Assignment task: After reading "The Seven-Minute Life of Marc Lepine" answer the structure and style questions. Responses to each question should come in the form of a short paragraph.
Structure:
1. Where is Petrowski's Thesis Statement?
2. Tragic events leave people asking "why"? Point out all the reasons that Petrowski examines to explain this event. To what extent is her essay constructed through cause and effect?
3. How does paragraph 6 use comparison and contras?
4. What often-used technique of conclusion gives force to the closing?
Style:
1. In paragraph 1 and elsewhere, Petrowski groups sentences together with commas. Do you view this as faulty punctuation, or is it a way for Petrowski to express feelings about this subject? Are we ever justified in breaking rules of punctuation and sentence structure?
2. Identify all the FIGURES OF SPEECH in paragraph 9. What do they contribute?
3. What feeling does paragraph 3 convey in its flurry of questions?