Willene Drine Nazaire Ms.

Lisa Cohen AP Language and Composition 13 April 2012 Non-Fiction Reading Assignment- A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman 1. Argument: Nothing is more memorable than smell. (Ackerman 7) Proof: One scent can be unexpected, momentary, and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the Poconos, when wild blueberry bushes teemed with succulent fruit and the opposite sex was as mysterious as space travel [] (Ackerman 7) Commentary: Ackerman takes on a reminiscent tone and uses exemplification in describing a childhood memory of her own. Its effective as it creates a mental picture of the memory with enough detail to be specific but not too much that the reader cannot relate. 2. Argument: Sex is the ultimate intimacy. (Ackerman 108) Proof: We play at devouring each other, digesting each other, we nurse on each other, drink each others fluids, actually get under each others skin. (Ackerman 108) Commentary: Ackerman uses asyndeton and climax through balance. This makes the pace of the proof go quicker, adding to the racing feeling that Ackerman creates. She strives to create vivid imagery in the mind of the reader that will lead them to see that she is right rather quickly. 3. Argument: We dont always eat food for their taste but sometimes for their feel. (Ackerman 168) Proof: I once ate a popular dish in Amazonian Brazil, pato no tucup [] whose main attraction is that its anesthetic: It makes your mouth as tingly numb as Benzedrine. [..] The effect was startling- It was as if my whole lips and whole mouth were vibrating. (Ackerman 168)

Nazaire 2 Commentary: Ackerman uses narration and description to tell the story of her own experience with a dish she ate for feeling. This sets up a bit of ethos since she has experienced this herself and can best explain why one would eat for feeling and not just taste. The reader can trust the story more readily. 4. Argument: [I]f you lose your sense of hearing, a crucial thread dissolves and you lose track of lifes logic. (Ackerman 175) Proof: Sounds thicken the sensory stew of our lives, and we depend on them to help us interpret, communicate with, and express the world around us. Outer space is silent, but on earth almost everything can make sound. (Ackerman 175) Commentary: Ackerman uses logos to get the reader to see the point that she is making. She highlights the uses of our hearing and the compares the relatively well-known terrain of earth with the foreign frontier of space. She uses deduction to allow the reader to see that sound is familiar while silence is not and thus without sound life becomes vague. 5. Argument: Our language is steeped in visual imagery. (Ackerman 230) Proof: [W]henever we compare one thing to another, as we constantly do [] we are relying on our sense of vision to capture the action of the mood. Seeing is proof positive, we stubbornly insist (I saw it with my own eyes). (Ackerman 230) Commentary: Ackerman uses exemplification to get the reader to see what she means. She provides copious examples of everyday expressions to think deeply about the significance of what she demonstrating. Ackerman also uses a colloquial tone getting the reader to laugh at other examples and then become more accepting to the arguments that follow.

Nazaire 3 Ackerman has a distinct style. She uses exemplification, description, narration, comparison and definition, although the most widely used and most unique is description. Ackerman uses description to create vivid imagery in the mind of the reader that allows them to not only see but to feel and think as well. The reader conveys her attitude early on in the book by means of an introduction. She calls herself a sensuist and explains her devotion to experiencing the senses (xviii). She develops tone through her use of words. Ackerman is colloquial and makes a point of so by creating vivid imagery while being very frank. This also adds to air of hilarity as Ackerman will describe a subject before mentioning it and surprises the reader with what she says instead as she demonstrates in saying, [] The near orgasmic caravan of pleasure, shiver, pain, and relief that we call a back scratch (81). I would defend Ackermans argument that Nothing is more memorable than smell (7). Its something that I experience nearly everyday. Smells bring to the fore memories that I didnt even know I remembered. Ackerman agrees in saying, Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines, hidden under the weedy mass of many years and experiences (7).The smell of chicken noodle soup often takes one back to a childhood malady when their mother or another loved one would serve them the soup hot and steaming. It would make them feel better instantly. The same smell, however, takes me to different place. It takes me to pre-school where chicken noodle soup was my favorite lunch. It reminds me of sitting around a large table surrounded by many other kids my age, eating soup, babbling, and doing things to gain the attention of our care givers. Later after clean-up time we would take out our mats for nap time settle next to our friends and sleep soon to be awakened by a snack of oatmeal crme pies and our parents who were waiting to take us home.

