Leads to undernourishment owing to hunger.

2. Write a parsgraph in which you identify some of the effects

on your body of some activitiy in which you participate—

for instance, tennis, yoga, or dance.

 

1'

 

THE DEATHpPENALTY IS A STEP RACK
Core*ta Scott King

 

In recent years, an 'increase of violence in America, both
individual and political, has prompted a backlash of public
opinion on capital 'punishment, But however much we abhor vio-
lence, legally sanctioned executions are, in fact, immoral and
unconstitutional.

Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life.
Norality is never upheld by legalized murderer,

First, capital punishment makes irrevocable any possible
miscax'x'iage of justice. Time' and again we have witnessed the
specter of mistakenly convicted people being put to death in
the nape of criminal justice. Tn those who say that, after all,
this doesn't occur too often, I can only reply that if it hap-
pens just once, that is too often. And this has occured many
times.

Second, the death penalty reflects an unwarranted assump-
tion that the wrongdoer is beyond rehabilitation. Pexhaps some
individuals cannot be rehabilita*ed; but who shall make that
determination? Is any amount of academic training sufficient
to entitle one person to judge another incapable of rehabillta-
tion?

Third, the death penalty is inequitable.

Proponents of capital punishment often cite a "deterrent
effect'" as the main benefi* of the death penalty. Not only is
there no hard evidence that murdering murderers will deter
other pbtential killers, but even the '"logic" of this argu-
ment defies comprehension.

Numerous studies show *hat tl5e majority of homicides com-
mited in this country are the acts of the victim"s relatives,
. friends and acquaintances in the "heat of passion".

What this stxongly suggests is that rational consideration

of future consequences axe seldom a part of the killer's at-titude at the time he commits a crime.

The only way to break the chain of violent reaction is to

practice non-violence as individuals and collectively through

our laws and institutions.

 

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

 

1. What does the writer think we should do instead of using the

death penalty?

2. What is illogical about suggesting a "deterrent effect"?
3. How do you feel about "mistakenly convicted people being put

to death in the name of American criminal justice"?

 

WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

 

1. Write a persuasive essay for or against the death penalty.

Try to appeal the reader's emotions, but remember that you must still be clear and logical in your reasoning for your persuasion to be effective,

2. Some states have enacted laws that mandate jail sentences

for people who are convicted of drunk driving. Do you ag- ree with such laws '? Write an essay that provides evidence for ynur position.

 

TWO VIEWS OF TIME
Robert Grudin

Imagine that you spend your whole life at a single house. Each day at the same hour you entered an artificially-lit room, undressed and took up the same position in front of a motion pi- cture camera, It photographed one frame of you per day of your life. On your seventy-second birthday, the reel of film was shown. You saw yourself growing and aging over seventy-two ye- ars in less than half an hour (27.4 minutes at sixteen frames per second. Images of this sort, though terrifying, are help-ful in suggesting unfamiliar but useful perspectives of time. They may, for example, symbolize the telescoped, almost momenta- ry character of the past as seen through the eyes of an anxious or disaffected individual. Or they may suggest the remarkable brevity of our lives in the cosmic scale of time, If the estima-ted age of the cosmos were shortened to seventy-two years, a human life would take about ten seconds.

But look at time the other way. Each day is a minor eternity of over 86,000 seconds. During each second, the number of dis-tinct molecular functions going on within the human body is com-parable to the number of seconds in the estimated age of the co- smos, A few seconds are long enough for a revolutionary idea, a starting communication, a baby's conception, a wounding insult, a sudden death. Depending on how we think of them. our lives can be infinitely long or infinitely short.

QGESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

 

l. Which view of time do you prefer? Why?

2. What does the writer imply is useful about each view of time?
3. How old is the cosmos?

 

WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

 

1. Write a paragraph contrasting the amount of time it takes to

do two different things; for example, eating a pizsa versus brushing your teeth,

2. In a paragkaph, compare and contrast your views of time now

with those you remember having as a child. Think, for insta-nce, about the value you attach to time now versus the value you attached then, or about how quickly time seems to pass now versus then.

