Summary Of Me Talk Pretty One Day By David Sedaris

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In the article “Me Talk Pretty One Day”, David Sedaris talks about how his teacher is this very intimidating person who is teaching them French by roughing them up and insulting them any chance that they get. The teacher insults everyone and she does not single anyone out. They have this classroom full of people from different parts of the world, for example, Japanese, Polish, Argentinian, and Yougoslovian. They are taught through this torturous method and it has led to Sedaris learning French even if it was a rough path. Sedaris uses anecdotes about his life that many people can relate to and understand what he is talking about. They talk about how he was “more anxious than I was the day my kindergarten teacher pried my fingers off my mother's …show more content…

They are all put through this rough love type relationship with the teacher. Sadaris says,“ The teacher licked her lips, revealing a hint of the sadist we would later come to know.”(Sedaris) The way he describes the teacher shows that she is someone who enjoys the suffering of others. He also said that they would “come to know” who the teacher was. This leads to the reader understanding how the person who was teaching French was someone who would enjoy the suffering of her students. The reader would realize that this “ intensive period of hazing”(Sedaris), was all part of the teachers plan and that they would learn through this style of teaching. This teacher's learning style also made the students try even harder on their work because they didn’t want to be criticized for their french. For example Sedaris says, “Refusing to stand convicted on the teacher's charges of laziness, I'd spend four hours a night on my homework, working even longer whenever we were assigned an essay.”(Sedaris) Knowing that he was being called lazy for not trying to actually learn French being used as an example in front of the whole class, he actually spent more time trying to be better at understanding French. The way the teacher makes examples out of everyone shows that no one wants to be criticized, because of this the students study and pay more attention to class. While the way the class is being taught can catch people off guard with all these insults being yelled at them, people who learn this way could learn quicker because of the way it makes everyone feel punished for not doing something