The pressure that comes with not being adequately prepared to react to a tragedy

C.  The  discrimination  against  Pakistanis  after  9/11  

D.  The  pressure  that  comes  with  not  being  adequately  prepared  to  react  to  a   tragedy  

Now,  think  about  this  carefully.  Most  of  these  answers  are  pretty  plausible,  because   they  all  have  something  to  do  with  the  passage.  Let’s  start  with  A  –  the  script  by   which  people  process  and  symbolize  emotions  like  patriotism  and  grief.  

Now,  Wallace  never  mentions  a  script,  but  he  doesn’t  have  to;  the  majority  of  the   passage  is  about  the  fact  that  everyone  seems  to  have  a  flag  but  him,  as  though  they   are  all  following  a  memo  that  he  didn’t  receive.  (“Where  has  everyone  gotten  these   flags,  especially  the  little  ones  you  can  put  on  your  mailbox?  Are  they  all  from  July  4th   and  people  just  save  them,  like  Christmas  ornaments?  How  do  they  know  to  do  this?   Even  a  sort  of  half-­‐collapsed  house  down  the  street  that  everybody  though  was  

unoccupied  has  a  flag  in  the  ground  by  the  driveway.”)  So  the  script  part,  while  subtle,   is  true.  But  what  about  this  “symbolize  complex  emotions”?  At  this  point,  you  should   realize  that  the  flags  here  are  not  just  objects  but  representations  of  a  feeling.  After   all,  Wallace  asks  his  neighbor:  

and  ask  you  to  say  what  the  purpose  of  all  these  flags  everywhere  after  the  Horror  and   everything  yesterday  was,  exactly  –  what  do  you  think  you'd  say?"  

Clearly,  this  question  demonstrates  that  there  is  a  larger  purpose  to  these  flags,  that   they  symbolize  and  demonstrate  something  big.  And  that’s  clear  in  Mr.  N’s  answer,   too:  “to  show  our  support  and  empathy  in  terms  of  what's  going  on,  as  

Americans.”  Again,  the  flags  are  part  of  a  script.  They  are  the  answer  to  a  tragedy  and   a  means  of  showing  support,  which  is  demonstrated  also  in  the  different  types  of   flags  on  display  –  the  huge  banner-­‐style  ones,  the  regulation-­‐size  ones  on  flagpoles,   the  plastic  ones,  and  even  the  author’s  homemade  Magic  Marker  one.  

Now,  let’s  look  at  the  other  answer  choices:  

B.  The  proper  procedures  for  showing  off  patriotism  and  reacting  to  a  national   tragedy,  is  a  worthwhile  contender.  However,  remember  that  at  first,  Wallace  does   not  have  a  flag.  Based  on  his  characterization  of  himself  and  his  flag-­‐less-­‐ness  (“If  the   purpose  of  a  flag  is  to  make  a  statement,  it  seems  like  at  a  certain  point  of  density  of   flags  you're  making  more  of  a  statement  if  you  don't  have  one  out.  It's  not  totally  clear   what  statement  this  would  be.  What  if  you  just  don't  happen  to  have  a  flag?”),  is   Wallace  the  sort  of  person  who  would  get  hung  up  on  “proper  procedures”?  

Especially  when  you  contrast  him  with  Mr.  N,  who  gives  him  “the  same  sort  of  look   he  usually  gives  my  lawn.”  Though  there  are  points  in  this  essay  that  are  concerned   with  procedure,  these  points  are  more  about  how  other  people  seem  to  be  acting   (again,  following  a  script),  rather  than  an  actual  guide  on  the  best  way  to  act.    

C  is  perhaps  the  easiest  answer  to  disregard;  the  Pakistani  storeowner  is  only   mentioned  at  the  very  end  of  the  essay,  and  though  Wallace  does  mention  the  store   owner’s  “unspoken  understanding”  (which  alludes,  in  turn,  to  the  outsider  status  he   probably  feels  in  the  wake  of  the  tragedy),  nowhere  does  he  explicitly  mention   discrimination.  Additionally,  this  “unspoken  understanding”  is  only  mentioned  once,   and  a  main  idea  is  usually  repeated  and  reinforced  in  multiple  ways.  This  is  clearly   not  the  correct  answer.  

D  is  a  contender  –  clearly,  Wallace  feels  pressure!  This  is  an  instance  where  there   are  some  good  answers  that  pale  in  comparison  to  the  “best”  answer.  While  it’s  true   that  there  is  great  pressure  in  feeling  that  you  are  not  reacting  appropriately  to  /   prepared  adequately  for  a  national  tragedy,  these  “reactions”  and  “preparations”  are   in  turn  just  part  of  a  larger  script  that  tells  people  how  they  should  act,  how  they   should  deal  with  their  lack  of  preparedness.  D  is  a  good  answer  because  it’s  really   part  of  answer  A  –  in  many  ways,  a  fragmented  or  incomplete  choice  that  does  not   fully  express  the  main  idea  of  the  essay.  

That  was  a  long,  high-­‐level  passage–  not  so  much  because  of  the  words  or  the   structure,  but  because  it  is  full  of  subtly-­‐expressed  and  complex  ideas.  In  the  next   section,  you  will  learn  how  to  break  down  and  summarize  these  kinds  of  ideas.  

Summarizing

Ever  tried  to  tell  a  friend  a  story?  When  you’re  recounting  an  event  or  a  film,  you   automatically  make  choices  about  which  details  to  emphasize  and  which  to  leave   out.  And  though  your  friend  probably  won’t  mind  if  you  leave  in  irrelevant  details,   one  of  the  most  highly-­‐rated  skills  in  secondary  and  post-­‐secondary  education  is  the   ability  to  summarize  key  information,  which  explains  why  the  College  Board  cares  so   much  about  whether  or  not  you  can  do  it  well.  

There  isn’t  a  big  difference  between  identifying  the  main  idea  and  being  able  to   cogently  summarize  the  text;  after  all,  the  main  idea  and  the  summary  are   interrelated  concepts.  In  a  sense,  “summarizing”  just  means  that  you  are  able  to   restate  the  main  idea  of  all  of  or  part  of  a  text  and  marshal  key  pieces  of  evidence  to   support  your  claim.  

Learning  how  to  accurately  and  intelligently  summarize  information  requires  three   essential  skills:  

1.  Comprehension  of  the  material  

2.  The  ability  to  identify  and  isolate  key  supporting  details  

3.  The  ability  to  describe,  in  general  terms,  what  those  details  work  together   to  say  

Your  ability  to  do  this  may  depend  on  the  level,  complexity,  and  type  of  text  you’re   reading.  Luckily,  every  type  of  text  will  have  certain  “signals”  that  let  you  know   which  pieces  of  information  are  important.  

Structure  

Remember  that  text  structure  is  paramount  in  simpler  non-­‐fiction  texts,  with  each   paragraph  introduced  (or  summarized)  by  a  topic  sentence  that  presents  the  main   idea  of  the  paragraph.  It’s  these  bracketing  sentences  –  the  first  and  last  of  each   paragraph  –  that  will  work  together  to  present  a  useful  summary  of  the  selection  as   a  whole.  

For  example,  take  this  excerpt,  from  a  lower-­‐complexity  non-­‐fiction  article  titled   “Traveling  Teaches  Students  in  a  Way  Schools  Can’t,”  recently  published  in  the   Atlantic.  I  have  bolded  parts  of  the  first  and  last  sentences  in  each  paragraph,  which   should  all  help  you  to  summarize  the  text  of  the  passage  as  a  whole.  

When  I  turned  15,  my  parents  sent  me  alone  on  a  one-­‐month  trip  to