English 102

Instructor Lombardy

Assignment 1: Predraft C

Due: Wednesday, February 15 (email to me by 12:00 pm to )

Task: Learning how to Navigate Two Authors and Begin to Produce your own Argument; Learning How to Compare and Contrast

Reading: The Language of Pain by Richard Selzer


Total Length: about 2 1/2 pgs

In, The Language of Pain, Richard Selzer attempts to describe pain—a project that even he describes as impossible, saying, “It was the poet Rilke who wrote that the events of the body cannot be rendered in language. Surely this is so with pain as with its opposite, orgasm.” However, despite this claim, he continues to write about the subject from many different angles, talking about pain in dreams, the connection between pain and Italian, and pain in childbirth, amongst many other topics.

For this homework, you will read over Richard Selzer’s essay. Read it through quickly the first time and then more slowly as you use your Dialectical Notebook method to think more critically and carefully about the reading. Then, follow these steps:

Part 1: Working Towards Meaning

Step 1:

Length: 2 Paragraphs

·  First, choose one paragraph where you think Selzer is very eloquent or is saying something interesting about pain overall and interpret it by rewriting it (in your own paragraph of 4 to 5 sentences).

·  Next, write out (in your own paragraph) what you think Selzer is saying about pain OVERALL in this essay.

Step 2:

Length: 1/2 page and 2 paragraphs

·  Now, you will find another paragraph but now you will use a different one where Selzer is talking about how language and pain connect, comment on each other, or intersect in how they work or are approached by people. Now interpret this excerpt from Selzer by rewriting it in your own words in a short paragraph.

·  Now, write a longer paragraph (about half a page) about what you think Selzer’s main argument is about the connection between pain and language. Think: How do they relate? How are they similar? What is their relationship?

·  Finally, respond to Selzer in a paragraph with your own thoughts on the interaction between pain and language. Does Selzer’s argument, as you see it, ring true? Do you disagree? Do you feel partially both ways? However you land on this argument, you have to take a position. Don’t just say you agree or disagree with Selzer. Tell us why that is the case, and what your understanding of how language interacts with the body, pain, expression, knowledge, or understanding other people (all topics that Selzer covers). What evidence can you give to support your position on this argument?

Part 2: Looking at the Structure (observing how another author uses his tools)

Section 1:

Length: 1-2 Paragraphs

In 1 - 2 Paragraphs, please respond to the following questions:

·  How has Selzer organized his essay? Why might he have done it this way? What are the benefits? The weaknesses of this form of structure?

·  What kind of evidence does Selzer use? Why does he choose these forms of evidence and how do they support (or fail to support) his claims and overall argument?

·  What is Selzer’s tone? Why does he choose this tone amongst any other? How does it hinder or help him? Could you see this written in another tone?

·  Can you imagine what Selzer’s possible audience is? Whom is he writing this for? How does that effect how and what he writes?

Part 3: Learning How to Compare and Contrast (for Meaning) and Building Complication by Working with Two Sources

Length: 1/2 Page

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO TURN THIS CHART IN TO ME. It is for your own notes and to help you with the next Part.. As you read, use the chart below to organize your thoughts about what you notice the authors are doing in their writing. At the bottom of the page, make some observations about what you see them saying about language, words, writing, and metaphors

George Orwell and Politics and the English Language / Richard Selzer and The Language of Pain
Examples/References about language (2 new paragraphs from the reading): / Examples/References about language (2 new paragraphs from the reading):
Qualities of language, speech, or writing ((it’s benefits, its weaknesses, what it is made of, how it is made, what it does to us, how we use it, etc.): / Qualities of language, speech, or writing ((it’s benefits, its weaknesses, what it is made of, how it is made, what it does to us, how we use it, etc.):
Orwell’s Definition of language in your own words: / Selzer’s Definition of language in your own words:

Finally, consider the following questions (you don’t have to use them but they might help get you started) as you write a half page describing how these two authors compare in their understanding of language, writing, speech, and how these actions affect our expression of selves, political lives, ways of understanding the world, etc.

Questions that might help you start:

What are these two authors saying that is similar? Different? Why? At the end of your writing, include your own thoughts. Where do you fall in this argument between these two authors? Why might you be closer to one or the other? What have you experienced, or what ideas influence you, to agree with one more than the other? How do you differ from both authors in their thinking? Why?

More generally, what does language do for us? How do we use it? What do metaphors do and how can we use them for our own purposes (positive or negative)? What is writing (or speech) for? Why do we do it? What are the importance of words?

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