Unseen Passage: Making Personal Response Accountable
The man at the bus stop has been waiting since six. He has a plastic bag between his feet and a folded newspaper under his arm. Three buses have come; he has not moved. At seven he takes out a sandwich, looks at it, wraps it again. A woman asks if the number 12 has gone. He says, 'Not yet.' When she leaves, he opens the newspaper to the jobs page and reads the same column twice. At half past seven he stands, walks to the timetable, and returns to his seat without looking at it. The bus comes at eight. He lets it go. A candidate is given this passage and the prompt: 'What impression of the man does the writer create, and how does your response to him develop?' Her draft says: 'The man is sad and lonely. He waits a long time. He doesn't get on the bus. This makes the reader feel sorry for him.' The teacher says: 'Personal response is not a feeling label; it must be grounded in details and show movement.' The candidate has 15 minutes. She must decide which details to use and how to structure her response.
1. Explain what 'personal response' requires in this task, using the draft to show what is missing.
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The draft gives a feeling label ('sad and lonely') and a plot summary ('waits a long time', 'doesn't get on the bus'). It does not explain which details produced the feeling or how the feeling changed. A personal response in this task needs three moves: (1) name a specific impression, not just an emotion; (2) anchor it in two or three details-the sandwich, the jobs page, the timetable, the bus he lets go; (3) show movement, for example from pity to curiosity to unease or respect. The 'I' can be used, but it should be attached to evidence: 'I began to read his stillness as...' rather than 'I felt sad.' The response should also acknowledge ambiguity: the man may be exhausted, proud, defeated or waiting for someone. The examiner rewards a response that is personal and accountable, not a fixed verdict.
2. Choose two or three details and explain how they create a developing response.
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Detail 1: he unwraps the sandwich and wraps it again. This suggests hunger restrained by something else-maybe money, maybe dignity. My first response is pity, but the care in rewrapping also suggests self-control. Detail 2: he reads the jobs page twice. That repetition makes the waiting purposeful: he is not simply idle. It shifts my impression from passive victim to someone managing a precarious situation. Detail 3: he lets the bus go. This is the strongest detail because it contradicts the setup. If he has been waiting since six, letting the bus go suggests he may not be waiting for a bus at all, or that he cannot face where it goes. My response moves from sympathy to curiosity to unease: the story withholds the reason, so I become a co-interpreter. A strong answer would track that movement rather than settle on 'lonely'.
3. Write a model response paragraph of about 120–150 words that shows movement in your response.
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At first the writer made me pity the man: he has waited since six, and the sandwich he unwraps and wraps again suggests hunger he will not satisfy. But the detail of the jobs page read twice changed my response. He is not simply passive; he is repeating a search, and the repetition makes his stillness feel deliberate. When he lets the eight o'clock bus go, I felt uneasy rather than sorry. The detail contradicts everything the opening established: if he has waited two hours, why refuse the bus? I began to read his waiting as a choice he cannot explain, perhaps pride or fear. The writer never names the reason, so my response remains unsettled. That unsettled feeling is the point: the story asks me to notice what the man will not do, not to solve him.