Alliteration and hyphenate is greatly used in The American Pageant in order to enhance the history of The United States. In this excerpt which describes Kennedy’s New Frontier, the author uses big numbers, alliteration, and hyphenates as descriptive devices in order for students to categorize the given information as positive or negative and unknowingly have a set view on this topic in history. Some examples from The American Pageant include, “A stampede of 43,129,566 Johnson votes trampled the Republican ticket, with its 27,178,188 supporters,” “steeped in sorrow,” and “barbed-wired-and-concrete barrier.” Alliteration is also shown in the sub-titles of the selection on Kennedy’s New Frontier, “Foreign Flare-Ups,” “Cuban Confrontations,” and
…show more content…
For example, when describing the event of which America learns that the Soviet Union has installed nuclear weapons in Cuba, the author of The Americans wrote,“For the next six days, the world faced the terrifying possibility of nuclear war” (The Americans 882). While the authors of The American Pageant describe the same event as, “The world teetered breathlessly on the brink of global atomization.” Continuing on with the crisis over Cuba, The American Pageant fails to recognize the criticism on Kennedy. Instead, the author portrays Kennedy as “sobered by the appalling risks he had just run, push[ing] harder for a nuclear test-ban treaty with the Soviet Union.” While The Americans present the criticism for both Khrushchev and Kennedy. These two texts also differ greatly when describing the Berlin Wall. Using hyphenate as well as a simile, The American Pageant specifically described the Berlin Wall as, “A barbed-wire-and-concrete barrier, the ‘Wall of Shame’ looked to the free world like a gigantic enclosure around a concentration camp.” While The Americans simply defined the Berlin Wall as, “a concrete wall topped with barbed wire that severed the city in two” (The …show more content…
The critical thinking issue here is who gets to decide what words are deemed offensive and if those words should be banned. This is similar to the topic of United States history because both show signs of omission as well as raising the question of who gets to decide what is omitted. However, the difference between the two topics is the party that wants the cleansing. In “The Coddling of the American Mind,” Lukianoff and Haidt explain that it is the students of America’s colleges and universities who feel the need to “scrub campuses clean of words, ideas, and subjects that might cause discomfort or give offense.” Although it is a different party that wants change in a system of learning, similar problems still arise nonetheless. By attempting to shield students from words, ideas, and people that might give offense, students will not be able to thrive in a world full of words and ideas that are out of their control. This is similar to teaching a group of students United States history from one point of view, then having that same group of students tested on United States history from a completely different point of view and failing.
For example, when describing the event of which America learns that the Soviet Union has installed nuclear weapons in Cuba, the author of The Americans wrote,“For the next six days, the world faced the terrifying possibility of nuclear war” (The Americans 882). While the authors of The American Pageant describe the same event as, “The world teetered breathlessly on the brink of global atomization.” Continuing on with the crisis over Cuba, The American Pageant fails to recognize the criticism on Kennedy. Instead, the author portrays Kennedy as “sobered by the appalling risks he had just run, push[ing] harder for a nuclear test-ban treaty with the Soviet Union.” While The Americans present the criticism for both Khrushchev and Kennedy. These two texts also differ greatly when describing the Berlin Wall. Using hyphenate as well as a simile, The American Pageant specifically described the Berlin Wall as, “A barbed-wire-and-concrete barrier, the ‘Wall of Shame’ looked to the free world like a gigantic enclosure around a concentration camp.” While The Americans simply defined the Berlin Wall as, “a concrete wall topped with barbed wire that severed the city in two” (The …show more content…
The critical thinking issue here is who gets to decide what words are deemed offensive and if those words should be banned. This is similar to the topic of United States history because both show signs of omission as well as raising the question of who gets to decide what is omitted. However, the difference between the two topics is the party that wants the cleansing. In “The Coddling of the American Mind,” Lukianoff and Haidt explain that it is the students of America’s colleges and universities who feel the need to “scrub campuses clean of words, ideas, and subjects that might cause discomfort or give offense.” Although it is a different party that wants change in a system of learning, similar problems still arise nonetheless. By attempting to shield students from words, ideas, and people that might give offense, students will not be able to thrive in a world full of words and ideas that are out of their control. This is similar to teaching a group of students United States history from one point of view, then having that same group of students tested on United States history from a completely different point of view and failing.