of fear and scorn. Edward’s isolation from society is symbolically portrayed through many film design techniques. The mansion in which he lives at the beginning and the end of the film starkly contrasts the community in which the able-bodied society lives. The mansion is gothic, dark, and partially in ruins, whereas the rest of the houses are brightly colored in pinks, yellows, and Miller, 2 greens, all with perfectly manicured green lawns. His appearance also separates him from the rest of society, as he has very pale skin, dark under-eyes, black untamed hair, and wears gothic industrial clothes. The able-bodied individuals often wear colorful or light clothes and appear quite “ordinary”. The contrast created between Edward and society through set, clothing, makeup, and hair design work to portray Edward and his disability as unusual, creepy, and “other”. Peg even attempts to “normalize” his appearance by giving him different clothes to wear and attempting to cover his scars with makeup, in the hopes that it will ease his transition into the community. This film phenomenon is discussed by Martin F. Norden in his book The Cinema of Isolation: A History of Physical Disabilities in the Movies. He argues that filmmakers will separate disabled characters from their able-bodied peers not only through the storyline, but also through a number of design elements. He also states that this technique allows filmmakers to reflect an able-bodied point of view and reduce d.

1. Miller, 1
Sarah Miller
Professor Kristen Johnson
CHID 230
2 April 2019
The Myth of Disability as Isolating in Tim Burton’s Edward
Scissorhands
Jay Timothy Dolmage discusses the common disability myths
that condition our
understanding of disability in his work Disability Rhetoric. He
argues that these myths create the
perception that disabled people are “others”, through the
portrayal of them as lesser, surplus, or
improper (Dolmage, 31). One of the myths that Dolmage
examines is disability as isolating or
individualizing, which is perpetrated through narratives of
disabled people living in isolation,
rarely having romantic relationships or friendships, and often
being left alone at the end
(Dolmage, 43). This myth can be seen in the film Edward

2. Scissorhands, directed by Tim Burton.
Edward is a human being created by an inventor, yet the
inventor’s death before his completion
leaves him with scissor blades for hands. Edward lives in a
gothic mansion atop a hill,
completely in isolation until local Avon saleswoman Peg Boggs
visits. She is initially frightened
by his appearance, yet decides to take him home with her upon
the realization that he is
harmless. Edward’s disability causes his transition into society
to be largely unsuccessful, as he
is objectified and used by other people for their benefit, and at
the end of the film he is forced to
return to living in isolation after their perception of him turns to
one of fear and scorn.
Edward’s isolation from society is symbolically portrayed
through many film design
techniques. The mansion in which he lives at the beginning and
the end of the film starkly
contrasts the community in which the able-bodied society lives.
The mansion is gothic, dark, and
partially in ruins, whereas the rest of the houses are brightly
colored in pinks, yellows, and

3. Miller, 2
greens, all with perfectly manicured green lawns. His
appearance also separates him from the
rest of society, as he has very pale skin, dark under-eyes, black
untamed hair, and wears gothic
industrial clothes. The able-bodied individuals often wear
colorful or light clothes and appear
quite “ordinary”. The contrast created between Edward and
society through set, clothing,
makeup, and hair design work to portray Edward and his
disability as unusual, creepy, and
“other”. Peg even attempts to “normalize” his appearance by
giving him different clothes to wear
and attempting to cover his scars with makeup, in the hopes that
it will ease his transition into the
community. This film phenomenon is discussed by Martin F.
Norden in his book The Cinema of
Isolation: A History of Physical Disabilities in the Movies. He
argues that filmmakers will
separate disabled characters from their able-bodied peers not
only through the storyline, but also
through a number of design elements. He also states that this
technique allows filmmakers to