 

THE SHOE AS A STRATEGIC WEAPON
Alison Lurie

 

Clothing doesn't simply keep us warm and dry. What we wear it can tell people a lot about who we

are.

Attempts to limit female mobility by hampering locomotion are ancient and almost universal. The foot-binding of upper-class Chinese girls and the Nigerian custom of loading women's legs with pounds of heavy brass wire are extreme examples, but all over the world similar stratagems have been employed to make sure that once you have caught a woman she cannot run away, and even if she stays around she cannot keep up with you. What seems odd is that all these devices have been perceived as beautiful, not only by men but by women. The lotus foot, which seems to us a deformity, was passionately admired in China for centuries, and today most people in Western society see nothing ugly in the severely compressed toes produced by modern footwear. The high-heeled, narrow-toed shoes that for most of this century have been an essential part of women's costume are considered sexually attractive, partly because they make the legs look lon ger — an extended leg is the biological sign of sexual availability in several animal species — and because they produce what anthropologists call a “courtship strut”. They always make standing for any length of time painful, walking exhausting and running impossible. The halting, tiptoe gait they produce is thought provocative perhaps because it guarantees that no woman
wearing them can outrun a man who is chasing her. Worst of all, if they are worn continually from adolescence on, they deform the muscles of the feet and legs so that it becomes even more
painful and difficult to walk in flat soles.

 

QUESTIONS EOR DISCUSSION

 

1. Why have cultures attempted to limit female mobility?
2. What is the writer implying about modern Western society?
3. Do you agree with what Lurie says about high-heeled shoes? Why or why not?

 

WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

 

1. Do you own any clothing that limi*s mobility or is uncomfor-table but that you wear anyway, like a formal suit or dress, a snug pair of jeans, or, as in Lurie's paragraph. an uncom-fortable pair of shoes?

2. Write a paragraph giving several examples of customs or ha-bits that are familiar to you but that someone frnm another country might find odd.

 

— 14—

 

CIVILIZATION AND EDUCATION
James Baldwin

 

Every human being born begins to be civilized the moment he or she is born. Since we all arrive here absolutely help-less, with no way of getting a decent meal or of moving from one place to another without human help, there is no way around that. But this is a civilization with a small c. Civilization with a large C is something else again. So is education with a small e different from Education with a large E. In the lower-case, education refers to the relations that actually obtain among human beings. In the uppercase, it refers to power. Or, to put it another way, my father, mother, sisters, brothers, lovers, friends, sons, daughters civilize me quits another way than the state intends. And the education I can receive from an afternoon with Picasso, or from taking one of my nieces or ne-phews to the movies, is not at all what the state has in mind when it speaks of education.

 

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

 

1. What does the writer mean by civilized 7 2. In your own words, describe the differences between the up-percase terms and the lowercase terms the wri*er is contra-sting 7

3. Is this paragraph written subdectively or obgectively? Sup-port your answer.

 

WHITING ASSIGNHENTS

 

1. Write a paragraph or essay classifying teachers according to their attitudes toward students (or if you like, students to their at*itudes toward teachers).

2. Describe the categories of power or advantage people derive from education.

 

CI INSING AT ITS BKST

 

Galen Bowell

 

At the highest levels of di fficulty or endurance, climbing demands total concentration of ones senses. Consciousness beco-mes a smooth, purposeful stream of energy fitted to the task.

