The artist Leonardo da Vinci, perhaps best known for painting the Mona Lisa, produced a drawing called the Vitruvian Man. In it, da Vinci depicted his idea of the perfectly sized and proportioned male body. But is this really what a perfect body looks like? And if it’s perfect, does that make every other type of body flawed? Or maybe those are the wrong questions, and the idea of a “perfect” body Consider Michael Phelps. The winningest swimmer of all time, Phelps earned 28 Olympic medals. His body does not look like the Vitruvian Man. In fact, Phelps’ body is quite unusual. The best swimmers tend to have long torsos and short legs. Phelps is 6 feet 4 inches, but his torso is flawed. is as long as what you would expect to see in a man who is 6 feet 8 inches tall. His legs are the length typical of a man who is 5 feet 10 inches. Phelps has long arms too. Like the Vitruvian Man, most people have a wingspan roughly the same as their height. Phelps’ wingspan is 6 feet 7 inches, three inches longer than his height. His ankles are (reportedly) double jointed, and thus extremely flexible. And his feet are big—he wears size 14 shoes. So, Phelps’ legs act like flippers when he swims. No one could argue that Phelps has a perfect body in da Vinci’s sense. But is it correct to say it is imperfect? What does “perfection” mean when we are talking about human biology? Does it even exist? Maybe perfection has more to do with how a body works than how it looks. How we function depends upon how well we fit into our environment. Here’s an example from the animal kingdom. Imagine a population of brown rabbits and white rabbits in a snowy field. Under these conditions, predators are less likely to see and catch the white rabbits. In a summertime field—all brown soil and green and golden plants—white rabbits are more visible and easier to catch. Neither white nor brown fur is perfect for rabbit survival. Rabbits need different bodies for different seasons. And in fact, in some types of rabbits, fur color changes with the seasons. Like rabbits, all organisms, including people, adapt to their environments. The process of evolution selects for the survival of organisms that thrive in their specific environments. But evolution isn’t engineering. Often, imperfections that don’t affect survival too badly get passed on through the generations. People have plenty. Here are just a few imperfections in the human body. Our knees are less flexible than some of our other joints, which makes injury common. Unlike most other animals, we cannot make vitamin C and need to make sure we get it in our diets. And our jaws are too small to easily fit all our teeth, which is why wisdom teeth usually need to be removed. All our odd parts and functional compromises exist because evolution builds on what came before. Our ancestors walked on four legs, not two. Our knees are a compromise that allows us to be bipedal. More recent ancestors of humans lost the ability to make vitamin C, but we figured out a way to solve this problem with a change in diet. Humans’ primate ancestors grew bigger jaws than we do, because they ate tougher foods. Now our teeth are crowded. None of these flaws are so serious that they prevent people from reproducing, though. Amazingly, most of us function extremely well despite these flaws. Some of us function spectacularly. Michael Phelps’ body is not perfectly symmetrical or balanced. His physical variations, however, may have given him the raw materials to be a close-to-perfect swimmer. Phelps’ case is not unique; elite athletes highlight dramatic variability that provides them with the physical characteristics to approach perfection in action. Usain Bolt, an Olympic sprinter, has an abundance of fast-twitch muscle fibers that make him speedy and legs so long that it takes him four to five fewer steps to complete a 100-meter race than his competitors. Simone Biles, another Olympic gold medalist, is both strong and small. The combination is ideal for her sport of gymnastics. She may also have a better-than-average ability to sense where her body is in space, perhaps making jumps, spins, and somersaults a tad easier than for an average person. No athlete is born with the skills to win gold medals, though. Those achievements require years of effort. Da Vinci’s drawing of the Vitruvian Man of combined mathematics and art. To da Vinci, the Vitruvian Man depicted ideal proportions. It was his image of the perfectly formed man. Da Vinci is a time-honored artist, but is there really such thing as a perfect body? No. In biology, there is no such thing as one ideal body. In fact, variation in all living things, including us, the rule. This variation is essential for our survival. Human variation has allowed us to live in wildly different environments—the tropics, deserts, and the Arctic—and to develop many different physical, intellectual, and emotional talents. Not only is there no ideal human body, but our species also thrives because we are different from one another, each of us particularly suited for our own way of living. How might Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt, and Simone Biles define perfection? Perhaps they might say that perfection, or close to it, occurs in peak athletic performance. Their physical traits certainly helped them excel at their sports. However, it was hard work, dedication, and training that allowed them to soar. How do you define perfection? Maybe something about you seems different. Can you combine your unique physical, mental, and emotional skills and your attitude in a way that works toward your version of perfection? Donna Bozzone is a 5-foot-2 biology professor and author of books about science. Thanks to her height, she can fit comfortably in small places such as the seats in an airplane and rarely hits her head on low-hanging things. Because she is left handed, she would have advantages boxing, baseball, cricket, and tennis compared to right-handed people, if she played any of these sports.

