My Shabanu Essay

Your final essay of the year will be on a theme from Shabanu. You will choose the theme yourself and come up with your own thesis (argument).

 

Work out your ideas below:

1. What is the theme that most interests you? Think about something that arose in your reading, your post it notes, or our discussions that you want to explore in your essay.

 

Women’s Rights

2. What will you prove in your paragraph? That is, what argument are you going to make?

How Shabanu, Sharma and Fatima are strong women and how Muslim women should get to make their own choices. How Sharma influences Shabanu and Shabanu is going to be like Sharma when she grows up because Shabanu wants to have her own choices and choose who she wants to marry.

 

Argument: Shabanu is supposed to be equal to the men in her family.

3 reasons

-help the whole family

-make choices to marry

-to have choices to work

 

Evidence: Sharma, Shabanu is beaten, She says “no” to Dadi

3. You must have 3 reasons why your thesis is true. Each reason will become a topic sentence for a body paragraph. Jot down your 3 reasons below:

1. Shabanu wants to have her own choice for her life, instead of having someone deciding her future.

2. Muslim women should have the same rights as a man, they should be able to do what they want to do. Men need women to help them, men are too busy to run a family, they need a wife but, some women have different perspectives. For example, Shabanu has an unusual mind for a Muslim woman, she doesn’t want to marry and bear children, she wants to have her own choice, like Sharma.         

3. Muslim women should be equal to men because they don’t have the same rights as men do, Muslim women want to have the choice of what they want to do for their life.

4. Remember that the formula for a thesis statement is:

 

Statement (clear argument)

+

“because”

+

3 reasons (these will also become your topic sentences in your body paragraphs)

=

Thesis Statement

 

Remember to not use the “I voice” since it weakens your argument (this includes “you”, “we”, “us”, etc.) Just state your argument as fact. Write your thesis statement below.

 

My thesis statement:

Dadi’s rules for Shabanu are awful because they take away her independence, strength, and her choice for her own future.

 

Muslim women want to chose what they will do for the rest of their life. Muslim women run the family, but, they want to have a different job.

 

Explanation/analysis: Men have the choice to have lots of options for what they want their job to be. Unlike women, they only have one option, housework. Muslim women want to be able to have the same rights as men, they want to be able to have equal respect as men do.

 

5. Begin to gather your evidence. Remember that your evidence needs to support your argument. You should have at least 2 pieces of evidence for each reason.

 

Reason #1	Evidence/Supporting quotation	pg #
Many Muslim women want to be independent.	“I say little and try hard not to stare at Fatima. How I long to be like her-never to marry, to stay in the warm, safe circle of women”	104
X	“… I shall be like Sharma-strong and independent.”	104
X	“Shabanu, really. What we decide for both of you is what you will do.”	188

 

Reason #2	Evidence/Supporting quotation	pg #
Muslim women want to be strong and have the same rights as a man does.	“I am angry to think of Dadi or anyone else telling me what to do.”	104
X	“Sharma is bold and outspoken. Most men don’t like her and are afraid of her.”	98
X	“Shabanu, you are wild as the wind. You must learn to obey.”	28

 

Reason #3	Evidence/Supporting quotation	pg #
Muslim women want to make decisions about their future.	“There is no question of my going to sleep, and I make up my mind. I will not be beaten. I will not marry a man whose wives will make me their slave. I’ll die first.”	234
X	“No matter what happens, you have you. That is the important thing. And as long as you have you, there is always a choice.”	225
X	“Rahim-sahib will reach out to me for the rest of his life and never unlock the secrets of my heart.”	240

 

6. Now, begin writing your body paragraphs. Keep in mind the following information:

 

Remember the format of a well-constructed body paragraph.

 

TEEAC

• Topic sentence (reasons from your thesis statement; tells us the main idea of the paragraph)
• Explanation/Elaboration
• Evidence (supports your argument)
• Analysis of evidence
• Concluding/Transition sentence (leads us into the next paragraph; use transitions for body paragraphs 1 and 2 wrapping up the paragraph and leaving the reader thinking; Concluding sentences are for body paragraph 3 and concluding paragraph only).

 

Body Paragraph #1:

T Dadi’s rules for Shabanu are atrocious because they don’t let her make her own choices for her life, instead of someone deciding her future for her.

E Most of the women around her have men decide their fate, and Shabanu wants to have a different image for a Muslim woman.

E On page 188, Shabanu’s mother said, “Shabanu, really. What we decide for both of you is what you will do.”

A Shabanu’s family is deciding her fate and not telling her that she will marry Rahim-sahib. Also, her family never asked her opinion on who she was going to marry..

C If Shabanu had the same rights as a man, she would have say in who she wants to marry.

 

Body Paragraph #2:

T Shabanu wants to have the same rights as a man.

E Men need women to help them, they are too busy to run a family by themselves, they need a wife. Shabanu wants to have a different role rather than being a housewife her whole life. Shabanu doesn’t want a man to tell her what her future is going to be, she wants to chose it herself.

E On page 104, Shabanu says, “I am angry to think of Dadi or anyone else telling me what to do.”

A Shabanu wants to have the same rights as men do, she wants to be able to tell herself what to do rather than having a man tell her what to do.

C Shabanu is a strong Muslim woman and has the right to do what she wants to do and make her own choices for her future. Shabanu believes that she should have say in her future. It’s not fair to have someone telling you how you will live, Shabanu wants to decide her own future.

 

Body Paragraph #3:

T Shabanu wants to make own decisions about her future.

E Shabanu objects the fact of her not getting to choose her future. In the Islamic culture the daughter doesn’t get to choose her future, it is the father or a group of women who decide this. Shabanu did not get to choose who she was going to marry, it was a group of women who did.

E On page 234, Shabanu said, “There is no question of my going to sleep, and I make up my mind. I will not be beaten. I will not marry a man whose wives will make me their slave. I’ll die first.”

A Shabanu does not believe that she has to marry Rahim-sahib. She is against Islamic culture’s rules, they disagree with her beliefs, for example, one of the rules that she is against is how women don’t get to choose their future.

C The Islamic rules are unfair to women, they never think about the needs for women, instead they are only focusing on the needs for men. Muslim women need to have the same rights as men, this is an enormous dilemma in Islam, Shabanu is one of the examples of how Muslim women feel.   

 

Example Intro Paragraph:

How would you feel if you feared your father? A heartless parent can flip a life upside down. In the book “Shabanu” by Suzanne Fisher Staples, the character of Dadi was a cruel tyrant. Dadi was a bad father because he broke promises, he denied Shabanu’s choice to marry, and he beat her.

 

Notes:

 

People who push others gain strength and pride do not have genuine power because they are getting their strength from hurting someone else. You have to think in the lens of the person that you are pushing down, how do they feel? It’s important to have empathy for others because what if you were that person? Even though you are not gaining strength, that person is relieving their stress.

 

If you are a bully and not accepting the person you are pushing down’s ideas, you might be missing out on a lot of good ideas.

 

It’s not fair that Muslim women don’t get to express their independence, strength and what they want to do in their lives. If you are a father in Pakistan and not allowing your daughter  to contribute her ideas about how she wants to live her life, you will miss out on having a good relationship with a happy daughter. Instead, she might feel unsatisfied and you will feel distant from her. Women are half of the population, and should have independence. Men should allow women to express what they want to do because that makes a more peaceful society.