Middle School
In 1910, just before Marie Curie collected her second Nobel Prize for radioactivity, young Gyrgy Hevesy arrived in England to study radioactivity himself. His universitys lab director in Manchester, Ernest Rutherford, immediately assigned Hevesy the Herculean task of separating out radioactive atoms from nonradioactive atoms inside blocks of lead. Actually, it turned out to be not Herculean but impossible. Rutherford had assumed the radioactive atoms, known as radium-D, were a unique substance. In fact, radium-D was radioactive lead and therefore could not be separated chemically. Ignorant of this, Hevesy wasted two years tediously trying to tease lead and radium-D apart before giving up.Hevesya bald, droopy-cheeked, mustached aristocrat from Hungaryalso faced domestic frustrations. Hevesy was far from home and used to savory Hungarian food, not the English cooking at his boardinghouse. After noticing patterns in the meals served there, Hevesy grew suspicious that, like a high school cafeteria recycling Mondays hamburgers into Thursdays beef chili, his landladys fresh daily meat was anything but. When confronted, she denied this, so Hevesy decided to seek proof.Miraculously, hed achieved a breakthrough in the lab around that time. He still couldnt separate radium-D, but he realized he could flip that to his advantage. Hed begun musing over the possibility of injecting minute quantities of dissolved lead into a living creature and then tracing the elements path, since the creature would metabolize the radioactive and nonradioactive lead the same way, and the radium-D would emit beacons of radioactivity as it moved. If this worked, he could actually track molecules inside veins and organs, an unprecedented degree of resolution.Before he tried this on a living being, Hevesy decided to test his idea on the tissue of a nonliving being, a test with an ulterior motive. He took too much meat at dinner one night and, when the landladys back was turned, sprinkled hot lead over it. She gathered his leftovers as normal, and the next day Hevesy brought home a newfangled radiation detector from his lab buddy, Hans Geiger. Sure enough, when he waved it over that nights goulash, Geigers counter went furious: click-click-click-click. Hevesy confronted his landlady with the evidence. But, being a scientific romantic, Hevesy no doubt laid it on thick as he explained the mysteries of radioactivity. In fact, the landlady was so charmed to be caught so cleverly, with the latest tools of forensic science, she didnt even get mad. Theres no historical record of whether she altered her menu, however.Now, youll analyze how the texts structure helps the author achieve his purpose. Present your analysis in a paragraph by following these steps:Make a statement that identifies the authors choice of text structure and how it contributes to the overall purpose.Support your statement with evidence from the text.Explain how the evidence supports your statement.
Civil DisobediencePart 1Most people remember Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as reformers who practiced non-violent forms of protest and advocacy. Both effectively changed the popular opinion about emotional issues for their countries and brought in a wave of change that was long overdue. But the practice of non-violent protest, or civil disobedience, started long before either Gandhi or King. It began with a quiet, shy poet who is best known for writing a lot about a pond. Henry David Thoreau lived from 1817 until 1862, mainly in the area of Concord, Massachusetts. The issue that would tear the country apart in the 1860s had already begun dividing the nation. Thoreau was only 14 when Nat Turner led the slave rebellion in Virginia and was later hanged. In his late 20s, Thoreau began speaking against slavery in public, echoing the voices of freedmen like Frederick Douglass and Lewis Hayden.Thoreau believed that a government that supported slavery was corrupt and immoral. He was also deeply suspicious of government. For these and other reasons, Thoreau refused to pay his poll tax for a number of years. The poll tax was a legal tax owed by every person. It was basically a tax on one's body. After not paying for years, he was at last arrested. He spent only one night in jail, however, as a relative paid the tax for him. He was reportedly furious that any tax was paid on his behalf.It was this experience that Thoreau wrote about in an essay called "Civil Disobedience." In this essay, he argued that being moral and just came before allegiance to government. He wrote If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law." He also felt that voting was not enough to ensure that the right thing be done. He wrote that "even voting for the right is doing nothing for it A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance" He felt that one had a moral responsibility to resist unjust laws.Which line from Part 1 best explains Thoreau's message? Thoreau began speaking against slavery in public, echoing the voices of freedmen like Frederick Douglass He was reportedly furious that any tax was paid on his behalf It was this experience that Thoreau wrote about in an essay called "Civil Disobedience." He felt that one had a moral responsibility to resist unjust laws.
