Friday, January 31, 2020

Grapes of Wrath Journal Essay Example for Free

Grapes of Wrath Journal Essay Connection (Family) As the Joads ride on their journey to California, they travel as a whole, one unit, one family. And on one night they camp off the side of the road, and run into the Wilsons, creating and merging into one large family, with one goal in mind, reaching California. But as the days of traveling continue, the family struggles to stay intact due to obstacles such as the staggering heat, lack of money, automobile breaking down, doubts brought upon by people who have been in California, and even death. But Steinbeck defines family as a unit with members who think of other members before themselves, and Ma expresses this idea clearly with Granmas death. The Joads have a connection where each member truly has someone to have their back when in need. Tom shares this with Casy and Al, Ma and Granma, Pa with Granpa and Uncle John, Ruthie and Winfield, Rose of Sharon and Connie, but then theres Noah who doesnt feel the same love which is one of the reasons that persuades him to depart from the family. They also have a structure in which Tom, Pa, Al, usually make family decisions and the eventually the final verdict is given to Ma. Overall, family is suppose to take care of each other when in time of need and work as one rather than individuals. Adaptation (Positives and Negatives) With the family traveling together, its evident that migration is a change that is supported and has to be overcome. And although the outcome of migration is suppose to be glorious, the journey to achieved the so call promise land gives the family a brutal beating of struggle, hunger, and even death. Granpa and Granma died due to lack of health and high heat, but then again the conditions were somewhat the same in Sallisaw. Then there was also the death of the Joads dog. With migration, the Joads needed leaders and this is where characters such as Tom and Ma come into play as the heads of the family. Tom in a way leads the men, especially Al, and Ma leads Granma, Rose of Sharon, and the kids. To conclude, adaptation or migration changed characters into leaders to lead the family to California but at great costs and struggle. Compassion Compassion is taking pity or seeing those in need and taking action in anyway possible to help them overcome their problems and obstacles. In Chapter 12, a general chapter, a story of a family of 12 who were forced off their land and had to carry their belongings in a trailer, waited on the side of the 66. They were eventually hauled by a man who took them to California and fed them. This act by the random stranger is compassionate because he sees the family in need of help and no way to get to California and offers to take them and even feeds them. Its one thing to feed 4 or 5 people but 12, it must come from the heart. With the Joads, they do the same with the Wilsons but the Joads are less compassionate because they use them for their car to ease the weight from their own car. Then theres also the part where a man enters a diner and begs for some cheap bread and the worker is pressured by the cook to be compassionate and give the man bread at a discount. Another example of being compassionate is when Tom comes back from his venture for a con rod with Al and Casy and meets up with the family at a campsite but are forced to leave. When Tom leaves, he walks by a women cooking and comments on how hed like some. The woman smiles and says when the foods ready, he can have some. Throughout the journey of the Joads we see that food is scarce yet this woman offers to share. And the final example is when the Joads decide to cross the desert leading to California and at the same time leaving the Wilsons behind. Pa leaves behind cooked food and money for them, knowing how hard their desert journey will be. We see a sweeter side of Pa rather than the serious and quiet Pa that is usually portrayed. Overall, compassion is still around even with such devastation surrounding folks due to the dust bowl and overproduction causing foreclosures, the AAA telling farmers what they cant farm. Many have lost their homes, land and past life, but some still ha ve their heart. Symbols (Biblical Allusions) One thing that made be think of any biblical symbols or allusions that Steinbeck could have used was when the Joads formally entered California just after running over a snake. The snake part gave it away due to it usually referring or having to do with the devil along with the desert part. When the Joads spent a night traveling over the feared desert, it made me  think what they went through so far. They lost Granma, Granpa, their dog, and separated from Noah. They were traveling by force through the desert on a low budget, with little food, heat anxiety, and were crowded in their old jalopy truck. With the desert, what comes to mind is the desert that Jesus traveled through for forty days and forty nights, and as he traveled he was tempted numerous times by the devil. And one thing to keep in mind is that God forced Jesus to walk and pray in the desert. As Jesus was forced to travel in the desert so were the Joads by the officer. I see the temptations as the conditions that the J oads were traveling with, lack of food, heat, little money etc. Just like the temptations from the devil, and the conditions of the Joads, they were suppose stop them from continuing on with their journey and to give up. But instead just like Jesus did, the Joads overcame the desert and won against the devil and that’s where the running over the snake comes in. Antagonists (People along the 66) Throughout the section, businessmen, state officials, land, and migrates who have been in California add on to the already challenging journey to California with their sound business, anti-farming seizes, mountains, discrimination, and doubts. In chapter 12, a tire store raise their prices because they know its an essential for family to keep going, and in this case, the salesman lies to the customer about the condition of a tire just to get an extra buck. Throughout the journey, the fear of high slopes and the desert scare the Joads and Wilson of stopping them from reaching the promise land. And along with the fear of nature not playing on their side, the Joads hear all the same stories of California not being what people thought it would be like. One man tells them that jobs are in a sense free labor or slave like work because so many are migrating to California giving an abundance of workers to employers, giving the the chance to give them whatever wages and they want. Thereâ€⠄¢s also stories about not being able to farm or touch any fruit on trees, stories that it’s not worth going. The Joads meet a couple of families who were heading back home east, away from California. With these stories and testimonies, it’s hard for the Joads to have confidence and faith in their journey and destination. Characterization (Tom) In chapter 13, when Tom pulls alongside the road where a family is camping,, the Wilsons, he politely asks if they have permission to camp along with them, even though the strip of land wasnt under their ownership. With this action we see how kind hearted and friendly Tom is even though he killed a man. Another example depicting his traits is in chapter 16 when he proposes a plan that will split him and Casy from the rest, in order to fix their truck and have the others move along. His proposal and plan show his leadership skills. Another example is when he attacks the one eyed man for giving up on life due to losing his eye. Tom expresses his opinion that whatever defects or disadvantages a person has that they should make the best of it. Overall we see Tom as a generous, kind hearted, leader, that believes everyone has the opportunity to make something out of themselves. Quote a Passage (Unity) â€Å"When this family meets another family on the highway, they share their stories of loss For here I lost my land is changed We lost our land.† (193). This quote is significant because it expresses the idea of unity that pushes the migrates to move as ahead as one. They share a common tragedy, the heartbreak of losing their land, home, or farm. A large part of the country is the same position, a dilemma, and the only solution is to head out west. And to do so, Steinbeck helps portray the families migrating as one by using â€Å"we† and â€Å"our† and if they want to achieve their prosperity, they must not only have the same issues but work together to solve those issues. In a way, the havok laid upon by the dust bowl, foreclosures, and overproduction can’t be solve by one individual but by the aid, work, and cooperation of many.

