The Sacred Rac
A critique of the North American culture
of consumerism
Style of the Article
• When we look at style, we look at the way in which the
piece of writing was written.
• This article was written in the style of a formal report.
• Let’s take a look at sentence length and structure and
word choice.
• The discipline from which this study was performed was
anthropology: the science of human beings; especially
the study of human beings and their ancestors through
time and space and in relation to physical character,
environmental and social relations, and culture.
The Author was Sneaky . . .
• Using the metaphor, comparing a car to a sacred
animal, the author revealed that North American
life seems to be centred around the purchase and
maintenance of vehicles; or you might say
consumerism in general.
• This article is a satire; the goal of satire is to use
humour to expose behaviour that is foolish or faulty.
• Do you think this article says anything else about our
culture?
Your Turn
• Choose a behaviour/custom/trend in our culture
that you think is foolish or faulty and write a formal
report in the same style.
• Your job is to help your reader see the fault or
silliness of your subject matter, before he/she even
figures out what your trying to do!
• DOUBLE SPACE!!
Writing Partners/Circles
• After you have completed a draft of your report you will
share this report with a your writing circle by reading it
out-loud.
• Job of the writer: remember the purpose of your writing
task and think about what elements of your writing you
could ask your writing circle mates to focus on. For
example, “To me, the beginning of seems really casual
and doesn’t sound very scientific. How could I make
more formal?”
• 1. Mention the areas/elements you would like your
circle-mates to focus on. Use questions.
• 2. Read your report out loud
• 3. Listen to feedback given by your circle-mates,
maybe asking for clarification, and ‘filter’ the feedback.
• Job of the circle-mates: pay attention to what type of
feedback the writer is asking for. Listen carefully to the
piece of writing (may need to ask them to re-read a
certain section) and provide feedback.
• In addition to what the writer has asked for, provide
feedback on 1. Topic 2. Word Choice
• 1. Topic: summarize what you think the writer is getting
at by saying, “What I think you’re trying to say is . . . “ it
will either match or the reader might respond, “What I
really mean is . . . “ By the end of the session, these two
should match.
• 2. Word Choice: word choice in this report has two jobs.
The first is to create a formal tone, the second is to be
interesting and engaging. Point out both strong and
weak examples.