What assumptions does the writer seem to make about the audience? (Its background, knowledge, etc.)
What does the essay/excerpt reveal about the writer? How does the writer come across to us?

A. Seat Belts (complete)

A major problem in the United States is death in traffic accidents. The number of deaths would be reduced if everyone used seat belts. Therefore, everyone should use seat belts.

Young people should use seat belts. People between sixteen and twenty-five are more likely to be in accidents than any other group. Because they are so often in accidents, it is important that they buckle their seat belts.

Older people should also use seat belts. Although they are not in accidents as often as younger people, their lives are very valuable Older people have responsible jobs and are often parents. If they are killed, others suffer from the loss. Therefore, they too should take the time to fasten their seat belts,

The very young should use seat belts. Children and young teenagers have their whole lives in front of them. Their parents should teach them to buckle up. Infants should be placed in carriers that can be strapped in with a seat belt.

As we have seen, all people should use seat belts. Young people need to be careful because they are in so many accidents. Older people need to think how their deaths would affect others. Infants and children need to have their lives protected so that they will not die before they have experienced life.

B. Sorority Sisters (excerpt)

On just about any Friday night in a sorority, you can walk into the television room and find a group of girls watching a movie, or some program. The favorite in my sorority is Picket Fences. We usually crowd into the room at 9:00 to see what crazy crimes will come to the town of Rome, Wisconsin. At our sorority it is no surprise when the doorbell rings and it's the Domino's pizza man. If necessary you can always find a willing friend to massage your aching back caused from a hectic week just completed. If you need someone to talk to, you can single out the one person you wish to confide your most secretive thoughts to. When you live in a sorority you share a house and all its facilities with approximately sixty other girls. There are always times when you will think back to less complicated days, when you had your own bathroom and bedroom. However, it is the situations such as on a Friday night that help you realize that living in a sorority gives you so many friends, each who means something different. In a sorority there are three types of friendships to develop: (1) Good, (2) Better, and (3) Best, which all mean something different.

C. Richard English (excerpt)

In the middle of his lecture, Dr. Richard English begins to choke. He clasps one hand around his throat, and with the other, makes a fist to cover his mouth as he coughs. As the students in the lecture hall move to the edge of their seats in concern for the middle-aged professor, whose grimacing face is now beet red, Dr. English finally reaches deep inside his mouth and pulls out a green rubber toy. "Excuse me," he says apologetically to the class, "I guess I had a frog in my throat." Then he lets out a goofy, sheepish laugh as his students sigh and moan. This is a typical classroom antic Dr. English uses to "make [class] interesting, to make it fun."

Dr. English tries to make his classes fun because he feels it enables him to motivate his students. "I want to motivate them—in college and in life—to have fun. If it isn't fun, it's just one of those hurdles you jump." On the first day of his learning and instruction class, he tells his students to raise a hand if they have a grade point average below two point five. He feels that anyone accepted to a university is capable of maintaining at least a B average and concludes that those who are not successful are not enjoying learning.

D. The Meaning of the Misfit's Final Words (excerpt)

At the end of "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," the Misfit says about the dead grandmother, "She would of been a good woman...if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life." By this he means that only on the verge of death has this woman come to know the importance of life, and that if she had had a similar threat throughout her life, she could have realized this moment much sooner.

Throughout the first part of the story, the grandmother is completely preoccupied by her own world, viewing everything in relation to her past, almost to the point of losing touch with the actual world in which she lives. The story is told through her eyes, and from that viewpoint none of the other characters seems very vivid or worth remembering. Bailey is simply described as "the son she lived with," the mother barely says anything at all and never establishes a personality, and the characterization of the children doesn't reach beyond their typically bratty banter. The grandmother continually ignores those around her, focusing on herself and her past; instead of living for each moment, she dwells on times gone by which she remembers as somehow being "better." Unless they remind her of the past or unless she wants something from them, the self-centered grandmother never notices anyone, even her own family. No one distracts her from her past—until she meets the Misfit.