What is the theme of "Go Carolina" in Me Talk Pretty One Day?

One theme that develops in "Go Carolina" in Me Talk Pretty One Day is the importance of resilience.

As a boy, David suddenly finds himself the unwilling recipient of speech therapy services when he is "captured" at 2:30 one Thursday afternoon. According to "Agent" Samson, David has a lisp, and it is her job to make sure he learns to speak correctly. David views the need for any sort of therapy as a failure on his part and refuses to discuss the sessions with anyone but his mother.

Although he meets with his speech therapist weekly and engages in various exercises to correct his lisp, David doesn't make much clinical progress. He instead begins to master a new strategy and simply avoids any words that include an s sound. This takes a great deal of mental training and is a strong indicator of David's spirit of resilience. For example, instead of answering questions with a "yes," David learns to respond with a "correct" or "affirmative." He avoids plurals such as "rivers" by instead stating "many a river."

David's sense of humor regarding his need for speech therapy demonstrates his ability to meet adversity with determination. Refusing to accept defeat, he copes by finding innovative ways to circumvent his speech challenges.

What are five interpretive questions for "Go Carolina" in Me Talk Pretty One Day?

As the name implies, an interpretive question is a question subject to interpretation, so the questions about David Sedaris’s first essay in Me Talk Pretty One Day, “Go Carolina,” will not have one correct answer but multiple replies since it depends on the interpretation of the text.

One interpretive question is: What was David’s crime? One might answer that David’s crime relates to his speech and how he pronounced s. To support this answer, use David’s time in speech therapy. One could also answer that David’s crime was deviating from boyhood norms. For this answer, point to David’s dislike of sports and his fondness for movie star scrapbooks, making curtains, and baking.

A second interpretive question is: How does David lie in the story? This question is open to interpretation because David hides the truth in lots of ways. David lies about liking football and wanting to be a policeman or fireman when he grows up. It’s also possible to argue that David lies about what’s happening. David has committed no literal crime. Miss Samson is not an agent but a speech therapist.

A third interpretive question might ask about how David fits in with the rest of his family. His two sisters, his mom, and his dad each seem to have some type of problem, so this question should generate diverse answers.

For further interpretive questions, consider questions about literary devices. Perhaps ask about how David uses diction or symbols to frame his speech troubles and sexual identity.

Textual observations do not ask readers to interpret anything about the text. Think of this task as "collecting evidence." As you read, you are simply gathering facts about the story without evaluating or judging any of those facts. You might think of the basic who, what, when, and where components of the story.

You really have to be careful not to draw your own conclusions for this assignment. For example, it would be tempting to generate this type of statement: David is a humorous narrator. But "humorous" is debatable. Some readers might not find David's rather dry sense of humor all that funny. Instead, focus on gathering undisputable facts.

You might, for example, observe that David has a speech impediment. This is the situation which generates the need for Miss Samson's therapy sessions.

You might also note that David copes with his speech hindrances by avoiding words that use the letter s. He becomes quite adept in navigating conversations and completely avoiding the sound, such as when he uses "correct" or "affirmative" instead of "yes."

You could also observe that David doesn't like going to speech therapy. He feels that needing any type of therapy is a "profound failure" on his part and that "normal people" do not need such interventions.

Unlike most boys his age, David is not interested in sports. While his speech therapist tries to use sports to connect with David, he has learned to base his own feigned interest in the other person's responses.

Because of Miss Samson's insistence to record David's speech, he learns to hate the sound of his own voice. Listening to it being played back to him makes him hear for the first time the "excitable tone and high, girlish pitch" and as he begins to listen to himself more, he finds that his own voice "turn[s] his stomach."

Hopefully these observations will help you gather more facts about this story. Best wishes!

What interpretive questions arise from "Go Carolina" in Me Talk Pretty One Day?

Interpretive questions are often used as a springboard for discussion about a piece of literature. This type of question does not seek to simply collect factual responses, and students may have different answers based on their own interpretations. Interpretive questions require readers to go back to the text to explain their own answers, and often students will disagree about how to best answer these questions. In a well-structured classroom, interpretive questions can generate meaningful conversations between students.

You might think about beginning your interpretive questions with starters that typically avoid one-word responses. How and why are usually good ways to begin these types of questions.

Here are a couple of specific ideas to get you started:

• Is "Agent Samson" a good speech therapist?

Based on the ending, some students might believe that her heart was in the right place and therefore believe that she is a good speech therapist. Other students may point to the fact that she didn't actually improve David's speech, so she didn't prove effective in the goals of her job. This difference of opinion, both which can be supported by textual evidence, makes this a quality interpretive question.

• Why does David resist speech therapy?

Some students might say that he believes his teachers and therapists are trying to change who he is. Other students might believe that David feels that the adults at his school are "out to get him" with their critical ears. There are various ways students could answer this question.

• Does David have a supportive mother?

David's mother tells him to "give [the speech therapist] a break" because she is "just trying to do her job," so some students might think she isn't supportive enough. She also laughs at his story at the end, calling him a "sucker" for falling for Ms. Samson's verbal tricks. Yet other students might recall that his mother allowed him to watch "Guiding Light" with her and wrote excuses on the day of the intramural softball tournaments, helping David avoid athletic competitions which he greatly dreaded. This question also allows for multiple interpretations.

I hope this helps as you continue brainstorming for similar questions. Best wishes!