Joan Didion 'Fire Season' — MCT Level 4 Grammar of Literature Worksheet for 16‑Year‑Olds

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Instructions

This worksheet explores a passage from Joan Didion's famous essay on the Santa Ana winds of Los Angeles. You will use advanced grammar and word analysis techniques to understand how Didion achieves her powerful literary effects. Read the passage and complete the activities that follow.

Part 1: Reading and Analysis

Read the following excerpt from Joan Didion's "Los Angeles Notebook."

There is something uneasy in the Los Angeles air this afternoon, some unnatural stillness, some tension. What it means is that tonight a Santa Ana will begin to blow, a hot wind from the northeast whining down through the Cajon and San Gorgonio Passes, blowing up sandstorms out along the Mojave Desert, drying the hills and the nerves to the flash point. For a few days now we will see smoke back in the canyons, and hear sirens in the night. I have neither heard nor read that a Santa Ana is due, but I know it, and almost everyone I have seen today knows it too. We know it because we feel it. The baby frets. The maid sulks. I rekindle a waning argument with the telephone company, then cut my losses and lie down, given over to whatever is in the air. To live with the Santa Ana is to accept, consciously or unconsciously, a deeply mechanistic view of human behavior.

  1. Didion uses words like "uneasy," "unnatural stillness," and "tension" to establish a mood. Describe this mood in 2-3 sentences. What specific feelings does the writing evoke?

  2. Didion claims the Santa Anas force one to accept "a deeply mechanistic view of human behavior." Based on the evidence in the text (e.g., "The baby frets. The maid sulks."), what do you think she means by this?

Part 2: Four-Level Sentence Analysis

Analyze the following sentence from the passage on all four levels, as practiced in the MCT curriculum. Write your answers in the spaces provided.

Sentence: "What it means is that tonight a Santa Ana will begin to blow, a hot wind from the northeast whining down through the Cajon and San Gorgonio Passes, blowing up sandstorms out along the Mojave Desert, drying the hills and the nerves to the flash point."

  1. Level 1: Parts of Speech
    Identify the part of speech for each underlined word:
    • What: ____________________
    • is: ____________________
    • that: ____________________
    • hot: ____________________
    • whining: ____________________
    • through: ____________________
    • and: ____________________

  2. Level 2: Parts of the Sentence
    Identify the main parts of the independent clause:
    • Simple Subject: ____________________
    • Simple Predicate (Verb): ____________________
    • Type of Verb (Action or Linking): ____________________
    • Does the verb have a direct object, predicate nominative, or predicate adjective? If so, what is it? ____________________________________________________________________

  3. Level 3: Phrases
    Identify the following phrases in the sentence.
    • List two prepositional phrases: ____________________ and ____________________
    • List the three participial phrases. A participial phrase begins with a participle (a verb form often ending in -ing or -ed, used as an adjective).
      1. __________________________________________________
      2. __________________________________________________
      3. __________________________________________________

  4. Level 4: Clauses
    This sentence is complex. Identify its clauses.
    • Independent Clause: __________________________________________________
    • Dependent Clause: __________________________________________________
    • What is the function of the dependent clause in this sentence (is it acting as an adjective, an adverb, or a noun)? ____________________

Part 3: The Grammar of Literature

Connect your grammatical analysis to literary effect.

  1. In the long sentence you analyzed, Didion uses a series of three participial phrases ("whining down...", "blowing up...", "drying..."). How does this parallel structure contribute to the feeling or idea she is trying to convey about the wind?

  2. Contrast the long, complex sentence from Part 2 with the short, simple sentences that appear later: "The baby frets. The maid sulks." What is the literary effect of placing these two different sentence styles so close to each other?

Part 4: Structured Word Inquiry (SWI)

Let's investigate the word unnatural from the first sentence of the passage.