Thursday, January 23, 2020

Life as a Prostitute in The Painted Cohorts Essays -- Painted Cohorts

Life as a Prostitute in The Painted Cohorts It was a dark, menacing night as she stood there in the shadows. Waiting for the finale of the show that was playing, she glanced toward the exit through which people would soon be leaving. The rich, as patrons of the theatre house, promised her a salary at least for today. Her tattered clothes revealed the effects of personal destitution; the emaciated frame, that presently existed, harked back upon a body she must have once possessed. Driven by poverty to the realms of "painted cohorts," she makes up her face daily, distinguishing her life from the respected (264). She is an outcast, a leper, a member of the marginalized in society; she envelops the most degraded of positions and sins against her body in order to survive. As she looks up, her eyes reflect a different kind of light, a glimmer of beauty that has not yet faded despite her present conditions. She was, at one time, a "virtuous" woman, most likely scorned by a dishonest love. Finding no comfort or pity for her pr ior mistakes, she must turn to the streets and embrace the inevitable - the dishonor and shame from her previous engagement will follow her unto death. Shunned from society she becomes the woman who sells herself for money and sadly finds no love. She is the abandoned, the betrayed, and the lost, embarrassed girl; she is "of the painted cohorts," the female prostitute of the streets (264). Prostitution in the nineteenth century was perhaps one of the most degrading positions for a woman during the era. Identified by dress, makeup, and forward mannerisms, a woman employed within the business was avoided by all respectable persons. Once tainted by the immoral sin a woman could never return to good g... ...ation" shows, as do the houses of assignation, she is a woman driven by her own thoughts and passions, the embodiment of a spirit that while criticized will not be broken. She is a sexual being, independent and unique, and she hints at the hope of society respecting her as such. She stands beneath the streetlight and waits for the theatre to open its doors. She looks toward the ground, knowing her unworthy position in her culture, and waits for a person to understand her circumstances, to see her not as the prostitute but as the woman who needs money, love, passion, or excitement to replace the emptiness that led her to first begin her walk on these streets. Work Cited: "The Painted Cohorts": selected readings on nineteenth-century prostitution from Stephen Crane, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, ed. Kevin J. Hayes (New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1999).

