Language Arts Unit Eight: Postmodernism tot he Twenty-First Century

Read the excerpt from "First Generation" of Dreaming in Cuban. [She considers the vagaries of sports, the happenstance of El Líder, a star pitcher in his youth, narrowly missing a baseball career in America. His wicked curveball attracted the major league scouts, and the Washington Senators were interested in signing him but changed their minds. Frustrated, El Líder went home, rested his pitching arm, and started a revolution in the mountains.] Read the excerpt from "Like Mexicans." [We talked for an hour and had apple pie and coffee, slowly. Finally, we got up with Carolyn taking my hand. Slightly embarrassed, I tried to pull away but her grip held me. I let her have her way as she led me down the hallway with her mother right behind me. . . . Carolyn waved again. I looked, back, waving. . . . Her people were like Mexicans, only different.] Which best states how the structures of the excerpts are similar?

Each relates an anecdote to appeal to the reader's emotions.

Read the passage from the poem "El Olvido" by Julia Ortiz Cofer. dangerous to disdain the plaster saints before which your mother kneels praying with embarrassing fervor that you survive in the place you have chosen to live: a bare, cold room with no pictures on the walls, a forgetting place where she fears you will die of loneliness and exposure.] What imagery in this passage creates a visual of the speaker's heritage?

"plaster saints," "mother kneels praying"

Which statement best summarizes a central idea in Infinite Jest?

A person's inner self often struggles to overcome external definitions of self imposed by the outside world.

Read this excerpt from Levitt and Dubner's Freakonomics. [...] Based on the excerpt, which statement provides the best example of incentive for a sumo wrestler to cheat?

A sumo wrestler near the top of the elite pyramid may earn millions of dollars.

Read the excerpt from Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner's Freakonomics. [...] Which sentence from the excerpt best supports the idea that the high-ranking sumo wrestlers enjoy many luxuries?

A wrestler near the top of this elite pyramid may earn millions and is treated like royalty.

Read the excerpt from "The Environmental Ethic." [...] Which of the following claims is best supported by the evidence in this excerpt?

All species are worth protecting because even the small organisms contribute important functions in the environment.

Read the excerpt from E.O. Wilson's "The Environmental Ethic." [...] Which techniques does Wilson use in this excerpt to convey important information to his readers?

Wilson relates the significance of the information directly to the reader's life.

Which of the following lines from the poem "El Olvido," by Julia Ortiz Cofer, contains sensory imagery that expresses loneliness?

a bare, cold room with no pictures on the walls

Read this excerpt from "Ritmo/Rhythm" by Margarita Engle. [Mad and I used to do everything together, but now I need a project all my own, so I roam the green fields, finding bones. The skull of a wild boar. The jawbone of a mule.] Which graphical element does the poet use in the excerpt?

a quatrain

Read the excerpt from "How the Internet and Other Technologies Came About." [In a scenario of two dazed boxers lying flat on their backs, slowly regaining consciousness, the winner of World War III would be that country which could stand on its feet first (and so go on to win World War VI). Therefore, the pentagon's priority was to provide scientists with a way to rebuild the country as fast as possible, unimpeded by unnecessary restrictions.] Which type of rhetoric is used most in this excerpt to convince readers of the author's point of view?

an appeal to logic

Read the excerpt from E.O. Wilson's "The Environmental Ethic." [Species are disappearing at an accelerating rate through human action, primarily habitat destruction but also pollution and the introduction of exotic species into residual natural environments. I have said that a fifth or more of the species of plants and animals could vanish or be doomed to early extinction by the year 2020 unless better efforts are made to save them. . . . As the last forests are felled in forest strongholds like the Philippines and Ecuador, the decline of species will accelerate even more. In the world as a whole, extinction rates are already hundreds or thousands of times higher than before the coming of man. They cannot be balanced by new evolution in any period of time that has meaning for the human race.] What message does the author convey in this excerpt?

Humans need to take action to end further destruction of the natural environment.

Read this excerpt from "Ritmo/Rhythm" by Margarita Engle. [Older cousins show me how to shake the mule's quijada, to make the blunt teeth rattle. Guitars. Drums. Gourds. Sticks. A cow bell. A washboard. Pretty soon, we have a whole orchestra. On Cuban farms, even death can turn into music.] Which statement best describes the impact of the enjambment in the last stanza on the meaning of the excerpt?

