Friday, April 30, 2010

40 Minute Timed Practice Test

Prompt: How does the author establish tone in this piece, specifically focusing on the use of rhetorical devices including syntax and diction.

Text:

“The agent came for me during a geography lesson. She entered the room and nodded at my fifth-grade teacher, who stood frowning at a map of Europe. What would needle me later was the realization that this had all been prearranged. My capture had been scheduled to go down at exactly 2:30 on a Thursday afternoon. The agent would be wearing a dung-colored blazer over a red knit turtleneck, her heels sensibly low in case the suspect should attempt a quick getaway.

‘David,’ the teacher said, ‘this is Miss Samson, and she’d like you to go with her now.’

No one else had been called, so why me? I ran down a list of recent crimes, looking for a conviction that might stick. Setting fire to a reportedly flameproof Halloween costume, stealing a set of barbecue tongs from an unguarded patio, altering the word hit on a list of rules posted on the gymnasium door; never did it occur to me that I might be innocent.
Though she seemed old at the time, the agent was most likely fresh out of college. She walked beside me and asked what appeared to be an innocent and unrelated question: ‘So, which do you like better, State or Carolina?’” (Sedaris 4-5).

Thursday, April 29, 2010

China US Prompt

What is the author's message, and how does he use diction and syntax to achieve that goal?

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

A Man WIthout a Country




Reading Kurt Vonnegut's latest work, A Man Without A Country, makes one thing clear. Vonnegut believes the title is self-descriptive.
Vonnegut was one of this country's leading novelists. I say "was" because he has not written a novel for years (with the exception of 1997's forgettable Timequake) and does not plan another. A Man Without A Country is not a novel. It is a slim collection of essays, speeches and summaries of interviews from over the last several years. They are more accurately characterized as the musings of a man in his early 80s reflecting on where his country sits in the waning years of his life. It is not a pretty commentary.
It is apparent Vonnegut is not in today's American mainstream, if he ever was. Vonnegut is a humanist. ("We humanists try to behave as decently, as fairly, and as honorably as we can without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an afterlife.") Vonnegut is a socialist. ("Christianity and socialism alike, in fact, prescribe a society dedicated to the proposition that all men, women, and children are created equal and shall not starve.") He is a self-described Luddite and a man with a dim view of what humankind has done to the world and the resulting effect on man's future. He also is not afraid to speak his mind on any of these points despite the fact many of his positions will not make him a popular figure in today's America.
Vonnegut was and is best known his use of humor and satire in his writing. Elements of it appear in this collection. Yet his wit may be even more sardonic then ever, often requiring him to tell readers when he is being serious and when he is not. Yet even Vonnegut appears to realize that his days of humor may be numbered.


Read more: http://blogcritics.org/books/article/book-review-sadly-kurt-vonnegut-is/#ixzz0kKiFq1jE

What the Dog Saw


(wrong title, but you get the idea)

Malcolm Gladwell through his three books, The Tipping Point; Blink; and Outliers in the past decade has radically changed the way we understand our world and ourselves. For the first time in What the Dog Saw, Malcolm brings together, the best of his writing from The New Yorker.
Malcolm presents a bittersweet tale of the inventor of the birth control pill, and also the dazzling inventions of the pasta sauce founder Howard Moscowitz. Malcolm sits with Ron Popeil, who is known as the king of the American kitchen, as he sells skewer ovens, and divines the secrets of Cesar Millan, who is known as the "dog whisperer" as he can calm savage animals with the touch of his hand. He explores cleverness tests and cultural reporting and " retrospection bias" and why it was that everyone in Silicon Valley once tripped over themselves to appoint the same college graduate.
According to Gladwell, "Good writing does not succeed or fail on the strength of its ability to influence. It succeeds or fails on the strength of its ability to connect you, to make you think, to give you a sight into someone else's head. This book is yet another example of the optimistic spirit and persistent curiosity. Gladwell is a brilliant investigator of the hidden extraordinary.

Me Talk Pretty One Day


"As far as I was concerned, the French could be cold or even openly hostile. They could burn my flag or pelt me with stones, but if there were taxidermied kittens to be had then I would go and bring them back to this, the greatest country on earth."

David Sedaris's new collection, Me Talk Pretty One Day, tells a most unconventional life story. It begins with a North Carolina childhood filled with speech-therapy classes ("There was the lisp, of course, but more troubling than that was my voice itself with its excitable tone and high, girlish pitch") and unwanted guitar lessons taught by a midget. From budding performance artist ("The only crimp in my plan was that I seemed to have no talent whatsoever") to "clearly unqualified" writing teacher in Chicago, Sedaris's career leads him to New York (the sky's-the-limit field of furniture moving) and eventually, of all places, France.

Sedaris's move to Paris poses a number of challenges, chief among them his inability to speak the language. Arriving a "spooky man-child" capable of communicating only through nouns, he undertakes language instruction that leads him ever deeper into cultural confusion. Whether describing the Easter bunny to puzzled classmates, savoring movies in translation (It Is Necessary to Save the Soldier Ryan), or watching a group of men play soccer with a cow, Sedaris brings a view and a voice like none other. "Original, acid, and wild" --said the Los Angeles Times to every unforgettable encounter