Midterm Essay: Metacommentary (750 Words) Form: The form of this essay will take after Jenny Boully’s The Body, an Essay. Rather than writing a standard essay form, you will instead write only footnotes that reference an absent body text. The body text you reference can be a real text, such as a text from class, your own writing, or elsewhere. Alternatively, it can an imagined text, one that doesn’t actually exist at all. Content: The content of this essay is your commentary on something else. Your notes about the absent text you are referencing. Your observations and thoughts about that which we cannot, ourselves, as readers, see. If your absent text is a poem from class, then your essay will be your thoughts on the poem. If your absent text is a grocery list you put together the night before, then your essay will be your thoughts on that grocery list. Citations: You must reference or cite three texts, either poems or essays, from the readings we’ve done in class. Expanded Midterm Explanation When writing this paper, you’ll begin by choosing something from your journal, from your notes, from lecture, from the texts we’ve read in class, etc.  Ex 1: As the Vietnamese delegates explained how the US War in Viet Nam depended on gendered and sexualized violence in Asia, Asian American women emphasized the transnational nature of that violence. “We, as Asian American women, cannot separate ourselves from our Asian counterparts,” Evelyn Yoshimura argued. 1 “Racism against them is too often racism against us…. The mentality that keeps Suzy Wong, Madame Butterfly and gookism alive turns human beings into racist murdering soldiers and also keeps Asian Americans from being able to live and feel like human beings.” Add a footnote or two, explaining your thinking about something in your chosen excerpt. Evelyn Yoshimura references the inseparability of Asian American women from Asian women across the world. How the Asian American woman might sometimes seem an isolated figure, distant from those who live in Asia. But how the very same violences that affect Asian American women affect, too, those women across the Pacific. Ex 2: You can also add a footnote based on your own footnote! It has never occurred to me that I might be isolated, myself, from Asia. I have always considered myself to be in relation to people, even if I’ve only been once or twice to Japan. There is something that keeps my attentions on Japanese media, Japanese people. Ex 3: You might add a footnote to something you’d written in your assignments earlier. For example, if earlier you wrote about your parents’ immigration story: I think what I was trying to say here was that in order for me to understand myself, in order for me to explain myself to anyone else, I first must start with the story of my parents. So I want to take this space to tell that story. But remember! The source of your footnote will not be included in the essay. Only the footnote. Later, when y.

1. Midterm Essay: Metacommentary (750 Words)
Form: The form of this essay will take after Jenny Boully’s The
Body, an Essay. Rather than writing a standard essay form, you
will instead write only footnotes that reference an absent body
text. The body text you reference can be a real text, such as a
text from class, your own writing, or elsewhere. Alternatively,
it can an imagined text, one that doesn’t actually exist at all.
Content: The content of this essay is your commentary on
something else. Your notes about the absent text you are
referencing. Your observations and thoughts about that which
we cannot, ourselves, as readers, see. If your absent text is a
poem from class, then your essay will be your thoughts on the
poem. If your absent text is a grocery list you put together the
night before, then your essay will be your thoughts on that
grocery list.
Citations: You must reference or cite three texts, either poems
or essays, from the readings we’ve done in class.
Expanded Midterm Explanation
When writing this paper, you’ll begin by choosing something
from your journal, from your notes, from lecture, from the texts
we’ve read in class, etc.
Ex 1: As the Vietnamese delegates explained how the US War
in Viet Nam depended on gendered and sexualized violence in
Asia, Asian American women emphasized the transnational

2. nature of that violence. “We, as Asian American women, cannot
separate ourselves from our Asian counterparts,” Evelyn
Yoshimura argued. 1 “Racism against them is too often racism
against us…. The mentality that keeps Suzy Wong, Madame
Butterfly and gookism alive turns human beings into racist
murdering soldiers and also keeps Asian Americans from being
able to live and feel like human beings.”
Add a footnote or two, explaining your thinking about
something in your chosen excerpt.
Evelyn Yoshimura references the inseparability of Asian
American women from Asian women across the world. How the
Asian American woman might sometimes seem an isolated
figure, distant from those who live in Asia. But how the very
same violences that affect Asian American women affect, too,
those women across the Pacific.
Ex 2: You can also add a footnote based on your own footnote!
It has never occurred to me that I might be isolated, myself,
from Asia. I have always considered myself to be in relation to
people, even if I’ve only been once or twice to Japan. There is
something that keeps my attentions on Japanese media, Japanese
people.
Ex 3: You might add a footnote to something you’d written in
your assignments earlier. For example, if earlier you wrote
about your parents’ immigration story:

3. I think what I was trying to say here was that in order for me to
understand myself, in order for me to explain myself to anyone
else, I first must start with the story of my parents. So I want to
take this space to tell that story.
But remember! The source of your footnote will not be included
in the essay. Only the footnote.
Later, when you cite your sources, say what you used. But the
texts you use, themselves, should not appear in the essay.
So, the beginning of my final essay would look something like:
1. Evelyn Yoshimura references the inseparability of Asian
American women from Asian women across the world. How the
Asian American woman might sometimes seem an isolated
figure, distant from those who live in Asia. But how the very
same violences that affect Asian American women affect, too,
those women across the Pacific.
2. It has never occurred to me that I might be isolated, myself,
from Asia. I have always considered myself to be in relation to
people, even if I’ve only been once or twice to Japan. There is
something that keeps my attentions on Japanese media, Japanese
people.
3. I think what I was trying to say here was that in order for me
to understand myself, in order for me to explain myself to
anyone else, I first must start with the story of my parents. So I
want to take this space to tell that story.

4. This essay is essentially a bunch of numbered comments on a
bunch of texts that are not actually present, except when you
cite them in your works cited page.
Some strategies:
If you are unsure how to write your footnotes, here’s some
ideas:
1. Go through your notes. Highlight those places you’re most
interested in writing about. Then, write a footnote detailing why
you’re interested in that note. Write a footnote detailing what it
was that you were trying to understand at this point. Write a
footnote about where your mind wanders off. Write a footnote
about what you fail to understand here. Write a footnote about
something tangentially related. Etc.
2. Another technique might be to refer directly to the texts
we’ve been assigned. Write a footnote interpreting the text.
Write a footnote rewriting the text in your own words. Write a
footnote that challenges what is being said. Write a footnote
detailing your confusion, and you attempt to work it out. Write
a footnote that speaks of how this passage made you feel. Write
a footnote that speaks of what this passage made you think
about. Etc.
3. You might also go back to your own journals and think about
what you’ve written there. And highlight, further, and expand
upon what it is you’ve said. Explain why you said what you said

5. there. Explain what you didn’t explain before. Explain what it is
you need to understand to be better able to understand the thing
you wrote. Write a footnote that tells the story behind the story.
Write a footnote in which you reflect upon why it was that you
write what you wrote. Etc.
Each of these are potential ways of writing the essay. There are
many possible forms. Your job is to create your own.