Teaching 11 Regents, Shakespeare, AP Language & Composition

The passage begins with, ” And she was still asleep….even to a Mary.” In this passage Towles starts off by giving the reader an insight on how Sam was treated and how he lived. He usually had to get up earlier than his master and they usually has to eat much less than that of their master. It is sad and the reader feels very sympathetic towards Victorian servants in general. The effect of the shock that Sam encountered was portrayed through the change in syntax. “Sam hid his shock” is much shorter than the other lines in that paragraph. It intensifies the shock to the reader, and it has a form of pathos. The reader feels a bit shocked as well. The word choice was clever, he used “gastronomic propriety” to explain how little they ate even though they were very hungry. It makes the servants seem well-educated people. People under-estimate them. There was alot of  imagery in the next paragraph, “..came down to the kitchen….tears at the kitchen table.” the reader can visualize how upset and down Mary was and how the timing was horrible. It was irionic how she came down atthe right moment when Mary was devastated.  The line, ” a much kinder remedy than Charles had.” shows how AUnt Tranter does have a softer side, much softer than Charles. This passage was interesting because we had a small insight on how Aunt Tranter had a softer side and how Sam almost lives a double life. Even though hes a man like Charles, he must live differently because he has a label, a servant. This passage has a great deal of pathos.

The passage begins with “They were both English…..Charles with little conscience.”.  The passage starts out to be very informative and contains details about the two men. The tone of the passage is bland and  there isn’t anything exciting that happens in the first paragraph. There are a few lines that have depth to them and helps the passage spark a tone. the line “have sunk into a black gloom” almost give the impression that the uncle seems almost suicidal if he doesn’t see Charles. There is a contrast from the past and present. That line also has a bit of imagery,  a cloudy dull image.  The line “last-minute warmth and hand – shaking” does not seem too friendly, it has a cold vibe.  The weather was described well and it contains great imagery( “The morning’s azure sky….of that thunder storm”- high veil of cirrus and harbinger of a thunderstorm helps the reader to imagine a horrbile and gloomy sky. The reader feels as though the mood is as gloomy as the weather). His word choice was very interesting as well, “morose introspection” it seems though he has his own storm occuring in his  mind. His thoughts and ideas are coming off as ill and cold. Ernestina was described to be fastidious, and it makes the uncle come off as jealous because she is so demanding and critical about things. It seems as though she doesn’t appreciate anything but her high-class life style. It makes her seem a little arrogant and a bit of a phony. This passage is interesting because each paragraph captures a different topic and each one has a different tone. The paragraph that begins is very matter-of-fact and dull. the next paragraph personifies the weather and brings life to it but in a dull and gothic way. The third paragraph describes Ernestina and her unusual ways and how she can not appreciate the normal life. The different changes also contain a steady flow. There weren’t many rhetorical devices but the tone and the word choices made up for it.

I decided to pick the passage from “Sam was ten years….struggle to command the language.” Fowles describes Sam in a very interesting way; he uses an asyndeton right from the start as he he lists things about Sam. It had a rhythm to it and allowed the reader read it with a flow. As he lists, his choice in diction captures the reader( “contentious”, “vain”).  In the second paragraph, there is a change in syntax. The first para. contains very long sentences and in the second para. the sentences are almost cut in half. This gives the passage an anecdote-like image. The word “mod” was used and it was a peculiar word-choice to describe his style.  This passage gave out alot of emotion because it was almost degrading Sam, so it exuded alot of pathos. There wasn’t much ethical appeal, I would probably say it was counter ethical appeal because you can bad mouth a person only so much. This is what made the passage intense.  It was funny how he was explaining how  Sam was tryint o show his new class, it seemed a little sarcastic. The main positives about thtis passage was it had an excellent choice of words and he had compared Sam well to other things. ( His snobbiness and how he was a “mod”).

I picked the passage that started. “His had been a life……no sign of dying”. I felt like this passage was very interesting because it has a matter-of fact tone, and very calm even though it spoke about the still born child and the deaths of the wives.  I liked te word word choice he used when describing his grief, he used the world “swallowed”; it almost gave you an image of a person swallowing.  The contrast of how he spent the money was very intersting, “invested shrewdly…and unshrewdly at the gaming tables”. It showed how unconsistant he was with his mony and he wasn’t a person who knew how to keep it, and save it. This passage was actually about the moneytary part of the chapter and Fowles did an excellent job in describing the loss of money. When Fowles says, “dimished fortune” there is almost a sense of sarcasm that lied beneath that line. If he did spend money, it wasn’t a lot, but he did spend it on his son. You can tell that there is an underlying tension between Charles and his uncle by the last line of the passage, and it seems like it is pathos. It brings out an emotion in the reader and almost makes the reader feel bad that Charles has no money.

There are a few rhetorical devices in this passage. “invested unshrewdly…” he uses zuegma in that line. He uses parenthesis as well in this passage to give a little more information on the topic.

I thought his specific talk was very inspiring. He describes difficulties that occur in Ghana, some of which we would never have thought of. He is very persuasive with his short stories and some of them will leave you speechless. His personal experiences were very touching.  The sad part is that all of his could be avoided if the leaders were more educated. Everyone can learn a lot from this talk especially about another country. There is so much more going on in other areas and we should take an initiative to learn about it.

http://www.ted.org/index.php/talks/patrick_awuah_on_educating_leaders.html