Find one blog that is a “regular” person’s post, but you feel could serve as a college essay. Link to it on your page the wiki and explain why (briefly). http://stolenchild66.wordpress.com/bedroom/all-i-want-for-christmas-is-a-clerks-chair/
This blogger shares her obsession with finding vintage furniture. It could serve as a college essay because the blogger shares her interest while carrying a larger theme of a building an ideal sanctuary.
Find a blog that discusses a topic in-depth in some way that you are interested in. Either comment on their blog, quote them on your blog and link to their blog with a message on theirs that you did so, or some other way of connecting you have. Regardless, link these to your page on the wiki
I'm an avid supporter of environmental topics and environmental policy. This blogger focuses on European environmental policy, and in this article, discusses whether electric cars are practical in the long run. I like how this blogger is practical and objective in his statements. In my own writing, I often take a slant, but this guy can maintain style while bringing up these sustainable topics. http://3eintelligence.wordpress.com/2009/08/20/electric-car-policies-great-but-might-need-a-reality-check/#comment-2185
Find one more blog post of note, link to it on ning, and briefly explain what makes it “good”.
http://eugenecho.wordpress.com/2009%Proxy-Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0 08/13/is-overpopulation-our-worlds-greatest-threat/
This blog gets right to the point. Short and sweet--that's Eugene Cho's style. You can see him bullet point his own questions, covering the blogger’s concerns about overpopulation, and relating it to his Christian background. It uses a powerful image and really drives forth the blogger's ideas.
Gambit (noun): opening in which a player makes a sacrifice, typically a pawn, for the sake of some compensating advantage, a degree of risk calculated to gain an advantage.
In The Fly by Katherine Mansfield, the boss performed a great gambit upon the fly. The fly itself was dying and stuck in the ink, but the boss, in all his grief for his deceased son, felt that he could gain an advantage by killing the fly. Whether the boss had been avenging his son's death is a bit apocryphal; he was likely trying to make sense of the concept of death. The fly acted as a gambit in this situation, almost relieving the poor boss of his deep sorrows.
Vocab-pinguid: After not washing his face for weeks, his skin became absolutely pinguid.
Vocab-sophism: a fallacious argument used to deceive. Tlon is a sophism in itself, as these creators of this world try to manipulate the minds of its people. They teach a history that cannot be certain. They use a language that has no solidity. There is no basis of truth in any aspect of the Tlon culture. In many ways similar to our world, Tlon has become a sophism, fallaciously driven to deceive.
The crumbs and the chocolate chunks of the cookie have disintegrated in my mouth. Enchanted the sweetened delicacy, I forget over and again that I am on a diet. Already my mind has been bombarded with the "binge foods" of the pantry; already the vivid tastes of the flavored chips (filled with monosodium glutomate) has wiped out the my willingness to diet; already a fictitious sanctuary occupies my mind, a sanctuary of food of which we know no calorie count-not even that which is false. Nutrition, fitness, and exercise have been reformed. I understand that the cakes an twinkies must wait...A scattered array of chocolate chip cookies have sabotaged the mind. Their task continues. If our forcasts are not in error, a hundred years from now someone will discover the hundred stolen cookies from the cookie jar.
The Boston Common, a public area in downtown Boston, is the main setting for the short story The Patriot, which is about a man who argues to such an extent that it became a gambit. Vocab: endemic
Write a journal entry (a bulleted list) containing the word and one other about the Breen essay.
endemic:
-As I was walking around the school, I noticed that sleep deprivation is endemic at KIS.
-Disorganization is endemic to my family; our house looks like a battlefield.
-The third eye was a genetic disorder endemic to the mythical village. Everyone around the world came to visit the three-eyed creatures.
-Breen discusses how prejudice against the "others" is endemic to American society. Vocab: Castrate/Inculcate
Freudian castration asserts a masculine position, in contrast to women.
The essay "In Your House: Wrestling as Televised Spectacle"inculcates the idea that wrestling is a "spectacle", or exhibition of the social hierarchies and the overall visual rhetoric of humans. For example, the castration complex that is mentioned describes the fact that men see that women are lacking. As a result, women are the objects of spectacle, not the spectators. However, I was confused as to why the lack of a phallus makes them objects of spectacle. If the castration complex makes men seem more superior, why does that make women a spectacle? Vocab: Epicurean, Iniquity
epicurean: a sensualist, hedonist
iniquity: wickedness Vocab: Diaphanous, Rapacious
Diaphanous: light, delicate
Rapacious: aggressively greedy or grasping
Veneration: Treating with great respect
Mizzen: the lowest mast of a ship
Varnished: glossy, disguised
Sepulchre: a small room dug out from rock to hold a corpse Do a quick description of the four settings. Then write about a theme or motif you have seen so far.