Nazaire 4 Read the passage carefully and then write an essay in which you analyze the strategies Ackerman uses to develop her definition of touch. Touch is the oldest sense, and the most urgent. If a sabertoothed tiger is touching a paw to your shoulder, you need to know right away. Any first time touch, or change in touch (from gentle to stinging, say), sends the brain into a flurry of activity. Any continuous low-level touch becomes background. Then we touch something on purpose- our lover, the fender of a new car, the tongue of a penguinwe set in motion our complex web of touch receptors, making them fire by exposing them to a sensation, changing it, exposing them to another. The brain reads the firings and stop-firings like Morse code and registers smooth, raspy, cold. Touch receptors can be blanked out simply by tedium. When we put on a heavy sweater, were acutely aware of its texture, weight, and feel against our skin, but after a while we completely ignore it. A constant consistent pressure registers at first, activating the touch receptors; then the receptors stop working. So wearing wool or a wrist watch or a necklace doesnt bother us much, unless the day heats up or the necklace breaks. When any change occurs, the receptors fire and we become suddenly aware. Research suggests that, though there are four main types of receptors, there are many others along a wide spectrum of response. After all, our palette of feelings through touch is more elaborate that just hot, cold, pain, and pressure. Many touch receptors combine to produce what we call a twinge. Consider all the textures of

Nazaire 5 lick, pat, wipe, fondle, knead; all the prickling bruises, tingling, brushing, scratching, banging, fumbling, kissing, nudging. Chalking your hands before you climb onto uneven parallel bars. A plunge into an icy farm pond on a summer day when the air temperature and the body temperature are the same. The feel of a sweet delicately licking moist beads from your ankle, Reaching blindfolded into a bowl of Jell-O as part of a club initiation. Pulling a foot out of the mud. The squish of wet sand between the toes. Pressing on angel food cake. The near orgasmic caravan of pleasure, shiver, pain and relief that we call a back scratch (80-81) Ackerman, a sensuist wholly devoted to experiencing the sense, defines what touch is. She does this by means of a colloquial tone to make the reader feel at ease and open to receive the point that Ackerman tries to make. She also employs exemplification and description which serves to create vibrant images in the mind of the reader which permits them to interact with the passage and think deeply about what she tries to convey. Usually, when one thinks of things that have to do with the body and how it works they think of a medical textbook or a doctor who incomprehensible jargon. Common people usually cannot process what is explained because of this and turn for help and information elsewhere by means of a more understandable source. Ackerman doesnt turn her readers away by going over their heads but stays on their level by using more informal and conversational language. She demonstrates this in explaining the scientific side of touch, Research suggests that, though there are four main types of receptors, there are many others along a wide spectrum of response. (80) By presenting herself more as peer than an instructor of the reader, Ackerman allows the reader to relax and understand completely what she is

Nazaire 6 expressing. After setting up a situation where the reader is in the best capability to engage in reading the passage, Ackerman then begins to dazzle them with her illustrations. The best part about reading a book is the ability of the author to connect to the reader using description to create images in the mind of the reader so that they are absorbed by the experience. Ackerman provides examples as proof for her argument but also describes them and creates an image in the mind of the reader that allows them to see what exactly touch is. She starts in saying that [t]ouch is the oldest sense, and most urgent. Her proof that [i]f a saber-toothed tiger is touching a paw to your shoulder, you need to know right away, provides a humorous image a caveman in my mind. He is eating dinner by the fire in the dark when suddenly he is aware of pressure on his left shoulder. He turns around quickly to see the paw of a saber-toothed on his shoulder and after pausing for a millisecond runs away to prevent from becoming dinner. This scene certainly doesnt play out in the mind of every reader, however Ackerman takes care to be specific enough so we understand what she is referring to although not so specific that we cant relate. An example of this is found where she starts to exemplify the complexity of our palate of touch, [r]eaching blindfolded into a bowl of Jell-O as part of club initiation. Perhaps not every reader has put their hands into a bowl of Jell-O as part of a club initiation, however one can think of what they have put their hand into. Ackermans copious amount of examples and her descriptions allow all of the readers to engage with the text and have fun reading. Ackerman gets the reader to understand what touch is by making them feel what it is. She does this first by putting them at ease using a colloquial tone. Then the reader, relaxed and in good position to receive the point that Ackerman is trying to convey, is tickled by the stunning imagery elicited by descriptions in her examples. The reader enjoys reading the passage and is thus best able to understand what touch is.

Nazaire 7 Works Cited Ackerman, Diane. A Natural History of the Senses. New York: Vintage Books, 1990. Print.