Comparing Texts
Primal Screen
Essay by Ellen Goodman
The Pedestrian
Short Story by Ray Bradbury
Found online @
http://mikejmoran.typepad.com/files/pedestrian-bybradbury-1.pdf
Short Animated Film @
http://www.ianmack.com/videos/the-pedestrian-raybradbury/
Online Reading: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSQ8h7jjOo
TV Master
Advertisement
Additional Resource: Commercial for one of the
world’s first remote controls:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDbLC1Cjpek
Essential Question: Could you live without television?
Common Core Standards: RL.2: Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including
how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; RI. 2 Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text,
including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details RI.4 Determine the connotative meaning of words as they are used in a text RI.5 Analyze
in detail how an author’s ideas or claims are developed and refined. L.4 Determine the meaning of multiple meaning words.
Introduction: According to the Washington State Department of Education, the average adolescent aged 9-14 spend over 20 percent
of waking hours watching television, compared to 9 percent on hobbies and 3.5 percent on homework. Some research shows the
average viewing time of the American child between six and sixteen years of age is twenty to twenty-four hours a week.
In this lesson, you will read about the problems that are associated with watching too much television. You will read an essay, a short
story, and view an advertisement that explores the topic of watching television.
Making the Connection: How much television do you watch? Does it cut into time that you should be spending on homework,
hobbies, healthy activities, or time with family and friends? With a classmate, discuss the role television plays in your life and what your
life would be like if you gave television up? Could you go a whole week without the television? Are you up to the challenge?
Analyzing the Text: Writer’s Main Message
In this lesson you are going to works of social criticism. Social criticism is literature that addresses real-life issues-political, religious,
economic, and social. Both the essay and the short story comment on the same topic, the impact of television on viewers, but they
have different messages. They share their message, or central idea, through different methods as well. As you read, focus on
determining each writer’s message by paying close attention to the following hints:
In the Essay
In the short story
-direct statements
-facts, statistics, and additional evidence, such as a description of
people’s behavior and interactions
-explanations of causes and effects
-word choice
-tone
-the writer’s call to action at the end of the essay
-setting and imagery
-mood, sensory details, and word choice
-characters
-dialogue
-plot, particularly the conflict and its resolution
-the lesson or moral that you gain from the story
Strategies for Reading: Setting a Purpose for Reading
When you identify specific goals for reading, you are setting a purpose for your reading. For instance, after reading the next two texts,
you’ll be required to compare and contrast them. You’ll also be required to answer a short constructed response question, including
one that requires cross-textual synthesis. Thus, you will want to set some goals for your reading:
 Determine each writers message or central idea
 Identify the similarities and differences in the two messages and how each message is developed and shaped by details
 Identify evidence to support your final conclusions
Think about how you will go about accomplishing these goals. Will you keep track of similarities and differences as your read? Will you
try and determine each writer’s main message first and then go back to find evidence? A great way to stay organized and meet your
goals is to take notes and use graphic organizers.
Primal Screen
by Ellen Goodman
Close Read
Analyze Visuals: What are
your impressions of these
children in this photograph?
Someday, I would like to see a television series about a family that sites around the set watching a series
about a family that site around the set.
It might not make the Nielsen top ten, But that isn’t such a strange idea. Especially when you think
about what is going on right now.
Night after night, inside the tube, warm and wiggly families spend their prime time
“communicating” like crazy and “solving problems” together like mad. Meanwhile, outside the
tube, real families sit and wait for a commercial break just to talk to each other.
About the only subject that never comes up before our glazed eyes is what the medium does to our
family life. But, I suppose we already know that.
According to recent Gallup Poll, television comes out as a major heavy in our family lives. On the scale
of problems, TV didn’t rate as bad as inflation, but it ran neck-and-neck with unemployment.
According to a recent Roper Poll, it even causes fights. When people were asked what husbands and
wives argued about, money as the champion. But television was a strong contender. Considering how
much more time we spend in front of the tube that may not be such a shock.
To certain extent, we blame the programs. In the Gallup Poll, for example, people worried about the
overemphasis on sex and violence. But surely half of those e fights between husbands and wives must be
about more fundamental issue of turning it off.
Deep down below out poll-taking consciousness, we know that the worst aspect of our addiction isn’t
what’s on TV, but how long the TV is on. We can’t help but be aware of what happens when we spend
more time facing the screen than facing each other.
