Tài liệu Developing writting skills 2 part 11 pdf

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huge fires glowed orange, and pointed down at the tiles, which
showed windmills and castles and men in armour, and said they were
made by the clever Mr. William de Morgan, who made tiles better
than anybody had made them for hundreds of years. There was much
furniture, so highly polished that its very solidity made it the more
airy, there were such broad surfaces reflecting the warmed and ruddy
light. The winter day, which was blanched and cold, was annulled;
and we were happy, particularly when Miss Furness took us to see
her mother, who now never left her room. She wore a huge silver
chignon, through which ran some streaks as sandy as her daughter’s
hair. We had always known that the other girls were talking
nonsense when they said that the curious hollow crescent across Miss
Furness’s head was a transformation. Mrs. Furness had had a relative
who was one of the first English amateur photographers, and she
showed us some portraits, very sharp and linear and refined, almost
like drawings, except for the pale, milky blacks, of Lewis Carroll and
some little girls at a tea-party he gave to celebrate the publication of
Alice in Wonderland. What amused us so much that we could hardly
keep our minds on the photographs was that Mrs. Furness had an
asthmatic pug lying beside her which was exactly like the pug we
had made up when we were younger and had first come to
Lovegrove Place. Finally we had to tell her, in case she thought we
were rude, and she and her daughter quite understood.
Then we went down to tea in the dining room. It was a very
good tea, with cherry cake that had cherries all the way through, and
not just at the bottom. It was a pity that Mrs. Furness could not come
down, we had liked her so much. There was a big clock on the
chimney-piece, with a beautiful tick, almost like a purr, but this room
was not as nice as the others, for it was hung with large photographs,

framed in reddish oak, of stones bearing inscriptions in ancient
languages, with notices in black letters underneath saying where they
had been found. They introduced a look of schoolroom squalor.
When we had finished, Miss Furness did not rise, we just went on
sitting at the table. We listened to the agreeable tick of the clock, and
we looked round the room. Mary asked Miss Furness if the
inscriptions had ever turned out to be interesting when they had been
translated. Miss Furness looked embarrassed, and then smiled, and
said with an air of daring, “Do you know, never. Never to me. The

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most interesting are laws. But such dull laws.” Then she relapsed
into silence again. We did not mind, this was a very safe, well-cared-
for house, we liked being there.



Having Fun in Our Town

It’s 5 p.m. on a sultry July day in our town. The heat is still
steaming up from the pavement. The doors of the casino open wide
and out comes a steady stream of people, shuffling and blinking, into
the sunlight. Each man and woman is clutching a dice-spotted box of
pastel salt-water taffy, compliments of the management, a little
going-away gift to help them forget about the dreams that didn’t
come true. Obediently crossing at the corner, the caravans of ants
head toward the buses for the long journey back to civilization.
As early as 7 o’clock that morning they had lined up to board
the huge buses (air-conditioned with rest rooms in the rear) which
would carry them to our town, the place where the action is.

Nervously they had joked about hitting the slot machine jackpots or
breaking the bank at the roulette tables. Although the bus driver had
heard it all before, he still managed a polite smile. Every morning he
sees the play acted out—a different cast of characters but the same
dialogue.
“My sister and I have a system. We wait for the slot machine
someone has just quit because it didn’t pay off, and we stick at it
until we hit the big one.”
“I don’t expect to gamble. I’ll just walk around and soak up
the atmosphere.”
“I’m going to drop my $40 and consider it my investment for a
full day of entertainment.”
“Blackjack is my game. I can remember the cards that just
came out, and that gives me the edge over the house’s dealer.”
We see them pulling into the spacious parking lots around 11
each morning. They are only slightly rumpled from the long bus ride
and able to move swiftly into the casinos. In their hands are the green
vouchers which entitle them to a free buffet. There are twenty-five

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different kinds of colorful pies and gooey cakes at the end of the
lunch line, all tasting exactly the same. Nobody seems to mind, or
even to notice. Within a few minutes, they are all hypnotized in the
darkness, pulling the levers without emotion, sprinkling their betting
chips on the dice tables, moving restlessly around the football fields
in search of the machine which is ready to pay off big, the lucky
table, the pot of gold.
“You should have been here last week,” the bus driver
confides. “One of our regular passengers won $6500.”
It’s 5:30 p.m. on a sultry July day in our town. I wave goodbye

to an old couple, crowned with scarlet Texaco golf hats, slumped in
the back of their bus. They stare back at me, blankly. They have had
a long and tiring day.



