Name: _____________________________ Date: _________ Class: _______

 

SOAPSTONE

 

Who is the SPEAKER? Remember that it is not enough simply to name the speaker. What can you say about the speaker based on references to the text?

 

What is the OCCASION? Be certain to discuss and record both the larger occasion, that is, those issues or ideas that must have made the speaker think about this incident.

 

Who is the AUDIENCE? To whom is the this text directed? It is not enough to say, “Anyone who reads it.” You will want to identify a certain audience by describing some of its characteristics.

 

What is the PURPOSE? The purpose could be purely a personal one, e.g. to assuage guilt, to boast. But it could also be directed at the audience, in which case you will have to decide what the message is and how the author wants this audience to respond.

 

What is the SUBJECT? You should be able to state the subject in a few words or a short phrase.

 

What is the TONE? Try to choose a description of the tone that fits the piece as a whole. You must also include specific words or phrases from the text and explain how they support your argument.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Name: ____________________________ Date: ____________ Class: ______

 

STEP ONE: Read the following excerpt and determine how it is a narrative.  Analyze the text by using the SOAPSTONE strategy.

 

Dust Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hurston (New York: Harper Perennial, 1996).

 

            But nine months rolled around, and I just would not get on with the walking       business. I was strong, crawling well, but showed no inclination to use my            feet. I might remark in passing, that I still don’t like to walk. Then I was        over a year old, but still I would not walk. They made allowances for my            weight, but yet, that was no real reason for not trying.

 

            They tell me that a old sow-hog taught me how to walk. That is, she didn’t        instruct me in detail, but she convinced me that I really ought to try.

 

            It was like this. My mother was going to have collard greens for dinner, so       she took the dishpan and went down to the spring to wash the greens. She left me sitting on the floor, and gave me a hunk of corn bread to keep            quiet. Everything was going along all right, until the sow with her litter of           pigs in convoy came abreast of the door. She must have smelled the corn       bread I was messing with and scattering crumbs on the floor. So, she      came right in, and began to nuzzle around.

 

            My mother heard my screams and came running. Her heart must have             stood still when she saw the sow in there, because hogs have been            known to eat human flesh. But I was not taking this thing sitting down. I             had been placed by a chair, and when my mother got inside the door, I            had pulled myself up by that chair and was getting around it right smart.

 

            As for the sow, poor misunderstood lady, she had no interest in me except     my bread. I lost that in scrambling to my feet and she was eating it. She             had much less intention of eating Mama’s baby, than Mama had of eating hers. With no more suggestions from the sow or anybody else, it seems          that I just took to walking and kept the thing a’ going. The strangest thing             about it was that once I found the use of my feet, they took to wandering. I            always wanted to go. I would wander off in the woods all alone, following         some inside urge to go places. This alarmed my mother a great deal. She      used to say that she believed a woman who was an enemy of hers had   sprinkled “travel dust” around the doorstep the day I was born. That was   the only explanation she could find. I don’t know why it never occurred to          her to connect my tendency with my father, who didn’t have a thing on his       mind but this town and the next one. That should have given her a sort of           hint. Some children are just bound to take after their fathers in spite of         women’s prayers.