In that same Gallup Poll, a large number of us said that the way to improve family life is by sharing –
sharing family needs, recreational activities and chores. But when you are watching, you aren’t doing.
I am absolutely convinced that the average wife feels tuned out by the twelfth consecutive weekend
sports event because she is being tuned out. The average kid develops that distant, slack-jawed, hypnotic,
hooked stare because he or she is hooked.
Writer’s Message: Reread the
bolded lines. What issue doe
the author introduce by
contrasting sitcom families
and real life ones?
Common Core RI.4 – Slang
Slang is informal, sometimes
made-up words that
substitute for formal words.
Reread the bolded paragraph
above and these bolded
sentences. What does the
word tube refer to? Look tube
up in a dictionary and try to
figure out where its slang
meaning comes from. Next,
determine whether tube has a
positive or negative
connotation (feeling
associated with a word) in the
context of this essay.
In the same way, the people who spend night after night in front of the tube should worry about it.
They’ve become an audience and not a family. Television simply represents us with one model of family
life. Watching it makes us fit another model.
Writer’s Message: What is
Goodman’s message about
excessive TV viewing?
But the striking thing in all of this research about how we feel and behave is the role of choice. On the
one hand, we have real anxiety about what TV’s doing to us. On the other hand, we allow it to happen.
We choose to turn it on and each other off. We choose peace and quiet when we let the kids watch TV
instead of running around the living room. We choose to “relax” in the semi-comatose slump.
The average viewing time of the American child between six and sixteen years of age is twenty to
twenty-four hours a week. A large percentage of parents place no restrictions on either the number of
hours watch or the type of program viewed.
At the very least, we behave as if we were powerless to wrench each other away.
I grant you that there are a lot of things that touch on our families that are totally out of our individual
control. We can’t regulate foreign affairs. We can’t set the price for oil.
But a television set has dial and a plug. And we have hands. It is absurd to let our feelings of impotence
in the world start creeping onto our private lives.
Just once, we ought to create a private show about a real-life family who kicked the habit.
Common Core RI.2
Writers Message
The writer reveals her
message through strong
statements of opinion – how
she personally feels about
people’s TV habits. Opinions
are either substantiated
(supported by facts)
The Pedestrian
by Ray Bradbury
Close Read
Analyze Visuals: What detail
is this painting helps to create
a somber mood?
To enter out into that silence that was the city at eight o'clock of a misty evening in November, to put your feet upon that
buckling concrete walk, to step over grassy seams and make your way, hands in pockets, through the silences, that was what Mr.
Leonard Mead most dearly loved to do. He would stand upon the corner of an intersection and peer down long moonlit avenues of
sidewalk in four directions, deciding which way to go, but it really made no difference; he was alone in this world of A.D. 2053, or
as good as alone, and with a final decision made, a path selected, he would stride off, sending patterns of frosty air before him
like the smoke of a cigar.
Sometimes he would walk for hours and miles and return only at midnight to his house. And on his way he would see
the cottages and homes with their dark windows, and it was not unequal to walking through a graveyard where only the
faintest glimmers of firefly light appeared in flickers behind the windows. Sudden gray phantoms seemed to manifest
upon inner room walls where a curtain was still undrawn against the night, or there were whisperings and murmurs
where a window in a tomblike building was still open.
Mr. Leonard Mead would pause, cock his head, listen, look, and march on, his feet making no noise on the lumpy walk. For
long ago he had wisely changed to sneakers when strolling at night, because the dogs in intermittent squads would parallel his
journey with barkings if he wore hard heels, and lights might click on and faces appear and an entire street be startled by the
passing of a lone figure, himself, in the early November evening.
On this particular evening he began his journey in a westerly direction, toward the hidden sea. There was a good crystal frost in
Writer’s Message
Reread the bolded
paragraph. What do the
imagery and the figurative
language in this passage
suggest about Bradbury’s
ideas on watching television?
the air; it cut the nose and made the lungs blaze like a Christmas tree inside; you could feel the cold light going on and off,
all the branches filled with invisible snow. He listened to the faint push of his soft shoes through autumn leaves with satisfaction,
and whistled a cold quiet whistle between his teeth, occasionally picking up a leaf as he passed, examining its skeletal pattern
in the infrequent lamplights as he went on, smelling
its rusty smell.
"Hello, in there," he whispered to every house on every side as he moved. "What's up tonight on Channel 4, Channel 7,
Channel 9? Where are the cowboys rushing, and do I see the United States
Cavalry over the next hill to the rescue?"
