"Take This Fish and Look At It" by Samuel Scudder

DATE: Monday November 10, 2008
TIME: 11:35 a.m.
PLACE: Home Computer

In Samuel Scudder’s Essay “Take This Fish and Look At It”, the writer showed us Professor Agassiz’s teaching method, which is learning by doing.

The conflict of this story begins when Prof. Agassiz gave Samuel Scudder a jar with a haemulon, a fish specimen, in yellow alcohol. “Take this fish and look at it”, he said, and prompted that he would ask him what had he seen as he was leaving. And he also asked him to take care of the specimen.

Scudder then narrated what he had seen, being very descriptive in all the circumstances. The minor conflict was to take care of the specimens while the major conflict was trying to find out what exactly was the purpose of looking for so long at the fish. He didn't know what exactly he had to see from this fish. He looked, and he looked but didn't see anything new.

Then Scudder decided to take a pencil to draw the specimen. When he began drawing, he began to see new things and discovered new features in the creature and helped him resolve his major conflicts. “A pencil is one of the best eyes”; his professor had told Scudder and congratulated him.