It seemed like there were more than four settings, but I chose the ones in which the author shared the most details.
The first setting that Conrad discusses is the lounge in which Marlow waits to be checked by the doctor.
Conrad also shows us the aunt's room, which looks like a drawing-room. He and his aunt talk next to the fireside.
Then, the author brings us to Marlow's stay at the station. It was poorly constructed shack; the sunlight seeped through, making it uncomfortably hot.
Lastly, he discusses the abandoned villages which had sprawling paths through the grass, ravines, and empty land.
A recurring theme in this first part of the story is that of hierarchy. Marlow is introduced to a cyclic movement of individuals who classify the world in terms of social levels. When the Chief Accountant and Marlow discuss Kurtz, the account states, "He will be a somebody in the Administration before long. They, above -- the Council in Europe, you know -- mean him to be." (85). Nearly very man in this Company yearns to move up in the social ladder. Marlow mentions, "I couldn't help asking him once what he meant by coming there at all. 'To make money, of course. What do you think?' he said, scornfully." This nature of man shows the bitterness and insecurity resultant of this ambition. Even Marlow himself has somehow got caught in this whole scheme of greed. Though he may have joined initially for adventure, we can project that he will change inside as well, becoming a part of this vicious, ambitious cycle.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
a. identify climax, major conflict, resolution or denoument, what type of plot (see page of literary terms)
b. comment about setting
c. identify one major symbol and one minor.
d. discuss two characters. Label as round or flat, dynamic or static. Are they archetypal or foils?
e. Open to the exact middle. What page? Write one paragraph about how this one page relates thematically, symbolically,
or other (just not all plot) to the rest of the book.
f. Tell me one thing other that really only someone who has read the book will get.
After losing husbands one after the other, Janie, an African-American woman of the 1930s, finds herself in a constant shift as she experiences the crashes and beauties of marriage. She faces an everlasting conflict, which not only deals with how she is treated, but how she asserts herself as an individual. As Hurston takes us through Janie's tumultuous first two marriages, she becomes blessed with a pleasing partner: Tea Cake. However, her happiness shortlived as a hurricane ravaged their Florida home. The climax is when Janie is in the position of shooting her rabid husband as he tries to kill her. The resolution is that she takes the shot, and faces the consequences. The denouement is when Janie defends herself in court, displaying a confidence never seen before.
The setting of the Floridian swamp is what particularly caught my eye. Jane notes that there was "ground so rich that everything went wild" (Hurston, 129). Everything in the Everglades grew on a large scale, including beans, cane, weeds. Everything was big. In fact, Jane mentions that like the wild cane, the "people [were] wild too" (Hurston, 129). The role that setting plays in this story is incredible. To start, you must take into account the swampy nature of the area. It literally "bogs down" on Janie and how she is to secure her life for the future. Though outwardly very loving of Tea Cake, she asks herself questions whether to trust him or even bother loving him. Another aspect of this symbolic setting is the fertility of the area, quite neatly summed up with "everything went wild". Not only did her relationship with Tea Cake develop into a fiery one, Janie freed herself to do the oddest of activities, like helping to pick beans and to sustain herself with a gambler. She decides to make her own choices, and grow with the acres of crops around her. Strong discussion of the importance of setting.
A major symbol in this story is Janie's appearance. For one, Janie chooses to wear her hear down, an uncommon sight in the 1920's and 1930's women. As well, she wears overalls. She is not necessarily, but her resultant appearance symbolizes a liberation from external forces such as society. A minor symbol was the store in which Janie had to work in during her second marriage to Joe Starks. It represents Janie's void in her marriage. While many of the townspeople drop by to purchase groceries, Janie, needs to shop. The store, in addition to imprisoning Janie, represents the "shortage" of her marriage to Starks.
