Chapter 7: More Thought Patterns
Lab Activity 31: The Comparison-and-Contrast Pattern
 
Objective:
To use transitions and the comparison-and-contrast pattern to identify the details and main idea in a paragraph.

arrow.gifStep 1: Read the following paragraphs from a college sociology textbook, and answer the questions. Your instructor will tell you whether to write the answers in your book or to submit them online for electronic grading.

arrow.gifStep 2: Return to Activity 31 in the Lab Manual to complete the concept map.


      1. It is a struggle to learn a new culture, for the behaviors and ways of thinking contrast with the one already learned. This can lead to inner turmoil. One way to handle the conflict is to cut ties with your first culture. This, however, can create a sense of loss that is recognized only later in life.
—Henslin, Essentials of Sociology, 5th ed., p. 70.


Which italicized word indicates a comparison-and-contrast pattern? 

 
 
 
 
      2. Richard Rodriguez, a literature professor and essayist, was born in the 1950s to working-class Mexican immigrants. Wanting their son to be successful in their adopted land, his parents named him Richard instead of Ricardo. While his English-Spanish hybrid name indicates the parents' aspirations for their son, it was also an omen of the conflict Richard would experience.
—Henslin, Essentials of Sociology, 5th ed., p. 70.


Which italicized word indicates a comparison or a contrast? 

 
 
 
 
      3. Like other children of Mexican immigrants, Richard's first language was Spanish—a rich mother tongue that gave him his orientation to the world. Until the age of 5, when he began school, Richard knew only fifty words in English. He describes what happened when he began school:
The change came gradually but early. When I was beginning grade school, I noted to myself the fact hat the classroom environment was so different in its styles and assumptions from my own family environment that survival would essentially entail a choice between both worlds. When I became a student, I was literally "remade"; neither I nor my teachers considered anything I had known before as relevant. I had to forget most of what my culture had provided, because to remember it was a disadvantage. The past and its cultural values became detachable, like a piece of clothing grown heavy on a warm day and finally put away.
—Henslin, Essentials of Sociology, 5th ed., p. 70.


Which italicized transition word indicates a comparison or a contrast? 

 
 
 
 
      4. According to Rodriguez, what was like a piece of clothing grown heavy on a warm day that was finally put away? 

 
 
 
 
      5. As happened to millions of immigrants before him, whose parents spoke German, Polish, Italian, and so on, learning English eroded family and class ties and ate away at his ethnic roots. For him, language and education were not simply devices that eased the transition to the dominant culture. Instead, they transformed Richard into a pocho, "a Mexican with gringo aspirations." They slashed at the roots that had given him life.
—Henslin, Essentials of Sociology, 5th ed., p. 70.


From this paragraph, you could conclude that learning English  

 
 
 
 
      6. Which culture does a pocho withdraw from? 

 
 
 
 
      7. To face such inner turmoil is to confront a fork in the road. Some turn one way and withdraw from the new culture—a clue that helps explain the high dropout rate of Latinos from U.S. schools. Others go in the opposite direction and, cutting ties with their family and cultural roots, wholeheartedly adopt the new culture.
—Henslin, Essentials of Sociology, 5th ed., p. 70.


The explanation for the high dropout rate of Latinos in U.S. schools is that some Latinos choose to cut ties with 

 
 
 
 
      8. Rodriguez took the second road. He excelled in his new language—so well, in fact, that he graduated from Stanford University and then became a graduate student in English at the University of California at Berkeley. He was even awarded a prestigious Fulbright fellowship to study English Renaissance literature at the British Museum.
—Henslin, Essentials of Sociology, 5th ed., p. 70.


"Rodriguez took the second road" means that 

 
 
 
 
      9. But the past wouldn't let Rodriguez alone. Prospective employers were impressed with his knowledge of Renaissance literature, but at job interviews they would ask if he would teach the Mexican novel in translation and be an adviser to Latino students. Rodriguez was haunted by the image of his grandmother, the warmth of the culture he had left behind, the language and thought to which he had become a stranger.
—Henslin, Essentials of Sociology, 5th ed., p. 70.


The transition word But indicates that Richard Rodriguez  

 
 
 
 
      10. Richard Rodriguez represents millions of immigrants—not just those of Latino origin but those from other cultures, too—who want to be a part of the United States without betraying their past. They fear that to integrate into U.S. culture is to lose their roots. They are caught between two cultures, each beckoning, each offering rich rewards.
—Henslin, Essentials of Sociology, 5th ed., p. 70.


The author compares Rodriguez to 

 
 
 
 





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