Question

The artist Leonardo da Vinci, perhaps best known for painting the Mona Lisa, produced a drawing called the Vitruvian Man. In it, da Vinci depicted his idea of the perfectly sized and proportioned male body. But is this really what a perfect body looks like? And if it’s perfect, does that make every other type of body flawed? Or maybe those are the wrong questions, and the idea of a “perfect” body Consider Michael Phelps. The winningest swimmer of all time, Phelps earned 28 Olympic medals. His body does not look like the Vitruvian Man. In fact, Phelps’ body is quite unusual. The best swimmers tend to have long torsos and short legs. Phelps is 6 feet 4 inches, but his torso is flawed. is as long as what you would expect to see in a man who is 6 feet 8 inches tall. His legs are the length typical of a man who is 5 feet 10 inches. Phelps has long arms too. Like the Vitruvian Man, most people have a wingspan roughly the same as their height. Phelps’ wingspan is 6 feet 7 inches, three inches longer than his height. His ankles are (reportedly) double jointed, and thus extremely flexible. And his feet are big—he wears size 14 shoes. So, Phelps’ legs act like flippers when he swims. No one could argue that Phelps has a perfect body in da Vinci’s sense. But is it correct to say it is imperfect? What does “perfection” mean when we are talking about human biology? Does it even exist? Maybe perfection has more to do with how a body works than how it looks. How we function depends upon how well we fit into our environment. Here’s an example from the animal kingdom. Imagine a population of brown rabbits and white rabbits in a snowy field. Under these conditions, predators are less likely to see and catch the white rabbits. In a summertime field—all brown soil and green and golden plants—white rabbits are more visible and easier to catch. Neither white nor brown fur is perfect for rabbit survival. Rabbits need different bodies for different seasons. And in fact, in some types of rabbits, fur color changes with the seasons. Like rabbits, all organisms, including people, adapt to their environments. The process of evolution selects for the survival of organisms that thrive in their specific environments. But evolution isn’t engineering. Often, imperfections that don’t affect survival too badly get passed on through the generations. People have plenty. Here are just a few imperfections in the human body. Our knees are less flexible than some of our other joints, which makes injury common. Unlike most other animals, we cannot make vitamin C and need to make sure we get it in our diets. And our jaws are too small to easily fit all our teeth, which is why wisdom teeth usually need to be removed. All our odd parts and functional compromises exist because evolution builds on what came before. Our ancestors walked on four legs, not two. Our knees are a compromise that allows us to be bipedal. More recent ancestors of humans lost the ability to make vitamin C, but we figured out a way to solve this problem with a change in diet. Humans’ primate ancestors grew bigger jaws than we do, because they ate tougher foods. Now our teeth are crowded. None of these flaws are so serious that they prevent people from reproducing, though. Amazingly, most of us function extremely well despite these flaws. Some of us function spectacularly. Michael Phelps’ body is not perfectly symmetrical or balanced. His physical variations, however, may have given him the raw materials to be a close-to-perfect swimmer. Phelps’ case is not unique; elite athletes highlight dramatic variability that provides them with the physical characteristics to approach perfection in action. Usain Bolt, an Olympic sprinter, has an abundance of fast-twitch muscle fibers that make him speedy and legs so long that it takes him four to five fewer steps to complete a 100-meter race than his competitors. Simone Biles, another Olympic gold medalist, is both strong and small. The combination is ideal for her sport of gymnastics. She may also have a better-than-average ability to sense where her body is in space, perhaps making jumps, spins, and somersaults a tad easier than for an average person. No athlete is born with the skills to win gold medals, though. Those achievements require years of effort. Da Vinci’s drawing of the Vitruvian Man of combined mathematics and art. To da Vinci, the Vitruvian Man depicted ideal proportions. It was his image of the perfectly formed man. Da Vinci is a time-honored artist, but is there really such thing as a perfect body? No. In biology, there is no such thing as one ideal body. In fact, variation in all living things, including us, the rule. This variation is essential for our survival. Human variation has allowed us to live in wildly different environments—the tropics, deserts, and the Arctic—and to develop many different physical, intellectual, and emotional talents. Not only is there no ideal human body, but our species also thrives because we are different from one another, each of us particularly suited for our own way of living. How might Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt, and Simone Biles define perfection? Perhaps they might say that perfection, or close to it, occurs in peak athletic performance. Their physical traits certainly helped them excel at their sports. However, it was hard work, dedication, and training that allowed them to soar. How do you define perfection? Maybe something about you seems different. Can you combine your unique physical, mental, and emotional skills and your attitude in a way that works toward your version of perfection? Donna Bozzone is a 5-foot-2 biology professor and author of books about science. Thanks to her height, she can fit comfortably in small places such as the seats in an airplane and rarely hits her head on low-hanging things. Because she is left handed, she would have advantages boxing, baseball, cricket, and tennis compared to right-handed people, if she played any of these sports.