  1. Write a word sum for unnatural. (A word sum shows how a word is built from its morphemes, e.g., re + place + ment -> replacement).
    __________________________________________________

  2. Identify the function of each morpheme in your word sum.
    • Prefix: _______________
    • Base: _______________
    • Suffix: _______________

  3. The base of unnatural is <nature>. Brainstorm at least three other words that share this base and write their word sums. Explain how the prefixes and/or suffixes change the meaning of the base in each word.
    1. Word and Word Sum: __________________________________________________
      Meaning change: __________________________________________________

    2. Word and Word Sum: __________________________________________________
      Meaning change: __________________________________________________

    3. Word and Word Sum: __________________________________________________
      Meaning change: __________________________________________________



Answer Key

Part 1: Reading and Analysis

  1. The mood is one of ominous suspense and psychological tension. Didion creates a feeling of dread and inevitability, as if something unseen and malevolent is about to happen. The atmosphere feels charged and oppressive.
  2. By a "mechanistic view," Didion means that the wind seems to override human free will and reduce people to predictable, instinctual machines. Under its influence, people don't act out of reason but are controlled by an external, physical force, causing them to become irritable ("the baby frets"), sullen ("the maid sulks"), or argumentative without a clear cause.

Part 2: Four-Level Sentence Analysis

  1. Level 1: Parts of Speech
    • What: Pronoun
    • is: Verb (linking)
    • that: Subordinating Conjunction
    • hot: Adjective
    • whining: Participle (acting as an adjective)
    • through: Preposition
    • and: Coordinating Conjunction
  2. Level 2: Parts of the Sentence
    • Simple Subject: The noun clause "What it means" acts as the subject.
    • Simple Predicate (Verb): is
    • Type of Verb: Linking
    • Predicate Nominative: The noun clause "that tonight a Santa Ana will begin to blow..." renames the subject.
  3. Level 3: Phrases
    • Prepositional phrases (any two): from the northeast, down through the Cajon and San Gorgonio Passes, out along the Mojave Desert, to the flash point.
    • Participial phrases:
      1. whining down through the Cajon and San Gorgonio Passes
      2. blowing up sandstorms out along the Mojave Desert
      3. drying the hills and the nerves to the flash point
  4. Level 4: Clauses
    • Independent Clause: "What it means is..." (The sentence is structured so the two clauses are the subject and predicate nominative). The core is essentially "[Clause 1] is [Clause 2]."
    • Dependent Clause: "What it means" (a noun clause acting as the subject) AND "that tonight a Santa Ana will begin to blow..." (a noun clause acting as the predicate nominative).
    • Function of the dependent clauses: Noun. The first clause is the subject, and the second clause renames the subject.

Part 3: The Grammar of Literature

  1. The parallel structure of the three "-ing" participial phrases creates a sense of continuous, escalating, and unstoppable action. It mimics the relentless movement of the wind itself, sweeping across the landscape and affecting everything in its path. The rhythm builds momentum and reinforces the wind's overwhelming power.
  2. The contrast is jarring and highly effective. The long, flowing sentence describes the vast, impersonal force of the wind. The short, choppy, subject-verb sentences ("The baby frets.") describe the specific, disjointed human reactions. This grammatical shift mirrors the idea that a large, external force is causing small, internal breakdowns in people, making the human response seem small and pathetic in comparison to the power of nature.

Part 4: Structured Word Inquiry (SWI)

  1. Word sum: un + nature + al -> unnatural
  2. Morpheme functions:
    • Prefix: un- (meaning "not")
    • Base: <nature>
    • Suffix: -al (an adjectival suffix, meaning "pertaining to")
  3. (Answers will vary, but here are some examples.)
    1. Word and Word Sum: natural; nature + al -> natural
      Meaning change: The suffix '-al' changes the noun 'nature' into an adjective meaning 'of or pertaining to nature.'
    2. Word and Word Sum: supernatural; super + nature + al -> supernatural
      Meaning change: The prefix 'super-' means 'above' or 'beyond,' so this word means beyond what is natural.
    3. Word and Word Sum: naturally; nature + al + ly -> naturally
      Meaning change: The suffix '-ly' is added to the adjective 'natural' to create an adverb, describing how something is done (in a natural manner).
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