Wednesday, January 15, 2020

Individual Interview Reflections: The Role of a Teacher in Literacy Learning Essay

Literacy learning is a complex endeavor; it is faced by numerous challenges that range from the materials used to methods of teaching/learning applied to teachers’ personalities to peer influence among the students and the deluge in technological stimulus among other factors. My interview with Edith A. Diaz, PHD, CSC, and teacher ‘B’, both language art teachers and plying their trade at Tom Browne Middle School revolved around four core areas of their work as literacy instructors. The interview required the teachers describe their roles as literacy instructors, more specifically citing things such as the percentages of total time devoted to educational tasks e. g. paper work, attending and conducting workshops, discussions with other school personnel, and parents meetings, etc. ; describing materials and methods that have been recommended by school or the school district as the most appropriate in literacy learning; to quote materials and teaching/learning methods that they as teachers have found to be un-useful or ineffective in literacy learning, and to describe materials and methods that they find most appealing relative to the philosophical and theoretical schools of thought they belong as experienced teachers; to describe their greatest concerns insofar as literacy learning is concerned especially at the wake of the deluge of technological stimulus, and; to describe what they are doing to combat any negatively impacting stimulus on students literacy learning. The teachers were also required to add other comments, concerns, and personal stances relating to their roles as language art teachers. Edith’s Reflections Edith bases her convictions on the role of a teacher/educator on various philosophical and theoretical arguments as put forth by great thinkers such as Socrates, Plato, Einstein, Erickson, Steinbeck, and Roger. Her perception of the role of an educator/teacher is that of an all-round professional whose duties are many and not practically definable. She portrays this through a balanced conclusion of the role of a teacher, a conclusion that comprises of both philosophical and theoretical perspectives. For instance, from a philosophical perspective a teacher affects eternity, he can never tell where his influence stops, while from a theoretical perspective, a teacher’s influence is timeless, and it assumes both negative and positive influences. However, she clarifies that her core role as a grade seven language arts teacher is to teach the standards as set forth by the state of Texas (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills – TEKS). In one sentence her role revolves around imparting the appropriate knowledge and skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing, and presenting) that will enable the students to become competitive members of the global society. In order to achieve this seemingly tall order-task, Edith apportions her time professionally depending on the level of workload of the various sub-tasks that forms her role in a seven day-week. For instance, she dedicates 45% of her time in drawing lesson plans for the whole week, 15% on paper work (record keeping, grading and register, etc), 15% conducting research i. e. teaching strategies, pedagogy, etc. 15% on discussion with fellow teachers and other school personnel, 5% attending or conducting workshops (reviewing current research articles in preparation to conducting educational workshops), and another 5% on parent meetings. Edith seems to belong to a unique breed of teaching professionals in terms of her convictions on the choice of the best materials and methods that should be applied in classrooms situations. She prefers infusing the Socratic Method and Rogerian student-centered approach in her daily class activities. This enables her to utilize the best aspects of both pedagogical approaches, for instance, the Socratic Method tends to intimidate students but when it is infused with the Rogerian student-centered method it goes down well in empowering the students. Her advices are that, a teacher’s role should not be authoritative; rather it should be an egalitarian role that assumes the Roger’s (1957) core conditions of unconditional positive regard, empathy, and congruence. She anchors her arguments on the eight developmental stages as put forth by Eric Eriksson’s, specifically on stage five that covers â€Å"Ego Identity vs. Role Confusion†, which holds that adolescents tends to seek relativity within a global context. She therefore asserts that the establishment of an appreciation of holistic child is core to the educational process. Edith warns that some pedagogical methods such as teacher directed instruction are rewarding but their excessive use may impede or even stifle the natural creative learning process in students. To support her convictions she invokes Plato’s reasoning that sought to discourage the habit of teaching students by force and harshness, but rather directing them to learning through what amuses their minds. Again, she advocate for the Paideia model of instruction giving that seeks to balance teacher directed method by inducing Socratic method and intellectual coaching to make it more student involving. She perceives the deluge of stimulus, especially technological stimulus as a threat to literacy instruction. According to her, technology is a worthwhile tool in literacy instruction; however, too much of it may kill natural creativity. For instance, students find it hard to imagine a scene from a variety of written text, which makes the skill of inferring a challenging task. She warns that too much of reliance on technological devices may stifle and/or nullify a students creativity and imagination. To her, imagination and creativity are the key pillars to literacy