Patterns of Development
Review of the First Four Types
Sample I
There are all kinds of devices for marking a book intelligently and fruitfully. Here's the way I do
it:
– Underlining: of major points, of important or forceful statements.
– Vertical lines at the margin: to emphasize a statement already underlined.
– Star, asterisk, or other doo-dad at the margin: to be used sparingly, to emphasize the ten
or twenty most important statements in the book. . . .
– Numbers in the margin: to indicate the sequence of points the author makes in
developing a single argument.
– Numbers of other pages in the margin: to indicate where else in the book the author
made points relevant to the point marked; to tie up the ideas in a book, which, though
they may be separated by many pages, belong together.
– Circling of key words or phrases.
– Writing in the margin, or at the top or bottom of the page, for the sake of: recording
questions (and perhaps answers) which a passage raised in your mind; reducing a
complicated discussion to a simple statement; recording the sequence of major points
right through the book. I use the end-papers at the back of the book to make a personal
index of the author's points in the order of their appearance.
Mortimer Adler, "How to Mark a Book." Saturday Review, July 6, 1940
Sample II
The barber was cutting our hair, and our eyes were closed--as they are so likely to
be. . . . Deep in a world of our own, he heard, from far away, a voice saying
goodbye. It was a customer of the shop, leaving. 'Goodbye,' he said to the barbers.
'Goodbye,' echoed the barbers. And without ever returning to consciousness, or
opening our eyes, or thinking, we joined in. 'Goodbye,' we said, before we could
catch ourself. Then, all at once, the sadness of the occasion struck us, the awful
dolor of bidding farewell to someone we had never seen. We have since wondered
what he looked like, and whether it was really goodbye.
E.B. White, "Sadness of Parting." The New Yorker, May 4, 1935
Sample III
In most respects, after all, Woodstock was a disaster. To begin with, it rained and
rained for weeks before the festival, and then, of course, it rained during the
festival. The promoters lost weeks of preparation time when the site had to be
switched twice. They rented Yasgur’s field less than a month before the concert.
The stage wasn’t finished, and the sound system was stitched together perilously
close to the start of the show. As soon as the festival opened, the water- and fooddelivery arrangements broke down, the gates and fences disintegrated, and tens of
thousands of new bodies kept pouring in. (One powerful lure was the rumor that
the revered Bob Dylan was going to perform; he wasn’t.) In response to an
emergency appeal for volunteers, fifty doctors were flown in. The Air Force
brought in food on Huey helicopters, and the Women’s Community Center in
Monticello sent thirty thousand sandwiches. One kid was killed as he was run over
by a tractor, one died of appendicitis, and another died of a drug overdose.
Hal Espen, “The Woodstock Wars”
Sample IV
The room was casually strewn with aging colonels and their wives, sitting amid
carelessly folded Daily Telegraphs. The colonels were all shortish, round men with
tweedy jackets, well-slicked silvery hair, an outwardly gruff manner that concealed
within a heart of flint, and, when they walked, a rakish limp. Their wives, lavishly
rouged and powdered, looked as if they had just come from a coffin fitting.
Bill Bryson, Notes From a Small Island. William Morrow, 1995
THE SCARLET LETTER
“Hawthorne possessed what one of his friends called
‘the artful power of insight,’ and his fiction remains
valuable chiefly because of its penetration into the
essential truths of the human heart.”
Roy R. Male, PhD
The Scarlet Letter
In small groups (i.e. at your table), consider the following:
• What role does shame play in correcting bad behavior?
• What is adultery? What constitutes it?
• What is the difference between a “sin of passion” and a “sin of principle?”
Summary of Chapters 1-4
• Write a paragraph summary of the first four chapters. Keep it brief yet detailed.
Characterization
• What can we tell about the primary and ancillary characters? Why is this
significant?
• Are there any specific scenes that illustrate the characters well?
Symbolism
• What symbols might exist in the text thus far?
The Scarlet Letter
Thematic Elements
• Alienation
• Appearance versus Reality
• Breaking Society’s Rules
• Good from Evil
• Hypocrisy and Cowardice
• Rational versus Supernatural
• Revenge
• Rigidity and Legalism
• Self Respect
• Sin, Rejection, Redemption
Activity
Hawthorne spent a considerable
amount of time describing the
prison and prison door.
Select a inanimate object and
write a two paragraph description
of that item.