English 1A Homework and Class Agendas

Perfect Storm Activity One

You may move into groups to discuss the questions below. Brainstorm among yourselves your thoughts about possible answers. After discussing the questions, each of you should write your own answers. Use complete sentences, please!

1. The first chapter of our text, The Prentice Hall Guide for College Writers, discusses writing rituals. In the foreword to The Perfect Storm, Junger mentions some of his sources, and the methods he used to work the information into his book.

What were the different sources he used?
What "rituals" (if any) do you imagine he used to organize his information?
How did he determine what went where in his book?

2. The book begins with "Georges Bank, 1896."

Why is this chapter significant to the rest of the book?
What feature of this chapter should resonate with us as writers?

3. Junger uses many descriptive techniques. One of these is the simile. Your text describes the simile thus: "a comparison using like or as: A is like B. 'George eats his food like a vacuum cleaner'" (Reid 82). How many similes can you find with your group in the first 45 pages of The Perfect Storm? (Note: from now on you should underline or highlight each simile you find in your reading). Copy at least two similes, but try to find more than that (so everyone in your group isn't turning in the same two).

4. Junger moves seamlessly from one kind of information to another. In one paragraph he's describing people in a room, in the next he's describing a building across the street. However, he's not simply jumping around, he's leading us very gently by the hand in and out of rooms and businesses and lives. He does this by using transitional sentences. In the first paragraph on page three, Junger moves from the smell of the air to Rogers Street to the Crow's Nest, to the sleeping Bobby Shatford. The next paragraph addresses Bobby's black eye, then eventually takes the reader back out to Rogers Street.

What sentence takes the reader back out to the street?
How does Junger connect the room and the street (i.e., what word does he use to manage the transition)?
Do you find this word elsewhere in the next few pages?
Does it have the same function?
In the following pages, find several more paragraphs which take us on a tour -- moving back and forth between describing things/places and people. Write several sentences, or draw out a small map or chart which illustrates how he leads the reader. (An example of the sentence form can be found above in bold letters.) Chart out about three paragraphs. If you notice words that move the reader (such as next, then, beyond, farther, above, below, higher, lower, etc.), include those in your chart. Your group should choose at least two different "tours" to describe.

Back

Hit Counter visitors since Fall 2000