A. Read:
- “In a First, U.S. Declares Shortage on Colorado River, Forcing Water Cuts by Henry Fountain (nonfiction article)
- Also, choose one of the two following fiction readings (short story/ chapter):
Excerpt from The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi (fiction)
Or
“The Tamarisk Hunter” by Paolo Bacigalupi (fiction)
B. Answer the following questions. Make sure you include support for your ideas and opinions: you are required to use direct quotations and in-text citations for most of your responses. Usually, we don’t include artificially-generated page numbers in electronic source citations, but for the sake of practice, use the page numbers that appear in each reading. You cannot create a Works Cited page for this assignment because you do not have all of the citation information.
Do not use any secondary (research) sources for your work, with exception to questions that ask you to do so. Responses should express your own opinion and analysis. You will see when you read the questions that the kind of summaries and overviews you can find online in sites such as GradeSaver are not going to work out here.
- Which character(s) do you like and/ or relate to in “The Tamarisk Hunter” or the excerpt from The Water Knife? Which ones do you not? Describe how the story you have selected (“The Tamarisk Hunter” or The Water Knife) begins. What is confusing to you? What is intriguing? Compare the way the story opens to the development of the story itself. What clues do you get along the way about what is important in the story?
- Either answer A or B, depending on which short story you chose to read.
A. Although “The Tamarisk Hunter” is classified as dystopian fiction/fantasy, it contains a number of elements and references to the real world. It also contains elements that, while fiction, are possible; these elements/things/ways of living might actually happen in our near future. Discuss what you think is real, possible, and impossible in the story: find at least one example of each. Explain why you chose each example.
B. Why does Angel Velasquez think that Charles Braxton is reliable? Edible? Explain. How do these details tell you what kind of a book this is going to be? (excerpt from The Water Knife)
- Either answer A or B, depending on which short story you chose to read.
A. Catherine Case is referred to as “Queen of the Colorado” in the excerpt from The Water Knife. Why?
B. What do you think you might do if you were in Lolo’s position (“The Tamarisk Hunter”), and why?
- The excerpt from The Water Knife and “The Tamarisk Hunter” are both fiction, but “In a First, U.S. Declares Shortage on Colorado River, Forcing Water Cuts,” the other reading (an article from The New York Times), more recently published, is not. Compare/contrast both the role of and portrayal of water and water use rights/access in the West in both of your reading selections. Why is this issue important in the real world? What are some of the implications?
- What other readings like these have you read before? What appears to be each author’s perspective on the issues being written about in each of your two readings, and how can you tell/how do you know? What surprised you, if anything? What did not?
- Apply all the parts of the rhetorical situation to an analysis of “In a First, U.S. Declares Shortage on Colorado River, Forcing Water Cuts.”
Sample Solution