4. reflect an able-bodied point of view and reduce disabled
characters to objects of fear, scorn, or
pity through their isolation (Norden, 1). In addition to the set,
costume, makeup, and hair design
techniques used to mark Edward’s isolation, the plot of the film
also contributes to the disability
as isolating myth discussed by Dolmage, as Edward begins to be
feared and scorned by the able-
bodied society.
Dolmage argues that the myth of disability as isolating is
reinforced in film and literature
through disabled characters’ lack of meaningful relationships.
Edward is constantly objectified
by able-bodied individuals, and the majority of his interactions
with them are when they can use
his scissor hands to their advantage. Therefore, he is unable to
make many meaningful
relationships. For example, when Peg first introduces Edward to
her husband and son over
dinner, her son can not stop staring at Edward’s scissor hands
and makes various comments
about his disability like: “Man, those things are cool. You
know, I bet they’re razor sharp”

5. Miller, 3
(Edward Scissorhands). He even asks if he can bring Edward in
for show and tell at school.
Edward is also used by the majority of his neighbors for
haircuts and hedge-trimming; none of
them are interested in friendship or understanding him. These
scenes exemplify how Edward is
completely reduced to his disability by almost everyone he
encounters, and that no effort is made
to get to know him as a person. This results in Edward’s
isolation, despite physically being in the
community. At one point, Peg’s daughter’s boyfriend makes
Edward use his scissor hands to
pick a lock so that he can commit a burglary, which results in
Edward getting in trouble with the
police. After the community hears of this incident, Edward
becomes feared and scorned. His
disability that was once used to the able-bodied individuals’
benefit became one that symbolized
danger, criminality, and “otherness” to them. At the end of the
film, Edward is forced to return to
the gothic mansion and live the rest of his life completely
separated from society.

6. Paul K. Longmore discusses the common narrative of disability
that is seen in Edward
Scissorhands in his essay Screening Stereotypes: Images of
Disabled People. He states that the
eventual separation of the disabled character from their
community is portrayed as “the
inevitable consequence of a serious physical impairment that
prevents normal functioning,
normal relationships, and normal productivity” (Longmore, 6).
This inevitable consequence of
separation for Edward is discussed in the film by Peg and her
daughter, Peg stating that “You
know, when I brought Edward down here to live with us, I
really didn’t think things through.
And I didn’t think about what could happen to him… or to us…
or to the neighborhood. And
now I think that maybe it might be best if he goes back up
there” (Edward Scissorhands). This
quote reinforces the idea that Edward never had a chance to
integrate into society, and that if Peg
would have thought things through, she would’ve seen that his
return to isolation was inevitable.
He couldn’t function normally, as he had trouble eating,
dressing himself, or even touching

7. Miller, 4
anything without destroying it. He also couldn’t have normal
relationships, as he was constantly
objectified and used. For both of these reasons he couldn’t be a
productive member of society,
and therefore Longmore would argue that his eventual
separation from society was certain to
happen.
In the film Edward Scissorhands, Edward is isolated from
society in various ways due to
his disability. His isolation is not only portrayed through major
plot points, but it is also marked
symbolically through set, costume, makeup, and hair design.
Edward is constantly objectified
and used by his community, resulting in his inability to have
meaningful relationships and
ultimately his forceful separation from society. According to
Dolmage, this narrative of a
disabled character living in isolation, unable to make
meaningful relationships is very common,
and effectively perpetuates the myth that disabled people want
to or need to be isolated. He also

8. argues that the perpetuation of this myth in the media has real-
world consequences, and
effectively justifies the segregation of disabled and able-bodied
individuals in schools and other
institutions (Dolmage, 43). Longmore also addresses these
adverse consequences in his work,
stating that these myths affect the activities, identities, and
sense of self-worth of disabled
individuals by ignoring possible antidiscrimination and
accessibility laws (Longmore, 6). Films
like Edward Scissorhands not only reflect the myth held by
many people that disabled people
should be isolated, but also perpetuate the myth and expose it to
a large audience. This
perpetuation and exposure results in the justification of
oppression of disabled people and
therefore film and other media types should seek to represent
disabled people in a more accurate
light.
Miller, 5
Works Cited
Dolmage, Jay Timothy. “An Archive and Anatomy of Disability

