Book 1: The Overachievers by Alexandra Robbins
1. Who is the speaker (his credentials, expertise, why the writer would be an authority on the subject)?
The speaker is Alexandra Robbins, who is a journalist. She is an authority on the subject because she was an overachiever herself. She attended Walt Whitman High, which is where main students in the story attend and went to Yale University for college, which is a highly difficult and competitive.
2. What is the occasion (time and setting and why it is relevant)? Robbins observed the lives of many students, mainly from Walt Whitman High School from July 20, 2004 – December 9, 2005. The occasion of this story is relevant because it exemplifies how although she conducted this experiment many