Serving in Florida by Barbara Ehrenreich
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Questions
1. Does Barbara Ehrenreich seem to be exaggerating the workplace as she describes it in this selection? Explain. If you have worked in a restaurant, does her description of the environment match your experience?
2. What is Ehrenreich's attitude towards her co-workers? Does she appreciate them? Is she condescending? How do you react to her observations?
4. According to Ehrenreich, who is to blame for the situation of those who work at low-paying jobs in restaurants? Are there heroes or villains, or does the workplace itself change the people who are a part of it?
5. Overall, what is your attitude toward Ehrenreich and her method of research? Does choosing to live as one of the working poor for short time -- as a kind of visitor or tourist -- give her an accurate picture of their lives? Explain whether you find her presentation of them respectful, convincing, sympathetic, patronizing, superficial, or some combination of these? Cite specific passages.
6. Ehrenreich opens the selection with "Picture a fat person's hell..." (para.1). What is the intended effect? Does she want to shock or disgust the reader? Is she being humorous?
7. Ehrenreich provides fairly extensive commentary in footnotes. What is the effect of this strategy? In the footnotes, is her tome different from one used in the body of the piece?
8. Ehrenreich occasionally uses crude expressions Are they appropriate? What is her intended effect in shifting to diction that is not informal but, some would say, crass?
9. In this selection, Ehrenreich does not state a thesis or indicate directly what her purpose is; instead, she works by inference and implication. What is her purpose? State it directly in a sentence that begins, "In this selection, Ehrenreich..."
10. How does Ehrenreich establish her ethos in this selection? What part does her relationship with George play into her appeal to ethos? What is her pathos?
11. Who is Ehrenreich's audience? Base your answer on the tone you detect in specific passages?
2. What is Ehrenreich's attitude towards her co-workers? Does she appreciate them? Is she condescending? How do you react to her observations?
4. According to Ehrenreich, who is to blame for the situation of those who work at low-paying jobs in restaurants? Are there heroes or villains, or does the workplace itself change the people who are a part of it?
5. Overall, what is your attitude toward Ehrenreich and her method of research? Does choosing to live as one of the working poor for short time -- as a kind of visitor or tourist -- give her an accurate picture of their lives? Explain whether you find her presentation of them respectful, convincing, sympathetic, patronizing, superficial, or some combination of these? Cite specific passages.
6. Ehrenreich opens the selection with "Picture a fat person's hell..." (para.1). What is the intended effect? Does she want to shock or disgust the reader? Is she being humorous?
7. Ehrenreich provides fairly extensive commentary in footnotes. What is the effect of this strategy? In the footnotes, is her tome different from one used in the body of the piece?
8. Ehrenreich occasionally uses crude expressions Are they appropriate? What is her intended effect in shifting to diction that is not informal but, some would say, crass?
9. In this selection, Ehrenreich does not state a thesis or indicate directly what her purpose is; instead, she works by inference and implication. What is her purpose? State it directly in a sentence that begins, "In this selection, Ehrenreich..."
10. How does Ehrenreich establish her ethos in this selection? What part does her relationship with George play into her appeal to ethos? What is her pathos?
11. Who is Ehrenreich's audience? Base your answer on the tone you detect in specific passages?