It emphasizes that inspiration can be found in unlikely situations.

Read the excerpt from "Like Mexicans." [We talk for an hour and had apple pie and coffee, slowly. Finally, we got up with Carolyn taking my hand. Slightly embarrassed, I tried to pull away but her grip held me. I let her have her way as she led me down the hallway with her mother right behind me. . . . Carolyn waved again. I looked, back, waving. . . . Her people were like Mexicans, only different.] Which best explains how Soto's text structure helps establish his voice in the excerpt?

Soto relates a story from his life to make a point about what it means to live in a multicultural society.

Read the excerpt from Freakonomics. [It's worth thinking about the incentive a wrestler might have to throw a match. Maybe he accepts a bribe (which would obviously not be recorded in the data). Or perhaps some other arrangement is made between the two wrestlers. Keep in mind that the pool of elite sumo wrestlers is extraordinarily tight-knit. Each of the sixty-six elite wrestlers fights fifteen of the others in a tournament every two months. Furthermore, each wrestler belongs to a stable that is typically managed by a former sumo champion, so even the rival stables have close ties.] Which of the following claims is best supported by the evidence in this excerpt?

The close relationship between sumo wrestlers could be an incentive for an elite wrestler to throw a match he doesn't need to win.

Read this excerpt from Levitt and Dubner's Freakonomics. [...] Based on the excerpt, which of the following statements best summarizes the incentive system that ranks sumo wrestlers?

The incentive system rewards elite sumo wrestlers.

Read the following excerpt from E. O. Wilson's "The Environmental Ethic." [... Why should we care? What difference does it make if some species are extinguished, if even half of all the species on earth disappear? Let me count the ways. New sources of scientific information will be lost. Vast potential biological wealth will be destroyed. Still undeveloped medicines, crops, pharmaceuticals, timber, fibers, pulp, soil-restoring vegetation, petroleum substitutes, and other products and amenities will never come to light.] Based on the excerpt, which statement best summarizes the author's beliefs about the disappearing species?

The loss of plant species and habitats will devastate animals and hinder human progress.

Read the excerpt from Infinite Jest. [I cannot make myself understood. "I am not just a jock," I say slowly. Distinctly. "My transcript for the last year might have been dickied a bit, maybe, but that was to get me over a rough spot. The grades prior to that are de moi." My eyes are closed; the room is silent. "I cannot make myself understood, now." I am speaking slowly and distinctly. "Call it something I ate."] Which statement best says how Wallace explores the conflict between personal and societal realities?

Wallace uses dialogue to show the conflict that can occur between inner perceptions of self and outside perceptions of self.

Read the excerpt from Judith Ortiz Cofer's poem "El Olvido." a bare, cold room with no pictures on the walls, a forgetting place where she fears you will die of loneliness and exposure. Jesús, María, y José, she says, el olvido is a dangerous thing.] Which strategy would be most helpful in enhancing the reader's comprehension of the poem?

establishing the meaning of words in English and Spanish

Read the excerpt from Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner's Freakonomics. [Let's now consider the following statistic, which represents the hundreds of matches in which a 7-7 wrestler faced an 8-6 wrestler on a tournament's final day: 7-7 WRESTLER'S PREDICTED WIN PERCENTAGE AGAINST 8-6 OPPONENT: 48.7 7-7 WRESTLER'S ACTUAL WIN PERCENTAGE AGAINST 8-6 OPPONENT: 79.6 So the 7-7 wrestler, based on past outcomes, was expected to win just less than half the time. This makes sense; their records in this tournament indicate that the 8-6 wrestler is slightly better. But in actuality, the wrestler on the bubble won almost eight out of ten matches against his 8-6 opponent. Wrestlers on the bubble also do astonishingly well against 9-5 opponents: 7-7 WRESTLER'S PREDICTED WIN PERCENTAGE AGAINST 9-5 OPPONENT: 47.2 7-7 WRESTLER'S ACTUAL WIN PERCENTAGE AGAINST 9-5 OPPONENT: 73.4] The authors use the statistics in this excerpt to

make a case for the idea that sumo wrestling is rigged.

Read the excerpt from Freakonomics. [...] Which type of evidence does the authors use in this excerpt to support the claim that some sumo wrestlers will intentionally lose a match?

statistical

Which defines the tone of a poem?

the attitude of a speaker or author toward a poem's topic