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Running head: ASSIGNMENT 2

Assignment 2

Laura Thomson

Student ID: 3432338

PHIL 152: Basics in Critical Thinking, Reading and Writing

Athabasca University

August 2, 2020

(5) 1. For each set of instructions in this assignment (that is, questions 1–12), identify the
  direction words.

1. Identify
2. Use, to read, submit, note, answer
3. State
4. Explain
5. Quote, identify, state
6. Describe, explain, give, illustrate
7. Choose, copy, state, write, express, provide
8. Find, give, write, identify
9. Repeat
10. Write, give, put, explain
11. Find, write, identify, indicate, highlight, name
12. Repeat
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ASSIGNMENT 2

(20)   2. Use one of the two active reading methods to read the essay for this assignment.
Submit all your notes. For those steps usually done “in your head” (such as recite),
note briefly what you did in the step. If you use a Reading Inventory, when you
reach Rereading, only answer the questions from the first three bullets of
Rereading listed in the Reading Inventory table (p. 41).

(5)   3. In a word or phrase, state the topic of the passage.

(5)   4. What is the author’s purpose? In a sentence or two, explain what gave you this
impression.

(5)   5. Is the main idea explicit or implicit? If it is explicit, quote the thesis statement (in
quotation marks), and identify the page and paragraph number where it is located.
If the idea is implicit, state the main idea clearly, in your own words.
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ASSIGNMENT 2

(5)   6. Describe the tone of the essay. In a few sentences, explain what impact this tone has
on your reactions as a reader, and give an example to illustrate the tone.

(30)   7. From your reaction/reflection notes, choose and copy out a comment that triggers
a topic idea for you. Then, state the topic. State your purpose. State your main
idea. Now, write a brief paragraph (no longer than 200 words) in which you
express this main idea, and provide suitable supporting details.

(5)   8. Find an example of a coordinate sentence. Give the paragraph and page number
where it is located and write out the sentence. Identify the core parts of the
sentence (subject and verb), as well as the conjunction. When identifying the
example, keep in mind that not all instances of conjunctions connect two clauses.

(5)   9. Repeat the steps in Question 8 for a subordinate sentence.

(5)   10. Write out two examples of transitions from the essay. Give the paragraph and page
numbers where the examples are located, and if this is a direct quote, put it in
quotation marks. Explain what the transition indicates about relationships among
ideas.
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ASSIGNMENT 2

(5)   11. Find an example of comma use. Write out the sentence, identify it with quotation
marks, and indicate the paragraph and page number. Highlight the comma(s) you
are referring to, and name their use.

(5)   12. Repeat the steps in Question 11 for the use of a colon, semicolon, or dash.
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ASSIGNMENT 2

Red Smile

When I was living in New York in the 1960s, almost everyone I knew was walking or running
to the office of some psychiatrist. A hilarious drawing by the cartoonist Whitney Darrow,
in The New Yorker, depicting two parents and their children lying side by side on an office
floor in session with a psychiatrist, was said to have been drawn from his own life—or so
Whitney claimed. I might have travelled the psychiatry route, which my doctor urged me to do
after a painful divorce, except for a ludicrous mistake that saved me.

My doctor referred me to a psychiatrist whose office was right around the corner from me, two
blocks uptown and two streets across. On the morning of my appointment, I woke up early in
a nervous fit. I fiddled around, trying to decide what to wear; and then, what would I say when
I got there? But time was running out, and a voice in my head said, Hey! You better hurry up,
or you’ll be late.

Before I could dress, I had to have a bath. I was going to a doctor, wasn’t I? For as long as I
can remember, I have never gone to a doctor or dentist or therapist appointment without
performing three sacred rituals: a bath, then the toilet; and finally, brushing my teeth.

I rushed through my bath, put on my best suit, a red one imported from Switzerland with brass
buttons and green trim, ran back into the bathroom to the toilet and then to the sink, grabbed
my toothbrush and toothpaste and scrubbed my teeth. Then I reached for the mouthwash, a
small bottle of red Lavoris, opened my mouth and sprayed inside.

