EB White Rhetoric and Style questions

Questions of Rhetoric and Style: E.B. White –

1. Characterize the epiphany the speaker has in this essay.  

2. Find and quote the sentence or passage that you think most closely epitomizes the theme or central idea in this essay.

3. In one to two paragraphs, explain why your chosen passage epitomizes White’s central idea.

4. Note White’s use of such original and creative expressions as “had never had any fresh water up his nose.” Find and cite a few others.

5. Identify three or four examples of figurative language and discuss their purpose.

6. Discuss the effect of the specificity of detail in paragraph 11.

7. The concluding sentence of penultimate paragraph begins with “And.”  What is the effect of beginning that way?

8. Why does White describe the lake as “fade-proof” and the woods as “unshatterable” in paragraph 8?

9. Discuss the nature of the final image of the essay.  What rhetorical purpose does it serve?

White HW due Friday

E.B. White: Please review all terms.  

For the quiz, you can focus on these terms: Parallelism, metaphor, personification, description, simile, parataxis

Vocab: prominent, subordination, coordination, qualification, progeny, exhilaration, copious, accumulation, gunwale, mere, startled, rapt, anticipation

Journal/essay: Choose one and write an essay response.  Clearly, this will be longer than the traditional journal.

1. Write an essay in which you discuss the effect of White’s development according to parataxis, i.e., his copious use of “and” as a rhetorical device.  Refer to several examples from the text to support your essay.
2. Construct a thesis about the nature of epiphany.  Use the text of White’s essay and that of two of the following to support your thesis:
1. Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant”
2. Woolf’s “The Death of the Moth”
3. Vowell’s “Shooting Dad”
3. Recall a special place that you regard as fondly as White does the lake in Maine.  Write an essay imitating E.B. White that describes that place and delivers a personal insight.  

Vowell - due Wednesday

Read Sarah Vowell's "Shooting Dad." Note: if you are using the 4th edition, this piece is not in the book.

SOAPSTone, avoid one or two word answers.  Give thought and express your ideas fully.  

Vocab: Unabashed, wistful, acerbic, self-deprecating, nostalgic, bicker, earnest, tongue-in-cheek,

escalate, lathe, rural, labyrinth, zealous, irreconcilable, culminate, forlorn, indictment, self-abnegation, elicit, philanthropic, indigence, vitality, submerged tenth

Terms: litotes, understatement, cumulative sentence, allusion, anecdote, zeugma, paradox, oxymoron, antithesis, subjunctive

NOTE - HW will NOT be collected for Vowell. I WILL collect discussion questions from Thursday.

Mairs

Read Nancy Mairs’ “On Being a Cripple”

SOAPSTone, please move beyond one word answers if you have been oversimplifying.

Terms (mostly review): apostrophe, irony, paradox, antithesis, understatement, process analysis (mode), anecdote

Vocab: acute, derision, abject, aversion, bleak, privation, wretchedness, Pollyanna

Journal: Respond to question 4 on page 256 in a one-page reflection.

MacBeth

Mrs. Bates and Mrs Lang at Salem have organized a trip to see MacBeth at Stratford on Thursday May 12.  It is open to uperclassmen IB and AP students.

-- Cost is $60 and includes the bus and ticket.  Students will need to bring money for lunch and dinner.  The payment from the student must be in cash or a check made to PCCS in an envelope labeled with his or her name, English teacher, and contact info.  Payments can be delivered to Shelley Bates in Salem room 2204 or Dayna Lang in room 2302.

-- The trip departs at 7am and returns at 10pm.  Band students will not be able to attend because they have a concert that night.

-- We got the best possible seats for the student price: in the back three rows of the orchestra section, to the right and left of the center aisle.

-- Here is Stratford's Macbeth page to show the kids:

https://www.stratfordfestival.ca/WhatsOn/PlaysAndEvents/Production/Macbeth 

-- Trailer for the 2016 season to show the kids (it's awesome!): 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C477YE6dXUU

-- Family members are welcome as chaperones / guests.  The price is the same.

We would like to have payments in by this Friday, 2/5.