Exercise 22.14: Thinking Critically

EXERCISE 22.14: THINKING CRITICALLY

The following sentences come from the openings of well-known works. Identify the independent and dependent clauses in each sentence. Then choose one sentence, and write a sentence of your own imitating its structure, clause for clause and phrase for phrase. Example:

Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge. —Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

A few minutes before the detectives arrived, our friend Nastassia found a passageway behind the wall.

  1. We observe today not a victory of party but a celebration of freedom, symbolizing an end as well as a beginning, signifying renewal as well as change.

    —John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address

    Exercise 22.14: Thinking Critically: We observe today not a victory of party but a celebration of freedom, symbolizing an end as well as a beginning, signifying renewal as well as change.—John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address
  2. Once in a long while, four times so far for me, my mother brings out the metal tube that holds her medical diploma.

    —Maxine Hong Kingston, “Photographs of My Parents”

    Exercise 22.14: Thinking Critically: Once in a long while, four times so far for me, my mother brings out the metal tube that holds her medical diploma.—Maxine Hong Kingston, “Photographs of My Parents”