R entries

Précis 2: 

Mike Rose, I Just Wanna Be Average, describes the struggles and difficulties resulting from his education in relationship to society’s standards. Rose uses his personal stories and experience to put forth his view on the importance of education.   He uses rhetoric devices to enable the reader to connect with him and gains an emotional response from the reader.  Rose’s purpose was to provide his view on education, using personal memories yet leaving the reader room to disagree or debate the methodologies and importance of education.  He puts forth his view of the importance of education and yet points out the system may prove to be inadequate for all students. He adopts an embracive and witty tone for an audience of educators and students interested in issues concerning education. 

Vocabulary:

·         (para. 15) platitudinous –unoriginal

·         (para. 6) Tenuous- not based on anything significant or substantial, and so liable to break down easily when challenged. 

·          (para. 32) Cowing- A domesticated bovine of either sex.

·         (para. 2) vocational – pertaining to instruction or guidance in a profession.

·         (para. 2) euphemism – the substitution of a mild expression for one considered more harsh

Rhetorical strategies: 

Metaphor–”‘I and the others in the vocational classes were bobbing in pretty shallow water.’”(para. 11) 

Onomatopoeia: “Poke, poke, poke” (para. 15)  

Allusion: Other pieces of text were alluded to in the piece to help describe education.

Questions:

Style: Why does the author insist on talking about every story in precise order? Why not skip around? 

Clarifying: How did the father’s death affect other relationships? 

Application: Chronological order why? What significance does it have in the story?

Quotation:

“Students will float to the mark you set. I and the others in the vocational classes were bobbing in pretty shallow water. Vocational education has aimed at increasing the economic opportunities of students who do not do well in our schools….The vocational track, however, is most often a place for those who are just not making it, a dumping ground for the disaffected.”

 

Précis:

 Annie Dillard in her memoir of growing up in Pittsburg titled, “Terwillger Bunts one,”   Dillard describes her mother’s unusual personality by relating brief memories of her mother and her actions. Dillard uses her mother’s quirky personality in the brief memories to describe lessons learned from her mother. Dillard’s objective is to illustrate how her mother inspired her to be her own person. She accomplishes this by describing her mother’s views on society and what personality should be. She did this in order to show the reader why Annie Dillard is who she wanted to be, and why she picked her course.  Dillard adopts an embracive tone for the intended audience of educated young adults struggling to find their own way and become their own person.    

 

Vocabulary words:

• (para. 3) Poinciana – any of several other tropical trees of the legume family, with showy flowers.
• (para.4) Connoisseurs- A person with expert knowledge or training, especially in the fine arts.
• (para.13)Bureaucratic- An official who is rigidly devoted to the details of administrative procedure.  
• (para.11)Genially- favorable for life, growth, or comfort; pleasantly warm; comfortably mild.
• (para.32) Zoning- of or pertaining to the division of an area into zones, as to restrict the number and types of buildings and their uses.

 

Rhetorical strategies:

Alliteration (p. 152) – We said “slippery”—the sidewalks are “slippy.”

Personification (p.152) – Supermarkets in the middle 1950s began luring, or bothering, customers by giving out Top Value Stamps or Green Stamps.

Anaphora (p.154) – She didn’t like the taste of stamps so she didn’t lick stamps; she licked the corner of the envelope instead. She glued sandpaper to the sides of the kitchen drawers, and kitchen cabinets, so she always had a handy place to strike a match…….

 

Discussion questions:

Style: Why in the first five paragraphs would the author repeat her mothers love for a bizarre phrase?  

Clarifying: Why did Dillard’s mother demand that her children come up with their own voice?

Application:  How would Dillard’s mother be viewed in today’s society as she lived life on the edge, and tried to upset the established order?”

Quotation:

“And off she sashayed, taking me firmly by the hand, and leading us around briskly past the monkey house and way.” She cocked an ear back, and both of us heard the desperate man begin, in a high-pitched wail, “I swear, I never saw her before in my life….”