American Beauty

Please read the first page of Jon Johansen's article at http://www.nzlistener.co.nz/issue/3552/features/11195/american_beauty_.html and answer the following questions:

1. Write a bibliographic entry for the article. Follow this format: Author name, Article title, Journal name, date, volume, issue number.

2. Why does Jonson begin his article with a poem by Langston Hughes? How does the poem relate to Jonson's topic?

3. In the poem, why does the speaker have to eat in the kitchen?

4. Why does Jonson put the phrase "War on Terror" in quotes?

5. Jonson uses alliteration in his third paragraph. Write down the two phrases that employ alliteration.

6. Who or what is "Billary"? (Clue: think of past presidents of the US and Obama's main rival for the Democratic Presidential candidate nomination).

7. When did Black voters in the southern US states finally get full and fair voting rights?

8. Name one book written by Barack Obama.

9. The extract from the article ends with a metaphor. What is the image conveyed by this metaphor? How does it develop Jonson's key idea?

10. For Johnson what makes makes Obama's success different from that of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice?

11. What would be the historic significance of Barack Obama becoming the next president of the United States? Think of three reasons why this would be an historic event.