Exploring the Text

Access the text here.

  1. What is the rhetorical effect of the first seven sentences? Based on the opening, what were your expectations of the story to follow?

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Exploring the Text: - What is the rhetorical effect of the first seven sentences? Based on the opening, what were your expectations of the story to follow?
  2. This is a fictional story in which Tim O’Brien uses himself—or a character by the same name—as the protagonist. Describe how you determine which details are factual and which are imaginative. What is the effect of mixing fact and fiction?

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Exploring the Text: - This is a fictional story in which Tim O’Brien uses himself—or a character by the same name—as the protagonist. Describe how you determine which details are factual and which are imaginative. What is the effect of mixing fact and fiction?
  3. Reread the questions in paragraph 2. Are they rhetorical? What purpose do they serve? Could we ask similar questions about events today? Explain your response.

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Exploring the Text: - Reread the questions in paragraph 2. Are they rhetorical? What purpose do they serve? Could we ask similar questions about events today? Explain your response.
  4. What is the narrator’s conflict (par. 9)?

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Exploring the Text: - What is the narrator’s conflict (par. 9)?
  5. What purpose does Elroy Berdahl serve in this story? Does he seem realistic to you? Explain your answer.

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Exploring the Text: - What purpose does Elroy Berdahl serve in this story? Does he seem realistic to you? Explain your answer.
  6. Why does O’Brien address the reader directly in paragraphs 58–60? How would you answer his questions?

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Exploring the Text: - Why does O’Brien address the reader directly in paragraphs 58–60? How would you answer his questions?
  7. Identify the rhetorical strategies O’Brien uses in paragraph 64. What are the effects of these strategies in this long paragraph?

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Exploring the Text: - Identify the rhetorical strategies O’Brien uses in paragraph 64. What are the effects of these strategies in this long paragraph?
  8. If you have read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, compare Huck’s conflict about doing what he has been taught is “the right thing”—turning Jim in—with O’Brien’s statement at the end of paragraph 27. How are the situations of the two protagonists similar?

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Exploring the Text: - If you have read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, compare Huck’s conflict about doing what he has been taught is “the right thing”—turning Jim in—with O’Brien’s statement at the end of paragraph 27. How are the situations of the two protagonists similar?