Janie is definitely a dynamic character. She undergoes a profound change as she encounters each marriage. You can see her expectations of life increase as the story progresses. She first looked for a husband. After, she looked for an economically capable and initiative-driven husband. Then she started looking for love. The character simultaneously develops from a shy girl whose life is dictated by others, to a confident woman who can defend herself in court. Another character in Their Eyes Were Watching God was Joe Starks, her husband of her 2nd marriage. He is archetypal in that the role of a domineering husband is quite common. He is a foil because he contrasts with Janie in many ways. For one, he spends a great deal of his time loving his town. Janie, in contrast, despises the town. He seems to be very demanding, whereas Janie is very servile. He has confidence; she doesn't. Of course, eventually, the tables are turned.
On page 93, the middle of the book, Janie is playing checkers with Tea Cake. Flirting with him, she shares the first interaction with an individual. Thematically, it shows that Janie is developing her role. She states, "Jody useter tell me Ah never would learn. It was too heavy fuh mah brains" (Hurston, 96). Her role is no longer to be a spectator, but a participant in the game--that is, the game of true love. On the symbolic level, the checker game represents an equal playing field. Their equal relationship would soon follow.
Did you ever stop to notice the way Zora uses a Southern, African-American dialect as the character speak? At first, i found it quite challenging, but by the end of the story you become fluent in an entirely different language. Using Ah, instead of I. I found it interesting that Hurston changed back and forth from this dialectical writing to standard prose. She truly preserved the natural sound of people of this period. She is particularly good at it as she was trained as a folklorist.
12/12
Narrator's toward the aunt: that she's naive, condescending, can't take her seriously
Aunt's tone: Simplistic, naive, condescending, light-headed Marie
Emissary: someone sent on a mission to represent the interests of someone else
Cipher: a message written in secret code
Marlow tries to cipher the world around him. While one man says that, "Kurtz is an emissary of European enlightenment. " On the other hand, the men underneath the boat are saying that
1. Which of the following doesn't work? Why. a. Bill played a musical number by Bach; Joan, Beethoven.
b. Lou Williams was in for adultery; John Jones for gambling.
c. His mother told him to rent a car; his sister, to pack the suitcases. There is no verb in the latter part of the sentence.
2. Write your own original example.
3. Find one from something you have read (this may take a couple of weeks). Explanation
This pattern is the simplest form of the series types. Just separate the items by commas. No conjunction links the final two items. Omitting this conjunction is effective because it gives your sentence a quick, staccato sound.
Read the series aloud so you can hear whether the items flow together WITHOUT the conjunction before the last item. Remember that tone and sound and fluency are important here. Also, remember that each item should receive equal emphasis.
Develop your ear!
Examples
It took courage, skill, knowledge -- and he had them all.
Their friendship has endured, in spite of arguments, boyfriends, distance.
I have come to you withoutsin, without guile, without evil, without a witness against me." - The Book of the Dead
EXERCISE -- Copy and paste this entire exercise into your own page. Write your answers in a different color or font. We will chose two people's in class to go over.
1. Look carefully at the following sentence. Does it work? If so, why? If not, where can the sentence be broken into two or shorter ones that are not overwhelming.
Robert Mondavi's father, Cesare, came from Sassafarento near Ancona, on the Adriatic coast of the Marches -- not a particularly rich or fertile part of Italy even now, nor, except for Verdicchio, much of a wine-growing region, and a good deal less so, no doubt in 1883, when Cesare was born, the son of a large, simple family and possibly the first member of it, I have read somewhere, to be able to sign his name. -- by Cyril Ray "Robert Mondavi of the Napa Valley"
Even after we break these sentences down they seem to be winding through a lot of ideas; this is not necessarily bad. It carries a conversational tone that strings together related ideas. I would break the sentence after "no doubt". Of course this would mean we'd have to change the latter phrase in order for it to be a complete sentence.
2. Does this sentence work? If so, why? If not, please correct. The typical teenage user of snuff is white, active, and athletic, and subjected to very heavy peer pressure.
No, this sentence should read "...active, athletic, and subjected". There is an unnecessary 'and' before athletic.
3. Same instructions -- The children gathered around the clown wishing for a balloon, angling for a smile, bowing before the childhood consumerism.
I like the rhythm of this parallelism. I'm wondering whether we should add an "and" before bowing due to conventions. It would, however, break the rhythm up a bit.
Similarities between Zora Neale Hurston's The Mule-Bone and Their Eyes were Watching God.
Setting: Both stories are set in the countryside, in small black towns. I find that interesting that Hurston chooses a rural setting when she herself lived in the city. Oh, they both also take place in Florida and the deep south.