instruction, just as Albert Einstein cleverly asserted, that imagination is more important than knowledge. In a her parting shot, she equates a teacher/educator’s role with that of a great artist, and refers the teaching process to as a great form of art that uses human mind and spirit as its medium. Teacher B’s, Reflections I also interviewed another language arts teacher from Tom Browne Middle School who teaches eighth graders mostly, he preferred to call himself a classroom teacher. Unlike my first interviewee (Edith), Teacher B did not use big and fancy words to describe his role or what is expected of a teacher/educator. He plainly indicated that he spends between 8 and 10 hours at school in any given school day, he spends the greatest part of this time instructing students in classroom, he spends a bit of this time grading papers, running copies, and recording scores. He also spends an hour a week writing down lesson plans for the week. However, being the chairman of the language arts department, teacher B is in charge of making the department as vibrant as it is practically possible. He contends that the choice and implementation of pedagogical approach to adopt in the school is part of his core duties together with other teachers in the department. For instance, despite the school district purporting that (Texas Assessment Knowledge and Skills – TAKS) is the best measure for learning he contends that this is not the best method. He points out that the best thing is for a school to invest in numerous programs that will benefit the students, the Kamico and Gourmet are examples of such programs that they are currently using in the school. Nevertheless, his advices are that, the most effective methods and materials for learning are the reading of texts (novels, picture books, magazines, and newspapers) as it will enable the students to become good readers. Further, according to him the use of literacy circles among other methods plays a core role in enhancing comprehension of the materials read. Though he was too brief in giving out some methods and materials that to him are less effective in learning, he clearly indicated that as a departmental head he involves other members of the department in reviewing methods and materials in order to improve them and make them more custom fit to the students. However, there are some materials and methods that cannot be improved and therefore are done away with (placed on the back burner). Teacher B contended that the impact of the teacher in literacy instruction is compromised by a number of factors. For instance, he pointed out time as the greatest of all the factors; there is no enough time for students to read on their own, and teachers usually assume they are doing so at their free time but mostly it is not that way. This in turn affects their reading prowess. Again, he quoted the lack of sufficient funds to procure quality literature materials for the students as another stumbling block to literacy learning. Students are also known for vandalizing some of the reading materials they are given. Further, he contended that there is a chronic shortage of role models to emulate in the implementation of the teaching methods, for example, he indicated that he had heard about literature circles for along time but never tried to apply them in a class situation, he only came to understand and conceptualize them when he went to college. Just like Edith indicated, teacher B contended that the deluge of computer literacy has greatly affected the interests of students to read books. He tries to compare the traditional sense of reading books and working on projects that deal with novel units with how students are currently doing with themselves in the wake of computer literacy. Though the students are now more skilled in verbally deciphering information from the short internet sources, they are faced with great difficulty when it comes to putting down in written format what hey have learned and the conclusion that their prowess in literacy has virtually declined. Again, he associates the tendency of students to read graphic novels and shorter books as a factor to their declining literacy levels. He regrettably asserted that the role of the teacher in literacy learning is affected greatly by peer influence among the students; much as they would try to be different from others, students tend to think collectively as a group, this hugely affects their reading prowess as they are more concerned about how their friends perceive them and therefore fail to stand up for their beliefs if they think they are different from their friends. The role of the teacher therefore at such situations should be to facilitate intervention practices that will enable the students to reverse to the traditional methods of reading. For instance, he believes and tries to be a good role model, he always tell his students the amount of reading he gets done through out the school year. He spends a lot of his time in a week reading novels rather than watching television. Just like Edith asserted, he always emphasizes on building self-imagination rather than having other people thinking for him. To compensate for the fact that students do not read own their own he tries to give his students a steady stream of novel reading in class, he reads picture books, poems, short book chapters to his students for enjoyment and thought provoking. In his parting shot he contended that teachers should give their students enough space to choose what they want to read as a way of creating avenues to escape from the realities that they face in their daily school and home life. References: †¢ Edith A. Diaz, PHD, CSC, (Grade Seven Teacher): Tom Browne Middle School (interview), conducted on February 11, 2009 †¢ Teacher B, (Grade Eight Teacher): Tom Browne Middle School (interview), conducted on January 20, 2009