9. Myths.” Disability Rhetoric.
Syracuse University Press, 2013
Edward Scissorhands. Directed by Tim Burton. 20th Century
Fox, 1990.
Norden, Martin F. The Cinema of Isolation: A History of
Physical Disability in the Movies. New
Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press, 1994.
Longmore, Paul K. “Screening Stereotypes: Images of Disabled
People.” Social Policy 16.1
(Summer 1985)
MINI CASE
Delivering Business Value with
IT at Hefty Hardware2
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slipped into a seat at the table in the Hefty Hardware executive
dining room, next to
her colleagues. “It’s all technical mumbo-jumbo when they talk
to you and I still don’t
know if they have any idea about what we’re trying to

10. accomplish with our Savvy Store
program. I keep explaining that we have to improve the
customer experience and that
we need IT’s help to do this, but they keep talking about
infrastructure and bandwidth
and technical architecture, which is all their internal stuff and
doesn’t relate to what
we’re trying to do at all! They have so many processes and
reviews that I’m not sure
we’ll ever get this project off the ground unless we go outside
the company.”
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manager, Jenny Henderson. She sits in on all our strategy
meetings and seems to really
understand our business, but that’s about as far as it goes. By
the time we get a project
going, my staff are all complaining that the IT people don’t
even know some of our
basic business functions, like how our warehouses operate. It
takes so long to deliver
any sort of technology to the field, and when it doesn’t work the
way we want it to, they
just shrug and tell us to add it to the list for the next release!
Are we really getting value
for all of the millions that we pour into IT?”
“Well, I don’t think it’s as bad as you both seem to believe,”
added Michelle
Wright, the CFO. “My EA sings the praises of the help desk and
the new ERP system
we put in last year. We can now close the books at month-end in
24 hours. Before that,
it took days. And I’ve seen the benchmarking reports on our

11. computer operations. We
are in the top quartile for reliability and cost-effectiveness for
all our hardware and
systems. I don’t think we could get IT any cheaper outside the
company.”
“You are talking ‘apples and oranges’ here,” said Glen. “On one
hand, you’re
saying that we’re getting good, cheap, reliable computer
operations and value for the
money we’re spending here. On the other hand, we don’t feel IT
is contributing to
creating new business value for Hefty. They’re really two
different things.”
“Yes, they are,” agreed Cheryl. “I’d even agree with you that
they do a pretty
good job of keeping our systems functioning and preventing
viruses and things. At
least we’ve never lost any data like some of our competitors.
But I don’t see how they’re
contributing to executing our business strategy. And surely in
this day and age with
increased competition, new technologies coming out all over the
place, and so many
changes in our economy, we should be able to get them to help
us be more flexible, not
less, and deliver new products and services to our customers
quickly!”
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12. Queen’s School of Business, May 2010. Reproduced by
permission of Queen’s University, School of Business,
Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
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The conversation moved on then, but Glen was thoughtful as he
walked back to
his office after lunch. Truthfully, he only ever thought about IT
when it affected him and
his area. Like his other colleagues, he found most of his
communication with the depart-
ment, Jenny excepted, to be unintelligible, so he delegated it to
his subordinates, unless
it absolutely couldn’t be avoided. But Cheryl was right. IT was
becoming increasingly
important to how the company did its business. Although
Hefty’s success was built on
its excellent supply chain logistics and the assortment of
products in its stores, IT played
a huge role in this. And to implement Hefty’s new Savvy Store
strategy, IT would be
critical for ensuring that the products were there when a
customer wanted them and
that every store associate had the proper information to answer
customers’ questions.
In Europe, he knew from his travels, IT was front and center in
most cutting-
edge retail stores. It provided extensive self-service to improve

