Passage Analysis Essay: A Pearl in the Storm
After spending time and giving attention to reading Tori Murden Mcclures memoir, you are probably becoming well informed about this book, what it presents to us and how it is organized. We are getting not just the present feeling of going on the row with Tori, but we are getting the background, mostly in chronological order, of what makes her herself. We have the row with the problems and solutions, the details and textures of the rowing experience, step by step. Then, interspersed, we have the memories from childhood, adolescence, and adulthood regarding the formative experiences and the human models, positive mostly, that all combine to create Toris character and personality. Understanding that double structure of past and present is crucial for understanding the book easily and well.
Even as we pay attention to larger pieces, like chapters, the whole book is built from sections or pieces. I have used in a video-lecture the pedestal section from the end of Chapter 1 to demonstrate how such a section works. This episode from age two is meant to help us to understand Toris essential character, perhaps the myth she has built herself upon, even as we are meant to smile and even laugh as the two-year-old Tori attempts to learn how to climb down from the pedestal of punishment only to strand herself there. Notice the problem-solving attitude, the desire to be prepared and to counter negative situations, in this infant Tori. (If I were writing an essay about that section, what Ive just written would be part of that essay.)
I want you to use your growing expertise to dig into a specific passage in the book and to connect that passage with the chapter and the book as a whole, or as much as makes sense to connect.
Pick one of the options listed below to focus on for this assignment. Read the passage closely, and write an essay that helps me to see that passage in the best light. Think of this assignment as your guided tour to the passage itself and to how that passage fits into the chapter as well as into TMMs book and life. Be as comprehensive as possible here. Use details to illustrate and bolster your points. Finally, I need at least 750 words from you, organized as an essay with an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. (If the passage only seems to give you 600 words worth of material, pick a different passage, or look deeper.)
Pick one of the following options for your focus.
(You will see that I am using TMMs own divisions to find passages for this assignment.)
-A. pages 60-62: Memories from the 7th Grade in Death on Deck
-B. pages 97-99: Mrs. Longleys meeting with Tori in Storm Petrels
-C. pages 120-122: Toris injuries and winning an award in
Wheres the Rest of It, And What Ate It?
-D. pages 129-132: Joe Currans Lessons
in Wheres the Rest of It, And What Ate It?
-E. You may select a similar passage not listed above, but NOT the passages about the pedestal and NOT the passage regarding Eric Fee. Contact me by February 15th, if you want to use this option, naming the passage by pages and chapter, and giving me at least one sentence so that I will have an idea what you would do with that passage.
Helpful questions as you prepare to write?
What do we get in this specific passage?
How is this passage a coherent unit, an episode, or mini-story from TMMs life?
Why do we get this passage here in this particular chapter?
Or, how does this passage fit or belong here in the book?
How does looking at this moment make us think of other moments in the book?
