Questions for Active Reading

Questions for Active Reading Page 13

1.) In my opinion I think that Powell’s purpose that he had in mind at
the time of writing his autobiography was to inform his audience of the
type of hardship that he faced regarding racism in America. I think that
he also wanted to tell his audience that people are not automatically
handed a prestigious position as Powell acquired, but people have to
work hard to get to where they want to be, and many times it isn’t easy.
Powell tried to achieve his purposes by introducing where he came from
and transitioning that to where he was going to go and describing how he
was told to behave in his new state. He also achieved his purpose by
describing himself as a player on the field and how he was going to play
if he could only play on one side of the field.
Two examples from the reading to support how Powell achieved his
purposes are “Davis had gotten himself into trouble in the South,
Brookhart said, because he had tried to buck the system. The colonel was
telling me, in effect, not to rock the boat, to be a “good
Negro.””(Powell, b. 1937). This quote taken from the passage shows how
Powell describes the racism that he will face when he moves into the
South. This other quote shows that Powell was not prepared to just stay
there and take the racism, “…I was not going to let bigotry make me a
victim instead of a full human being. I occasionally felt hurt; I felt
anger but most of all I felt challenged. I’ll show you!”
2.) I think that Powell intended audience was people who think they are
being faced with something unfair or believe that they cannot accomplish
something based on their status or level in life. I recommend this
reading to anyone who once had a dream to become more than what they are
and have somewhere along the line become faced with a huge challenge and
somehow gave up on their dream.
3.) If I were to describe the writer I would say that his tone is
thankful at the beginning of the passage. However it does change to
innocent towards the middle of the passage and then finally ends as
determined when he realizes that he is always going to be faced with
racism if he does not stand up and do something about it.
I admire Colin Powell for all the hardships and times that he has had to
face throughout his life and then be able to hold such a prominent
position. I do not think that one can fully appreciate someone unless
they know that person’s background. If you don’t really know where the
person comes from or what the person has done I don’t think you can form
a true opinion about the person. Since I did not know much about
Powell’s background I did not admire him as much as I do now that I have
read this passage from his autobiography.



Questions for Active Reading Page 19


1.) I think that Goldberg’s purpose of this excerpt was to inform people
that it is not always easy to just begin to write. For most people that
is the case. Her solution to that problem is to just continue to write
no matter how awkward it may sound.
One thing within the reading that that identifies her purpose is that
she focused on not worrying about how your writing comes out and just
let it flow onto the paper.
2.) While writing I think that Goldberg’s intended audience was probably
students who are discouraged by the way their writing comes out
naturally, as well as people who are interested in starting to write.
Audiences who may not benefit from this passage would be people who are
not at all interested in writing and perhaps people who are beyond this
level of writing that Goldberg is describing.
3.) Goldberg’s subject is writing, mainly the beginning of writing when
your ideas first start to generate and you need to get it onto paper.
Her subject based on people is those who are starting to write but may
feel that the beginning of their writing is off to a rough start.
Her attitude towards the subject is very understanding, optimistic. She
has a don’t give up just continue and it will get better type of
attitude. She tries to give advice to the new writers and she also gives
an example of one of her best students that went through the same
problem and how he was able to overcome it.