Reference to her religious ties. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, she had some deep emotional ties and often prayed to God. In there is a rift between the Methodists and Baptists. However, Thus, the Mule-Bone is far more controversial, as it deals with validity of fundamentalist Christianity.
Dialect: I could tell The Mule-Bone was Hurston's immediately with the dialect she chose to write with. Just with the way she says "Ah" instead of "I". Though , the word choice is distinctly Hurston's.
Just a small detail that is in both stories: in both stories the "village" and townspeople like to gamble. It could just be that this was a popular pastime in these communities.
Also, another similarity between names. Joe Stark, and Joe Clark? Haha little imagination with the names or maybe there is a connection
Wise, not necessarily confident female protagonists The main female protagonists play a similar role in that they experience relationships between many different men. However, in both stories, she does not portray them as promiscuous individuals. Rather, she renders them individuals with empowered and wise decision-making.
My Blog: jessicayun.wordpress.com
Find one blog that is a “regular” person’s post, but you feel could serve as a college essay. Link to it on your page the wiki and explain why (briefly).
http://stolenchild66.wordpress.com/bedroom/all-i-want-for-christmas-is-a-clerks-chair/
This blogger shares her obsession with finding vintage furniture. It could serve as a college essay because the blogger shares her interest while carrying a larger theme of a building an ideal sanctuary.
Find a blog that discusses a topic in-depth in some way that you are interested in. Either comment on their blog, quote them on your blog and link to their blog with a message on theirs that you did so, or some other way of connecting you have. Regardless, link these to your page on the wiki
I'm an avid supporter of environmental topics and environmental policy. This blogger focuses on European environmental policy, and in this article, discusses whether electric cars are practical in the long run. I like how this blogger is practical and objective in his statements. In my own writing, I often take a slant, but this guy can maintain style while bringing up these sustainable topics.
http://3eintelligence.wordpress.com/2009/08/20/electric-car-policies-great-but-might-need-a-reality-check/#comment-2185
http://eugenecho.wordpress.com/2009%Proxy-Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0 08/13/is-overpopulation-our-worlds-greatest-threat/
This blog gets right to the point. Short and sweet--that's Eugene Cho's style. You can see him bullet point his own questions, covering the blogger’s concerns about overpopulation, and relating it to his Christian background. It uses a powerful image and really drives forth the blogger's ideas.
Gambit (noun): opening in which a player makes a sacrifice, typically a pawn, for the sake of some compensating advantage, a degree of risk calculated to gain an advantage.
In The Fly by Katherine Mansfield, the boss performed a great gambit upon the fly. The fly itself was dying and stuck in the ink, but the boss, in all his grief for his deceased son, felt that he could gain an advantage by killing the fly. Whether the boss had been avenging his son's death is a bit apocryphal; he was likely trying to make sense of the concept of death. The fly acted as a gambit in this situation, almost relieving the poor boss of his deep sorrows.
Vocab-pinguid: After not washing his face for weeks, his skin became absolutely pinguid.
Vocab-sophism: a fallacious argument used to deceive. Tlon is a sophism in itself, as these creators of this world try to manipulate the minds of its people. They teach a history that cannot be certain. They use a language that has no solidity. There is no basis of truth in any aspect of the Tlon culture. In many ways similar to our world, Tlon has become a sophism, fallaciously driven to deceive.
The crumbs and the chocolate chunks of the cookie have disintegrated in my mouth. Enchanted the sweetened delicacy, I forget over and again that I am on a diet. Already my mind has been bombarded with the "binge foods" of the pantry; already the vivid tastes of the flavored chips (filled with monosodium glutomate) has wiped out the my willingness to diet; already a fictitious sanctuary occupies my mind, a sanctuary of food of which we know no calorie count-not even that which is false. Nutrition, fitness, and exercise have been reformed. I understand that the cakes an twinkies must wait...A scattered array of chocolate chip cookies have sabotaged the mind. Their task continues. If our forcasts are not in error, a hundred years from now someone will discover the hundred stolen cookies from the cookie jar.
The Boston Common, a public area in downtown Boston, is the main setting for the short story The Patriot, which is about a man who argues to such an extent that it became a gambit.
Vocab: endemic
Write a journal entry (a bulleted list) containing the word and one other about the Breen essay.
endemic:
-As I was walking around the school, I noticed that sleep deprivation is endemic at KIS.
-Disorganization is endemic to my family; our house looks like a battlefield.
-The third eye was a genetic disorder endemic to the mythical village. Everyone around the world came to visit the three-eyed creatures.