Feet, eyes, and mind work in total harmony. Climbers intent on doing their best, whether they admit it or not, are seeking this satisfying state of mind, often more directly than the summit itself. The identical feeling is the goal in all sorts of acti-vities that require intense concentration and that do not invo-lve direct rewards such as money or prestige. Many top climbers feel that climbing is basically useless, but return to the moun-tains again and again because they cannot experience the same ecstasy in performing the actions our society deems useful. For them, the summit is merely the curtain falling on a grand play. The curtain, like the achievement of the summit, tells nothing about what happened beforehand. If a climb is either too hard or too easy, then horror or boredom respectively will interfere with the tranquility of this state of mind. An intermediate cli-mber might reach it on a moderate climb, but an expert would have to do a harder climb or change the style of the moderate climb by using less equipment or climbing solo. The significant point is that the climber must be working at his own top capacity for dif-ficulty, endurance, or both.

 

QUKSTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

 

l. What does the author compare to climbing?
2. What does the author feel about reaching the summit?
3. Have you experienced the feeling described?

 

WRITING ASSIGNMKNTS

 

1. Write an essay in which you try' to convince ycur reader that
you know the single best way to complete some task or play
some game, memoriring a poem or song, studying for an exam,
building a house of cards, or washing windows or a car.
2. Write an advertisement for your favorite book or magasine,
trying to convince people to read it.

 

THREE DISCIPLINES FOR CHILDREN

 

John Halt,

 

A child, in growing up, may meet and learn from three diffe-rent kinds of disciplines. The first, and the most important is what we might call the Discipline of Nature or of Reality. A child meets *his kind of discipline every time he tries to do something, which is why so important in school to give children more chances to do things, instead of just reading or listening to someone talk (or pretending to). This discipli.ne is a great teacher. Nature is impersonal and indifferent. She does n*t give opinions, or make judgements. Bhe does not get angry or disappo-inted;-she does not praise or blame; she does not remember past failures.

The next discipline we might, call the Discipline of Culture, of Society, of What People Really Do.' Nan is a social, a cultural animal, Children watch very carefully what people around them are doing and want to do the same.

The third discipline is the one most people mean when they speak of discipline - the Discipline. of Superior Force, of "you do what I tell you or 1 will make you wish you had." We can not afford to let a small child find out from experience the danger of playing in a busy street. Hut we ought, to use this discipline only when it i.s necessary to protect the life, health, safety, or well-being of people or other living creatures, or to prevent de-struction of things that people care about. A child whose life is full of the threat and fear of punishment is locked into babyhood. There is no way for him to grow up, *o learn to take xesponsibili-ty for his life and acts. If we can not always avoid using the Dis-cipline of Superior' Force, we should at least use it as seldom as we can.

 

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUBSION

 

l. What makes the Discipline of Nature a "great teacher"
2. What is wrong with the Discipline of Superior Force T Why

should we use it as seldom as possible T Why must we use it

sometimes T

 

WRITING ASBIGNNENTS

 

Discipline means many things. It is not just the way to

teach or to control misbehaviox. Write an essay classifying

different meanings of "discipline".

2. Write an essay in which you identify different classes of pa-rentai style, such as stern, friendly, playful, immature, sup-portive.

 

— 17—

 

GRANDPARKNTS

Nancy Pritts Merrill

Of all my family members, grandparents are probably the least appreciated. They are just people who are always around. They ma-ke a fuss over the children in the family, brag to their friends about the accomplishments of this child or that child, and show countless pictures of new babies. Grandfathers can fix anything, and grandmothers always have homemade cookies around. When you are small, it is fun to stay with your grandparents because they always let you do things you can not do at home, and of course they buy you things. They are always available to babysit beca-use they do not go out much and actually prefer do to see their grandchildren. They are usually good for a small loan into a gift. You respectfully listen to their advice but do not follow it be-cause they are old and do not understand how things are in this day and age. You thank them politely for what they do for you, and then do not call or visit them until you need something else. And of course you never tell them how dear they are because they know how you feel about them anyway. Then all of a sudden, they are no longer there to do the things that only grandparents do, and you find yourself wishing that you had told them what they meant to you as people and not just, as grandparents.

QUKSTIONB FOR DISCUSSION

1. What are some of the examples that the writer uses ro define grandparents?

2. Do children understand *hat the grandparents will not always