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Write three paragraphs:

One paragraph in which you analyze the text structure of the informational text. Identify the text structure. Explain how you identified it. Tell how the author’s choice of structure helped you as a reader.

The other paragraph in which you analyze the author’s purpose and point of view. Explain how you determined the author’s point of view. Tell how thinking about the author’s purpose and point of view helped you to understand the topic.

The last One paragraph in which you analyze how the author distinguished their position from other positions. Explain what you learned from thinking about the different positions. Give examples from the texts.

Answer 1

The text structure of the informational text is primarily descriptive and explanatory. The author provides information about Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt, Simone Biles, and the concept of a "perfect" body. The structure is identified through the presentation of facts, examples, and comparisons. The author includes historical information about da Vinci and his drawing, descriptions of Phelps' body and its unique characteristics, and examples of other athletes who excel due to their specific physical traits. This structure helps the reader to understand the topic by providing a range of examples and perspectives on what constitutes a "perfect" body and how different bodies can excel in different areas.

The author's purpose appears to be to challenge the notion of a universally perfect body and to emphasize the importance of individuality and adaptation to different environments. The author's point of view is one that celebrates diversity and acknowledges that perfection is subjective. The author's purpose and point of view are determined through their discussions of variations in human biology, the adaptability of organisms to different environments, and the achievements of athletes with unique physical traits. Considering the author's purpose and point of view helps the reader to understand that there is no one-size-fits-all definition of perfection and that individual strengths and abilities should be valued.

The author distinguishes their position from other positions by providing examples of athletes who excel despite not fitting traditional ideas of a "perfect" body. They contrast Leonardo da Vinci's depiction of the perfectly sized and proportioned male body with the physical characteristics of Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt, and Simone Biles, who have achieved greatness in their respective sports due to their unique attributes. This highlights the idea that perfection can be defined in different ways and that physical variations can contribute to exceptional performance. By exploring different positions and examples, the reader learns that there are multiple perspectives on what constitutes a perfect body and that individual strengths and abilities can lead to success.