The street was silent and long and empty, with only his shadow moving like the shadow of a hawk in midcountry. If he closed
his eyes and stood very still, frozen, he could imagine himself upon the center of a plain, a wintry, windless Arizona
desert with no house in a thousand miles, and only dry river beds, the streets, for company.
"What is it now?" he asked the houses, noticing his wrist watch. "Eight-thirty P.M.? Time for a dozen assorted murders? A quiz?
A revue? A comedian falling off the stage?"
Clouds Over Alabama or Midnight in Alabama (1944) by Roger Brown
Was that a murmur of laughter from within a moon-white house? He hesitated, but went on when nothing more
happened. He stumbled over a particularly uneven section of sidewalk. The cement was vanishing under flowers and
grass. In ten years of walking by night or day, for thousands of miles, he had never met another person walking, not
once in all that time.
He came to a cloverleaf intersection which stood silent where two main highways crossed the town. During the day it was a
thunderous surge of cars, the gas stations open, a great insect rustling and a ceaseless jockeying for position as the scarab
beetles, a faint incense puttering from their exhausts, skimmed homeward to the far directions. But nowhere highways, too, were
like streams in a dry season, all stone and bed and moon radiance.
He turned back on a side street, circling around toward his home. He was within a block of his destination when the lone car
turned a corner quite suddenly and flashed a fierce white cone of light upon him. He stood entranced, not unlike a night moth,
Common Core L.4 Multiple
Meanings
Words that have more than
one definition are considered
multiple meaning words. To
determine a words
appropriate meaning, you
need to examine its context.
For example, the word plain
can mean “simple,” “clear,”
or “large flat land.” Which of
the definitions for plain best
fits for the bolded sentence?
Writer’s Message
Think about the reason why
Mead never meets anyone on
his nightly walks. How does
this detail help you
understand the author’s
message?
stunned by the illumination, and then drawn
toward it.
A metallic voice called to him:
"Stand still. Stay where you are! Don't move!"
He halted.
"Put up your hands!"
"But-" he said.
"Your hands up! Or we'll Shoot!" The police, of course, but what a rare, incredible thing; in a city of three million, there was
only one police car left, wasn't that correct? Ever since a year ago, 2052, the election year, the force had been cut down from
three cars to one. Crime was ebbing; there was no need now for the police, save for this one lone car wandering and wandering
the empty streets.
"Your name?" said the police car in a metallic whisper. He couldn't see the men in it for the bright light in his eyes.
"Leonard Mead," he said.
"Speak up!"
"Leonard Mead!"
"Business or profession?"
"I guess you'd call me a writer."
"No profession," said the police car, as if talking to itself. The light held him fixed, like a museum specimen, needle
thrust through chest.
"You might say that,” said Mr. Mead. He hadn't written in years. Magazines and books didn't sell any more. Everything went on
in the tomblike houses at night now, he thought, continuing his fancy. The tombs, ill-lit by television light, where the people sat like
the dead, the gray or multicolored lights touching their faces, but never really touching them.
"No profession," said the phonograph voice, hissing. "What are you doing out?"
"Walking," said Leonard Mead.
"Walking!"
"Just walking," he said simply, but his face
felt cold.
Writer’s Message
Why does the voice reply “No
profession” when Mead says
he is a writer? What does
that imply about this society?
Explain.
"Walking, just walking, walking?"
"Yes, sir."
"Walking where? For what?"
"Walking for air. Walking to see."
"Your address!"
"Eleven South Saint James Street."
"And there is air in your house, you have an
air conditioner, Mr. Mead?"
"Yes."
"And you have a viewing screen in your house to see with?"
"No."
"No?" There was a crackling quiet that in itself was an accusation.
"Are you married, Mr. Mead?"
"No."
"Not married," said the police voice behind the fiery beam, The moon was high and clear among the stars and the houses were
gray and silent.
"Nobody wanted me," said Leonard Mead with a smile.
"Don't speak unless you're spoken to!"
Leonard Mead waited in the cold night.
"Just walking, Mr. Mead?"
"Yes."
"But you haven't explained for what purpose."
"I explained; for air, and to see, and just to walk."
"Have you done this often?"
"Every night for years."
Writer’s Message:
Notice the voice’s reaction
when Mead admits he does
not have a viewing screen.
How important is T.V. viewing
to the people in this story?
Explain.
The police car sat in the center of the street with its radio throat faintly humming.
"Well, Mr. Mead," it said.