-Breen discusses how prejudice against the "others" is endemic to American society.
Vocab: Castrate/Inculcate
Freudian castration asserts a masculine position, in contrast to women.
The essay "In Your House: Wrestling as Televised Spectacle" inculcates the idea that wrestling is a "spectacle", or exhibition of the social hierarchies and the overall visual rhetoric of humans. For example, the castration complex that is mentioned describes the fact that men see that women are lacking. As a result, women are the objects of spectacle, not the spectators. However, I was confused as to why the lack of a phallus makes them objects of spectacle. If the castration complex makes men seem more superior, why does that make women a spectacle?
Vocab: Epicurean, Iniquity
epicurean: a sensualist, hedonist
iniquity: wickedness
Vocab: Diaphanous, Rapacious
Diaphanous: light, delicate
Rapacious: aggressively greedy or grasping
Veneration: Treating with great respect
Mizzen: the lowest mast of a ship
Varnished: glossy, disguised
Sepulchre: a small room dug out from rock to hold a corpse
Do a quick description of the four settings. Then write about a theme or motif you have seen so far.
It seemed like there were more than four settings, but I chose the ones in which the author shared the most details.
A recurring theme in this first part of the story is that of hierarchy. Marlow is introduced to a cyclic movement of individuals who classify the world in terms of social levels. When the Chief Accountant and Marlow discuss Kurtz, the account states, "He will be a somebody in the Administration before long. They, above -- the Council in Europe, you know -- mean him to be." (85). Nearly very man in this Company yearns to move up in the social ladder. Marlow mentions, "I couldn't help asking him once what he meant by coming there at all. 'To make money, of course. What do you think?' he said, scornfully." This nature of man shows the bitterness and insecurity resultant of this ambition. Even Marlow himself has somehow got caught in this whole scheme of greed. Though he may have joined initially for adventure, we can project that he will change inside as well, becoming a part of this vicious, ambitious cycle.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
- a. identify climax, major conflict, resolution or denoument, what type of plot (see page of literary terms)
- b. comment about setting
- c. identify one major symbol and one minor.
- d. discuss two characters. Label as round or flat, dynamic or static. Are they archetypal or foils?
- e. Open to the exact middle. What page? Write one paragraph about how this one page relates thematically, symbolically,
or other (just not all plot) to the rest of the book.After losing husbands one after the other, Janie, an African-American woman of the 1930s, finds herself in a constant shift as she experiences the crashes and beauties of marriage. She faces an everlasting conflict, which not only deals with how she is treated, but how she asserts herself as an individual. As Hurston takes us through Janie's tumultuous first two marriages, she becomes blessed with a pleasing partner: Tea Cake. However, her happiness shortlived as a hurricane ravaged their Florida home. The climax is when Janie is in the position of shooting her rabid husband as he tries to kill her. The resolution is that she takes the shot, and faces the consequences. The denouement is when Janie defends herself in court, displaying a confidence never seen before.
The setting of the Floridian swamp is what particularly caught my eye. Jane notes that there was "ground so rich that everything went wild" (Hurston, 129). Everything in the Everglades grew on a large scale, including beans, cane, weeds. Everything was big. In fact, Jane mentions that like the wild cane, the "people [were] wild too" (Hurston, 129). The role that setting plays in this story is incredible. To start, you must take into account the swampy nature of the area. It literally "bogs down" on Janie and how she is to secure her life for the future. Though outwardly very loving of Tea Cake, she asks herself questions whether to trust him or even bother loving him. Another aspect of this symbolic setting is the fertility of the area, quite neatly summed up with "everything went wild". Not only did her relationship with Tea Cake develop into a fiery one, Janie freed herself to do the oddest of activities, like helping to pick beans and to sustain herself with a gambler. She decides to make her own choices, and grow with the acres of crops around her. Strong discussion of the importance of setting.
A major symbol in this story is Janie's appearance. For one, Janie chooses to wear her hear down, an uncommon sight in the 1920's and 1930's women. As well, she wears overalls. She is not necessarily, but her resultant appearance symbolizes a liberation from external forces such as society. A minor symbol was the store in which Janie had to work in during her second marriage to Joe Starks. It represents Janie's void in her marriage. While many of the townspeople drop by to purchase groceries, Janie, needs to shop. The store, in addition to imprisoning Janie, represents the "shortage" of her marriage to Starks.