Monday, January 6, 2020

Coming of Age in a Wartime Environment - 878 Words

Growing up in a wartime environment affects the identities, confidence and adolescence process for many people. In the books, The Diary of A Young Girl, Farewell to Manzanar, and Night, World War II accelerates Anne’s, Jeanne’s and Elie’s precious maturity and coming of age process. World War II, the Nazis and their identity of being Jewish forces Anne and Elie to grow up and mature much sooner than expected. For Jeanne Wakatsuki, World War II have a negative impact on Jeanne’s confidence and she starts to lose respect towards her Japanese heritage. All three of them are struggling to find out who they truly are. Anne Frank, Jeanne Wakatsuki and Elie Wiesel all are greatly affected by the war, but in different milieus and in†¦show more content†¦Instead, she tries the â€Å"American activities† such as baton twirling, aspiring to be accepted. Jeanne rather be an American, a race that everyone in America accepts. â€Å"I still had a Japanese father to frighten my boyfriends and a Japanese face to thwart my social goals.† (89)To Jeanne, Japanese, is not just a race that put her in prison but something that also hinders her from the goals that she always wanted to achieve. She wants to be accepted and live like any normal American. Jeanne doesn’t want to be someone that everyone likes, but no one, especially Jeanne, wants to be outlawed. Through her adolescence, Jeanne is ashamed of being Japanese. At Jeanne’s award dinner/ ceremony, her father mortify her, by creating a perceptible array between her and the other families. â€Å"He was unforgivably a foreigner then, foreign to them, foreign to me, foreign to everyone, foreign to everyone but Mama, who sat next to him smiling, with pleased modesty. Twelve years old at the time, I wanted to scream. I wanted to slide out of sign under the table and dissolve.† (168) Jeanne wants to be out of sight because she is so humiliated by Papa’s traditional Japanese bow. Despite the fact that Jeanne hates being Japanese, she confesses that she â€Å"had nearly outgrown the shame and the guilt and the sense of unworthiness.† (195) Before, she aspires to be accepted, but she later figures out that not everyone will accept one another. Jeanne wasn’t ableShow MoreRelatedMy Personal Philosophy Of Nursing1198 Words   |  5 Pagesis what drove her to become a nurse. Florence did the majority of time as a nurse working during wartime. She was known as â€Å"Lady in Chief† because it was her prerogative to take great care of the soldiers by sending their wages back home to their families. Florence also saw the need cleanliness and better hygiene, so she started rebuilding and reforming hospitals. By creating better working environments, it cut the death rate tremendously. 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