13. checkout; multichannel
access to information inside stores to enable customers to
browse an extended product
base and better support sales associates assisting customers; and
multimedia to engage
customers with extended product knowledge. Part of Hefty’s
new Savvy Store business
strategy was to copy some of these initiatives, hoping to become
the first retailer in
North America to completely integrate multimedia and digital
information into each of
its 1,000 stores. They’d spent months at the executive
committee meetings working out
this new strategic thrust—using information and multimedia to
improve the customer
experience in a variety of ways and to make it consistent in
each of their stores. Now,
they had to figure out exactly how to execute it, and IT was a
key player. The question
in Glen’s mind now was how could the business and IT work
together to deliver on this
vision, when IT was essentially operating in its own technical
world, which bore very
little relationship to the world of business?
Entering his office, with its panoramic view of the downtown
core, Glen had an
idea. “Hefty’s stores operate in a different world than we do at
our head office. Wouldn’t
it be great to take some of our best IT folks out on the road so
they could see what it’s
really like in the field? What seems like a good idea here at
corporate doesn’t always
work out there, and we need to balance our corporate needs with
those of our store
operations.” He remembered going to one of Hefty’s smaller

14. stores in Moose River and
seeing how its managers had circumvented the company’s
stringent security protocols
by writing their passwords on Post-it notes stuck to the store’s
only computer terminal.
So, on his next trip to the field he decided he would take Jenny,
along with Cheryl
and the Marketing IT Relationship Manager, Paul Gutierez, and
maybe even invite the
CIO, Farzad Mohammed, and a couple of the IT architects. “It
would be good for them
to see what’s actually happening in the stores,” he reasoned.
“Maybe once they do, it
will help them understand what we’re trying to accomplish.”
A few days later, Glen’s e-mailed invitation had Farzad in a
quandary. “He wants
to take me and some of my top people—including you—on the
road two weeks from
now,” he complained to his chief architect, Sergei Grozny.
“Maybe I could spare Jenny
to go, since she’s Glen’s main contact, but we’re up to our
wazoos in alligators trying to
put together our strategic IT architecture so we can support
their Savvy Stores initiative
and half a dozen more ‘top priority’ projects. We’re supposed to
present our IT strategy
to the steering committee in three weeks!”
“And I need Paul to work with the architecture team over the
next couple of
weeks to review our plans and then to work with the master data
team to help them
outline their information strategy,” said Sergei. “If we don’t
have the infrastructure and

15. 78� 4FDUJPO�*� r� %FMJWFSJOH�7BMVF�XJUI�*5
integrated information in place there aren’t going to be any
‘Savvy Stores’! You can’t
send Paul and my core architects off on some boondoggle for a
whole week! They’ve all
seen a Hefty store. It’s not like they’re going to see anything
different.”
“You’re right,” agreed Farzad. “Glen’s just going to have to
understand that I can’t
send five of our top people into the field right now. Maybe in
six months after we’ve
finished this planning and budget cycle. We’ve got too much
work to do now. I’ll send
Jenny and maybe that new intern, Joyce Li, who we’re thinking
of hiring. She could use
some exposure to the business, and she’s not working on
anything critical. I’ll e-mail
Jenny and get her to set it up with Glen. She’s so great with
these business guys. I don’t
know how she does it, but she seems to really get them onside.”
Three hours later, Jenny Henderson arrived back from a
refreshing noontime
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had a more finely nuanced understanding of the politics
involved in this situation, and
she was standing on a land mine for sure. Her business contacts
had all known about
the invitation, and she knew it was more than a simple request.
However, Farzad, hav-

16. ing been with the company for only eighteen months, might not
recognize the olive
branch that it represented, nor the problems that it would cause
if he turned down the
trip or if he sent a very junior staff member in his place. “I have
to speak with him about
this before I do anything,” she concluded, reaching for her
jacket.
But just as she swiveled around to go see Farzad, Paul Gutierez
appeared in her
doorway, looking furious. “Got a moment?” he asked and, not
waiting for her answer,
plunked himself down in her visitor’s chair. Jenny could almost
see the steam coming
out of his ears, and his face was beet red. Paul was a great
colleague, so mentally put-
ting the “pause” button on her own problems, Jenny replied,
“Sure, what’s up?”
“Well, I just got back from the new technology meeting between
marketing and
our R&D guys, and it was just terrible!” he moaned. I’ve been
trying to get Cheryl and
her group to consider doing some experimentation with cell
phone promotions—you
know, using that new Japanese bar coding system. There are a
million things you can
do with mobile these days. So, she asked me to set up a
demonstration of the technol-
ogy and to have the R&D guys explain what it might do. At
first, everyone was really
excited. They’d read about these things in magazines and
wanted to know more. But
our guys kept droning on about 3G and 4G technology and
different types of connec-

