College Writing
6 September 2014 1. The word environment usually means that it is a habitat or surrounding in which someone/something lives and grows in. In the passage, the word environment seems to be used to describe the standards that (as in the text) a teacher sets for a student that he/she must fulfill. These standards that the “task environment” is putting forth influences how the student works and how suitable their end product is going to be. This “task environment” includes different variables that will affect the outcome of the students work and what will guide the student to either do good or bad. The environment depicted by the writers, John R. Hayes and Linda S. Flower, suggests that because the teacher has a stern expression, he/she must work harder on the assignment because it may be more important compared to past assignments. Thus, a task is applied from the environment that the teacher has set for the student.
2. Mechanism usually means it is something comprised of compatible parts to make one working structure. In the passage, the word mechanism is used similarly but is converted into a different environment that isn’t traditionally considered a “mechanism”. The word mechanism suggests that there is something mechanical, maybe robotics, involved to create a moving instrument that helps build or construct objects on a larger scale. The writer of the passage, Stephen Jay Gould, depicts a scenario of how orchids work, their relationship with the surrounding environment and how the two come together in order for the orchid to reproduce more flowers. In order to survive, the orchid contains both male and female parts to cross pollinate with, while insects bring pollen to the flower. The two have separate mechanisms that work together to create a productive result, which in this case, is more orchid flowers.
3. Grammar is usually used as a way to create proper, coherent sentences with the use of punctuation. The way grammar is used in this passage proposes that it means to be the basic construct of how something should be. The intro sentence, “The basic grammar of schooling, like the shape of classrooms, has remained remarkably stable over the decades” is saying that the grammar of schools has remained traditional throughout the years, adhering to the rules of how a school should look like. The usual definition of grammar and the