ted talk about “What Fear Can Teach Us” | Karen Thompson Walker
Questions
- What is the speaker’s main argument? Or what is her thesis?
- Name at least 3 specific examples/pieces of evidence she uses to support her argument?
- What was the biggest takeaway that you had from this video? What interested you the most?
- What kind of evidence/stories is Walker telling her audience in the speech?
- How does Walker organize her speech? In connection with Question 4, when does this evidence show up in her speech? When does she give that evidence? Is the placement of the evidence successful? Is there any pattern you can discern or figure out from where she places those pieces of specific evidence?
- What is Walker’s purpose? What does she want from his audience?
- What is Walker’s tone? Is her tone successful in connecting with her audience?
- What examples of ethos, pathos, or logos does Walker use in her speech? Are they effective or not?
“What Fear Can Teach Us” | Karen Thompson Walker
Solution Preview
1:
The author argues that fear is not a bad thing, instead, people should take fear as a form of story or imagination which offers an individual the opportunity to imagine the possible outcomes and how they can cope with them.
2:
Karen Thompson uses the example of twenty sailors who were stranded in the middle of the ocean when their ship wrecked in 1819.She also gives her own experience when she was a child and she feared the chandelier of her house falling during an earthquake. She also gives an example of fearful visions of people who produced movies such as “Remembrance of things past” and “The origin of species” that haunted adult people’s lives such as Charlotte Brontant.
(618 words)