17. tivity and security and how the data move around and how we
have to model and
architect everything so it all fits together. They had the business
guys so confused we
never actually got talking about how the technology might be
used for marketing and
whether it was a good business idea. After about half an hour,
everyone just tuned out.
I tried to bring it back to the applications we could develop if
we just invested a little
in the mobile connectivity infrastructure, but by then we were
dead in the water. They
wouldn’t fund the project because they couldn’t see why
customers would want to use
mobile in our stores when we had perfectly good cash registers
and in-store kiosks!”
“I despair!” he said dramatically. “And you know what’s going
to happen don’t
you? In a year or so, when everyone else has got mobile apps,
they’re going to want
us to do something for them yesterday, and we’re going to have
to throw some sort of
stopgap technology in place to deal with it, and everyone’s
going to be complaining
that IT isn’t helping the business with what it needs!”
Jenny was sympathetic. “Been there, done that, and got the T-
shirt,” she laughed
wryly. “These tech guys are so brilliant, but they can’t ever
seem to connect what they
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18. �)BSEXBSF� 79
know to what the business thinks it needs. Sometimes, they’re
too farsighted and need
to just paint the next couple of steps of what could be done, not
the ‘flying around in
jetpacks vision.’ And sometimes I think they truly don’t
understand why the business
can’t see how these bits and bytes they’re talking about
translate into something that it
can use to make money.” She looked at her watch, and Paul got
the hint. He stood up.
“Thanks for letting me vent,” he said. “You’re a good listener.”
“I hope Farzad is,” she thought grimly as she headed down the
hall. “Or he’s
going to be out of here by Thanksgiving.” It was a sad truth that
CIOs seemed to turn
over every two years or so at Hefty. It was almost predictable.
A new CEO would come
in, and the next thing you knew the CIO would be history. Or
the user satisfaction rate
would plummet, or there would be a major application crash, or
the executives would
complain about how much IT cost, or there would be an
expensive new system failure.
Whatever it was, IT would always get blamed, and the CIO
would be gone. “We have
some world-class people in IT,” she thought, “but everywhere
we go in the business, we
get a bad rap. And it’s not always our fault.”
She remembered the recent CIM project to produce a single
customer database for
all of Hefty’s divisions: hardware, clothing, sporting goods, and
credit. It had seemed

19. to be a straightforward project with lots of ROI, but the
infighting between the client
divisions had dragged the project (and the costs) out. No one
could agree about whose
version of the truth they should use, and the divisions had
assigned their most junior
people to it and insisted on numerous exceptions, workarounds,
and enhancements, all
of which had rendered the original business case useless. On top
of that, the company
had undergone a major restructuring in the middle of it, and a
lot of the major play-
ers had changed. “It would be a lot easier for us in IT if the
business would get its act
together about what it wants from IT,” she thought. But just as
quickly, she recognized
that this was probably an unrealistic goal. A more practical one
would be to find ways
for business and IT to work collaboratively at all levels. “We
each hold pieces of the
future picture of the business,” she mused. “We need to figure
out a better way to put
them together than simply trying to force them to fit.”
Knocking on Farzad’s door, she peeked into the window beside
it. He seemed
lost in thought but smiled when he saw her. “Jenny!” he
exclaimed. “I was just think-
ing about you and the e-mail I sent you. Have you done
anything about it yet?” When
she shook her head, he gave a sigh of relief. “I was just
rethinking my decision about
this trip, and I’d like your advice.” Jenny gave her own mental
sigh and stepped into
the office. “I think we have a problem with the business and we
need to fix it—fast,”