Janie is definitely a dynamic character. She undergoes a profound change as she encounters each marriage. You can see her expectations of life increase as the story progresses. She first looked for a husband. After, she looked for an economically capable and initiative-driven husband. Then she started looking for love. The character simultaneously develops from a shy girl whose life is dictated by others, to a confident woman who can defend herself in court. Another character in Their Eyes Were Watching God was Joe Starks, her husband of her 2nd marriage. He is archetypal in that the role of a domineering husband is quite common. He is a foil because he contrasts with Janie in many ways. For one, he spends a great deal of his time loving his town. Janie, in contrast, despises the town. He seems to be very demanding, whereas Janie is very servile. He has confidence; she doesn't. Of course, eventually, the tables are turned.
On page 93, the middle of the book, Janie is playing checkers with Tea Cake. Flirting with him, she shares the first interaction with an individual. Thematically, it shows that Janie is developing her role. She states, "Jody useter tell me Ah never would learn. It was too heavy fuh mah brains" (Hurston, 96). Her role is no longer to be a spectator, but a participant in the game--that is, the game of true love. On the symbolic level, the checker game represents an equal playing field. Their equal relationship would soon follow.
Did you ever stop to notice the way Zora uses a Southern, African-American dialect as the character speak? At first, i found it quite challenging, but by the end of the story you become fluent in an entirely different language. Using Ah, instead of I. I found it interesting that Hurston changed back and forth from this dialectical writing to standard prose. She truly preserved the natural sound of people of this period. She is particularly good at it as she was trained as a folklorist.
12/12
Narrator's toward the aunt: that she's naive, condescending, can't take her seriously
Aunt's tone: Simplistic, naive, condescending, light-headed Marie
Emissary: someone sent on a mission to represent the interests of someone else
Cipher: a message written in secret code
Marlow tries to cipher the world around him. While one man says that, "Kurtz is an emissary of European enlightenment. " On the other hand, the men underneath the boat are saying that
1. Which of the following doesn't work? Why.
a. Bill played a musical number by Bach; Joan, Beethoven.
b. Lou Williams was in for adultery; John Jones for gambling.
c. His mother told him to rent a car; his sister, to pack the suitcases.
There is no verb in the latter part of the sentence.
2. Write your own original example.
3. Find one from something you have read (this may take a couple of weeks).
Explanation
This pattern is the simplest form of the series types. Just separate the items by commas. No conjunction links the final two items. Omitting this conjunction is effective because it gives your sentence a quick, staccato sound.
Read the series aloud so you can hear whether the items flow together WITHOUT the conjunction before the last item. Remember that tone and sound and fluency are important here. Also, remember that each item should receive equal emphasis.
Develop your ear!
Examples
It took courage, skill, knowledge -- and he had them all.
Their friendship has endured, in spite of arguments, boyfriends, distance.
I have come to you withoutsin, without guile, without evil, without a witness against me." - The Book of the Dead
EXERCISE -- Copy and paste this entire exercise into your own page. Write your answers in a different color or font. We will chose two people's in class to go over.
1. Look carefully at the following sentence. Does it work? If so, why? If not, where can the sentence be broken into two or shorter ones that are not overwhelming.
Robert Mondavi's father, Cesare, came from Sassafarento near Ancona, on the Adriatic coast of the Marches -- not a particularly rich or fertile part of Italy even now, nor, except for Verdicchio, much of a wine-growing region, and a good deal less so, no doubt in 1883, when Cesare was born, the son of a large, simple family and possibly the first member of it, I have read somewhere, to be able to sign his name. -- by Cyril Ray "Robert Mondavi of the Napa Valley"
Even after we break these sentences down they seem to be winding through a lot of ideas; this is not necessarily bad. It carries a conversational tone that strings together related ideas. I would break the sentence after "no doubt". Of course this would mean we'd have to change the latter phrase in order for it to be a complete sentence.
2. Does this sentence work? If so, why? If not, please correct. The typical teenage user of snuff is white, active, and athletic, and subjected to very heavy peer pressure.
No, this sentence should read "...active, athletic, and subjected". There is an unnecessary 'and' before athletic.
3. Same instructions -- The children gathered around the clown wishing for a balloon, angling for a smile, bowing before the childhood consumerism.
I like the rhythm of this parallelism. I'm wondering whether we should add an "and" before bowing due to conventions. It would, however, break the rhythm up a bit.
Similarities between Zora Neale Hurston's The Mule-Bone and Their Eyes were Watching God.