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Exposition


The Psychologist, the Psychiatrist, and the
Psychoanalyst: Three Definitions
By Ernest Havemann

The psychologist, the psychiatrist, and the psychoanalyst all
operate within the general area delineated by the old saws about the
nature of man, with these differences:
The psychologist searches for a scientific understanding of
how people see and hear, his interests thereby overlapping those of
the physiologist. He also tries to find out how they learn, how they
feel and express their emotions and how they get along (or do not)
with their fellow men, at which point he and the sociologist are on
somewhat similar ground. The psychologist once was chiefly a
research specialist and teacher; he began by applying scientific
methods of observation and measurement to human behavior, and
instructing others in what he found. Many psychologists are still
interested only in “pure science”—that is, in fact and theory. A
majority of them, however, have branched out into applied
psychology, attempting to use their knowledge to help people live
happier and more efficient lives. Some of them, for example, counsel

young people on what vocations to choose or advise businessmen on
how to provide better working conditions for their employees. Quite
a number of them work at what is called clinical psychology, which
is an attempt to help individuals who have emotional problems and
personality maladjustments.
The psychiatrist is also interested in human psychology, but as
a physician attempting to understand and treat the people in whom
something has gone wrong. He specializes in the care of what used to
be called insanity (but what he now calls psychosis, the victims being
known as psychotics) and less severe mental disorders (which he
calls neuroses, the victims being called neurotics). Most psychiatrists
work in public and private hospitals. About two thirds of them also
have private practices, in which they treat patients whose difficulties
are not severe enough to require hospitalization.

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The psychoanalyst is a special kind of psychiatrist. He too is a
physician who treats the mentally ill. (At least he usually is a
physician, though there are some excellent “lay analysts” who have
never taken an M.D.) But he uses a special type of treatment
originally developed by Dr. Sigmund Freud: the analyst spends
hundreds of hours listening to the patient discuss his past and present
life, his dreams and his daydreams—until finally the patient’s
pattern of hidden or “unconscious” problems emerges to the point
where it can be straightened out.



A to Z in Foods as Metaphors:
Or, a Stew Is a Stew Is a Stew

by Mimi Sheraton

As a food critic for The New York Times, Mimi Sheraton
traveled all over the world to do research on food and how it is
prepared.


Cooking styles may vary from one country to another, but
certain foods inspire the same symbolism and human characteristics
with remarkable consistency. The perception of food as metaphor is
apparently more consistent than the perception of food as ingredient.
The inspiration for some of this imagery is easier to find than
others. It is not too hard to understand, for example, why the big,
compact, plebeian-tasting cabbage is widely regarded as being
stupid, a role it shares with the starchy, inexpensive staple the potato.
A cabbage head in this country is considered to be as dull-witted as a
krautkopf in Germany, and a potato head indicates a similar, stodgy-
brained individual, never mind that both are delicious and can be
prepared in elegant ways.
Italians, on the other hand, consider the cucumber a symbol of
ineptness, and to call a person a cetriolo is to cast him among the
cabbages of the world.

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It is difficult to understand why ham is the word for a bad
actor who overacts. But no one has to explain why a pretty and
delightful young woman is considered to be a peach, or why her
adorable, accommodating brother is a lamb. With luck, he will not
grow up to be a muttonhead, to be classified with the cabbage and
potatoes. If he remains a lamb, he can be counted on to bring home

the bacon that is the bread and dough.
All things sweet, especially sugar and honey, inspire dozens of
terms of endearment in every language; but the lemon, despite its
sunny and piquant flavor, is best known for its sourness and so
describes such things as an automobile always in need of repairs. In
many countries the nut is, inexplicably, the metaphor for craziness,
though it is easier to explain why someone who is sprightly and hot-
tempered is said to be peppery.
Cooked foods or dishes also inspire such comparisons. To be
in the soup (it’s hot) is to be in trouble and to be in a stew indicates
one is troubled. Stews and soups with many ingredients are the
consistent metaphors in many languages for big, complicated events
and procedures.
In New York the most commonly heard of such expressions is
tsimmes, referring to the Eastern European Jewish stew of carrots,
sweet potatoes, prunes, onions and, often, beef. To make a whole
tsimmes out of something is to create an event of endlessly involved
complications. In English, a tsimmes is a hodgepodge, which in turn
is named for the stew derived from the French hochepot, which
became hotchpotch or hotpot.
But a tsimmes is no more complicated than the New Orleans
gumbo, also an event of dazzling complexities derived from the soup
that may include okra, onions, peppers, shrimp, oysters, ham,
sausage, chicken and at least a dozen other possibilities. Similarly
used in their own countries are bouillabaisse, the French soup of
many fishes, and the Rumanian ghivetch, a baked or simmered stew
that can be made with more than a dozen vegetables plus meat.
In Spain, to make an olla podrida out of something is to make
it as complex as that mixed boil of meats, poultry and onions. And
though some Italians refer to a big mess as a big minestrone, the