20. she said. “I’ve got some ideas, and what to do about the trip is
just part of them. Can
we talk?” Farzad nodded encouragingly and invited her to sit
down. “I agree with you,
and I’d like to hear what you have to say. We need to do things
differently around here,
and I think with your help we can. What did you have in mind?”
Discussion Questions
1. Overall, how effective is the partnership between IT and the
business at Hefty
Hardware? Identify the shortcomings of both IT and the
business.
2. Create a plan for how IT and the business can work
collaboratively to deliver the
Savvy Store program successfully.
With your project, I am going to make an exception and allow
you to use two myths for your project. The big thing that you
need to remember is that the supercrip and charity myths are
very similar, even though they do opposite things: the supercrip
concept is used to ‘elevate’ a disabled person (used them as a
source of inspiration) and the charity/pity concept is to keep the
disabled person ‘in their place’ (keep them as low-status
people). Despite the differences, both are used to degrade the
disabled person. Neither work to see the disabled person as they
wish to be ‘seen’ or understood. They both have harmful
repercussions as they perpetuate stereotypes about people with
disabilities.
Here are some ideas of how you can organize your paper and
use your arguments/claims well. I am also recommending two
new sources that may work better for your project. (You can

21. still use the sources, including Dolmage’s work in your DMP
paper.)
1) Throughout the movie, she is trying to get people to treat her
the same as they did before the attack, but she is ultimately
pitied because of what happened. In one specific scene, she is
the object of charity when she is gifted a prosthetic arm. This
approach is very harmful because while the intention was good,
the people who gifted her did not understand that the reason she
wanted an arm was for stability in the process of standing up on
a surfboard again, not to “look normal.”
Example: Bethany receives her prosthetic arm and when it is
presented to her by one of the men from Inside Edition, he says,
“Doesn’t it look real?”(Soul Surfer, 54:10). This is an
assumption that what Bethany wanted out of a prosthetic was to
fit in and look normal. Her frustrated response was, “How am I
supposed to use it on my board?...How am I supposed to paddle
and surf in this thing?”(Soul Surfer, 54:56). Understandably so,
Bethany is distraught because there was a clash in
understandings of what was the purpose of the prosthetic arm.
Use Joseph Shapiro to help you support this observation
(Shapiro, Joseph P. No Pity: People with Disabilities Forging a
New Civil Rights Movement. Times Books, 1994. (This article
is on Canvas under “Scholarly Articles for your DMP papers”
2) To complicate the charity/pity myth further, the initial
reasoning for Bethany to receive the prosthetic arm from a
national news agency was to run her story as a pity story. This
approach was supposed to inspire viewers with her so called
recovery to normalcy. Even though she did not record her story
with them, the charity gifting is glorified the movie creators to
put the attention, focus, and emotional value on everyone but
the person who has a disability, removing the power from
Bethany telling her own personal story. By having Soul Surfer
and this scene shown across the globe, it emphasizes that
charity does not automatically help with an impairment.

22. 3) While Bethany’s success as a female surfer is extremely
admirable, the way the film depicts Bethany’s story objectifies
disability and perpetuates the disability myth “Overcoming or
Compensation.” This highlights society’s belief that living with
a disability is a limitation and that Bethany must use her
athletic gift to “overcome” her perceived “abnormality.”
The “Overcoming or Compensation” myth is perpetuated by the
belief that disabled people are considered less than, and in order
to gain social acceptance they must have a gift that compensates
for their outlying difference.
Example: Once Bethany returns home from the hospital, one of
the issues she copes with is that she will no longer be seen as a
“normal” teen. She tells her mom that people like “normal,” and
she is frustrated that even clothes won’t help “disguise” her
missing arm (Soul Surfer). There are several instances where
Bethany brings up her desire to be treated as a “normal”
competitor and to not be given special treatment by the judges.
While, the movie attempts to promote the idea that Bethany
becomes accepted for who she is with her disability, disproving
the association with being able-bodied and “normal,” they do so
by spotlighting Bethany’s amazing “gift” that defies the odds,
greatly perpetuating the “Overcoming or Compensation” myth.
Additionally, the film objectifies Bethany’s disability by
focusing on how her self-growth allows her the opportunity to
be a role model and source of inspiration for other children with
disabilities. This signifies the power structures in society and
how disabled people are secluded to the bottom rungs of the
social hierarchy, unless they can prove to compensate for their
attributes that classify them as “less than.”
Use Clare, Eli, et al. Exile and Pride : Disability, Queerness,
and Liberation. “The Mountain: A Metaphor.” Duke University
Press, 2015: 1-13. (This article is on Canvas under Week 1)

