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Day 46 Possible Mentor Text: A Man and His Cat



Day 46 is just a number. I am so far behind on my daily reading and then posting that I don't even know if I am in the right year. Still, when I make it, I will make it and no one will be the wiser. I am determined like that.

Source: 
Kreider, T. (2014, August 01). A man and his act. The New York Times, p. 1 Retrieved from https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/01/a-man-and-his-cat/

What is Sacred:
Krieder's essay is just fun to read. I wanted to rush through because it was funny and self-deprecating and a love poem to his cat and their 19-year relationship. I wanted to stop reading because this was a man who talked about loss in a way that was not depressing or morbid. That is a sign of a good essay from one who is a slow reader.

I have highlighted what is really good examples of humor in voice, but pulled out, it is out of context. Then, when I re read the whole piece, looking for that hilarious sound bite of a passage, I find other parts that when added together make this essay even more hilarious.

I guess I will just include the sentimental end of the essay even if it does not truly represent the value of this essay. Still, the sentimental conclusion, that self awareness and social observation on the state of man are indeed sacred.
A man who is in a room with a cat--whatever else we might say about that man--is not alone.
Connection to Current/Future Work:
As part of this mega curation project I am doing as an example for my English methods course, I am trying to use these aesthetically pleasing readings as mentor texts instead of just hoarding them to read again, which I am also doing.

It forces me to read these pieces, mostly essays, to get down to the essential question - using my 23 plus years of teaching English language arts experience, keeping in mind grades 6-12, how might I use these mentor texts and for what purpose? What skill/craft of the writer am I trying to mentor through this text?

I seem to be talking about Rosenblatt a lot when I am speaking to my students but it really is about my own transaction with text and the meaning making that ensues based on that transaction. To give Friere's very negative banking metaphor a different lens based on my own Indigenous, function driven way of knowing, my transaction depends on why I am at the bank in the first place. I am never there to just talk story with the teller (aesthetic reading), so I need to be a little more focused. Perhaps I am exchanging money or ordering yen/euros/Canadian dollars.

This forces me to rethink why am I in the bank and then what will transpire from this transaction? This little writing to learn exercise I am currently doing just made me hate this essay which I really like, but forge on and try not to let the depression of getting too technical spoil the creativity and sacredness of the writing in the first place.

9th grade. Iʻm just going to land there because I have two student teachers in freshman English. What is this good for? They are doing persuasion essays in their classes, mostly because the state of Hawaiʻi has one educational system and the teachers seem to be on one pre-prescribed scope and sequence based on a state-bought scripted curriculum.

Ignoring that rabbit hole, this is how I would use this as a mentor text. Relook at how the author uses "evidence" in paragraph 5 to then go into personal anecdotal connection to the "evidence" in paragraph 6. Notice his use of hyperbole to create humor. How might students use that in their own persuasive essays? This has nothing directly to do with  logos, pathos, ethos. . .(I can't remember the 4th technique). . .this has to do with CRAFT.

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