Assignment task: Read This:
"We've got a sort of brainwashing going on in our country, Morrie sighed. Do you know how they brainwash people? They repeat something over and over. And that's what we do in this country.
Owning things is good. More money is good. More property is good. More commercialism is good. More is good. More is good. We repeat it--and have it repeated to us--over and over until nobody bothers to even think otherwise. The average person is so fogged up by all of this, he has no perspective on what's really important anymore.
Wherever I went in my life, I met people wanting to gobble up something new. Gobble up a new car. Gobble up a new piece of property. Gobble up the latest toy. And then they wanted to tell you about it. 'Guess what I got? Guess what I got?'
You know how I interpreted that? These were people so hungry for love that they were accepting substitutes. They were embracing material things and expecting a sort of hug back. But it never works.
You can't substitute material things for love or for gentleness or for tenderness or for a sense of comradeship.
Money is not a substitute for tenderness, and power is not a substitute for tenderness. I can tell you, as I'm sitting here dying, when you most need it, neither money nor power will give you the feeling you're looking for, no matter how much of them you have."
Then Answer these questions, please.
Q1. While reading the passage from "Tuesday with Morrie", what was the style of writing like? (ex: is it descriptive? Persuasive? Narrative? Expository?)
Q2. What was the overall message being conveyed in this passage? How did the author build meaning in the text?
Q3. What was the purpose of this passage? What can the audience learn?
Q4. Were you able to pick up on any literary devices being used in this passage? If so, which ones? *extra point, any Poetic devices???
Q5. What inferences can you make about the narrator?
Q6. What possibilities can you imagine now that you might not have considered before reading this passage?
Q7. If you were to write a thesis statement for this passage, what would it be?