23. There are similarities between Eli Clare and Bethany Hamilton
in the sense that they push themselves to be the “super-crip”
because it provides a “shield, a protection, as if this individual
internalization could defend us against disability oppression”
(Clare, 8). Bethany becomes aware that with one arm she does
not fit the definition of “normal” and if she doesn’t push herself
to be the best, she will feel as though her disability “overcame”
her. Disability makes society see people as different, as
unequal, and the “super-crip” stereotype that Eli describes
perpetuates the push for disabled people to “try the
extraordinary” because if they don’t “overcome” their disability
“at the base of the mountain lies the nursing home” (Clare, 12).
The bottom line? It is extremely important to recognize that
living with a disability is a reality and disabled people should
be recognized for who they are as individuals. They do not need
to compensate, overcome, or disguise their disability, or be
pitied, in the pursuit of being accepted in society.
Disability Myth Project (3)
Criteria
Ratings
This criterion is linked to a Learning Outcome Introduction
Does the introduction identify the disability myth and primary
source, and how the writer will put them in conversation with
each other? Does the writer include a brief summary of his/her
primary source? Does the writer provide information about the
disability myth and how it will be applied?

24. Excellent
Strong
Good Effort
Not fully developed
This criterion is linked to a Learning Outcome Thesis
Does the thesis include information about the writer’s primary
source and disability myth, and how he/she will use them to
support his/her overall argument?
Excellent
Very Strong
Strong
Good Effort
Not fully developed or clear
This criterion is linked to a Learning Outcome Development of
Ideas
Does the writer integrate his/her primary source with
information from his/her annotated bibliography? Does the
writer make good use of his/her secondary sources? Does the
writer provide claims, evidence, and interpretations that support
his/her overall thesis?
Excellent
Very Strong
Strong
Good Effort
Not fully developed or consistent
This criterion is linked to a Learning Outcome Clarity and
Transition
Do the ideas flow together? Does the writer make use of
transitions between paragraphs and sentences?
Excellent
Very Strong
Good Effort
More Work is Needed

25. Poor or absent transitions
This criterion is linked to a Learning Outcome Grammar and
Mechanics
Have you checked your paper for spelling errors,
capitalizations, grammar, and sentence flow? Is the write-up at
least 4 pages, not including the Works Cited page?
Excellent
Uses graceful language that skillfully communicates meaning to
readers with clarity and fluency, and is virtually error free.
Strong
Uses straightforward language that generally conveys meaning
to readers. The essay has few errors.
More Work is Needed
Uses language that generally conveys meaning to readers with
clarity, although writing may include some errors.
Poor
Uses language that sometimes impedes meaning because of
errors in usage and does not meet the paper's minimum page
requirement.
This criterion is linked to a Learning Outcome LA
Citations/Two Scholarly Sources
Are the in-text citations done correctly? Do they have the
author's last name and page number? Does the paper include
TWO academic, peer-reviewed sources?
Excellent
Provides two strong scholarly sources and correct use of MLA
citations
Very Strong
Provides two strong secondary sources but citations need fixing.
Good Effort
Provides two scholarly sources but stronger connection to
primary source and disability myth are needed. Or citations do
not follow the MLA format.
More Work is Needed

26. Stronger use of secondary sources is needed. Or paper is
missing one scholarly source
Poor
Paper is missing two scholarly or critical sources; paper does
not use sufficient evidence from secondary sources.