Page 367 - Wordsmith A Guide to College Writing

4. Write in the following space each example that
supports the topic sentence in the second body

paragraph.

Definition Essay 2

The writer of this essay defines foot binding, a custom practiced for
hundreds of years in China among the upper classes. The practice

was officially banned by the Chinese government in 1911.

Bound by Tradition

As I lay nursing painful heel spurs that made the kitchen
and the oatmeal raisin cookies my husband had baked

seem impossibly far away, I began to reflect on the

ancient Chinese custom of foot binding. When I first

heard about it back in grade school, I was fascinated. It

was, we were told, an ancient custom for Chinese girls
to have their feet bound so that they would remain small.

I pictured women in kimonos tottering merrily on tiny,

delicate feet and wished that I had feet so small. Over

the years, however, I have found an adult understanding

and a darker definition of this ancient custom.

Binding the feet was a painful way to acquire what was

then considered beauty. When, as a teenager, I read of