"Is that all?" he asked politely.
"Yes," said the voice. "Here." There was a sigh, a pop. The back door of the police car sprang wide. "Get in."
"Wait a minute, I haven't done anything!"
"Get in."
"I protest!"
"Mr. Mead."
He walked like a man suddenly drunk. As he passed the front window of the car he looked in. As he had expected, there was
no one in the front seat, no one in the car at all.
"Get in."
He put his hand to the door and peered into the back seat, which was a little cell, a little black jail with bars. It smelled of riveted
steel. It smelled of harsh antiseptic; it smelled too clean and hard and metallic. There was nothing soft there.
"Now if you had a wife to give you an alibi," said the iron voice. "But-"
Grammar and Style: Reread
the bolded lines. Notice how
Bradbury capitalizes the first
word of every line of
dialogue, even if it is a
sentence fragment. The first
word of any quotation should
always be capitalized.
"Where are you taking me?"
The car hesitated, or rather gave a faint whirring click, as if information, somewhere, was dropping card by punch-slotted card
under electric eyes. "To the Psychiatric Center for Research on Regressive Tendencies."
He got in. The door shut with a soft thud. The police car rolled through the night avenues, flashing its dim lights ahead.
They passed one house on one street a moment later, one house in an entire city of houses that were dark, but this one particular
house had all of its electric lights brightly lit, every window a loud yellow illumination, square and warm in the cool
darkness.
"That's my house," said Leonard Mead.
No one answered him.
The car moved down the empty river-bed streets and off away, leaving the empty streets with the empty side-walks,
and no sound and no motion all the rest of the chill November night.
Writer’s Message:
What “crime” has Leonard
Mead committed?
Common Core RL.4
Repetition
Repetition is the act of
repeating a word, phrase, or
sentence to emphasize an
idea. Notice how empty is
repeated in the last lines of
the story. What idea is
Bradbury trying to stress by
repeating this word?
Analyzing an Advertistment
Common Core Standard: RI. 7 Analyze various accounts of a subject told in different mediums.
Directions: The essay and short story you just read explore the topic of television in different ways, but both texts communicate messages about
excessive television watching. As you investigate the advertisement bleow, consider what message it is communicating.
Infer: Why might someone
find a remote control that
can turn the TV off from
across the room so
appealing?
Assess: Why do you think the
ad’s designer chose faces
with such exaggerated
expressions?
Evaluate: Are the reactions
pictured and described in this
ad the result you would
expect from using the Zenith
Space Command T.V.
remote? Explain your answer.
After Reading Questions
Common Core Standards: RL.2: Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it
emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; RI. 2 Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including
how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details RI.5 Analyze in detail how an author’s ideas or claims are developed and refined.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Recall: Describe the city where Leonard Mead walks in “The Pedestrian.”
Clarify: Why does Mead seem so suspicious to the police car?
Clarify: In “Primal Screen,” what does Goodman urge Americans to do?
Analyze Support: In “Primal Screen,” Goodman claims that the habit of television watching is a more serious problem than the content of
the programs. What evidence does she present to support her claim?
5. Make Inferences: The title of Goodman’s essay, “Primal Screen,” is a pun, or a play on words. It refers to primal scream therapy, a type of
treatment in which patients scream to vent their anger and frustrations. Why did Goodman choose this title?
6. Make Judgments: Of Leonard Mead’s many answers to the police car, which do you think gets him into the most trouble? Why? Explain?
7. Draw Conclusions about the Writer’s Message: Reread the lines below from “The Pedestrian.” Bradbury uses imagery and figurative
language to describe the people of the future. In describing the future, what does he imply about the people of today?
"You might say that,” said Mr. Mead. He hadn't written in years. Magazines and books didn't sell any more. Everything went on in the tomblike houses at night
now, he thought, continuing his fancy. The tombs, ill-lit by television light, where the people sat like the dead, the gray or multicolored lights touching their faces,
but never really touching them.
.
8. Reflect on Purpose: Now that you have read each text, it is time to compare and contrast the writer’s messages, or central ideas. Writer
your observations on a graphic organizer like the one below.
Points of Comparison
In the Essay
In the Short Story
What television is doing American society
What is the writer’s focus
What television watching is doing to
in general
family life
9. Enduring Understanding: Reread the essential question posed at the start of this lesson. Do you think television has a positive or negative
effect on your life? How would your life be different if you were to eliminate T.V.? Do you think you could live without it?