more popular metaphor is a pasticci, a mess derived from the
complicated preparations of the pastry chef, or pasticcere. In

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Denmark it is the sailor’s hash or stew known as labskaus that
signifies complications, and no wonder when you consider that such
a dish contains meat and herring in the same pot.
Some foods inspire conflicting metaphors. Fish is brain food,
but a cold and unemotional person is a cold fish. You can beef up a
program and make it better, but don’t beef about the work that it
involves or you will be marked a complainer. Instead of being given
a promotion that is a plum you will be paid peanuts, even though you
know your onions and are the apple of your boss’s eye.

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Argument

Should old buildings of no real artistic or historic value be
demolished to make room for modern constructions?

From time to time, a proposal to pull down a much-loved old
building to make room for a factory or a new block of flats, raises a
storm of angry protest. Buildings of national importance are
relatively safe. Though even these are occasionally threatened, their
reputation does protect them to some extent. It is the border-line
cases that are always in danger: the dignified buildings of the past
which may possess no real or historic value, but which people have
become sentimentally attached to and have grown to love. There is
no point in calling such buildings ‘ugly’. The words ‘beautiful’ and
‘ugly’ are relative terms. A building with high ceilings and huge
rooms may be less practical than the colorless block of offices that
takes its place, but it often fits in well with its surroundings.
Those out to demolish old buildings often argue that a factory
will bring prosperity to a town to provide employment for its people;
a block of flats will improve living condition; a new road will create
better transport facilities. These arguments are true, but somehow are
unconvincing. Countless country villages have been spoilt by the
addition of modern ‘improvements’ like huge traffic-signs or tall
concrete lamps which shed a sickly yellow light. In the same way,

buildings which are erected without any thought being given to their
surroundings, become prominent landmarks which may change the
character of a whole town. They are ugly because they are so out of
place.
Nothing can change the look of a town or city so dramatically
as the sudden appearance of a block of offices which towers above
all the surrounding buildings. Before the arrival of this skyscraper,
all the buildings in the city stood in special relationship to each other.
The most important of them was probably the cathedral or the town
hall followed by other public buildings. These dominated the city
and gave it a definite shape. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the new
arrival (which is rarely even a public building) dwarfs everything in
sight, and even the most graceful and imposing existing buildings

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may now be so sadly diminished as to seem slightly ridiculous beside
the monster. It rises up above them like a huge, white, slotted
packing-case resting on its side, demanding attention merely because
of its size and not because of any intrinsic worth.
It is seldom realized that very often the biggest enemies of old
buildings are not town-planners but ruthless individuals speculating
in land. Their sole aim is the quick return of profit and they are not
particular about how they will obtain it. They are among the first to
point out the necessity for ‘re-development’ and ‘modernization’ by
which they mean replacing old buildings by huge blocks with high
rent yields. Unfortunately, people are easily persuaded by fine-
sounding arguments for the simple reason that in almost any town,
many of the most valuable sites are occupied by the beautiful
buildings of the past. Each time a cry is raised, yet another old
building is sacrificed in the name of ‘progress’.

Part of a charm of a big city lies in the variety of styles that
can be seen in the architecture of its buildings. One feels that the city
has grown slowly and each age has left its mark. By demolishing
buildings of bygone times, we wipe out every vestige of the past
forever. In place of infinite variety, we have monotonous uniformity.
Rows of houses, each of them different and pleasing with their
spacious gardens, are replaced by purely functional blocks of flats
which have nothing more to commend them than their over-praised
‘modern conveniences’. No one would deny that there are superb
modern buildings which are truly representative of the very best
architecture of our age. But these are rarely the utilitarian blocks
which are to be found in many cities. The trouble is that every time a
fine old building is destroyed, it is not necessarily replaced by an
equally fine modern one. If the demolition of buildings is
uncontrolled, a fine city is in danger of becoming nothing more than
a concrete jungle.
In the eighteenth century there was a time when ruins were
deliberately erected to land charm to the countryside. This is not a
practice which even the most financial lover of old buildings would
defend. But it is curiously ironic that the time has now come when
valuable remnants of the past are not only neglected, but threatened
with extinction.

