Why? Well, take a look at this quotation from Joshua Foer, which appeared in his article "Utopia for Beginners" in the December 24, 2012 issue of The New Yorker:
“There are so many ways for speakers of English to see the world. We can glimpse, glance, visualize, view, look, spy, or ogle. Stare, gawk, or gape. Peek, watch, or scrutinize. Each word suggests some subtly different quality: looking implies volition; spying suggests furtiveness; gawking carries an element of social judgment and a sense of surprise. When we try to describe an act of vision, we consider a constellation of available meanings. But if thoughts and words exist on different planes, then expression must always be an act of compromise.”
*FYI: Home in means to direct on a target. The phrasal verb derives from the 19th-century use of homing pigeons, but it resurged in the 20th century to refer to missiles that home in on their targets. It’s also commonly used metaphorically, where to home in on something is focus on and make progress toward it. Hone in, a misspelling so common many dictionaries now list it as a variant of home in, derives from a mishearing of the latter. The verb hone means to sharpen or to perfect, and it’s a transitive verb, meaning it must act directly on something, so it makes no logical sense with in.
In light of this illuminating (see what I did there?) explanation by Foer, I had you choose ONE WORD and ONE WORD ONLY from T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" in class on Friday. Analyze how your word contributes to the reader's overall understanding of J. Alfred as a person. If, as Eliot claimed, all words in a poem should be engineered in some effort to provide an objective correlative that leaves the reader with a specific feeling, how does your word achieve that purpose?
Make sure your response is 3E: eloquent, exhaustive, and effective! DUE BY FRIDAY at 8AM!
Why am I having you do this? Because it's good training, kiddos. As you know, this is the kind of analysis you need to train your brain to do quickly and effectively for the AP exam. And I know you can do it. Practice makes progress.
DARE.
