Fluent Essays

Active Reading: 3 Steps (Passes) Consider the author Look up 3 interesting facts about Oscar Wilde (the author of The Picture of Dorian Gray book). Facts that may be useful to understand his novel. english_101_worksheet_connecting_reading_and_writing_and_3_steps_of_active_reading.pdf Unformatted Attachment Preview Yegoryan 1 English 101 Worksheet: Connecting Reading & Writing and 3 Steps of Active Reading STUDENT: _______________________________________________ Active Reading: 3 Steps (Passes) Pass 1: Preview (Attached is an excerpt from The Picture of Dorian Gray) BUT Before reading the passage, you should:  Consider the author Look up 3 interesting facts about Oscar Wilde (the author of The Picture of Dorian Gray book). Facts that may be useful to understand his novel. 1. ______________________________________________________________________________ 2. ______________________________________________________________________________ 3. ______________________________________________________________________________  Consider when the book was written and think critically, connecting the time to the text Look up important information about the historical time during which this story was written/published. Note some important changes or movements that occurred at that time. Write out 3 facts from your research. Think/ predict how the changes or the peculiarities of the time can be depicted in the passage. 1. _____________________________________________________________________________ 2. _____________________________________________________________________________ 3. ____________________________________________________________________________  Consider the title and the visual. Make predictions! Think about the title and the image; note your thoughts and interpretations. Who are the men in the image? What is their profession? What are their personalities? What can you say about the man in the portrait? How can you connect the title of the book with the image? Write your assumptions as you answer these questions: _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ 1 Yegoryan 2 Pass 2: Reading for Meaning Now, read the passage from the book The Picture of Dorian Gray and:  Understand the main concept of the passage  Look up the definitions of words you may not know  Annotate: mark important information from the passage (underline or highlight)  Make notes in the margins: show your thoughts as you are reading and make inferences THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY By Oscar Wilde (Some sentences of the original are rephrased and simplified) Dorian made no answer, but passed listlessly in front of his picture and turned toward it. When he saw it, he drew back and his cheeks flushed for a moment with pleasure. A look of joy came into his eyes, as if he had recognized himself for the first time. He stood there motionless and in wonder, not even listening that Hallward (the artist) was speaking to him. Suddenly, the sense of his own beauty came on him. He had never felt it before. Basil Hallward’s compliments had seemed to him to be exaggerations of friendship. He had listened to them, laughed at them, and forgotten them. They had not influenced him. But now, as he met Lord Henry Wotton and heard strange ideas on youth and beauty, and his terrible warning of becoming old, Dorian started to worry. Now, as he stood gazing at his own loveliness, the full reality of Henry’s words flashed in him mind. Yes, there would be a day when his face would be wrinkled and wizen, his eyes dim and colorless, the grace of his figure broken and deformed. The scarlet will pass away from his lips, and the gold color from his hair. The life that was to make his soul would mar his body. He would become old, dreadful, and hideous. Looking at the beauty that his picture had and would always have, Dorian wished that it should be the picture to grow old, and he should stay young and handsome. (Wilde 27). Pass 3: Reading with Critical Attitude: a) Express your opinion about the passage and the main topic/ theme of the passage. In 2-4 sentences write what you think about the overall passage and about beauty that fades away with age. Also, state what you think about Dorian’s wish that he should stay always young and handsome. _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ 2 Yegoryan 3 _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ b) Looking for more: After reading Dorian Gray’s concerns of beauty, consider these excerpts from different articles. Below, read the 3 different passages about “beauty” to gain knowledge/ information to then express your personal opinion about this topic. Article 1: We’re All A Little Gray By Reg Tolentino’s “Dour in Gray – How Boring Kills” published in Shades of Gray: Two Reviews of Oscar Wild’s ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray.’ October 2015 Who wouldn’t want to be desired? Dorian Gray’s wish – to forever be seen in others’ eyes as perfect – is now possible with technology. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook – all broadcast the best of us to the world. Each edited moment, flawless, each insightful quip, well researched, and every iconic location geotagged. And when everyone’s life is a highlight reel – with everyone in an arm’s race of perfect poses – “epic” becomes normal. And no one remembers normal. Somewhere, locked in a room we haven’t used since we were young, covered in a velvet drape, sits our true selves, changing, for no one else to see. And that – is the tragedy of 21st century Dorian Grays – consigning themselves to a lonely, not death, but unlived existence. These days, “Pictures are worth a thousand words…most of them, lies.” And people choose the beautiful lie, over a less-than-perfect truth. ______________________ Article 2: Why do we all want to be young and beautiful? From the evolutionary psychological perspective By: Meri Tadinac Original Scientific Papers Acta Clin Croat 2010; 49:501-508 Throughout the history, we can find evidence that beauty was always important: the art of all periods celebrates ideal beauty; cosmetic industry is not a modern discovery; the oldest evidence of the use of cosmetic products was found in Egypt dating from 4000 years B.C. Egyptians had almost all cosmetic products we have today; there is a sentence devoted to beautifying even in Old Testament; the word cosmetics has its origin in the Greek word ‘kosmetikos’, which means ‘skilled in beautifying’. Attractive people are considered to be more intelligent than less attractive people and are attributed the whole range of positive qualities; generally it is believed that “what is beautiful is good.” In social sciences, it was long thought that the standards of beauty are culturally determined, which would mean that different people would have different beauty standards, which is phrased in the famous maxim “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” However, two sets of findings question this belief. First, it has been shown that standards of beauty are set early in life. Samuels and Ewy, and Langlois Etal studied the reactions to female faces in 3- and 8-month-old babies. Both groups of babies looked longer at more attractive faces than at less attractive ones. In another study, children played significantly longer with dolls with beautiful face than with dolls with unattractive face. Since children could not have learned and internalized the standards of beauty this early in life, these findings suggest that the basic standards of beauty could be innate and not learned or acquired through socialization. ______________________ 3 Yegoryan 4 Article 3: Narcissism or Empowerment? Meredith Hamilton Staff writer The Christian Science Monitor, August 6, 2015 Selfies. We love them, we hate them, and we rarely admit that we take them. But if were being honest, we all have a few on our camera rolls. A recent report from Ofcom, a Britishbased communications regulator, found that an estimated 1.2 billion selfies were taken in Britain in 2014. Nearly a third of British adults admitted to taking a selfie, with one in 10 doing so at least once a week in a sample size of 3,756. With a tap of a screen or the touch of a button you can capture yourself grinning from ear to ear, looking moodily into the distance, or popping a classic duck face. Instagram users unabashedly share their selfies with the world, using hashtags like #nofilter to promote natural beauty. The hashtag #selfie alone has over 300 million posts. Are we learning to love ourselves through the lens of a camera, or are we bordering on narcissism? A January study by Ohio State University found that [those] who posted more online photos of themselves than others scored higher on measures of narcissism but also on anti-social personality trait, psychopathy, and are more prone to self-objectification. c) Elaborate: Writing a Summary and Reflection Choose one of the articles you just read and summarize it in 3-5 sentences. Then reflect your opinion (in 3-5 sentences) about that article and about the notion of beauty today / in our and/or in other societies. Summary of Article #_____ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ Reflection: Your opinion about that article and about the notion of beauty today (4-6 sentences) _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ 4 Yegoryan 5 _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ d) Now, find a quote about beauty that may be interesting to discuss in-class. Write the quote you found: _________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ 5 ... Purchase answer to see full attachment