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To Evaluate or Not to Evaluate?
By Sharon Weston

For the past thirteen years, counting kindergarten, I have been
subjected to teachers of all sizes and ages. Some of them have been
men, some women; some have been black, some white; some have

been Asian, some Spanish. Some have been intelligent, some have
been just plain dumb. And it goes without saying that some could
teach and some could not. After dealing with all these teachers, I’ve
come to the conclusion that students should be allowed to evaluate
their teachers so that those who cannot teach can be removed.
Admittedly, an evaluation by itself may not be grounds to
remove a teacher, but it can show that there is a problem. It’s also
true that an evaluation may be flawed to a degree because it involves
one person’s evaluation of another, which makes it subjective. But if
enough students gave a negative evaluation of the same teacher,
maybe the administration would look at the results and consider
replacing the teacher who cannot teach. It’s also possible that
students, knowing about the evaluation, could gang up on a hard
teacher; however, this wouldn’t always be the case. Even then, the
administration or faculty senate would be aware that there is a
problem.
While it is possible to have a flawed evaluation, students
should be able to evaluate their teachers to bring to the attention of
the administration the ways in which some teachers belittle students.
I’ll never forget Miss Wood, one of my math teachers in middle
school. If one of us couldn’t get the right answer to a problem after
she explained it, she would give us a pacifier and make us suck on it
the rest of the hour. Another teacher made us stand at the front of the
room with our noses touching the blackboard if we talked out of turn.
Needless to say, we students had little respect for these teachers and
learned little in their classes.
Another reason students should evaluate their teachers is to
show that some don’t have a real interest in students. They’re just
earning a paycheck, and it shows. They don’t care who learns and
who does not. For example, Mr. Brassher’s method of teaching was

to assign a chapter in history to read, questions to be answered at the

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end, and then the test. He never tried to find out if we understood the
material. He prided himself on how many students failed his class
because he was such a hard teacher. The truth was he couldn’t teach.
A good teacher makes the material clear enough so that students can
understand it and can pass.
Students also need to evaluate their teachers because some are
so weak in their subject matters that they can’t transmit the material
to students. It seems as if they read the material the night before and
then try to present it the next day. I had one teacher who was
teaching Canterbury Tales who never could understand Chaucer’s
presentation of the pilgrims. We had to explain to her what the story
was about because we knew more than she did. When she graded our
weekly tests, she didn’t catch half the errors; we laughed about it
behind her back. I realize teachers can’t know everything, but they
are supposed to know more than the students they teach. How else
can they get the information across so we can learn it?
The biggest reason students need to evaluate their teachers,
though, is to weed out the ones who can’t teach so that those who
can teach can do their jobs. In this way not only will the school
system be improved, but students will also be better prepared for
college or for the work world. It makes no difference whatsoever
what the teacher looks like or how old he or she is; what matters is
whether he can transmit the material so students can learn.
Education needs to adopt the same practice as the business
world; let those go who cannot do the job. Maybe student evaluations
would help determine who can and who can’t.

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Sources

1. Otto Reinert (University of Washington):
Working with Prose,
Harcourt, Brace and Company, N.Y., 1959.

2. Miller, Robert, Keith
Motives for Writing, fourth edition
McGraw-Hill, Inc, NY, 2003.

3. Santi V. Buscemi
A reader for Developing Writers, fifth edition
McGraw-Hill, Inc, NY, 2002.

4. Nell W. Meriwether
Writing Essays. Strategies for Success.
National Textbook Company, Illinois, USA, 2000.

5. Betty Mattix Dietsch
Reasoning and Writing Well: a rhetoric, research
guide, and handbook, second edition.
Mayfield publishing Company, USA, 2000.

6. L.G. Alexander
Essay and Letter Writing
Longmans and Company Limited, London, 1965.

7. Robert Freier; Elizabeth Hardwick; Arnold Lazarus;
Robert Lowell
Adventures in Modern Literature
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1970

8. Roger Babusci; Loutish Burns; Guy Doud and others
Prentice Hall Literature
Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1991.

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