A quick glance sideways in the mirror, a flash of red. Great heavens—my teeth were bright
red! I shut my eyes and opened them again. I was not having a bad dream. My teeth actually
were bright red. By mistake, I had picked up the small bottle beside the Lavoris, whose
contents were also red, and sprayed my teeth with the red antiseptic Merthiolate.

I looked at my watch. Right now I should be on the street, halfway to my appointment. I

What a time for this to happen! And with a psychiatrist, of all people. One look and he would
decide I was just plain nuts. I opened my mouth and bared my teeth in front of the mirror, and
tried to imagine that I was the psychiatrist seeing me, the patient, for the first time. I definitely
looked crazy. I hoped that eventually the red would wear off. In the meantime, after this
appointment—which it was too late to cancel—I would have to go into hiding.

I ran to the elevator, which crept slowly down eight floors, fled out the front door of my
building and sprinted up the street. I stopped only once, to grin at myself in the glass of a store
window. I could only pray: please, Doctor, whoever you are, have a sense of humour.
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ASSIGNMENT 2
I arrived at the psychiatrist’s office, panting, with only one minute to spare. A small bald man
in a white coat and gold-rimmed glasses opened the door. He introduced himself and led the
way into his office, which was furnished with the usual desk and chair and another chair
opposite, as well as a black leather couch off to one side. He sat down behind his desk and
pointed to the chair facing him. I sank into it while he silently stared at me. I took a deep
breath. Then I smiled my red smile. I thought, if he doesn’t smile back, I’m lost.

“You may wonder why I have red teeth,” I began hesitantly, continuing to smile.

He looked at me and waited. What could he possibly be thinking?

I stumbled through an explanation of how I had prepared for my appointment with him by
taking a bath, putting on my clothes and brushing my teeth, then spraying them with
Merthiolate. “A mistake,” I said with a nervous laugh. “I . . . I . . . thought I was spraying my
mouth with Lavoris, which I always do before I go to a doctor. You know, brush my teeth,
take a bath . . . and . . . so on . . . My mother always . . .” My voice trailed off. Oh, those cold
eyes! That stony face! As we used to say, not a laugh in a carload.

After an awful silence, he said, “What do you do?”

“I’m a writer,” I said. I brightened up. “As a matter of fact, I have a piece in The New
Yorker magazine this week.”

“What’s it about?” he said.

I smiled again, producing another impressive view of my scarlet teeth. “Eskimo food,” I said.

His eyebrows went up. Again he waited, silently. I stumbled through another explanation, this
time of how I had just returned from a trip to Arctic Canada, where I had been observing
attempts by Canadian government officials to introduce canned varieties of traditional Inuit
foods, seal and whale meat and whale blubber, into Native communities. During weather so
bad that the Inuit could not go out to hunt, or when their main food, caribou, mysteriously
disappeared, they were threatened with and sometimes died from starvation.

The challenge, I went on, was to convince the Inuit that foods they had always consumed fresh
could safely be eaten from a can during periods of food scarcity. We had brought with us
canned samples of whale meat, seal flippers and especially the blubber they loved to chew, for
them to try.

The psychiatrist was not at all interested in an experiment that I thought was fascinating. He
fiddled with the pencils on his desk, made a few notes and abruptly changed the subject. He
spent the rest of our allotted time in a thinly disguised attempt to find out whether I would be
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ASSIGNMENT 2
able to pay for future sessions. We made an appointment for the following week, and I
departed. What an ordeal.

The day before I was to return for a further exploration of my psyche, I called up and
cancelled.

There was a pause at his end of the phone. “I will of course expect you to pay for the cancelled
session,” he said. “You can give the payment to me when you come again the following
week.”

“Oh, Doctor, I won’t be coming back,” I said. “And since I am giving you plenty of notice, I
will not be paying you for the cancelled session.”

It was a long time before I sought help again. Then it was with a Danish therapist who read to
me from Hans Christian Andersen, and helped me plan the menu for the first dinner party I
was going to give in my whole life all by myself. I was going to have a pot roast because it
was so easy, and I was agonizing over whether to serve rice or potatoes with it.

“Potatoes,” he said.